For Cathy Jordan it began as a banner day. A hearing was just held unveiling the “Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act,” legislation to legalize medical marijuana for people like Cathy Jordan who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s Disease and is wheelchair-bound. Hours after a news account of the hearing was published, officers raided her home with drawn guns and seized their marijuana plants used for her illness. The police from the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office insist it was a coincidence.
Lech Wałęsa won the Noble Prize for fighting for Polish independence against the Soviet bloc, a move that ultimately helped bring down the wall dividing East from West. However, he seems to have rediscovered the comfort of a wall in his latest comments calling for homosexual members of parliament to be placed behind a wall to remind them that they are a minority and should adapt themselves to smaller things.”
Continue reading “Wałęsa’s Wall: Lech Wałęsa Calls For Gay Lawmakers To Sit Behind Wall”
There is an interesting torts lawsuit out of Houston where Layne Hardin, 44, is suing Obstetrical and Gynecological Associates, PA for allegedly giving two vials of his sperm to an ex-girfriend who proceeded to have his child. She is also suing the former boyfriend. The boy is now 2 years old. Hardin says that Tobie Devall has never let him see the boy while her lawyer says that he has never asked to see the boy.
Continue reading “Texas Man Sues Ex-Girlfriend and Clinic for Theft of Sperm Used To Produce Child”
Connecticut State Rep. Ernest Hewett, a five-term Democrat from New London, is desperately trying to explain a comment made to a high school girl during a hearing on the funding of youth programs. The girl had explained that one of the youth programs had cured her of her fear of snakes. Hewett then suggested that he had a snake under the desk for her to test herself on. Hewett insisted that the comment was entirely innocent and not sexual but he has been stripped of his leadership title. On his legislative site (which is still announcing his promotion to the leadership), Hewitt posts the defining quote of his career: “Never get so high that no one can touch you, never get so low that no one will want to touch you.” It appears that no one is touching Hewitt, or his snake, this week.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In recent years, we have heard and read a lot about the failure of public schools in the United States. “Our schools are failing” has almost become a mantra with members of the media, many of our politicians, and the advocates of school reform. I have seen few people who have questioned the assertions made by the media, elected officials, and school reformers that schools in this country are not adequately educating our youth and that our educational system is a total and abject failure.
Many of those who criticize our public education system offer charter schools and the privatization of public schools as solutions to the “education problem” in this country.
I’m a retired public school educator. I have known and am friends with many current and former public school teachers. I know that there are many fine classroom practitioners working in our public schools today…and many excellent schools where our children receive a quality education. I am aware that there are also many schools where children may not be receiving the highest quality education. (What often go unmentioned in the media are the real reasons—including poverty—why some schools in this country may be failing.)
One problem with the “our schools are failing” mantra—as I see it—is that all our schools are lumped together in one basket labeled “failing.” How did this come to be? Do we Americans really believe that NO public schools in this country provide their students with an adequate education? Do we believe that all schools need to be reformed? If not, do we believe that even the schools which are actually doing an estimable job of educating their students need to be reformed?
I think it is time we start taking a good look at the individuals and organizations that are behind the push to establish thousands of charter schools and to use taxpayer money to fund private and religious schools as the means of raising the quality of education in this country.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
You may recall the demonstrations against the NATO Summit that was taking place in Chicago in May of 2012. On May 16th, 2012, the Chicago Police Department made a military style raid on an apartment where several demonstrators were staying during the Summit.
