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Selected News For Week Dec 22 - 28

This thread is for the busy bees at S&L to post news items themselves.

In order to make the articles as readable as possible, please try to stick to the format described in the first of these weekly editions here.

Of course articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted there. As always, remember to excerpt heavily and to provide a link to the original source.

(By the way, the flower in the photo is a Christmas Rose.)

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 12:01 am. Comments are currently closed.

31 Responses to “Selected News For Week Dec 22 - 28”

BillK
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:42 am
From the AP:

Student Claims Teacher Asked Her to Cover Up Lesbian-Themed Shirt

RICHMOND, Va. — A high school official made a mistake by telling a student to cover up a lesbian-themed T-shirt or face suspension, the school’s principal said Friday, a day after the ACLU demanded the school apologize to the teen.

Bethany Laccone, 17, said she was asked to cloak a logo of two interlocked female symbols while attending a hotel management class this month at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth. She’s a senior at nearby Woodrow Wilson High School, where she has not faced a similar ultimatum.

In a letter sent Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia asked Norcom administrators to remove any mention of the incident from Laccone’s records and agree not to similarly censor other students.

ACLU leaders want administrators to clarify that students can express political views. The school’s dress code prohibits “bawdy, salacious or sexually suggestive messages.”

The ACLU gave the school until Jan. 11 to respond or possibly face further action.

“What’s happening to Bethany Laccone is a clear-cut case of unconstitutional censorship,” said Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia chapter.

On Friday, Norcom Principal Lynn Briley said the school would comply.

“Yes, we did make a mistake,” Briley told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk. …

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317891,00.html

I’m so glad the ACLU was there to get involved in this hard-hitting issue.
BillK
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:12 am
From the AP:

3 Ohio Teens Sue High School for Facebook ‘Parody’ IDing Teacher as Pedophile

CINCINNATI — Three teenagers have sued school officials over lengthy suspensions they received for setting up a Facebook page that identifies a teacher as a pedophile.

The entry on the social networking site included the face and last name of the teacher and referred to him as a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which supports sex between men and boys.

“They’re not saying it’s true, they’re saying it’s just parody,” the students’ attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday.

The boys were suspended from Taylor High School for the maximum 90 days for creating the entry in November. They’ve served 10 days and were told the rest of the punishment would begin Jan. 2, when classes resume after the holiday break.

U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ordered school officials to let them return pending a hearing on the lawsuit Jan. 10.

“Each of the boys has written an apology to the teacher and questioned whether they exercised their best judgment,” their attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday.

The students and their parents filed the federal lawsuit Dec. 14 after the Three Rivers School District board voted to uphold the punishment.

They argue that the Facebook entry should be considered protected speech because it was parody. The plaintiffs also allege the district overstepped its bounds because the Web page was created away from school with access limited to seven people, Mezibov said.

District officials wouldn’t comment but have said allowing the students to remain in school would cause unspecified disruptions and hurt teacher morale. The district said 14 teachers had already requested their photos be removed from district Web sites. The teacher photo on Facebook was copied from a district site.

The students want to be reinstated, their disciplinary actions deleted from their records and the district ordered to pay their attorney fees and unspecified damages. …

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317925,00.html

There’s parody, and then there’s slander.

The teacher is not a public person per se, so “parody” in this manner should, IMHO, be completely actionable.

But that’s just me.

Of course, as in the article above:

There have similar cases across Ohio and the country, said Scott Greenwood, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney. Courts have ruled that students can’t be punished by schools for such off-campus acts and that such suspensions violate free speech, he said.

So I’m sure if a web site is created picturing Greenwood as say an al Qaeda sympathizer could be dismisses as just “a parody” as well, right?
BillK
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:40 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle:

S.F. must pay $1 million in attorneys’ fees in discrimination suit

By Bob Egelko

The city of San Francisco must pay about $1 million in attorneys’ fees to a white man who filed a successful race-discrimination suit after he was passed up for a promotion at San Francisco International Airport, a state appeals court ruled Friday.

Allen Harmon won $30,300 in damages in a 2004 verdict by a San Mateo County jury that concluded he was rejected for a supervisor’s job in 1998 at least in part because of his race. A minority candidate got the promotion, and Harmon’s lawyer said he had to wait 16 months to get the same job through a race-neutral civil service promotion.

Harmon’s suit, filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, claimed that the city had designed hiring and promotional policies at the airport to reflect the Bay Area’s racial and ethnic makeup. The city denied having racial quotas or bias, saying most of the promotions awarded at the time went to white men, but later changed the policy that Harmon had challenged.

State and federal law entitled Harmon to legal fees for a successful civil rights suit against a government agency, and he was awarded more than $1.1 million by Superior Court Judge Thomas Smith.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....0U39J2.DTL

But will he ever be able to collect?
pagar
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:49 pm
A Christmas gift for Arizona

“Judge: Employer-sanctions law stands
Ruling allows hiring law to take effect Jan. 1; opponents vow challenge

Mary Jo Pitzl and Ronald J. Hansen
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 22, 2007 12:00 AM
Arizona’s employer-sanctions law survived its second legal challenge Friday when a federal judge ruled the public would suffer the greater harm if the measure fails to take effect on schedule. “
BillK
December 23rd, 2007 at 10:59 am
More to worry about, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Fast, fun and dangerous

With the average speed of a sled reaching 19 mph, some health officials push for wearing helmets

By Erin Richards

Although she can’t remember, Emily Ziebell was probably having fun four years ago while night sledding in Waukesha.

