AM 1310 The Ticket in Dallas is reporting that Terri Schiavo has died. RIP.

Listen to Ticket audio here.

The best single article on the Schiavo case/situation/death warrant/outrage that I have read in the past week or so (and I think I've read nearly all of 'em) is this one by Deroy Murdock published today at NRO.

Faster. Please!

Oh, and by the way, remember that great line of the president's, something about promising the Iranian people that if they showed their desire for freedom, we would stand with them?

Well, they certainly showed it — indeed, there is hardly a day they don't show it — and, so far as I know, we haven't given them any support.

Another good story in today's MR-T dealing with entrepreneurship in Midland. The latest is on Franz Weis's (Local Hero among area motorheads) new aircraft engine venture.

Well known as chief mechanic for Jim Hall's Chaparral race cars and for having built engines for five Indianapolis 500 winners, Weis said the same principles apply with the 600 horsepower Orenda engines Texas Recip LLC will make at VDS near Midland International Airport.

The article makes it sound as if he built 5 engines for Indy cars. The reality is that probably a hundred or more competitive, state of the art, not-inexpensive Indy engines were built in Midland at Weis's shop/engine manufacturing plant.

Competing in the world of aircraft engines has been difficult in the past. We wish Mr. Weis the best of luck and a good business climate for the engine.

Pertinent Footnote: I read nothing in the article about the company applying to the MDC for a grant to "aid" the establishment of their business. I suspect that if this was happening, the pro-MDC MR-T would have mentioned it. Do real entrepreneurs not want the "free" money? Or is it not really free?

Also no mention of MDC grant money in the Tomcat article linked below. Does Tomcat not need it either?

Kudos to John James and his crews at Tomcat for their work on the new Cirque du Soleil set as discussed in this story in the MR-T on Saturday. Check the story out: cool technology in Las Vegas, designed and built in Midland. The MR-T's Ryan Myers, however, must have just returned from Hyperbole School and turned the knob to "11" for this one-sentence opening paragraph:

For its latest permanent production in Las Vegas, world renowned entertainment company Cirque du Soleil turned to Midland-based TOMCAT USA to manufacture the backbone of a genre-breaching spectacle that not only crushes historical conceptions of stage design but also expands Cirque's creative range into the realm of theatrical story-telling.

I guess it did get my attention, so maybe Ryan achieved his goal.

Our own Walsingham once asked the question:

"If you ban a troll from your comments who actually has his own blog but won't post there...is it censorship?".

Of course, the obvious answer is, "Who Cares?"

Having now made his fourth post in roughly 14-1/2 months, our own blog troll Ralph has earned a place on our "Midland Blogs" blogroll with his own blog "Box of Worms". Congratulations.

In an act of overwhelming self-discipline, though, I have banned him from posting in the comments here. I have strongly suspected that 100% of our readership here consists of those who come only to read his powerful commentary and have decided that we need to either sink or swim on our own merit, traffic-wise.

Our city council is divided on the proposed smoking ordinance. The article in yesterday's MR-T indicates that the issue is insufficiently clear-cut at this point for everyone on the council except for Mr. Dufford. (BTW, I recognize that I am relying on the MR-T to be reporting this story accurately...)

Dufford supports the pro-enterprise view to let business owners decide whether they want to be smoke free or not....snip...Dufford said he has an idea on how the council can address the smoking issue. "What I would like to see us do is have an up or down vote on whether Midland becomes smoke free or we leave things the way we are," he said. "I think at the end of the day, have an up or down vote and let the chips fall where they may."

An up or down vote by the council, held right now, would likely be a vote for the proposed ordinance, since Dufford is the only councilman to say he is against it.

The article states in the opening sentence: "As the City Council prepares to discuss on Tuesday whether or not to change the city's existing smoking ordinance, controversy is running high in the community as city leaders ponder which stance to take." Pondering which stance to take! Our leaders do not know which way to go when deciding between freedom of business owners to decide how to run their businesses and the good feeling they will get from telling the business owners how to run their businesses.

Why couldn't one of the councilmen/women state that they dislike smoking, but that this is an issue of freedom and private property? Instead we get:

"I think we talk a lot about people having free choice. But people have the right to breathe fresh air and raise their kids in a healthily and safe environment,"

"There's lot of decisions that we make for the sake of society as a whole and to me, smoking fits into that same category."

