Gay Singers and Queer Juries

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Here's a shocker: Lance Bass of 'N Sync is gay. If only this had been confirmed back in 1998 when he was worth something; oh the fun we could have had with this story. Now we wait for the tape to emerge on the internet of what really happened on that tour bus.

But on a more serious note, the woman who systematically murdered her five children in a bathtub was found not guilty today by reason of insanity. She will spend some time in a state hospital until doctors determine she can released back into society amongst those of us who haven't systematically murdered our five children in a bathtub.

So I guess the type of insanity that would force a woman to drown her five children is a temporary one.

Democrats Fight to Weaken Parental Rights

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

It's not a ban on abortion. It's not a restriction on abortion. It's a bill that would make it a crime to drive a pregnant minor across state lines to get an abortion without notifying her parents. So why does Hilary Clinton think a lot of girls will die because of this? Well according to Democrats we live in a country of abusive parents who rape their children and force them to give birth to their bastard offspring.

This bill should have passed without objection:

WASHINGTON - A bill that would make it a crime to take a pregnant girl across state lines for an abortion without her parents' knowledge passed the Senate Tuesday, but vast differences with the House version stood between the measure and President Bush's desk.

The 65-34 vote gave the Senate's approval to the bill, which would make taking a pregnant girl to another state for the purposes of evading parental notification laws punishable by fines and up to a year in jail.

The girl and her parents would be exempt from prosecution, and the bill contains an exception for abortions performed in this manner that posed a threat to the mother's life.

Struggling to defend their majority this election year, Republican sponsors said the bill supports what a majority of the public believes: that a parent's right to know takes precedence over a young woman's right to have an abortion.

"No parent wants anyone to take their children across state lines or even across the street without their permission," said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "This is a fundamental right, and the Congress is right to uphold it in law."

Bowing to public support for parental notification and the GOP's 55-44-1 majority, Democrats spent the day trying to carve out an exemption for confidants to whom a girl with abusive parents might turn for help. It was rejected in floor negotiations.

Democrats complained that the measure was the latest in a series of bills designed chiefly to energize the GOP's base of conservative voters.

"Congress ought to have higher priorities than turning grandparents into criminals," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

No one knows how many girls get abortions in this way, or who helps them. But Democrats say the policy would be dangerous to pregnant teens who have abusive or neglectful parents by discouraging other people from helping them.

"We're going to sacrifice a lot of girls' lives," said Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., countered that opponents "want to strip the overwhelming majority of good parents their rightful role and responsibility because of the misbehavior of a few." He pointed out that the judicial bypass provision would help pregnant teens with abusive parents get around the law.

Ted Kennedy is worried about grandparents becoming criminals if the bill becomes law. I am worried that without it adults who have sex with children have no problem discarding the evidence, as was the case in Ohio where parents are seeking records of an unauthorized abortion their minor had who was impregnated by a 21-year-old. The boyfriend claimed he was her brother and was successful in getting a Planned Parenthood clinic to abort a child that was conceived illegally by a man who shouldn't be having sex with minors.

But the Democrats in the Senate know their support and money come from pro-abortion groups who oppose any legislation whatsoever that would make it a tad more difficult to get one, even though all we're talking about is making sure parents are aware that their daughter is being carted off somewhere to get her uterus scrambled.

Senator McConnell got it right. You can't even begin to justify allowing a minor across the street without their parent's permission, let alone into another state. But this bill doesn't even require permission - as it should - it simply requires that parents be notified so, you know, if a child doesn't make it back home after a long road trip they at least have an idea of where to begin their search.

That Democrats are currently trying to prevent this bill from ever reaching the president's desk is a telling sign of what we can expect to come if Democrats pick up considerable ground in this November's election.

What a Sad Little Man

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Someone didn't get enough attention from his father as a child:

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Keith Olbermann was eagerly anticipating his first meeting with Bill O'Reilly. It didn't happen.

The feuding cable TV personalities both attended a charity fundraiser thrown by New York Yankees manager Joe Torre last November. Olbermann picked up his name tag and spotted O'Reilly's tag on the table.

