Gov. Rick Perry has long proclaimed Texas as a state favorable to business and has limited environmental protections and regulatory rules. Just how favorable is evident in the news that West Fertilizer Co. had only $1 million in insurance after an explosion that killed 15 people and injured 200 — and caused an estimated $100 million in damages. The insurance lobby has long opposed mandatory insurance laws and this case may be an example of the public cost of that success.
I was interviewed recently on an interesting case out of New York where Paul Forziano and Hava Samuels are suing to be able to live together in public housing. The problem is that they are mentally disabled and the state says that it cannot accommodate mentally disabled married couples. It is a case that pits constitutional rights for married couples (as well as disability protections) against a state’s discretionary decisions on budgetary and facilities management.
Continue reading “Disabled Couple Sues To Live Together In Public Housing”
I saw this video on Reddit and was struck by the dangerous maneuver needed to disembark a doctor at an accident crisis without actually landing in Melvatnet in Snillfjord, Norway.
Judge Belvin Perry appears to believe that, as Oscar Wilde advised, “the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” Perry decided to get his 15 minutes of fame by granting an interview on the Casey Anthony murder trial during which he attacked Anthony as “very manipulative.” I will remind you that Anthony was acquitted of the first-degree murder of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. There are also judicial ethical rules meant to bar such commentary by judges. The question is whether the state bar will take action after this grossly inappropriate interview. Perry is the chief judge on Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit.
Meet Erin James, 58, of Brookfield, Illinois. She was pulled over and found with a blood alcohol level that was twice that of the legal limit. That is bad enough. However, James exclaimed that she was just out celebrating . . . the end of her probation on her earlier DUI conviction and the return of her driving privileges.
I thought you might need some motivation this morning.
We previously discussed how the CIA has delivered millions in cash in bags to the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai’s family and friends are have been denounced as openly corrupt. Despite these reports of grotesque corruption, the money continues to flow into Karzai’s pockets even as he attacks the U.S. and Americans as “demons”, and moves to shift alliances to Iran and China. The news of the CIA’s bag men produced outrage among many, but once again the objections over the corruption and waste in this country has no effect on the CIA. Karzai insisted that the cash keep flowing and even went public to say that the CIA assured him that the deliveries to him would continue regardless of the objections of U.S. citizens.
Continue reading “Karzai’s Bag Men: CIA Promises To Continue Monthly Cash Deliveries To Karzai”
Toys R Us has vowed to appeal a $20 million verdict in Massachusetts in favor of the family of Robin Aleo who was killed after slamming her head on a concrete pool deck when a 6-foot inflatable pool slide deflated. The major issue in the appeal is likely to be the argument that the slide did not comply with federal safety standards. Toys R Us claims the federal standards were written for solid slides and that inflatable slides did not exist when the regulations were written.
Continue reading “Jury Awards Family $20 Million Against Toys R Us For Slide Injury”
Something extraordinary happened in Tallahasee this week. The legislature actually turned down a demand for hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare for the Miami Dolphins. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross descended on the capitol with an army of lobbyists and pocket legislators to muscle through the package to upgrade his stadium at public expense. They did all of the formulaic moves seen in other states where legislators have opened the treasury to billionaire owners: they lined up unemployed people who would get jobs, Dolphin fans supporting their team, and politicians standing with the owner. This time however legislators balked and actually voted the public rather than their personal interest.
Continue reading “Florida Rejects $350 Million in Corporate Welfare For The Miami Dolphins”
We have previously discussed the unhealthy pollution in China, particularly air pollution that has set records in the last couple years in Beijing. The situation is little better in Taipei, where a recent report found that more than 20 percent of first-graders suffer from asthma and 50 percent have allergic rhinitis, the inflammation of the mucous membrane inside the nose. The findings of the Taiwan Association of Asthma Education reflect the human cost — particularly among children — of pollution — a cost often ignored even in this country by politicians who espouse economic over environmental values.
By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
I first heard of John Prather sometime in 1957. We were living outside of La Luz, New Mexico, a village near Alamogordo. My father was working on a guided missile project at Holloman Air Force Base at the time. Prather was a cattle rancher and I followed his story over the next few years with a mixture of boyish awe and admiration.
Prather was born in east Texas in 1873, and moved with his family by covered wagon to New Mexico ten years later. He took up ranching in the 1890s, raising both cattle and mules, supplying the latter to the army during both world wars and acquiring the nickname “Mule King.” By the 1950s, Prather had accumulated 4,000 acres stretching from the foothills and fertile mesas of the Sacramento Mountains into the arid desert of the Tularosa Basin, and held grazing leases from the government on another 20,000 acres. Rough-edged, but gentle, he built his ranch house by hand and grew pecan trees. Prather was one of the last pioneer settlers in New Mexico Territory and looked forward to passing on what he had created to his children. But the government had different ideas. Continue reading “The Second Amendment and John Albert Prather”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
Yesterday was the 43rd anniversary of the day when time stood still for me. As a freshmen in college at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, I was stunned to learn of the killing of 4 young people by the Ohio National Guard during protests on the campus of Kent State University. The protestors were using their First Amendment rights to voice their opinion on the United States participation in the Vietnam War and the military’s recent incursion into Cambodia upon orders from then President Richard Nixon. Those events not only scarred me, but they also opened my eyes to the power of the government and more importantly, the power of the people. Continue reading “Kent State 43 Years Later”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Hey guys, just back from my trip to San Francisco and what do I find on my return? Well it looks like that most calcified of religious institutions has gone California, too? The first Pope from South America seems to have veered the church leftward with two recent messages to the faithful that said, in essence, that capitalism isn’t all that. First, in a scathing speech on Wednesday, Pope Francis slammed the type of predatory capitalism that results in the tragedy of the Bangladesh sweatshop collapse. Catering to western desires for cheap but swanky department store clothing, the human mill in Bangladesh cranked out fashion for consumers at a feverish pace. The shortcut to achieve this profit was a thrown-together building constructed of toothpicks and sealing wax. Not really — but close enough for 400 people to die and scores of others to be maimed when the structure fell. Francis took dead aim at the greed and the greedy that caused these deaths calling it “slave labor”:
“Not paying a just (wage), not providing work, focusing exclusively on the balance books, on financial statements, only looking at making personal profit. That goes against God!”
Second, on Thursday, this thoroughly modern pontiff took to social media to hammer the point. Tweeting his message, Pope Francis said “My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost.” Two and a half million followers on Twitter and over one billion Catholics got the message. Five thousand of them re-tweeted.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Ryan Rotella, a junior at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) said that his professor, Dr. Deandre Poole, of his Intercultural Communications class, asked students in the class to write the word “Jesus” on a piece of paper, fold the paper, and step on it. By the time FOX News & Commentary got to the story, “asked” had become “directed,” “step” had become “stomp,” and the “Stomp on Jesus” firestorm was manufactured. FAU reacted by apologizing to those who were offended, immediately placing Poole on administrative leave, and banning him from FAU’s campuses.
Continue reading “Academic Freedom Sacrificed To Religious Intimidation”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Click to enlarge.
Solution below the fold.
Good luck.