"One end of the spectrum is to outlaw smoking altogether and the other end of the spectrum is to allow people to smoke anywhere they want to anytime,"

"The right answer is somewhere in between and my feeling is that if I'm gong to make a mistake, I want to err on the side of public health,"

"Our responsibility as a council to the public health outweighs our responsibility to smokers to make their life more convenient."

"We're going to have to come to a compromise for both smokers and non-smokers and I want to hear as much as I can. After I weigh what each side has to say I can make a more informed decision."

Wow. Are you pro-freedom or not? Are you pro-deceptive data and studies or not? Are you tired of the government continuing to have an increasing say in how you live your life or not?

Continue reading Smoke(r) Free Midland.

We need to see if this guy used to be with our local Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility.

"Some have criticized me as single-minded," Draper said. "But I think my efforts have shown that you can't be apathetic about civic affairs if you want to make something not happen. One citizen can, and did, prevent something from being created."

We could use his consultation on our ED, MDDC, MDC, etc. issues.

I am starting a petition drive to raise the salaries of our Congressmen. They are woefully underpaid. While our nation is at war and we are facing record deficits they still have to oversee the internal affairs of Major League Baseball and instruct the misguided people of Florida on how to deal with medical end of life issues. Their work never seems to end. After listening to some of the insightful comments in yesterdays Baseball hearings, who would not be proud to give a little more of their easily earned money to pay these fine men and women the money they deserve?

Update by Site Admin: A related article by Stephen Chapman:

"We're at war in Iraq, at war in Afghanistan, threatened by Al Qaeda, mired in budget deficits, faced with gargantuan liabilities in Social Security and Medicare, struggling to sustain the fighting capacity of our military forces--and what does this committee think warrants its urgent attention? Whether a handful of overpaid entertainers are taking forbidden pills to improve their performance.

The hearing rests on two well-worn premises that ought to offend the conservative sensibilities of Republicans, who control this committee and Congress. The first is that absolutely everything is a federal responsibility. The second is that the private sector needs incessant guidance from government."

As we have come to suspect over the years, the Associated Press style book declares that anytime a Democratic officeholder does something stupid, no mention is to be made of party affiliation. So it is with this AP article concerning Texas State Representative Al Edwards' (D-Houston, BTW) efforts to bring the power of the state to bear on that great scourge affecting society.....wait for it...."bumpin' and grindin' cheerleaders". From the article:

"'It's just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they're shaking their behinds and going on, breaking it down,' said Edwards, a 26-year veteran of the Texas House. 'And then we say to them, don't get involved in sex unless it's marriage or love, it's dangerous out there and yet the teachers and directors are helping them go through those kind of gyrations.'

Under Edwards' bill, if a school district knowingly permits such a performance, funds from the state would be reduced in an amount to be determined by the education commissioner."

I don't really disagree with what Edwards is saying....but c'mon...is a new state law really the answer to vampish cheeleading? If so, why stop there? How about a new state law forbidding trash talking on a playing field of any sort.

I can see it now: "Unsportsmanlike Conduct on Number 95. Half the distance to the goal and two to five years. First Down!"

The headline reads, "Andrews, Odessa, Midland make bids for Coke's new warehouse."

To the unitiated this means that three cities are deciding how much taxpayer money should be handed over to a company with FY 2004 revenues of $18.16 billion dollars in order to "incent" them to locate a distribution plant in their respective towns.

Distribution centers are particularly location sensitive given a fixed configuration of rail and highway systems in the area in relation to where goods need to be delivered. When you consider the cost of running large trucks (especially with energy prices likely to stay high) back and forth delivering goods, truck after truck, day in and day out....well, a less than optimal distribution facility placement will cause much more money to be lost over time than the three cities combined could ever afford to offer as an incentive.

Meaning?

Meaning Coca-Cola already knows where the plant needs to go. The rest is gamesmanship to up the amount of free money that will be used to "incent" them to put it there.

Worse still, three communities all within forty miles of each other will spend a ton of time and public resources to steal away a company that one of them already has.