It was close to midnight at Lowell Park, which has one of the best sledding hills in the county, and Ziebell, who had just turned 20, jumped on a snow tube with a friend. The friend fell off while they were zooming down the hill, but Ziebell continued and slammed into a tree trunk, splitting open her skull and crushing her left arm.

Ziebell, now 24, still has speech and coordination issues but has recovered remarkably, said her mother, Mary.

Snow, gravity and speed have long been an exhilarating wintertime combination, but it’s also one that produces a small but inevitable number of injuries. Area trauma centers are reporting the usual snowboarding wrist fractures, sledding concussions and ankle injuries, but Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin already has admitted three children since Nov. 1 for sledding injuries. That’s more in-patient sledding accident victims than in the five-month season last year.

Those figures, coupled with a new study that reports sleds reach average speeds of 19 miles per hour, have some health officials wondering how far to push the helmet issue.

“The challenge that we face is that it’s not the norm - nor is it likely to ever be the norm - for kids to wear helmets while sledding,” said Bridget Clementi, injury and prevention manager at Children’s Hospital and Health System. Clementi said the Injury Free Coalition for Kids recently compared the average speed of a sled at 19 mph with the average speed of a kid on a bike, which is 10 to 15 mph.

Many parents have made it a habit to make kids wear helmets on their bikes, Clementi said.

“We don’t want to kill the fun, but we are starting to look at reaching out to parents on sledding safety,” Clementi said.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=699467

How long before sled makers are sued out of existence?
navycopjoe
December 23rd, 2007 at 4:12 pm
News time. Sorry, no headline, link, or site.
Just me reporting.

Da Bears whooped that cheesehead butt.
That’s all.
SG
December 23rd, 2007 at 4:15 pm
From the UK’s Sunday Times:

Deaf demand right to designer deaf children

Sarah-Kate Templeton Health Editor

DEAF parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so they can pick a deaf child over one that has all its senses intact, according to the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID).

Jackie Ballard, a former Liberal Democrat MP, says that although the vast majority of deaf parents would want a child who has normal hearing, a small minority of couples would prefer to create a child who is effectively disabled, to fit in better with the family lifestyle.

Ballard’s stance is likely to be welcomed by other deaf organisations, including the British Deaf Association (BDA), which is campaigning to amend government legislation to allow the creation of babies with disabilities.

A clause in the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is passing through the House of Lords, would make it illegal for parents undergoing embryo screening to choose an embryo with an abnormality if healthy embryos exist.

In America a deaf couple deliberately created a baby with hearing difficulties by choosing a sperm donor with generations of deafness in his family.

This would be impossible under the bill in its present form in the UK. Disability charities say this makes the proposed legislation discriminatory, because it gives parents the right to create “designer babies” free from genetic conditions while banning couples from deliberately creating a baby with a disability.

The prospect of selecting “deaf embryos” is likely to be seized on by campaigners against genetic screening who will argue that this is an inevitable outcome of allowing “designer babies”.

Doctors are opposed to creating deaf babies. Professor Gedis Grudzinskas, medical director of the Bridge Centre, a clinic in London that screens embyros, said: “This would be an abuse of medical technology. Deafness is not the normal state, it is a disability. To deliberately create a deaf embryo would be contrary to the ethos of our society.”

Ballard, who previously ran into controversy as director-general of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) where she pushed through extensive job cuts, said in an interview with The Sunday Times: “Most parents would choose to have a hearing embryo, but for those few parents who do not, we think they should be allowed to exercise that choice and we would support them in that decision.

“There are a number of deaf forums where there are discussions about this. There are [sic] a small minority of activists who say that there is a cultural identity in being born deaf and that we should not destroy that cultural identity by preventing children from being born deaf.” …

http://tinyurl.com/37zpv9

This almost sounds like a parody of identity politics run amok.

But, sadly, it isn’t.
BigOil
December 24th, 2007 at 10:43 am
From the NY Daily News:

Elect me and oil prices instantly drop, says Hillary Clinton in Iowa

BY MICHAEL McAULIFF

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Hillary Clinton predicted Saturday that just electing her President will cut the price of oil.

When the world hears her commitment at her inauguration about ending American dependence on foreign fuel, Clinton says, oil-pumping countries will lower prices to stifle America’s incentive to develop alternative energy.

“I predict to you, the oil-producing countries will drop the price of oil,” Clinton said, speaking at the Manchester YWCA. “They will once again assume, once the cost pressure is off, Americans and our political process will recede.”

