In its latest attack on the free speech, the Obama Administration has secured a gag order to prevent activist-journalist Barrett Brown and his lawyers from discussing his work exposing online surveillance by the Administration. On this occasion, however, Eric Holder and the Obama Administration convinced a federal judge to go along. U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay in Dallas Texas has issued a sweeping gag order to prevent not just Brown but his legal team from discussing the online surveillance. The Justice Department insisted on the order to protect Brown. That’s right, they insist that, if Brown discussed the abusive surveillance by the Obama Administration, it would endanger his right to a fair trial.
Category: Society
We have been following the abandonment of virtually core liberal values by Rep. Nancy Pelosi in her adherence to the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama. From her attack on privacy to her new enthusiasm for war, Pelosi is the truest believer of the true believers surrounding Obama in the Democratic Party. Now she has been sharing a charming little story of how “Mimi” explained to their grandson how we are now at war. It turns out it is all about the children . . . not about the chemical weapons or reports that Obama is playing to turn the tide of the losing war for the rebels. Sort of like Save The Children . . . but with cruise missiles.
There is a very cool discovery to report this week out of Duke University, now to be known as those “Plastic Fantastics.” The team has invented a “mechanophore” a material that responds to mechanical force rather than light, heat or chemical exposure. In this case, they have invested a plastic that actually gets stronger when it is stressed. That’s right. As mechanical force or pressure is add, it gets stronger — a breakthrough that could transform material for cellphones, medical devices, prosthetic limbs etc.
Despite the obvious free speech concerns, UCLA’s undergraduate student government unanimously passed a resolution last week to declare that any use of the term “illegal immigrant” is now deemed racist and offensive. It is an example of how anti-discrimination policies are cutting deeply into free speech. Millions of people in this country are indeed here illegally. While many would prefer to use “undocumented workers,” many others believe that these individuals are illegal by definition and should not be allowed to circumvent immigration laws. It is a worthy debate with arguments on both sides. However, I am very uncomfortable with students (who historically have been voiced for free speech) declaring that use of this descriptive term is now considered racist or prejudicial.
Continue reading “UCLA Students Declare “Illegal Immigrant” To Be Racist And Discriminatory”
Another one of our close Arab allies are back in the news to remind us that basic freedoms are not part of our common alliance. Oman has shut down The Week newspaper after it published an article viewed as too sympathetic to homosexuality in the Gulf state. The country has a gay population but it insists that these citizens live like criminals under Islamic prohibitions of homosexuality. The Week is the largest circulation English-langauge weekly in the country.
Some jurisdictions have curtailed or even eliminated K-9 teams due to liability — reducing the majority of dogs to drug and bomb sniffing units. That is clearly not the case in Livingston, Montana. Mark Demaline, who cooks at the Park Place Tavern, was attacked late at night in his workplace when police found a door unlocked after hours and sent in a police dog named Bobi. What is most astonishing is not just the lack of an apology by police but the insistence of Chief of Police Darren Raney (left) that the dog “did what he was supposed to do.”
There are large protests in Romania against a plan to turn over a historic area to a Canadian company which will destroy four mountains tops, ancient Romanian sites, and use cyanide to extract gold and silver. It is a plan to devastate the environment, but the Canadians have promised local and national politicians a cut of the open-cast mine in the Rosia Montana.
There is an interesting ruling out of the Sixth Circuit this month where the court threw out a $10 million defamation lawsuit by a resort in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The resort was ranked the Number 1 on the 2011 “dirtiest hotels” list by TripAdvisor. Hotel owner Kenneth M. Seaton sued the website for defamation but Judge Thomas W. Phillips in Knoxville correctly rejected the claims in August 2012. The case is Seaton v. TripAdvisor LLC, 2013 FED App. 0255P (6th Cir.).
There is a controversy in Durham where Police Chief Jose Lopez is accused of making a vile statement about a public defender. Lopez allegedly stated that the public defender deserved to be shot in a crime because he representing accused criminals. If true, Lopez would appear to not only agree with Dick in Henry IV that “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
Continue reading “Durham Police Chief Accused Of Saying That Public Defender Deserved To Be Shot”
Yesterday, one of the greatest minds of our generation died. Ronald Harry Coase, the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School and creator of the “Coase Theorem”, died at the age of 102. I teach Coasean theory in both my torts and legal theory classes. His rich and brilliant life is a testament to the potential of human beings in understanding the world around them through sheer intellect and logic. I had the honor of meeting Coase and it is difficult to express one’s thanks for such a beautiful mind.
