California prosecutors have brought a rare manslaughter charged against an architect for the substandard construction and design of a $11 million mansion. Albert Becker, 48, was arrested after a firefighter died in a blaze at the home, which was going to be the backdrop for a reality show called “Germany’s Next Model.”
Continue reading “Architect Charged With Manslaughter Over Poorly Built $11 Million Mansion”
I love the look on this cat –leaving no doubt about her feelings in the wake of a bath.
Recently released intelligence reports have shined light on how U.S. officials secretly demanded investigations of Charlie Chaplin — portraying him as a dangerous radical. The English intelligence officials at MI5 found no support for our paranoia about Chaplin as a dangerous communist. They also failed to show where Chaplin was born. What they did find did not please U.S. officials.
Continue reading “British Records Show Effort Of U.S. To Investigate And Discredit Chaplin”
It came without warning. Innocent citizens were going about their lives when Vikings suddenly appeared from nowhere and took everything of value. It is a common tale that was repeated too many times in history, but the most recent raid reportedly comes from last week in Minnesota where citizens learned that they will have to foot the bill for much of a new stadium — despite the belief of most citizens that they had blocked such an effort.
Continue reading “Viking Raid: Minnesota Citizens Balk At Stadium Deal”
We previously listened to Rick Santorum as he suggested to religious college students that a vote for him might keep them from being devoured. Now it appears it may also protect you from being snatched up by crazed euthanizing Dutch doctors who will send you to the Nether Regions unless you are wearing a bracelet. He also appears to relish the good old days when abortions in America were regulated to “the shadows.”
Continue reading “Santorum: Who Will Protect You From Crazed Euthanizing Dutch Doctors?”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Reasonable people tend to agree there is both a right to privacy and that it is necessary. But what exactly is the right to privacy? Justice Brandeis famously said in Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1928), “The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect, that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.” Plainly put, at its heart a right to privacy is simply a right to be let alone.
However, do we need to specifically protect it or generally protect it? Is that right absolute? Laws, by definition and the nature of entering a social compact, are restrictions on absolute liberty found in the state of nature. One of the larger disagreements at the Constitutional Convention was about whether enumerated rights would serve to unjustly limit those rights versus a failure to enumerate rights would result in rights not being properly protected. This is a valid question surrounding this issue, especially since some would advocate enumerating the right to privacy by Constitutional amendment. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. While specifically defining/enumerating a right creates a foundation for arguments surrounding said right, leaving a right’s definition nebulous allows jurisprudence greater leeway to evolve around fact specific instance and questions that in the long run can result in a more nuanced understanding and application of the right without the constraints a foundational definition might impose. In this light, consider the right to privacy.
Continue reading “Privacy Rights – To Enumerate or Not to Enumerate, That is the Question”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Posthumous proxy baptism is a religious practice where a living person, acting as proxy, is baptized on behalf on a dead person. It is currently practiced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church), who submit names for the ordinance. The vicarious ordinance for the deceased have included Holocaust victims, prominent Nazis, and well known Jews such as Albert Einstein.
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Martin County Florida law enforcement officers made a surprising discovery while processing 28 year-old arrestee Ramon Blair. Blair had been fingered by the ubiquitous reliable, confidential informant as riding around town with $100 worth of crack cocaine on his person.
Continue reading “Florida Police Make Surprising Discovery That Man Has Crack In His Butt”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Fresh off an attack on the legitimacy of public education and now surging in the polls, Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum couldn’t hold back the religious zeal. President Obama’s agenda is motivated by things not quite Christian the former senator from Pennsylvania charged in a recent campaign stop in Ohio.“It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology,” he said. “But no less a theology.” My, my, what could the homeschooling Roman Catholic mean? Surely not the Big Lie that the President is a Muslim, an idea that served as the red meat of Tea Party attack dogs since Obama won the White House. No, perish the thought. The darling of the far right simply meant that the President was “imposing his values on the church, and I think that’s wrong.” Sure, just a philosophical and scholarly difference of opinion on health care policy and the First Amendment, coincidentally stuck smack down in the middle of a presidential campaign. Santorum even generously conceded that –wink, wink,– “if the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.”
Below is my column today in the Washington Post (Sunday) Outlook Section. The column concerns the Alvarez case to be heard on Wednesday before the Supreme Court. I have been a long critic of the Stolen Valor Act — not because I am not highly sympathetic to its purpose but because I am concerned about the means of achieving that purpose. I share the anger over people who falsely claim to be war heroes. However, the government often selects popular causes for expanding its power over speech or conduct of its citizens. The question before the Court is really not about this specific form of lying, but the legal basis for criminalizing lies generally. The Act is different in that it seeks to criminalize lies simply because they are lies as opposed to lies that are used to commit a specific crime like larceny or fraud or perjury. I also spoke to NPR on Talk To The Nation on this subject.
Continue reading “The Better Part of Valor: Should Lying About Medals Be A Crime?”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Recently, the Wall Street Journal refused to publish a letter on the subject of climate change that was signed by 255 scientists—all of whom are members of the United States National Academy of Sciences. The WSJ chose instead to publish an opinion piece titled No Need to Panic about Global Warming that was written by 16 “other scientists.” It has been reported that the 16 “other scientists” include engineers, a physician, a retired airplane designer, a retired electrical engineer, and astrophysicists. Also included among the “No Need to Panic” authors are two men—one who questions whether smoking causes cancer (Richard Lindzen) and another who does not believe that asbestos is a health hazard (Claude Allegre).
According to Media Matters, most of the scientists who signed the WSJ op-ed do not publish peer-reviewed papers on climate research. In addition, more than a third of them have links to fossil fuel interests.
Peter Gleick, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a MacArthur Fellow, wrote an article for Forbes descrying the WSJ’s actions.
Gleick wrote:
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
I am the last person that should be defending Pat Buchanan and objecting to his recent termination as a political analyst for MSNBC. However, after thinking about it for a while, I have come to the conclusion that Uncle Pat’s firing is an attack on Free Speech and a continuation of the Fox News type mentality on our cable news stations. Let me first make it clear that most of what Buchanan says on the air is offensive and in some cases, outright disgusting. However, if we cannot say what is on our mind without limits, do any of us really have the freedom to speak our minds? Continue reading “The First Amendment Versus Pat Buchanan?”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
“Dr.” Melissa Clouthier (left) isn’t happy with some of the female attendees at CPAC 2012. The Dr. is in quotes because Clouthier is an alternative health “doctor” and part-time chiropractor. That is, a woo-meister, who thinks “Feng Shui makes lots of sense.”
Clouthier has some tips for women who wish to succeed in business or politics.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
New Hampshire state Rep. Jeanine Notter (R-Merrimack) won’t be supporting preventative services for women, such as contraceptives, because it causes prostate cancer. I can find no medical studies that dispute Notter’s claim. Oral contraception has been associated with prostate cancer in this article.
H/T: Blue Hampshire.
We previously discussed the abusive arrest of Mark Fiorino by Philadelphia police. Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the law firm of McCausland Keen & Buckman have filed a federal complaint today against the city of Philadelphia in his defense. It is an important case and we will be following it closely.
Continue reading “ACLU Files On Behalf Of Gun Owner Abusively Arrested By Philadelphia Police”