Even this will be called "Economic Development" by those who play this game with your money...rent-seekers and rent-seeker seekers alike.

Jessica's Well. A proud member of the Submedia since 2002.

Here are the letters to the editor from Sunday's Midland Reporter-Telegram. Limited time tonight, so limited comment from me, but don't let that hold back your comments. We will hit the high and low points. First, a tally: 3 letters pro-smoking ban, 5 letters anti-smoking ban and one that is anti-wood burning fireplace.

The best of the pro-ban letters:

At the point where someone else has to breathe the air I foul with my smoking, my rights end.

While I understand the various libertarian arguments opposing government power, this is clearly a case where government should use its influence for the public good and prevent smoking in public places.

Continue reading Smoke(r) Free Midland.

Hey, Walsingham! It looks like your character in "Day by Day" is Jan's father. Is that what you and Muir agreed on? It is the spitting image of you. The mustache is perfect...

I caught most, but not all, of Craig Anderson's interview/debate on the smoking ban on Channel 2 tonight. My quick take follows:

1. The one-on-one interview (I did not see the beginning) with Mayor Mike Canon was good. The mayor was pretty direct in answering Anderson's questions but would not answer which way he was currently leaning. He did strongly indicate that there was no movement toward compromise on the part of the Smoke Free Midland folks in the first joint meeting.

2. A session with both Dr. Vogel and Mr. Gunn was enlightening. Mr. Gunn answered the questions asked of him. Dr. Vogel did so much less often.

Continue reading Smoke(r) Free Midland.

The proposed Hotel/Motel "Bed Tax" is dead.

For now.

Fear not, it appears that neither the County nor the City will leave any stone unturned looking for ways to pay for projects that pay for themselves.

From the London Telegraph Online:

"France's National Library has airbrushed Jean-Paul Sartre's trademark cigarette out of a poster of the chain-smoking philosopher to avoid prosecution under an anti-tobacco law."

Before you laugh at the Euroweenies, this kind of nonsense is going on full bore on this side of the pond also. Read this account of the dedication of the FDR monument to see how all the different "affected" interest groups were accomodated. The disabled demanded that FDR be shown in a wheelchair. Before you think that this is for reasons of historical accuracy, be advised that removed from the monument was the traditional fox fur worn by Eleanor Roosevelt (to appease the animal rights crowd) and FDR's cigarette holder....excuse me....FDR's trademark cigarette holder....to appease SmokeFree Midland's sister organization SmokeFree History.

Anyone out there care to tell me why we are not headed this way in Smoke(r)Free Midland?

On the bright side, I suppose that this rampant anti-tobacco nannyism on both sides of the Atlantic will finally free Prince Albert from his can.

Jose Padilla!

A post just for our bottom-feeding buddy, Ralph. Or is this just another box of worms?

Here is a view of the situation in Egypt where gentle pressure is being exerted by the Administration for the country to move toward democracy. The Egyptian Prime Minister begs to differ with our president and his differing is covered by the WaPo and posted at the above link.

The Commissar retorts:

Aboul Zeit's money quote is this one: "The need for Egypt to be a friend of the United States is something I'm sure people in Washington value very much." Translated: "Back off, George. We will only be your friend as long as it's in our interest." He seems very confident in the uninterrupted flow of billions of dollars annually in US aid. I don't know how hard the administration wants to pressure Egypt for democrtic reform, but, in such a contest, the U.S. is not without leverage.

The Middle East continues to surprise with it's people longing for freedom. May that continue.

Long time no link, Comrade!

This, it is one of the things the Manolo he loves about the blogging, the community of the peoples who can together solve the problems, or at least talk the problems into the the ground.

Yep.

It's official. This site has been declared a "Jacko Free Zone".

Let it be known that, I, Walsingham of Jessica's Well have been chosen as the sole channeler of Yurethra, the estranged wife of Ramtha, the 35,000 year-old Spirit-Warrior from ancient Atlantis.

Yurethra appeared to me through my Mozilla based browser in either a Flash Animation or an animated Gif. I am not sure. But it doesn't matter, because she chose me and only me through whom to channel. She actually said that, "Through whom to channel".

