hat tip to the agitator.
i’ve been following the cory maye case for a while now, the guy was railroaded. here’s an excellent video from reason.tv hosted by drew carey.
please go to reason.tv to digg or reddit it.
just two more victims from the war on drugs.
The mildly disturbing pc/fat da kine: (ed - I am a fat-American, hence biased)
9NEWS - Article - School sends home obesity notices with students, parent upset
Her daughter Isabel was sent home from the Centennial K-8 School on Monday with the health notice. It listed her height, weight and body mass index – a measure of body fat. Underneath the listing it had a marking next to the status “overweight.”
And the truly disturbing, shake to my libertarian core:
The Denver Post - Search of kids’ calls rings false
But what happens if officials confiscated phones and then read all the internal phone messages - many of them sent outside of school hours - to unearth “incriminating” evidence? Where do we draw the line when it comes to the privacy of students?The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado contends that officials at Monarch High in Louisville stepped over the line and committed felonies when they commandeered cellphones, perused text messages, took notes and placed so-called incriminating evidence in the students’ permanent files.
Goddamn. Colorado is making side with the ACLU. I fucking hate that! Transcribing private text messages? Lying about cause, denying parental access? I would throw a fucking fit like you would not not believe if someone tried to pull this shit with/kin-step-kid. Children in private schools surrender certain rights for the ability to attend, however by law these children have to be in school. How is it you force someone to attend, then deny them their most basic right of privacy.
You can yammer on about abortion and prayer in school and all the other bullshit never gonna change 50,000 foot view issues, but this is real time about constitutional rights. Children may have less “rights” as they are protected more under laws, but that does not strip them of all rights. Activities outside of school do can not affect the performance and judgment of those within the school.
This calls to mind the “Jesus for Bong hits” case that went to the supreme court. If it was a school function, then yes, they can control the speech to an extent. However, outside of school activities, there is no right to suspend, expel, or otherwise punish a student for expressing, however dumbass, their own words.
Lying to parents and students about the nature of cell phone confiscation and transcribing personal messages is an affront unforgivable. I will monitor and judge my child’s messaging.
Via the Boston Herald:
Sen. John Kerry hopes to export the successful Boston police Text-A-Tip Crime Stoppers hotline to other big cities by creating a $5 million federal grant for police departments to replicate the program, the Herald has learned.
In a bill Kerry filed yesterday in Washington dubbed “Text A Tip Act of 2007,” the Bay State senator called on fellow lawmakers to create a pilot program that would be run by the federal Department of Justice and would be appropriated by the attorney general.
Kerry said the bill is based on the program created by BPD Commissioner Edward Davis and Mayor Thomas M. Menino in June.
“Boston’s program has been an overwhelming success,” Kerry said in a statement yesterday. “The need for a national program is clear by the facts that tips are now coming into the BPD from around the country.”
I, for one, could not agree more. Anything that works at the local level is bound to work at the national level. I propose the creation of a new bureaucracy to manage a program that, apparently, local police and sheriffs are unable (or too stupid) to create for themselves.
While I’m on it, here in Hawaii, we have those cool wheelie bins that one rolls out to have picked up by a mechanical arm and emptied into the garbage truck. I think there should definitely be federal attention paid to that. When I was last on the mainland, they were still using trash bins without wheels. That’s crazy! I think some sort of task force needs to look into this.
I’ve been listening to the back catalog of Penn Radio podcasts (now dead). When asked why he always responds: “Never better, boss,” to a caller’s inquiry about his state of being, he said (and I paraphrase):
The past is a memory.
The future is a probability.
So I can truly say, always, that as of this moment, I’ve never been better.
This statement resonates on such a level that it approaches the sublime.
Penn is a mad Atheist, which I am not. He is a big-L Libertarian, whilst I am a small-l libertarian. He thinks the greatest book written in the English language is Moby Dick, and he is correct. We are similar in many ways, but different in others, but I have taken something he said and plan to use it as my response to inquiries about my well-being in the future because his formulation is so spot-on that it makes me almost emotional*.
———————————————————-
* My old answer to questions such as “How are you?” was:
“Every day is a good day.”
Many people take this to mean that if you aren’t dead, you are doing well. I let them think this because it is, in many ways, correct. In actuality, it is a koan that highlights the loss of ego. Every day is a good day: just maybe not for you. Someone is having a good day even if yours is shitty. Re: the title of the post.