Clinton argued that former President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s actually started moving in the right direction toward energy independence, but his successor, Ronald Reagan, “dismantled” that work.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....ml?ref=rss

This is Hill-arious. She believes the sheer force of her words will move world markets. Unless her shrill words suddenly cause people across the globe to park their cars and walk to work, the price of oil will not drop appreciably. In Economics 101 the concept is called Supply and Demand. An average high school economics student understands markets better than the smartest woman in the world.

Since she is lauding the abject failure Jimmah’s energy policy, better stock up on sweaters in case she wins.
texaspsue
December 24th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
It’s snowing! It’s snowing at Christmas time. I love it! thanks SG.
Helena
December 25th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Unable to find any real bad news, the media makes some up.

From Bloomberg:

Weekend Surge May Not Rescue Retailers’ Holiday Slump

By Joseph Galante Dec. 25 (Bloomberg) — A surge in spending during the weekend before Christmas may not have been enough to rescue Target Corp…

http://tinyurl.com/2bp6rm
navycopjoe
December 26th, 2007 at 1:58 am
Freaks to destroy one of the few remaining American icons (Damn them, damn them all to hell):
From the Pasadena Star News
By Kenneth Todd Ruiz Staff Writer
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_7802745

Protest groups up for parade

PASADENA — At next week’s Rose Parade, protesters who plan to state their opposition to the Beijing Olympics float won’t be alone.
Hundreds of other activists promoting different messages also plan to converge on Colorado Boulevard, lured by the massive crowds and cameras broadcasting the event around the world.
“It’s an unprecedented outreach opportunity for us,” said Peter Thottam of the Los Angeles National Impeachment Center, which is fielding hundreds of volunteers bearing the group’s anti-war, pro-impeachment message.
Anti-war activist and congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan plans to be in Pasadena as part of that campaign, according to Sheehan’s Web site.
But there also will be members of CODEPINK, the Troops Out Now Coalition, World Can’t Wait, ANSWER, Progressive Democrats of America, the Green Party, Veterans for Peace, and United for Peace and Justice, among other groups.
The parade poses an opportunity for people, particularly those who feel marginalized by the mainstream media, to commandeer some of the spotlight, activists said.
“We’re going to break in the new year and show the media we’re fed up with the blackout on the pro-impeachment and anti-war sentiments in this country,” said Thottam, a former Assembly candidate. “It’s a way of trying to educate Americans exposed only to Britney Spears and O.J. Simpson that there are things going on that matter.”
more on link
pagar
December 26th, 2007 at 8:25 am
“that there are things going on that matter.”” Anti America Americans are destroying this country and many Americans are setting back and allowing the Anti American crowd to win.
texaspsue
December 26th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
From Reason:

The Tony Snow Show
The former White House press secretary talks about President Bush, declining party loyalty, liberal media bias, and more.

By Shikha Dalmia

According to Karl Rove, ex-White House press secretary Tony Snow is to his former post what Mick Jagger is to rock stars (Rove meant it as a compliment). During his year-and-a-half-long tenure with the Bush administration, The New York Times congratulated Snow for “reinventing the job with his snappy sound bites and knack for deflecting tough questions with a smile.” Snow even won plaudits from Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who told the one-time Fox News Channel host, “I really respect you as a person and I like what you bring.”

How did Tony Snow—a 52-year-old movement conservative brought on board by a conservative administration to revive a conservative agenda—win over the liberal media? One answer is his deep-seated modesty, which made him serious even as it protected him from self-seriousness. He was able to put aside his own agenda and go to bat on behalf of an embattled president without appearing disingenuous, even though he had made mocking the president a daily sport in his previous job as a Fox News radio commentator and newspaper columnist.

In fact, Snow’s daily briefings with the White House press corps—a crusty and confrontational bunch whom he called his “customers”—were so full of his patented brand of repartee that they were dubbed “The Tony Snow Show.” During one such briefing last year, Helen Thomas, the curmudgeonly 86-year-old correspondent for the Kings Feature Syndicate, launched into a soliloquy chastising the administration for failing to stop Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Snow patiently waited until she finished, then smilingly thanked her for offering “the Hezbollah view” of the issue and moved on to the next question.

Snow has been battling colon cancer for several years and cited the need to make more money as the main reason he stepped down as press secretary. Just before he left the White House in September, Snow sat down in his West Wing office with Reason Foundation senior analyst Shikha Dalmia, his former colleague on the editorial board of the Detroit News from 1996 to 2000, for an interview about his experiences as press secretary.

The interview:
http://reason.com/news/show/124040.html.

Okay, so I’m a Tony Snow groupie. I miss seeing his word battling duels with the MSM. They NEVER won. He has so much class! (Much like Rush,Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, et al.)
DGA
December 26th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Nice Deb has an interesting piece written about Fox News losing it’s “Fair and balanced” potential, at:
http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2.....-balanced/
BillK
December 27th, 2007 at 2:32 am
From the AP:

NRA Lawsuit: New Orleans Gun Owners’ Rights Violated During Katrina Firearm Seizures

NEW ORLEANS — The National Rifle Association has hired private investigators to find hundreds of people whose firearms were seized by city police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to court papers filed this week.