This day, I come bearing a message from Yurethra to Ramtha. She says that "he needs to quit hanging out with that pasty (garbled) white (unintelligible) mortal be-yotch and get his dead ass back to the house because there is water coming in everywhere."

Or something like that.

In any event, it should be known that I, Walsingham of Jessica's Well, am the sole channeler of Ramtha's really p*****-off wife.

So, naturally, I own all of the copyrights to Yurethra's stuff in this world.

So, hit the tip jar, wouldja?

Fine. Everybody can crow about Dan Rather's humiliating climbdown yesterday, but there is a real downside to an event like this when a once powerful and trusted high priest of information is brought low by pajama-wearing rubes with computers.

And what is that real downside?

No more Detective Dan Rather stories from David Burge, that's what.

Jessica's Well gets another big scoop! While there have been differing versions and pictures of the car that Italian Reporter Giuliana Sgrena was riding in while she was targeted for death by U.S. Troops thereby vindicating new McCarthyism victim Eason Jordan fired upon at a U.S. checkpoint, only your intrepid PIE-DEMANDING CITIZEN JOURNALISTS™ at Jessica's Well have managed to locate the correct vehicle.

So hit the tip jar, wouldja?

("Pie-Demanding Citizen Journalist" is a Trademark of Protein Wisdom and Jeff Goldstein. Would that he could actually reserve any rights to it. Boy, would he love that.)

Amazing. I leave town for a while only to return to find out that I was responsible for the phrase "penile implant" showing up in an actual news article in the Reporter-Telegram for probably the first time ever.

Of all of my barbed comments, I am not sure that is the one I would have picked. It seemed more at home on the internet.

But then again...they did print it so it may not be as rough as I thought. Maybe back to back to back Cialis, Viagra, and Levitra advertisements on the television have...er....softened things a bit.

How fast is the blogosphere?

Pretty darn fast. Remember back when everyone thought Drudge was the fastest thing around?

Well, Drudge has been running all day with with this bogus story about how the public version of Saddam Hussein's capture was a made up story.

But Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs burst that bubble hours ago.

Come to think of it....since his greatest hit, Monica's Blue Dress, has Drudge made any real impact in years?

OK, it's quiz time. Which prolific blogospheric writer wrote the following:

If not, I’m taking this candle back. Yes, I burned half of it, but it smells like someone rubbed basil in a camel’s groin. They were upfront about the basil part, but not a word on the label about the dromedary odor.

Go here to read the whole thing. Outstanding. As usual.

So the Memogate trail includes a stop at one of my favorite eateries on the way to Fort Worth or Dallas...whoda thunk it?

This article by Joe Hagan, datelined Eastland, Texas (I've probably stopped at that restaurant, too) is an attempt to follow the Memogate story through the lying and obfuscation smoke screen that CBS is laying down. Burkett apparently sat down with Hagen to tell his side of the story.

Read it all. Via Drudge. This is probably the first real reporting on the Absolute Train Wreck for CBS News and Dan Rather that is the Burkett/Killian "documents" story. And it may be the last, too. See ya, Dan!

By the way, what was that frequency?

UPDATE: More here as we commemorate Dan's last day at the helm of the (fatally holed and listing heavily to port) good ship CBS Evening News:

It is not a gross disservice to remember Dan Rather's career as a long trail of heavily biased, corner-cutting, liberal-flacking and conservative-trashing journalism. It is also not incorrect to remember Rather as a Bush-loathing, Hillary-hailing, Fidel-flattering, Gorbachev-groveling, Saddam-sweet-talking insult to the ideals of objectivity and professionalism.

And here, here and here. Read. Enjoy. Comment.

The best line of the Goodbye To Dan Article Linkage above comes from Jim Geraghty:

Rather not only doesn’t get “it,” the light from “it” takes several years to reach Planet Dan.

Heh.

UPDATE II: The article that caused me to begin this post this morning contains a point that bears emphasis. That point is that the protagonists were clearly timing the TANG "document" story to affect the election. It was stated at the time by the blogosphere accusers, but was immediately denied: The story had its own timing and it just happened to coincide with the final run up to the Presidential Election. No one outside the Mainstream/Has Been Media bought that explanation, but CBS stuck with it.