"He never got within 20 feet of me," Olbermann told the Television Critics Association's summer meeting Saturday. "I swear to God, every time I looked up, he would suddenly look down. He was staring over at me. But we're about the same height, so I really don't think he's going to come talk to me. If I were about a foot shorter, I'm sure there would be a confrontation of some sort."

During his "Countdown" show on MSNBC, Olbermann regularly tweaks O'Reilly, whose "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox is No. 1 in the cable TV news ratings. Olbermann generally runs third in the same time slot.

O'Reilly has referred to Olbermann - although not by name - as a "notorious smear merchant" and pointed out his low ratings.

Nothing is more transparent than Keith Olbermann's publicity whoring in his attempt to prove that MSNBC isn't a complete joke. He's the Tom Green of journalists who would dress up like Greta Van Susteren if it meant another puff piece by his friends in the mainstream media. If you haven't seen his show, you're not alone. He can't get anywhere near O'Reilly's numbers but is always talking about how he is "the worst person in the world."

Interesting, I don't recall Olbermann doing anything to get tougher laws passed across the country against sex offenders. Oh, but that would require influence of which he has none.

Silenced for Mentioning Jesus in Public

Saturday, July 15, 2006

It's a fruitless lawsuit but I'm all for it if it embarrasses the fascist administration for its handling of the student whose speech was too taboo for a graduation ceremony:

LAS VEGAS - A high school valedictorian who had the plug pulled on her microphone as she gave an address referring to Jesus Christ has filed a lawsuit against school officials, claiming her rights to religious freedom and free speech were trampled.

Brittany McComb, 18, said she was giving her June 15 commencement address to some 400 graduates of Foothill High School and their family members when the sound was cut.

"God's love is so great that he gave his only son up," she said, before the microphone went dead. She continued without amplification, "...to an excruciating death on a cross so his blood would cover all our shortcomings and provide for us a way to heaven in accepting this grace."

McComb's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Nevada, names the principal, assistant principal and the employee of the school in Henderson who allegedly pulled the plug.

McComb said she was warned that her speech would be cut off if she did not follow an approved script that deleted references to Christ and invitations for others to join the faith. But she memorized the deleted parts and said them anyway.

"In my heart I couldn't say the edited version because it wasn't what I wanted to say," she told The Associated Press. "I wanted to say why I was successful, and what inspired me to keep going and what motivated me. It involved Jesus Christ for me, period."

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that school officials deprived McComb of her rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, The Rutherford Institute, the conservative legal group backing the lawsuit, said in a news release.

High school students have no free-speech rights, at least not in a broad sense because we all know how creative students are - and what often happens when their behavior goes unchecked in the name of free speech. For example, what if instead the valedictorian claimed she had a First Amendment right to say something inappropriately vulgar? (Pretend for just a moment that there's something worse than mentioning God in a speech.)

So I expect the lawsuit to go nowhere but at least the story is getting publicity. People around the country are getting to see just how ridiculous the politically correct forces are. McComb did not proselytize or encourage her fellow students to believe in Jesus. She simply credited God's "only son" for her success, and she should have been afforded the few minutes to say so without interruption.

Of course the ACLU could care less about Brittany McComb because they're more concerned about the students who have the right to not hear the word God. I mean, there could have been atheists in the crowd and hearing the forbidden three-letter word might have offended them.

ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein was happy with the school's decision, saying "Proselytizing is improper in school-sponsored speech at valedictorian graduations."

Proselytizing? Thanking God is now a form of proselytizing? Did I miss the part in the story about McComb passing around Bibles or a signup sheet for potential converts during the brief speech? Of course, if she credited "Sex and the City" reruns for her straight-A performance we wouldn't be in the mess. But alas, what got her through high school is the one thing too dastardly to mention before a graduating class.

Opposing Election Legitimacy in Georgia

Friday, July 14, 2006

Here's yet another constitutional right invented by a federal judge: the right to vote without being asked to identify yourself. Absurd? Of course it is, but not as absurd as the idea that blacks and the poor aren't capable of getting of photo ID.

But it's true according to a federal judge:

ROME, Georgia (AP) -- The same federal judge who threw out Georgia's voter ID law last year blocked the state Wednesday from enforcing its revised law during this year's elections.