Discrimination?
Scotsman.com News - International - ‘Women only’ signs make Japan’s men fume
AT THE time, most people agreed it seemed a good idea: carriages on Japanese commuter trains set aside specifically for females would dramatically reduce the number of women being molested by the chikan who get their kicks by having a sly fondle among the tightly packed bodies. And it worked.
…
It has become so common to see “no males” signs outside stores, restaurants, hotels, spas and even entertainment outlets that the victims of this policy are beginning to grumble that they are becoming second-class citizens.
I have seen the comic books, anime and rape movie torrents that come out of Japan. I have seen the clips where boys randomly whip up the shirts or down the pants of women walking down the street. Thats supposed to be funny or entertaining. Ride a japanese subway and you’ll see business men reading a comic book everyone can see where a large bussomed japanese girl is getting raped by an 8 dicked walrus. I have no problem with businesses segregating out men to make women more comfortable.
Second class citizen? How about next time someone is moletsing a women you beat the shit out of them, make it socially unacceptable to have these things in front of women, then maybe you might have a point. (Well, as long as it is private enterprise doing it you don’t, but you should beat them anyways.)
Via DrunkReport
Anyone seen the ads for the Toyota Yaris? Supposably, this mug (a hybrid) will be less than 12K, and get 40 mpg. These are the ads from Prison Break I’m quoting. Any time Dominic Purcell is associated with something, I get lightheaded, since that bastid is the definition of heteroshanehot (he looks like he can kick my ass, and his stuff is symmetrical). It gets 40+ mpg, according to the ads, and that is hot.
I converted a Korean kid to Jinro. I was at Foodland (the Shaws of Hawaii) two weeks ago, and the cashier axed me what this Jinro stuff I was buying was all about. I told him it was a grain alcohol that slightly mimicked sake, bur was of Korean origin, and it gets you hammid secretly with little hangover. To my shock, when I went today to pick up some candy, the same kid (I say kid, but he is prolly 25) said, “Oh, da kine Jinro is soooo ono. I got mad wasted and did no puke. Tanks for da kine recommendation.” My shame is complete.
Anyone who hasn’t gotten into It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia should be ashamed. It’s like Arrested Development had a baby with South Park. Torrent that fucker if you need to. It’s awesome.
Big Love took a while to come around, but it’s pretty pissah now. To reiterate my point about homelessness, but with polygamy (or polyandry) as the example: don’t fuck with how people live their lives. If you think polygamy=child abuse, then prosecute someone for child abuse, not polygamy, not marrying in a way that conflicts with your (modern) Judeo-Christian antics, er, values.
There’s a big hullabaloo about homeless people in Hawaii, now. for the life of me, I can’t figure out what the deal is. Homeless folks in Hawaii like to set up in parks and what have ye, since the weather is nice and they can approximate normal life. That’s a no-go to our government. Why?
If people need someplace to stay, they don’t have the money for a home, and they find a nice patch of land in a park to occupy, then why would anyone boot them from that area? Well, they are drug addicts, safety hazards, etc. would say the critics of allowing homeless folks to squat. Then bust them for those crimes individually, rather than busting them for the state of affairs that lead them to existing in such a way!
Last year, they booted a bunch of folks who were living at Mokuleia Beach. Courtney and I were right pissed about it. Here were folks who had set up semi-permanent shelters, were sending their kids to school, and trying to get by. Some haole tourists, or kamaaina campers didn’t like the ‘eye sore’ of homeless folks occupying their beloved beach, and the true campers (i.e. homeless folks) had to go. How did that turn out? Not so well.
Ah, some might say, you live in a nice community, so you don’t know how dealing with these people causes stress in your life, etc.! Fuck that. I lived a couple blocks from Mokuleia for 3 years, and I got along with them fine. Sure, there were a few more B&Es than I was used to, but I honestly think it was area kids doing that shit. Hell, it was more disruptive living in Allston, halfway between BU and BC , than it was living near all of those teddible homeless folks. Ask Seamus. We spent several hours offroading, siteseeing, and motorcycle riding at Mokuleia during the height of squatting, and we didn’t have any trouble. All of the littering was from local campers who spent the day, threw away their beer cans, and left.