Now Hagen turns up the line quoted in my headline: the road to the White House leads through the Clyde Whataburger. They weren't talking about Bush 43's road to the White House in 2000, were they? No, they were talking about Kerry's road in 2004. And that a stepping stone on Kerry's road to the White House was the presentation of the "documents" to CBS in that Whataburger. And this was the discussion in September, not November or December after the election.

There are federal charges that can be brought to bear on folks that try to tamper with elections. Why are they not being pursued in this case?

On Sept. 2, 2004, Mr. Smith and Ms. Mapes met with Mr. Burkett and his wife, Nicki Burkett, in a Whataburger restaurant in Clyde, Tex. They discussed the possibility of procuring the Bush National Guard documents. Mr. Smith had worked with Ms. Mapes on a number of 60 Minutes and CBS Evening News pieces starting in 2000. He was hired again as a freelancer in August to work on the National Guard story.

"The road to the White House leads through the Clyde Whataburger" was the group’s joke.

Mr. Burkett gave them one of the documents that day.

More Midland blogging news: Wallace at Big Gold Dog has had an anniversary of great import. Go by and hand over some well deserved kudos.

Also, while Ruminations has gone on hiatus, Jeff McDonald, late of mywesttexas.com and currently operating newswest9.com, has started up ArcheoTexture.

I have updated our blogroll accordingly...which, the way things are going, should then be current for at least a couple of days.

The Reporter-Telegram did indeed have the article on local bloggers that was mentioned earlier, and it is a surprisingly in-depth piece. What is great is that it is not just one piece on local bloggers but appears to be a series on the whole blogging phenomenon.

My personal reaction to the article: Very even handed and a lot more in-depth than I expected. When 'interviewed' for this back in August, I expected a much smaller article published much sooner. Mr. Doreen did a lot more than collect a few quotes from a few local bloggers. He did a lot of research and (I am guessing here) probably reads blogs regularly when he is not researching them specifically. In short, he 'gets' the blogosphere.

Also, we have been critical of the MR-T at times and this would have been a perfect chance to return some fire. He did not. The subject was the blogosphere and he stayed on topic showing a self-restraint that we could emulate a bit more here than we do.

Some corrections, both minor. 1) Instapundit registers around 175,000 visitors a day; 2) On the sentence, "Included among the commentators, according to Site Admin, are two former public officials." This is a easy misinterpretation of what I said. I meant that I am aware of at least two former elected officials among those who regularly comment in the comments sections open to the public. There are no former or current elected officials who are one of the six contributors to the site.

I wouldn't want anyone looking askance at anyone else at the next few sets of public meetings.

Today's installment of the series involves the issues that surround "employees" who blog. One wonders if this series has already taken it toll on the local blog scene because new local blog "Ruminations" has apparently been taken down.

I look forward to the rest of the series.

Lastly, because it is free and easy for me to do, I have provided all of the questions that were asked by Mr. Doreen and the full answers. The answers that were provided purposely focused on blogging itself rather than just this site because the bigger story is a lot more interesting than any one blog. Especially if this is that one blog.

If what we read in the blogospere is true, then this morning there will be in the Reporter-Telegram an article on local blogs. I was one of many to answer questions provided by the MR-T. The article itself will have to cover several other bloggers and opinions so as is normal with print media, our complete responses will have to be truncated to make room for that Buick ad next to the article.

Being on the internet, we have no such restraints (or any restraint at all, if you ask some) so you can see the complete set of questions that we were asked by the MR-T and also see there our complete responses.

Wow. Where to even begin with this one. The Midland Development Corporation has written the first of a series of $70,000 checks to W Power and Light, a local electricity re-seller.

The short story that you are supposed to get from this is that the MDC will pay up to $210,000 to this local startup and because of this "incentive" a company will be created that hires from 23 to 39 employees over the next year or so and creates a payroll in excess of $1,000,000. Better yet, the average annual salary will be in the $40,000-$50,000 range. So, for our measly $210,000 we get 39 new jobs!

Let us go to the article....which, frankly, will be indistinguishable from the press release soon to show up on the MDC's website:

"Receiving incentive money doesn't come without responsibility, according to W Power & Light President Kevin Yung, whose Midland-based company is ready to keep its part of a $210,000 deal with Midland Development Corp."