The NRA is trying to locate gun owners for a federal lawsuit that the lobbying group filed against Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley over the city’s seizure of firearms after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.

In the lawsuit, the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation claim the city violated gun owners’ constitutional right to bear arms and left them “at the mercy of roving gangs, home invaders, and other criminals” after Katrina.

The NRA says the city seized more than 1,000 guns that weren’t part of any criminal investigation after the hurricane. Police have said they took only guns that had been stolen or found in abandoned homes.

NRA lawyer Daniel Holliday said investigators have identified about 300 of the gun owners and located about 75 of them. Some of them could be called to testify during a trial, he added.

“Finding these folks has been a nightmare,” Holliday said. “That is really the guts of our case — to establish that there was indeed a pattern of the police going out and taking people’s guns without any legal reason to do so.”

n April 2006, police made about 700 firearms available for owners to claim if they could present a bill of sale or an affidavit with the weapon’s serial number.

An attorney for the city and a police department spokesman didn’t return a reporter’s telephone calls Wednesday. …

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318478,00.html

Of course the MSM will, as usual, paint them as wildly out-of-the-mainstream gun nuts, but the seizures in New Orleans were absolutely the worst kind of government excess - at a time when the New Orleans government could not do anything to guarantee the safety of its citizens, they also worked to remove the ability for citizens to defend themselves. (Hint - the looters, rapists and others running rampant post-Katrina weren’t exactly turning over their guns.)
BillK
December 27th, 2007 at 2:37 am
From Fox News:

Sen. Kerry Gets Wish — Wider Broadcast of New England Patriots’ Game This Weekend

WASHINGTON — The New England Patriots’ shot at history Saturday night will be available to every television viewer in the country after months of wrangling.

Their game against the New York Giants, in which the Patriots could become the first NFL team to go 16-0 in the regular season, was originally scheduled to be shown only on the NFL Network. Fewer than 40 percent of the nation’s homes with TVs receive the channel.

The league announced Wednesday that the NFL Network feed will be simulcast on NBC and CBS. It’s a major concession by league officials, who repeatedly said they would not show the game anywhere but the NFL Network. The NFL had faced mounting pressure from lawmakers in recent weeks to make the game available to more viewers.

Local TV affiliates in the Boston, Manchester, N.H., and New York areas who were already set to simulcast the game under NFL policy will still air it.

The NFL has feuded with major cable companies, who have declined to carry the network as part of basic packages.

“We have taken this extraordinary step because it is in the best interest of our fans,” commissioner Roger Goodell said. “What we have seen for the past year is a very strong consumer demand for NFL Network. We appreciate CBS and NBC delivering the NFL Network telecast on Saturday night to the broad audience that deserves to see this potentially historic game. Our commitment to the NFL Network is stronger than ever.” …

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318474,00.html

Yes, Kerry once again shows the Democrats care.
BillK
December 27th, 2007 at 2:48 am
From the Rocky Mountain News:

Kid suit sets off storm

Angry calls, e-mail bury Pa. couple in ski collision case

By Sara Burnett

The Pennsylvania couple suing an 8-year-old and his father over a January skiing accident have been the victim of “an electronic tar and feathering” since stories about the case began circulating on the Internet, the couple’s attorney said Monday.

David Pfahler and his wife, Marlene Ambrogio, have had to leave their Allentown home for the holidays because people who got angry after reading the story tied up the family’s phone lines using “robocalling” technology, or repeated, automated calls, attorney Jim Chalat said.

Others have called Reader’s Digest, where Pfahler works, and demanded he be fired.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Chalat, whose Denver law firm also has received angry e-mails and calls.

He said the couple are “brokenhearted” by the way they’ve been portrayed.

“The public’s just got this couple all wrong,” Chalat said.

Pfahler, a former teacher and basketball coach, and his wife sued 8-year-old Scott Swimm and his father, Robb Swimm, in federal court in September.

The lawsuit claims Scott Swimm ran into Pfahler at “a high rate of speed” while skiing at Beaver Creek in January.

Chalat said Monday it doesn’t matter how old a skier is. Under the Colorado Ski Safety Act, children are just as responsible for their actions as adults, and they can be sued, according to case law cited by the lawyer.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re 8, 18 or 80,” he said. “Skiing is not a contact sport.”

Pfahler was downhill from Scott Swimm when the boy hit him, according to the lawsuit. The Ski Safety Act states that the uphill skier has the duty to avoid any person in front of him.

Robb Swimm, of Eagle, said his son “tapped” Pfahler’s ski boots and added it was not a violent attack.

His wife, Susan Swimm, said Scott couldn’t have been traveling faster than 10 mph.

But on Monday, Chalat said the impact was so strong that Pfahler was thrown and landed with his skis in the air.

He was taken to a local hospital, where his shoulder was immobilized. He returned to Pennsylvania, where he underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff and a procedure to repair part of his clavicle, the lawsuit states. Since then, he has undergone “extensive” physical therapy, according to the lawsuit.

Chalat said Pfahler sent a letter to the Swimm family after he returned home, asking them to help pay his $35,000 of medical bills. He never heard back, Chalat said.