U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy's ruling, which he delivered verbally from the bench, was much broader, also including the November 7 general elections and any runoffs.

If the rulings stand, Georgia voters will not have to show a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot this year. The state's primary election -- which would have been the first election for which the IDs were required -- is scheduled for Tuesday.
Murphy said the state's latest attempt at requiring voter photo IDs discriminated against people who don't have driver's licenses, passports or other government-issued IDs.

"That is the failure of this legislation as it stands," he said.

In October, the judge rejected a more-stringent voter ID requirement, saying it amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax because of the fees associated with getting the required ID.

This year, the Legislature passed a law that made the IDs free and available in all counties.

Murphy commended lawmakers for addressing problems with the previous version but said more work is needed. The latest version still denies citizens equal protection under the law, he said.

So it costs not a single penny to get a photo ID in Georgia, but to require one in order to vote is somehow an act of discrimination against the poor. Then we have critics who say the law was implemented to dissuade blacks and other Democrat-supporting minorities from going to polls, so therefore we compare a legitimate law aimed at stopping voter fraud to a racist poll tax.

But unlike the poll tax, a law requiring a photo ID is easy to overcome; all you have to do is get a photo ID! And did I mention they're free? Oh, but of course there's an excuse as to why even that is unreasonable. Maybe the next charge will be that the law is unfair because it "discriminates" against those who just don't like getting their picture taken.

Carolla Creams Coulter

Thursday, July 13, 2006

I must congratulate Adam Carolla for his impressive victory over conservative powerhouse Ann Coulter the other day. In a fierce debate between the two on his show, Carolla was so intellectually superior that Coulter couldn't make even a single argument...of course it was kind of impossible for her to do so considering Carolla dropped her from the show.

Queerty couldn't have been more impressed, bragging that Coulter "met her match." The exchange went like this:

ADAM CAROLLA: Ann Coulter, who was suppose to be on the show about an hour and a half ago, is now on the phone, as well. Ann?

ANN COULTER: Hello.

CAROLLA: Hi Ann. You’re late, babydoll.

COULTER: Uh, somebody gave me the wrong number.

CAROLLA: Mmm… how did you get the right number? Just dialed randomly — eventually got to our show? (Laughter in background)

COULTER: Um, no. My publicist e-mailed it to me, I guess, after checking with you.

CAROLLA: Ahh, I see.

COULTER: But I am really tight on time right now because I already had a —

CAROLLA: Alright, well, get lost.

Damn those liberals are smart. Here I thought they had reached the apex of their intellectual dominance over conservatives by mastering the art of pie-throwing, but now they have figured out how to achieve the same effect by simply cutting off their microphones.

You Can Thank the Feminists

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

I've always wondered if the feminist movement did more harm than good to their fellow sisters. To some feminists I am a women-hating misogynist just for asking. To be sure, women have come a long way because of feminism. Now they can get abortions, work 9-5 jobs, and die on the battlefield as a member of the US. Military. And according to a new study, the more hours a woman works the more she suffers from a host of detrimental effects.

Whatever it takes to reach equality:

LONDON (Reuters) - Working long hours has a greater negative impact on women than men because it makes them more likely to smoke, drink coffee and eat unhealthy food.

Both sexes consume less alcohol if they spend more time working, researchers said on Wednesday, but toiling extra hours makes women crave unhealthy snacks.

"Women who work long hours eat more high-fat and high-sugar snacks, exercise less, drink more caffeine and, if smokers, smoke more than their male colleagues," said Dr. Daryl O'Connor, a researcher at Britain's Leeds University.

"For men, working longer hours has no negative impact on exercise, caffeine intake or smoking," O'Connor said in a statement released by the Economic and Social Research Council, which funded his study.

O'Connor's team of scientists were studying the impact of stress on eating habits. They looked at what causes stress at home and at work and how people react to it.

The results show that one or more stressful events such as making a presentation, a meeting with the boss or missing a deadline was linked to eating more between-meal snacks and fewer or smaller portions of fruits and vegetables.

"Stress disrupts people's normal eating habits," he said.

The people who were most vulnerable were so-called emotional eaters.