Totals of 23 jobs and $1 million in annual salaries and wages are what W Power & Light has committed to, according to a deal approved by the MDC in October 2004."

The question that is never asked: How many fewer jobs would have been created without the "incentive"? Regardless of what you read in the press releases provided by both the MDC and the MR-T, W Power and Light will hire the number of employees required to service its customer base. No more. No less. The only numbers in play regarding these jobs is how many the MDC can claim credit for. The choices there are zero if they don't write WP&L a check...or...every last one of them if they do, now and forever.

"The installments are forgivable loans with employment obligations, which if not met, will force W Power to repay anywhere from $105,000 to the entire $210,000."

At which point the MDC goes completely nuclear/medieval/draconian on them and *shudder* converts these forgivable loans to *gasp* interest-free loans. The Horror! That'll show 'em to not make good on their commitments!

"James said incentive money brings with it the burden of a company's having to live up to its end of a deal. MDC officials said they know offering public money to private companies has opposition or at least creates skepticism."

This dovetails nicely with the headline to the article itself which reads "New local power provider promises performance in exchange for deal". Let me get this straight: The parties involved all agree that this company will have an even greater motive to succeed by virtue of the fact that, should they not succeed, a greater portion of the money that was lost was not their own but someone elses? And not even a true someone, either. A nameless, faceless Joe Taxpayer that "only has to pay $80/year on average" to the MDC Sales tax. That brings additional pressure to perform?

"W Power has moved into the ground floor of Century Plaza at 310 W. Wall Ave. The building is owned by TCTB Partnership Inc, a majority-owned subsidiary of W Power's parent company, Amen Properties of Midland.

According to TCTB's Jon Morgan in a previous Reporter-Telegram report, W Power will eventually fill three floors of the downtown building and exceed its commitment of 23 jobs, hitting 39 by 2007 and 50 by 2009."

One hopes that additional tax money was not required to incent the principals to locate their startup in their own newly-purchased building.

"Yung said the average salary for jobs could exceed the $40,000-50,000 range."

Imagine a movie set that contains 20 extras from Central Casting. And Tom Cruse. Now figure its average salary. Figures listing the mean, median, and range of these salaries provides the real information.

"'To a community like this, $250 million is a good payroll,' Yung said."

I should say it is! But...er....what does that have to do with anything? (Perhaps this is just a misquote or lacks proper context. -Ed.)

All part of the nearly $700 million dollars spent on like projects over the past two years (in Texas alone) in order to "level the playing field".

I can think of another way to level the playing field.

Charles Krauthammer on Syria:

" Bashar Assad has succeeded Saddam Hussein as the principal bad actor in the region. Syria, an island of dictatorship in a sea of liberalization, is desperately trying to destabilize its neighbors. The Hariri bombing is universally believed to be the work of Syria. The orders for last Friday's Tel Aviv bombing, designed to blow up the new Palestinian-Israeli rapprochement, came from Damascus. And we know that Syria is sheltering leading Baathist insurgents who are killing Iraqis and Americans.

There was a brief Damascus Spring five years ago when Syrians began demanding more freedom. Assad repressed it. Now 140 Syrian intellectuals have petitioned their own government to withdraw from Lebanon. They signed their names. The fear is lifting there, too. Were the contagion to spread to Damascus, the entire region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian border would be on a path to democratization.

This could all be reversed, of course. Liberal revolutions were suppressed in Europe in 1848, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Tiananmen Square in 1989. Determined and ruthless regimes can extinguish revolutions. Which is why the worst thing we can do is "engage and empower" tyrants.

This is no time to listen to the voices of tremulousness, indecision, compromise and fear. If we had listened to them two years ago, we would still be doing oil for food, no-fly zones and worthless embargoes. It is our principles that brought us to this moment by way of Afghanistan and Iraq. They need to guide us now -- through Beirut to Damascus."

Read the whole thing.

Dave Letterman takes one for the team:

"LETTERMAN: Did not exist. That evaporated. Secondly, they could not prove the documents were false. They could not prove they were true and accurate, but they also could not prove they were false

RATHER: That's correct.

LETTERMAN: That's a push right there."