The Swimm family could not be reached Monday afternoon to confirm or deny Chalat’s version of events.

In September, Pfahler filed his lawsuit, which seeks compensation for medical bills, time missed at work, lost vacation expenses and other costs.

Last week, in an interview about the case, Susan Swimm said Pfahler’s actions boggled her mind.

“Who in the world sues a child?” she asked. …

http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....ets-storm/

OK, I’m a skier, and have seen my fair share of careless skiing on the slopes, but I find it hard to believe a 45 pound 8 year old could possibly hit an adult that hard without crowds of adults helping the injured skier nail the kid to the wall.

It’s just sad that this type of thing has to go to trial.

One of the fun things is an earlier article quoted the figure they’re suing for includes compensation for the care his wife gave him.
BillK
December 27th, 2007 at 2:57 am
From the AP:

Aspen police crack down on paparazzi

ASPEN, Colo.—It’s the holidays in Aspen and the paparazzi are out in force in the ritzy ski town in search of celebrities.

Police, meanwhile, are in search of celebrity-seeking photographers who get in people’s way and block streets and sidewalks.

“We have reached the limits of frustration with the paparazzi,” police Sgt. Bill Linn said. “If (a celebrity) can’t walk down the street unimpeded, then the photographers are going beyond the scope of what’s acceptable.”

About a dozen celebrity hunters blocked the doors at a pharmacy on Sunday. Following a recent flood of complaints, police are enforcing a city ordinance against people obstructing streets, walkways and entrances to buildings open to the public. Offenders could face a $75 fine.

Police get six or seven police calls about pesky paparazzi daily. Linn said on Sunday, there were more complaints about photographers than calls for accidents on the town’s busy, slippery streets.

A handful of complaints come from the celebrities themselves, but locals are fed up, too, police officer Chip Seamans said.

“Most of the calls are from citizens that are offended by them,” Seamans said

Celebrity photographers often check in with the police department when they arrive in town. Seamans said the photographers can be friendly and insist that they’re “just doing their job.”

When the stars show up, however, the paparazzi get aggressive in pursuit of the next glamour shot, Seamans said.

“It’s definitely extreme this year,” Seamans said.

Some photographers have contacted the police out of fear for their safety.

Tim Lankins, a 5-foot,11-inch, 240-pound construction worker, got in a shouting match when a crowd of photographers blocked his way Dec. 18. The photographers were scrambling for a shot of supermodel Heidi Klum leaving a home furnishings store.

Lankins said the photographers got aggressive and he didn’t mince words when confronted by one of them.

“I told him where I was going to stuff his camera,” Lankins said. …

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_7811584

Ah, the difficulties of being an Aspen police officer. :D
BillK
December 27th, 2007 at 3:06 am
From the AP:

Couple in Boulder land feud state case in letter

Richard McLean and Edith Stevens hope to restore “peace” and avoid a “media frenzy.”

BOULDER — A couple targeted by protesters after a judge awarded them part of their neighbors’ land in an adverse- possession case explained themselves in a letter to friends.

Richard McLean and Edith Stevens have told reporters they would not comment publicly about the case because their neighbors Don and Susie Kirlin have said they plan to appeal the judge’s decision.

In Colorado, adverse-possession law allows someone to gain possession of property after using it unchallenged for 18 years. A judge in October granted part of the Kirlins’ land to McLean and Stevens, who said they had been using it to access their backyard for 25 years.

The Kirlins have said the award amounted to about a third of the disputed lot on which they planned to build their dream home.

But in a letter to friends, McLean and Stevens said that the Kirlins never intended to build a dream home there, that the land in question is 11 percent of the Kirlins’ total land, and that the Kirlins could still build a dream home on land they still own, the Daily Camera in Boulder reported in Sunday editions.

The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter from a recipient who wished to remain anonymous.

Stevens told the Camera the letter was meant to be private. In the letter, McLean and Stevens asked recipients not to release its contents to the media.

McLean and Stevens said in the letter that they never trespassed on the Kirlins’ property, they did not make the claim of adverse possession to protect a scenic view, and they did not use any connections within the court system to help their case, the Camera reported.

McLean is a former judge, and Stevens is an attorney.

“The trial was fair,” the letter states. “We retired from the legal world long before the trial. We had never met the trial judge, who was appointed by Gov. Owens in the last year or two.

“The Kirlins lost and are, understandably, upset about losing, but they still have legal avenues to pursue that do not involve creating a media frenzy,” McLean and Stevens wrote.

“We still hope that we can reconcile our differences with the Kirlins and restore peace in our neighborhood and community,” the letter says. …

http://www.denverpost.com/boulder/ci_7796392

Note that the wonderful legal logic involved in this case includes McLean and Stevens saying they couldn’t have been trespassing on their neighbors’ land because their neighbors never sued them for illegal trespass.

So unless a civil suit is filed, no crime is committed, and of course the neighbors never intended to build because they hadn’t yet.

What a very judicial way of thinking.

Here’s the letter in question (in PDF format.)