“On May 16, 2012, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) conducted a violent midnight preemptive raid of an apartment housing 11 activists. Two of them, it would later be exposed, were actually undercover informants working on behalf of the CPD. Staying in an apartment in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, the activists were in town to protest the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit, held May 20-21. The military-style raid led to the eventual charging of three of those activists in the Windy City to protest the NATO Summit with conspiracy to commit acts of domestic terrorism and other related charges – under Illinois’ terrorism statute – in the form of a legal bail proffer. It was the first time the law – passed in haste by the Illinois legislature after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – had ever been used.” Truthout Continue reading “The NATO 3 and Free Speech”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
One of America’s greatest novels in my opinion is “The Great Gatsby” and I think many literary critics feel the same. If you’re not familiar with it, the short synopsis is that it is the tale of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious figure of self made wealth who arrives on Long Island’s North Shore, known as the “Gold Coast”, back in the “Roaring Twenties”. His life intertwines with Tom and Daisy Buchanan, a “golden” young couple with inherited wealth and the best social pedigrees. The interplay between these three leads to ultimate tragedy for Gatsby and more than a few other characters swept into the social vortex surrounding the Buchanan’s. On the last page of this magnificently crafted book, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator Nick runs into Tom and Daisy who are gaily embarking on a trip to Europe after some cataclysmic events of their causing and he says of them:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Continue reading ““The rich are not like the rest of us””
Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Not since 1415 when Gregory XII resigned to heal the so-called “Western Schism” has a Pope of the Roman Catholic Church abdicated his post as the successor to St. Peter. Now, Benedict the XVI has issued his renuntiatio citing failing health as the reason for the move. Rumors have swirled since publication in the Italian newspaper, Repubblica, (here) that the Pope resigned to diffuse a burgeoning crisis in the Curia over allegations of a gay cabal of Vatican prelates being blackmailed by male prostitutes. The Vatican flatly denies that allegation and no one has come forward to challenge that denial. Fueling the rumors are the inconvenient resignation of Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien over allegations of sexual abuse of three seminarians. O’Brien has flatly rejected those charges too, but resigned the following day saying his decision was based “on health grounds,” and that his hospitalization for cellulitis and gout at the end of 2012 was proof thereof. That’s eerily similar to Benedict’s demurrer and, coupled with several recent scandals (here) involving Vatican priests procuring gay prostitutes, have left some observers skeptical, indeed.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The U.S. Supreme Court held oral arguments (pdf) in Shelby County v. Holder, a case involving Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Shelby County, Alabama, is challenging its requirement under Section 5 to get preclearance, from either the United States Attorney General or a three-judge panel of the District Court of the District of Columbia, before making any changes to their voting rules. Oral arguments before the Supreme Court seem to be one-sided with the Justices hammering the attorneys who seem totally unprepared with counter-arguments.
The Obama administration appears to have celebrated the unveiling of the statue of Rosa Parks in the Capitol by arguing that same-sex couples should be allowed to move halfway up the marital bus. In its amicus brief filed his week in Hollingsworth v. Perry. The Administration spent much of its first term fighting to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and refusing to accept that same-sex couples are entitled to the same protection as other couples. Now, the Administration is advancing a highly nuanced argument that conspicuously falls short of calling for a constitutional right to marriage for all couples. Instead, it is arguing for a type of constitutional balkanization where gay and lesbian couples would be given equal treatment under an “eight-state” solution.
Continue reading “Obama Administration Supports Gay Marriage . . . Sort Of”
Rev. Pat Robertson is back with a glimpse into the mind of religiously unhinged. In this video, Robertson talks matter-of-factly how demons can latch on to garments. Before putting on that Satanic Sweater or Demonic Dress, a fabric exorcism might be necessary.
Continue reading “The Devil Wears Prada: Pat Robertson Warns About Demons In Garments”
We previously discussed the questionable advice of Vice President Joe Biden for people to fire shotguns out of windows to scare off possible intruders. He added “[if] you want to keep someone away from your house, just fire the shotgun through the door.” I suggested that such acts would raise criminal and tort liability issues. There now appears a man who followed the same approach and found himself criminally charged. In Virginia Beach, Trevor Lamont Snowden, 22, is charged with reckless handling of a firearm after fired his gun through a door and out his window to scare off intruders.
In Australia, there is an interesting case involving Sharia. Increasingly, Muslims in Western nations are turning to Sharia justice as opposed to conventional courts to address family and personal problems. In the case of Muslim convert Christian Martinez, he sought punishment and forgiveness from his Muslim religious mentor, Wassam Faayad, for drinking and taking drugs. Faayad and his associates proceeded to give him some old-fashioned Sharia justice with an electrical cord. Then Martinez changed his mind but the beating continued. Now four Muslim men are convicted of assault in a Sharia version of “no, means no.”
Continue reading “Australian Court Convicts Four Men For Sharia Flogging Of Fellow Muslim”
I am not sure whether to admire or despise this kid who can solve a Rubik’s cube while juggling. He is Ravi, the Rubic’s juggler.
I have seen this look. I know this look.