"These individuals have higher levels of vulnerability and tend to turn to food as an escape from self-awareness," O'Connor said.

"When they feel anxious or emotionally aroused or negative about themselves, they try to avoid these negative feelings by turning their attention to food."

The same stress also impacts the household when a working woman takes it home. It leads to unstable relationships. It leads to divorce. It leads to children spending more time in daycare when both parents are away from the home.

And as more women enter the workforce an increasing number enter the prison population - at a higher rate than any other demographic. More women are seeking employment opportunities than ever before, but more are also seeking criminal opportunities.

But it's worth it to feminists. They still have work to do, and probably won't rest until gender-segregated bathrooms are a thing of the past, every NFL team has at least one female linebacker, women are on the front lines in battle, and life-expectancy becomes indistinguishable between the genders.

I admit I'm not a woman, and I have no idea what it's like to desire an unrealistic level of "equality" between the sexes. But in light of everything that has happened as a result of the feminist movement, was it really such a bad thing being a housewife who spent more time running a family than working overtime in a stressful office?

More Guns, Less Crime

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

It's a war zone here in Florida if you read the Brady Campaign press releases. We're an "F+" state because we hate our children and want to kill them all with handguns, but the statistics tell a different story.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida's crime rate dropped for the 14th straight year in 2005 to its lowest mark since 1971 because of tougher laws, increased financial support from the Legislature and law-abiding citizens with guns, Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday.

"This report shows that staying tough on crime works," said Bush. "Law abiding citizens that have guns for protection actually probably are part of the reason we have a lower crime rate."

The crime rate, compiled by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, decreased 3.7 percent from 4,855 crimes per 100,000 people in 2004 to 4,677 crimes per 100,000 people last year.

Last year Bush signed a bill that allows people who feel threatened on the street, in a bar, at a ball game - or just about anywhere - to "meet force with force" to defend themselves without fear of being prosecuted.

"You send a real powerful signal when you know the citizen has a good potential of being armed and doesn't have to back off anymore," said John Birch, president of the Illinois-based Concealed Carry, Inc.

Opponents, however, have said the idea would legalize shootouts in the streets.

A telephone message left for comment after hours with the The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, D.C. was not immediately returned (Go figure; emphasis mine).

"The people that commit the majority of the crimes are habitual offenders," Bush said. "They're the ones that commit a crime after crime after crime."

Which is why we need tougher sentences for habitual offenders. Too often you hear about a young girl taken from this world by a depraved sex offender. And every time we ask why their exhaustive criminal history hasn't kept them behind bars.

Why is John Couey currently on trial for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl when he never should have been out of prison in the first place? If it wasn't enough that he broke into the home of a sleeping 12-year-old to cup her mouth and kiss her, maybe the last straw should have been the time he masturbated in front of a 5-year-old girl and had her touch his genitals. Forget the fact he was convicted for burglary and illegally concealing a handgun, that's the small stuff on his rap sheet. After committing unspeakable acts to two young girls on two separate occasions, why was he allowed to be around a third - a third who was raped, murdered and buried alive?

But I digress. We know Florida has a long way to go, but making it easier for law-abiding citizens (you know, those of us who don't expose ourselves to young girls) to possess firearms is a giant step in the right direction.

Penn and Friends to Go a Day Without Fine Dining

Thursday, July 06, 2006

But two days is just too much for the rich and famous:

SEAN PENN, SUSAN SARANDON and WILLIE NELSON are just some of the big names who will be lending their support to anti-war activist CINDY SHEEHAN's hunger strike.

Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed while serving in Iraq, began her "Troops Home Fast" protest outside the White House on Independence Day. Her plan is to abstain from eating and consume only water and juices throughout the summer.

Penn, Sarandon and Nelson, meanwhile, will participate in a "rolling fast" along with actor DANNY GLOVER, author ALICE WALKER and nearly 3,000 activists nationwide. The concept involves each participant to refuse food for 24 hours on designated days and then pass the fast over to the next individual.

I've never understood the point of hunger strikes other than the fact that they make for great publicity stunts. Cindy Sheehan opposes the war in Iraq so much that's she going to go the summer without eating. Why? Will her going on the brink of starvation change the hearts and minds of the Bush administration? We know what her cause is, and we know she's supported by our friends in Hollywood whom we are told will go on their own little 24-hour hunger strike - though it's debatable just how hungry you could get by going only one day without food.