Note that a central issue in this letter is that this judge and lawyer got upset when their neighbors hired a surveyor without consulting them and started to build a fence along the property line without their permission - how dare their neighbors do this on the land their neighbors owned!

Worse yet, they somehow got a judge to issue a restraining order saying the neighbor could not build the fence.

But adverse possession is only in force if the neighbor didn’t object to their use of the property.

Call me a legal idiot, but if their neighbors tried to build a fence, I guess they objected.

I guess that’s why I’m not a lawyer.
navycopjoe
December 27th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Oh Oh!
Bhutto was assassinated!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318510,00.html

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Assassinated at Rally in Pakistan
Thursday, December 27, 2007

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday, shot in the neck and chest before a homicide bomber blew himself up at a campaign rally. Twenty others also died.

The assassin struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. She was shot as she was entering her car. Her attacker then set off his bomb.

Bhutto was rushed to the hospital and taken into emergency surgery.

“At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

“The surgeons confirmed that she has been martyred,” Sen. Babar Awan, Bhutto’s lawyer, said.

The 54-year-old former prime minister’s supporters exploded in anger, smashing the glass door at the main entrance of the hospital’s emergency unit. Others burst into tears. One man with a flag of Pakistan People’s Party tied around his head was beating his chest.

Some at the hospital began chanting, “Killer, Killer, Musharraf,” referring to President Pervez Musharraf, Bhutto’s main political opponent. A few began stoning cars outside.

“We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment including jammers, but they paid no heed to our requests,” said Rehman Malik, Bhutto’s security adviser.

Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and opposition leader, arrived at the hospital and sat silently next to Bhutto’s body.
Sharps Rifle
December 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Joe: I doubt it was Musharraf, or anyone loyal to him. Musharraf is no idiot…he knows that if Bhutto is killed, he’s on the chopping block. Now, granted, the average Paki isn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree (note the automatic anti-Musharraf chants), and that’s likely what the killers were counting on: A reflexive response that would destabilize the Musharraf government.

Who stands to gain from Bhutto being killed? Not Musharraf, and for the reason I gave. The islamists who sympathize with the Taliban and al-Qaeda stand to gain. By destabilizing Musharraf, and possibly provoking a civil war, they stand to get ahold of nuclear weapons that they can turn on infidels and those mohammedans who aren’t “pure” enough to suit the 7th Century nuts out there.

Folks, this whole war has just gotten even worse.
navycopjoe
December 27th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I agree with you Sharps, if she was elected, he would have taken over the army and ISI so they would have shared the power.
Also, she was going to clear out the militant north.
Had to be the Taliban/AQ bubbas.
Either way, there will be hell to pay for a while.

I wonder if the libtards are blaming Bush yet?
wardmama4
December 27th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Sharps - quite similar to something I posted on another conservative site.

Always wondered how a Woman could be elected/supported by the Taliban/Sharia set. It just seemed to be a setup to keep the World from prying into Pakistan’s business - while the radical islamists had a place to run to, to hide out in, and wheel and deal in. Now all that fragile and tenuous ‘ally’ which was mostly held tight by Musharraf is probably going to go up in smoke. Can we spell WWIII?

I just have to wonder where the first nuclear missle will be pointed?

And yes navy - the libs will be blaming Bush and probably are already getting their panties in a bunch over their - gasp - Warmongering Bush starting a new War fears!

I guess 2008 isn’t going to be all that much better as far as the GWOT is concerned - here I thought the US was making progress. Damn them all.
BillK
December 28th, 2007 at 1:43 am
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Robber keeps targeting gas station

Man, sometimes armed, brings pals

By Linda Spice

t started with a single can of Red Bull and a few candies. Then the man doing the stealing got a gun and has terrorized employees at a Fond du Lac Ave. Clark station for weeks as he brought friends, flashed his weapon and helped himself to an estimated $3,000 in merchandise, police said Monday.

“He will bring the other guys in and tells them, ‘This is my store’ and say ‘Take whatever you want,’ and he stands there,” store employee Mandy Brar said.

The stealing escalated Dec. 11 when employees, recognizing him, locked him out during a snowstorm. He became angry and fired a shot into the air while standing in the parking lot. At one point, an employee stuck his head out of a door. The man shot but missed.

Between Dec. 11 and Dec. 19, he visited the store, at 6028 W. Fond du Lac Ave. in Milwaukee, nearly every day, said police Detective Shannon Lewandowski.

“He shows the gun and says, ‘You can’t do anything to me,’ ” Lewandowski said.

“It’s ongoing and it’s bad,” she said. “I don’t want anything to happen. I am personally unsettled with it.”

The suspect is described as an African-American male, about 16 to 19 years old, 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 9 inches. He has a light to medium complexion and a thin to medium build. He usually wears a black or gray hooded sweat shirt and carries a silver or black handgun.

Brar said the assailant sometimes comes to the store three to four times a day and doesn’t point the gun at employees but lets them know it’s there.

“They will keep coming back and keep taking the stuff like candies and Red Bulls and whatever they want,” she said.