I guess I don’t understand why I am a libertarian. What made me so different from democrats and republicanics? I love Ayn Rand, but I think OS stuff is the bomb-diggity. I have no intention of paying for sex, but I think prostitution should be legal. I am fully ready to kill someone on the battlefield, or anyone who fucks with my family, but the thought of the state executing someone via lethal injection makes me sick.
How different are we libertarians?
I don’t even know where to start with this:
The “Harry Potter” book series may soon be taken off the shelves of all media centers in Gwinnett County Public Schools if a parent’s appeal is successful.
A parent of students at J.C. Magill Elementary School filed appeal forms for each of the books, requesting the wildly popular series be removed from public school libraries.
On the forms, she wrote that she objected to the series’ “evil themes, witchcraft, demonic activity, murder, evil blood sacrifice, spells and teaching children all of this.”
Ah, but don’t miss the best part:
She wrote she had not read the series because it is long, and she is a working mother of four.
I want to know what Sean the uber-Catlick thinks of this.
I’ll tell you why this is a good thing.
Rights. Constitution = individual rights, superior to states rights in turn superior to federal law.
BREITBART.COM - Bush disagrees with South Dakota abortion ban
The bill, which recently gained final approval from South Dakota’s House of Representatives, directly contradicts the precedent set in 1973 when the US Supreme Court ruled that bans on abortion violate a woman’s constitutional right to privacy.The bill grants no allowances for women who have been raped or are victims of incest. Doctors who perform abortion would be charged with a crime. It also prohibits the sale of emergency contraception and asserts that life begins at fertilization.
The governor of South Dakota has indicated he is likely to sign the bill.
You can’t strike down an evil/foolish/wicked/immoral law until it is enacted AND enforced. I hope this thing passes. I hope it passes fast, and I hope they arrest the doctor and the patient. I hope the doctor is a country doctor, mid 50’s who mostly works delivering babies. A hearty country guy who’s ancestors where moonshiners and family still don’t take kindly to revenoors.
He puts up everything he has, along with his patient, and fights it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court then disregards Roe v Wade. It hears all the facts and sides with the rights of the individual.
Constitution = individual rights, superior to states rights in turn superior to federal law.
End the bad law arguement of Roe. Negate States rights over Federal precedent. Side with the individual. This is a tough tough issue. The dumbasses who conceived this law have no patience and no guile. They should have learned from the anti-smoking crusaders. But no, they want to jump right in feet first and shoot the whole wad now. I am grateful for that. They are convinced if Bush put them on the court, they have the majority now, and can get their instant gratification. They are dead wrong.
I truly believe that these idiots will do more good (without meaning to) to solidify a woman’s right to choose than any other group. It will backfire in their faces and it will be beautiful to watch.
This is probably violating all manner of protocols for teh internets, but I have a question for Jake.
How do you react, viscerally, to the politcal musings of the Clan Corcoran? I am thinking specifically of the slightly right-wing bend of our discourse. Hell, lets extend it beyond Jake. What do other folks who weren’t raised on Woodlawn Street think? (Joe da Yuz, Jenn, et al.)
As a way of alleviating any fear you have of your blogmates being fascist Bushitler lovers, I must say that there are two kinds of libertarians: those who were Republicans and said to themselves, “If we don’t want the gubmint interfering, then why do we care about gay marriag we?” and those who were Democrats and said, “I don’t want the government to tell me what to do with my body and speech, so why should I let them determine what I should do with my money, etc.?”
Based on our dearly departed father’s influence, we all came from the former school of thought. The Late Michael never once said he was a Republican before I was in high school, but I have realized lately that he let it creep into conversations and discourse without ever actually saying it.
I guess my point is: ex-Repub libertarians still tend to get ornery about issues of national security and taxes, whilst ex-Demos get ornery about civil liberty-type stuff, so anyone reading our rantings should have a grain of salt ready for tossing.
PS: That’s right, I implied three Corcoran libertarians. Seamus and I became libertarians in the early ’90s, totally independent of each other. It was quite a bonding point, since up until ‘94 or so, we despised each the other. The big deal is that Sean confided to me not a week ago that he is about a full-fledged libertarian (again, probably violating teh internets protocols).
Cheers! and please respond below for anyone who wasn’t a registered repub at the age of 18.