Liberal Professor Feels Violated by Justice Scalia

Supporters of criminal rights were enraged when the Supreme Court ruled in Hudson v. Michigan this term to weaken the exclusionary rule and allow evidence to be submitted at trial even if collected improperly. Among them was a liberal professor whose own theory was used against him by the smartest justice on the Supreme Court.

In his piece titled Scalia got it wrong in police ruling for the L.A. Times, professor Samuel Walker fumes over the decision:

A FRIEND e-mailed me last week with exciting news -- the Supreme Court had cited one of my criminal-justice policy books in an important, late-term decision. My law professor friends tell me that being mentioned by the court is a huge deal. And my 93-year-old mother in Cleveland will certainly be impressed that her son has finally done something worthy of note

Alas, as I surfed the Net for news about Hudson v. Michigan, my excitement turned to dismay, then horror.

First, I learned that Justice Antonin Scalia cited me to support a terrible decision, holding that the exclusionary rule -- which for decades prevented evidence obtained illegally by police from being used at trial -- no longer applies when cops enter your home without knocking.

Right of the bat, Walker exposes his political identification by calling the ruling "a terrible decision" as he obviously believes in the merits of the exclusionary rule. It's no surprise whenever this professor disagrees with Scalia, especially when he incorporates his own writings.

What caught me off guard in Walker's piece is the part that reveals just how liberal he is when it comes to the Supreme Court and his vision of how it should be deeply involved in political matters governing our country:

Scalia quotes my book, "Taming the System: The Control of Discretion in American Criminal Justice," on the point that there has been tremendous progress "in the education, training and supervision of police officers" since the 1961 Mapp decision, which imposed the exclusionary rule on local law enforcement.

My argument, based on the historical evidence of the last 40 years, is that the Warren court in the 1960s played a pivotal role in stimulating these reforms. For more than 100 years, police departments had failed to curb misuse of authority by officers on the street while the courts took a hands-off attitude. The Warren court's interventions (Mapp and Miranda being the most famous) set new standards for lawful conduct, forcing the police to reform and strengthening community demands for curbs on abuse.

Scalia's opinion suggests that the results I highlighted have sufficiently removed the need for an exclusionary rule to act as a judicial-branch watchdog over the police. I have never said or even suggested such a thing.

To the contrary, I have argued that the results reinforce the Supreme Court's continuing importance in defining constitutional protections for individual rights and requiring the appropriate remedies for violations, including the exclusion of evidence.

Walker accuses Scalia of misrepresenting his opinion, but all the justice did was use the same findings to come to a different conclusion. Walker believes the exclusionary rule has required law enforcement to reform its policies over the years and that it should continue. Scalia believes it is no longer necessary. The difference is Scalia has a much better constitutional argument to make while Walker has to rewrite the purpose of the judicial branch...and admits it:

The ideal approach is for the court to join the other branches of government in a mix of remedies for police misconduct: judicially mandated exclusionary rules, legislation to give citizens oversight of police and administrative reforms in training and supervision.

No single remedy is sufficient to this very important task. Hudson marks a dangerous step backward in removing a crucial component of that mix.

But the Supreme Court was never supposed to "mix" with the other branches to do whatever today's criminologist feels is important. The Court was created specifically as an independent branch to correct legislative wrongdoings among a limited number of other things unrelated to this topic. Laws governing police should be written -- naturally -- by lawmakers.

Libertarians have a right to be concerned about the outcome of this case because police now get more power to conduct investigations. But let's not overestimate the Fourth Amendment. We are protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures." There was nothing unreasonable about the evidence seized from Hudson - even with the police having failed to properly "knock and announce."

So Much for Privacy

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

As it turns out, Rush Limbaugh won't be charged for possessing a bottle of VIAGRA that had his physician's name on the prescription label. VIAGRA, as I am told by the Associated Press reports, is a drug that treats erectile dysfunction, and was confiscated by authorities when Limbaugh arrived at an airport in Miami. Because he had VIAGRA.