Store employees have tried to fight back, but to no avail. When one attempted to go after the man with a stick, thinking the suspect was alone, two other men appeared from outside. One grabbed the stick away and began beating the employee. He did not seek medical attention, according to police.

“We call 911 every time,” Brar said. “We have cops over here who also have given me their cell phone (to call) anytime I see him out here. I call them first before 911. . . . The whole District 7 is after them. When I come in in the morning, there is a police car waiting in the lot because of what’s happening.”

Knowing police are looking for him, the man didn’t stop at the store on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, but he returned on Sunday, when employees attempted to lock him in the store, but failed.

Store manager Ish Dhawan said the man told a clerk on Sunday that he knows police are after him.

“He said, ‘They cannot catch me,’ ” Dhawan said. …

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=700393

Modern life in America, sadly enough.
BillK
December 28th, 2007 at 1:58 am
Fron the Los Angeles Times:

A Southern accent on day laborers

By Richard Fausset

ATLANTA — Outside the Home Depot on Ponce de Leon Avenue, no one engages in theoretical debates about whether illegal immigrants are competing for jobs with Americans.

Here, the competition unfolds whenever a truck pulls into the parking lot, its driver looking for day laborers.

On any given day, about half of the 30 or so men waiting to pounce on those trucks are Latinos, many of them undocumented. But the rest are African American men like Sam Gibbs. One chilly afternoon, Gibbs, 47, sprinted like a teenager toward a red pickup, hawking his services to two black men inside.

“Take a brother with you!” Gibbs pleaded. “I’m from South Carolina!” He had beaten out a sizable group of Latinos who soon surrounded the truck.

“Hold on guys,” the driver announced. “I need a drywall finisher.” He said he would pay $9 an hour.

Gibbs backed away. The Latinos began negotiating with the driver, who hired one of them for $12 an hour.

“Drywall finisher — that’s a specialty,” Gibbs muttered as he walked back to his spot on the sidewalk near a Dunkin’ Donuts. “Plus, he was only paying $9 an hour.”

In the Deep South, like the rest of the nation, undocumented Latinos have come to dominate many of the corners and parking lots where day laborers gather. But this region is different because of the high percentage of Americans who still compete with Latino immigrants for such jobs. Although U.S.-born workers make up 7% of the day-labor pool nationwide, they account for nearly 20% in the South, according to a 2006 UCLA study.

Indeed, long before the Southern labor landscape was transformed by a tidal surge of Latin American immigrants, blacks and whites populated the “catch-out corners” in Southern communities, whistling and waving after employers in hopes of “catching out on a job” and pocketing a few tax-free dollars.

Many of the black workers who gather on Ponce de Leon today say that they cannot find regular work. Some have been laid off and some have criminal records or addictions. Others are supplementing a primary paycheck, or prefer to work under the radar, earning wages that are difficult to track. One man said he was trying to avoid court-mandated child support payments that he could not afford.

The black laborers speak of their Latino competitors with a mix of resentment, resignation and tolerance. Many reckon that tougher immigration laws would mean more work for them. But they also suspect that some old, familiar prejudices are energizing the anti-illegal-immigrant movement.

Frustration over the Latino presence was palpable in the loud, strained voice of Anthony Curtis, 42, a burly man in an orange parka. “They pick up the majority of the work,” he said, motioning toward the Spanish-speaking men huddled nearby. “They dominate the corner.” …

http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....7383.story

But even those affected are apparently afraid of being un-PC:

Frustration over the Latino presence was palpable in the loud, strained voice of Anthony Curtis, 42, a burly man in an orange parka. “They pick up the majority of the work,” he said, motioning toward the Spanish-speaking men huddled nearby. “They dominate the corner.”

But when Curtis was asked whether he supported a crackdown on illegal immigration, his voice softened. “That’s a hard thing to say,” he said. “You say that, you’re on a racial-type mind-set. All I’m looking for is equal opportunity.”

Will the South be where the issue finally comes to a head?
BillK
December 28th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Uh oh.

From the AP:

Tiny Monkey Dies After Being Smuggled Into NYC Under Owner’s Hat

A small monkey stashed in a man’s hat during a flight to New York has died, but federal health authorities don’t know why.

The fist-sized tamarin showed no signs of illness during a quarantine period, Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokeswoman Shelly Diaz said Wednesday. The agency had lifted the quarantine and was trying to find the animal a permanent home when it died, she said.

The primate was seized as its owner got off a plane at LaGuardia Airport on Aug. 7. It apparently escaped detection during a flight from Lima, Peru, and a stopover in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The forest-dwelling creature was spotted after it crept out and perched on its owner’s ponytail during the flight to New York.

The owner was questioned and released. He told authorities he didn’t realize the monkey’s voyage was illegal.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318535,00.html

Aside from the obvious issue of an animal infected wtih Ebola, Marburg or some other dangerous infectious disease getting into the country this way, it could have just as easily been a nuclear device.

But nah, there’s no reason to worry about such things… right?
BillK
December 28th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Count the wild assumptions by the New York Times:

At 60% of Total, Texas is Bucking Execution Trend

By Adam Liptak

This year’s death penalty bombshells — a de facto national moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade — have masked what may be the most significant and lasting development. For the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions took place in Texas.