There is a wonderful scene unfolding on Capitol Hill. In the past, President Barack Obama has insisted that he alone decides what constitutes a war and when he needs a congressional declaration. It was a claim that was challenged in federal court when I represented members of Congress. Now, however, England has refused to go along with the latest American-led military venture and there is heavy opposition in the public. Obama therefore is now saying that he wants to consult with Congress while his aides insist that he really does not need such consultation and, unless they agree with him, may just ignore them. Welcome to the new Imperil Presidency and what now constitutes checks and balances.
There is a criminal case out of Syracuse that once again seems to confirm that evolution is at best a work in progress for our species. Andy and Nayel Ashkar and their father, Nayef, truly qualify as some of the lowest forms of humanity after they allegedly conspired to rip off maintenance worker Robert Miles who won a $5 million lottery ticket. The men worked at the convenience store of their father, The Green Ale Market, in October 2006 and told Miles that the ticket was worth only $5000 and bought it from him for $4000. They waited seven years to claim the ticket but lottery officials were suspicious. Miles has now received his money and at least one brother has received his just desserts.
Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger
There are gigantic salt deposits under the state of Louisiana. Geologists tell us the salt dome under Assumption Parish is about the same size as Mt. Everest. Some of the deposits are as deep as 35,000 feet as shown in this not-to-scale drawing. In fact, huge salt deposits are under large patches of the North American continent along the Mississippi River valley all the way up to Lake Erie. The city of Cleveland is sitting on top of a large salt deposit.
Salt settled out of the water when these areas were part of the ocean as the continent of North America was forming. We have all seen what happens if you dissolve salt in water. It reaches a saturation point, where no more salt can be dissolved. At that point, the excess salt settles to the bottom. That process is still going on at the surface in places like the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea. Once the water evaporates, it leaves behind places like the famed Bonneville Salt Flats. The excess salt in the water in those formative years of this continent settled out into enormous deposits. The primary deposits of salt are deep underground, as far as ten thousand feet or more. However, like glacier ice, solid crystal salt becomes somewhat plastic under great pressure. At ten thousand feet, the overburden of rock and sediment creates pressures of thousands of pounds per square inch. Salt deposits find weak places in the rock, and start squeezing upward in plumes, called “salt domes.” These extrusions come nearer the surface, making the salt more accessible so it can be mined. When I lived in Louisiana as a kid, I remember the salt mines being an everyday topic of conversation. The salt is not only used for food, but has many industrial uses as well. During World War Two, the salt mines provided essential minerals used in the manufacture of ammunition and high explosives. Salt mining in Louisiana has been going on since before the Civil War. Some of the mine shafts go down as much as ten thousand feet, and some of the salt caverns that have been mined are enormous.
Continue reading “Bayou Corne Sinkhole: A Growing Enviornmental Disaster in Louisiana”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Let me introduce you to Stephen Acquario. He’s a lobbyist who spends much of his time in New York’s State House. He is the executive director and counsel of the New York State Association of Counties. He earns $204,000 a year—more than the governor of New York. He also gets to drive around in a Ford Explorer, his company car. And even though Acquario is NOT a government employee, he IS entitled to a full public pension.
According to a recent review by the Associated Press, Acquario is one of hundreds of lobbyists working in a number of states who qualify for public pensions “because they represent associations of counties, cities and school boards.” The Associated Press reported that state legislatures had “granted them access decades ago on the premise that they serve governments and the public. In many cases, such access also includes state health care benefits.”
Mark Karlin, editor of BuzzFlash at Truthout, wrote a commentary on the subject of lobbyists getting taxpayer funded pensions. In his commentary, Karlin said that during a period of austerity “when a key goal of those with means is to cut pensions that have been fairly earned by public employees, it is astonishing to read that some lobbyists in 40% of US states get paid pensions from the public trough.” He added, “Many of these non-governmental employees represent lobbying associations at the forefront of trying to reduce public pensions while ensuring that they keep their own, even though their salaries are not paid by any governmental body.” He said it was “preposterously hypocritical.” He added that it was “another scam wrapped in a lofty excuse”—pointing out that Acquario claims “that his group gives local government a voice in the statehouse, and the perk of a state pension makes it easier to hire people with government expertise.”
Continue reading “Say What? Lobbyists Are Getting Public Pensions in Some States”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
In yet another sign of the apocalypse by ignorance, a recently released poll by Public Policy shows that 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans believe Barack Obama was more responsible than George W. Bush for the inept federal response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The poll asked: “Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?” The results were startling. Only 28 percent picked the right answer and 44 percent answered “Not sure.” Never mind that at the time of the great storm Barack Obama could only get into the White House by invitation or that he had barely a year under his belt in the U.S. Senate, the state with a quarter of its population being deemed functionally illiterate blames the current President.
