We have received a lot of requests for the briefing just filed in the Sister Wives case in Salt Lake City. As lead counsel, I am limited in what I can say about the case publicly. However, here is the final brief on the merits of the case, which is limited to 25 pages of argument under the local rules.
Continue reading “Brown Family Files Final Brief On Summary Judgment”
We have heard repeatedly how successful our Afghanistan campaign has been after thousands of dead Americans and hundreds of billions of dollars. That does not exactly fit with the announcement yesterday that the U.S. military will now longer allow U.S. forces to do joint field operations. This is not because of the threat of the Taliban but the Afghan soldiers themselves who have been regularly shooting their American allies at checkpoints and operations.
This is why I have long refused to play rock paper scissors with robots. They are a bunch of lousy cheaters. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a robot hand that win 100%of the time by using a high-speed camera and recognizes within one millisecond which shape the human hand is making. It then gives the corresponding winning shape.
Continue reading “Japanese Mad Scientists Develop Robot That Cannot Be Beat In Rock Paper Scissors”
Various sites are reporting a bizarre and troubling story that the principal of the Beaumont Independent School District’s Taylor Career and Technology Center in Texas shutdown its adult cosmetology class after concluding that one of the male students looked gay. Principal Thomas Amons is being accused of shutting down the whole program because he allegedly knew he could be charged with singling out the one student on the basis of presumed sexual orientation. An instruction. Amons is a deacon at a Baptist church.
We have spent years following the absurd series of photo ops featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin from shooting tigers to fishing bare chested in the wild to leading wild cranes in migration to Asia to riding leather-clad through Moscow. The ridiculous claim that Putin found the ancient vases on his very first stint as a scuba diver proved too much for even the most gullible Russians. After aides admitted it was staged following international ridicule, Putin has now shrugged off all of the students as staged events.
Continue reading “Russian Circus: Putin Admits His Exploits Have Been Staged”
Christopher Tyquan Groomes, 26, is the latest husband arrested for shooting his wife. This crime, however, is a bit different in that his wife allegedly asked him to shoot her. Police say that Judy Groomes, 25, wanted to avoid deployment with the Air Force and staged the shooting, accusing unknown burglars in her home in Bossier City, Louisiana.
Three U.S. congressmen and a high-ranking government official gathered this week to praise a man heralded for his morals and leadership. That man is L. Ron Hubbard and Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Burton, Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny Davis and Liz Gibson, Senior Program Manager at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, gathered to celebrate his legacy.
Continue reading “Lawmakers and Federal Official Gather To Praise Hubbard And Scientology”
I had to share this video of a silo being brought down. Unless this video is doctored, this is the most incredible collapse I have witnessed.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
CPS Parent Matt Farmer Puts Penny Pritzker on Trial at CTU’s Stands Strong Rally
Rahm Emanuel promised to “shake up the Windy City’s schools” when he campaigned for mayor of Chicago in 2011. One of his main goals was to change the teacher evaluation process. He is a big proponent of using students’ standardized test scores in determining the effectiveness of classroom practitioners.
Continue reading “Chicago Teachers Take a Stand Against Mayor Rahm Emanuel and His Contract Demands”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
I have to admit that I do not shock too easily. However, when I read an article this morning in the New York Times, I was taken back by the news. It seems that private debt collection companies across the United States have partnered with District Attorneys offices, to use the threat of criminal charges being filed against consumers in attempts to collect on alleged bounced checks to merchants. The fact that people were being threatened by collection companies did not surprise me. It was the fact that the veiled threats to the consumers were sent on District Attorney or Prosecutor letterhead that amazed me! Continue reading “Privatizing the District Attorney?”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Even as we watch the violent collision of politics and religion at American embassies around the world, here at home Presidential politics took a decidedly religious turn. Mitt Romney, trailing in several decisive purple states, has resorted to the “God Card.” Capitalizing on the omission (and later reinsertion) of God into the Democratic Party platform, Romney has recently added God into his stump speech, “I will not take God out of my heart, I will not take God out of the public square, and I will not take it out of the platform of my party.” [Insert Amen! here].
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
A press statement issued in the name of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, condemns the attacks on the mission in Benghazi. Also include in the statement is:
The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.
What is deplorable is that nowhere in the statement is a commitment to free speech that goes back to the very beginning of our nation. Continue reading “Deplorable”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Our memories not only serve the purpose of learning to avoid danger from past experience, they serve as the glue that holds our sense of our fleeting lives together into a linear personal narrative. For all of us most memories are specific to our direct life experiences. There are some memories though transcending personal encounters and that directly affect us as well as society as a whole. The murder of John F. Kennedy is one such experience from my life that profoundly affected me and my generation, even though all I knew of the man was third hand at best. Closer in time but equally, if not more indelible is the image of the destruction wrought on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. I would guess that almost all Americans who were alive on that day know where they were and what they were doing. This past week we passed the eleventh anniversary of this horror and innumerable solemn observances occurred throughout the nation.
I can remember one phrase that began to be used over and over from that day onward and my rising anger at the implications of that phrase. “This Changes Everything”. I’ve not been able to determine what news-person or pundit first uttered those words, but afterwards the phrase reverberated incessantly. As that fateful day passed, what took shape in the meme those words created, was that the United States had undergone an experience that changed all the rules we had purportedly lived by in dealing with the world around us. In effect it was like saying “No more Mr. Nice Guy”. Whether or not our country ever lived by the ideals it purported to live by is another question entirely. My anger rose at the overuse of this meme because I’ve spent my life wanting my country to live by a higher standard in both national and international relations. I correctly saw this meme as an attempted usurpation of this tragedy towards turning our country away from our national ideals, such as they were. As the years passed since 9/11/2001, we have watched the erosion of these America Ideals. Two murderous wars have been waged. Hundreds of thousands have died, or been maimed. Our “national treasure” depleted, torture has become legalized and with the passage of the “Patriot Act” we have watched the demolition of our personal freedom. With this anniversary, two articles appeared nationally that call into question what was really behind 9/11 and also why there was a possibility of deterring it, which was ignored by the G.W. Bush Administration. I want to discuss both of these articles and then add my own thoughts on their real context. Continue reading ““This Changes Everything””
The Obama Administration has formally asked YouTube “to review” the anti-Muslim film “Innocence of Muslims.” In a perfectly incoherent position, White House press secretary Jay Carney stressed that the White House was not asking for it to be removed . . . only “reviewed.” I have been discussing this controversy on NPR and CNN. The latest White House move appears to be an effort to get YouTube to remove the video without taking responsibility for expressly asking for the removal. For civil libertarians, the announcement leaves an uneasy — and all-too-familiar — feeling with this Administration. The White House has repeated compromised on civil liberties in favor of political advantage in areas like torture, immunity, and surveillance policies.
Continue reading “White House Asks YouTube To Review “Innocence of Muslims” Film”
NYC Board of Health has approved the controversial ban on sale of sugary drinks over 16 ounces. Despite objections (including on this blog) to the measure as the latest example of regulation for the Nanny State, the board passed the ban demanded by Mayor Bloomberg. The board insists that adults and parents cannot be trusted with such decisions and that health demands a ban. You absolutely, positively not order a large sugary drink . . . unless you put alcohol in it.