Over the past three decades, the proportion of executions nationwide performed in Texas has held relatively steady, averaging 37 percent. Only once before, in 1986, has the state accounted for even a slight majority of the executions, and that was in a year with 18 executions nationwide.

But enthusiasm for executions outside of Texas has dropped sharply. Of the 42 executions in the last year, 26 were in Texas. The remaining 16 were spread across nine other states, none of which executed more than three people. Many legal experts say the trend will probably continue.

Indeed, said David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who has represented death-row inmates, the day is not far off when essentially all executions in the United States will take place in Texas.

“The reason that Texas will end up monopolizing executions,” he said, “is because every other state will eliminate it de jure, as New Jersey did, or de facto, as other states have.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....ref=slogin

It’s all the fault of those backwoods hicks in Texas. After all, if the enlightened citizens of New Jersey can outlaw executions, obviously no one could actually support capital punishement…
ATLien
December 28th, 2007 at 2:17 am
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/m.....iddie-porn

NYT Defends Running ‘Kiddie Porn’
By Mithridate Ombud | December 26, 2007 - 14:25 ET

The use of child pornography to sell newspapers was defended this week when New York Times Magazine Editor Gerald Marzorati sent an email defending a photo used in the fashion insert “T”, which shows a 17 year old model, topless, with her left breast partially showing.

Now in case you’re not versed in New York Times values or the proper use of kiddie porn, this is why it’s okay; it’s kind of blurry, it was shot by a “legendary fashion photographer”, she’s got a $4000 coat around her waist, and the section makes about $5 million in advertising revenue which was responsible from moving NYT stock rating to a “buy”.
[Recommend story on Digg.com]
BillK
December 28th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Shock! Courts of ruled that a city can dictate how much you have to pay your workers based on whatever criteria they come up with.

From the Los Angeles Times:

L.A. living wage law is upheld

The ruling means hotels near LAX will have to pay salary and benefits of at least $10.64 an hour to their workers.

By Steve Hymon

A controversial law that requires hotels near Los Angeles International Airport to pay a so-called living wage was upheld by a state appeals court panel Thursday, providing a significant victory for elected officials and the labor interests that have long sought the ordinance.

The 3-0 ruling by a panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles means that the city can now implement a law that would provide salary and benefits equal to $10.64 an hour to workers at a dozen LAX-area hotels. The law had been struck down in May by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe, who sided with business interests and ruled that the city had not made sufficient changes from an earlier version of the ordinance.

The law is groundbreaking because living wage laws in the United States are usually applied to government contractors. The law in Los Angeles went a step further, targeting the hotels because they generate so much business from the city-owned airport.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hailed the decision as a victory.

“I have always supported the alternative ordinance, which the court upheld today, because it balances the right of workers to receive a living wage with the concerns and needs of business,” he said in a statement issued by his press office.

The law will most immediately affect about half of the 3,500 hotel workers, with the other half already making more than $10.64 an hour. But periodic cost-of-living adjustments to the living wage probably will result in a raise for most of the 3,500 workers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....4206.story

It’s good to know that cities can now mandate wages based on say, distance from city hall.

This also shows Los Angeles is of course a master of doing things under-the-covers:

Brendan Huffman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., also criticized the ruling.

“This ruling legalizes political bait-and-switch tactics,” he said. “Over 100,000 voters signed petitions to qualify a referendum” against the ordinance, “and the City Council found a way to quash the referendum and keep the wage ordinance.”

The ordinance had long been sought by Unite Here, a union that is attempting to organize workers at the hotels covered by the ordinance, as well as labor interests in the city. The most notable proponent was Maria Elena Durazo, the former head of Unite Here Local 11 and now the chief of the 800,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which has shown a willingness to spend thousands of dollars on city political campaigns.

The council passed the first law in late 2006, and Villaraigosa quickly signed it. Hotel owners and business leaders from across the city cried foul, arguing that the council was doing an end run around the state minimum wage, which is $7.50 an hour.

The hotel owners then gathered signatures to put a referendum on the law on this year’s May ballot. Faced with that threat, and the expense of holding a citywide election, Villaraigosa and the council agreed to rescind the first ordinance and replace it with one intended to appease business concerns.

The new ordinance had some incentives for businesses near the airport — such as money for street beautification — and wording that promised that the council would not try to extend the law to other parts of the city. Business interests sued, arguing that the two ordinances were similar and that the council had merely been trying to avoid a nasty referendum fight.

Villaraigosa in the pocket of the unions? Nah, don’t even suggest it.
pagar
December 28th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Infiltrating the Pentagon Article

“”Gertz says that a Muslim aide to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England is pressuring Pentagon advisers to “take a softer line.”

A LGF Post explains how the America military is being prevented from winning the war on terror by Very High Ranking Pentagon officials. When will the destruction of America by Americans end?
crosspatch
December 28th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Apparently a break-in was attempted at a South African nuclear facility

http://www.commentarymagazine......nfeld/1635

It made page 29 in the Washtington Post. Over a week ago.

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