More here from Michele Malkin, Powerline, and here is the transcript courtesy of RatherBiased.com.

And this, from Power Line, does the heart good. Secretary Rice (in non-Matrix attire) with her security detail in Europe.

Memogate star Mary Mapes is peddling a book. Who is surprised? Little Green Footballs reminds us of why she is attempting to defend the indefensible.

...she actually plans to argue the Killian documents are legitimate...

Read it all.

"By a 5-4 margin, [The Supreme Court of the United States] reversed death sentences for prisoners convicted of crimes committed while juveniles; however, the Court ruled that states may voluntarily terminate prisoners as "extremely late-term abortions" under Roe v. Wade."

This and other news of recent Supreme Court actions can be found here.

A couple of paragraphs is all James Lileks requires to make more sense of the proper place of broadcast standards than can be found in a years worth of posts at The Buzz Machine.

" Exhibit A: Chris Rock at the Oscars. I was not offended. I did not go white as a Byrd weekend rally costume when he said naughty things. I’ve heard worse. I’ve said worse. I just think that the tone of public discourse should strive to angle up, rather than down. Others feel there’s something liberating in the use of earthy, honest language. On one side, Donna Reed in a dress and pearls; on the other, a hoochie mama in a thong. I would suggest that the proper model is Donna Reed wearing a thong under the dress. Propriety in public, relaxed standards in the personal sphere. Behave yourself on the public airwaves, but for the paying customers feel free to relax the standards. “The Wire” and “Carnivale” and “The Sopranos” are three of the finest TV shows I’ve ever seen, and not one belongs on broadcast TV; not one would be the same if subjected to the same standards of language and nudity. And what, exactly, is Rep. Ted is worried about? The article doesn’t say, but I suspect he lumps narsty PPV pron in with Showtime soft-focus mild-core drivel. And if he doesn’t, someone will. There’s a certain mindset that sees Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction and sees no problem; there’s another that sees a dank crude stupid S&M routine at the Superbowl and groups it with a flash of teat on a cable movie. I don’t want either group setting the standards. Think of it this way: broadcast TV and radio is the front porch; cable and movies and satellite radio is the living room with the curtains down. We can all censure the man who stands on his own porch and moons the world while employing the full panoply of English cursewords. We have no business parting the curtains to see if he’s in the comfy chair reading Henry Miller. "

Access to ideas and information are at an all time high with cable, satellite, the internet, desktop publishing, etc. but some think that the nation is in peril if the poor, persecuted, but somehow still ubiquitous Howard Stern is not able to say whatever he wants out of my daughter's Barbie radio.

Sorry, Mr. Jarvis, not letting Howard Stern stand naked on his porch is not censorship. It is merely conforming to standards that have been in place since there was such a thing as public airwaves and broadcasting. It makes much less sense to argue about that now, today, when technology has provided so many alternatives to these exhibitionists to link up with the enthusiastically exhibitioned.

Having said that. Senator Ted Stevens is dead wrong with his attempts to apply these public airwave broadcast standards to subscription based services.

The "news" is just too much today. First there is this article on a speech given by the lovely Mrs. Will Smith to some students at Harvard:

“Some of the content was extremely heteronormative, and made BGLTSA members feel uncomfortable,” he said.

This stuff is beyond parody.

Ofole U. “Fofie” Mgbako ’08, a performer in the Cultural Rhythms show who watched Pinkett Smith’s speech, said he thought the speech was “insightful.”

Then there is this:

Aurora police have reviewed a weekend incident in which a man accused of stealing salad from a Chuck E. Cheese salad bar was hit with a stun gun twice by officers and said that proper procedures were followed.

And then there is this:

"I want to reach out to people who are worried about values," Dean said. "We are going to embrace pro-life Democrats because pro-life Democrats care about kids after they're born, not just before they're born."

Like I said, beyond parody. Yo. Howard. They do have to be born first to be able care about them afterwards.

All via the indispensable Matt Drudge and his legion.

Another in Walsingham's "Five Bucks Says" series:

Five bucks says the Citizens For Taxing Other People Not Me Fiscal Responsibility surface for the first time in a while to oppose the College's Bond Proposal.

Why?

Simple. It involves an increase in the property tax. That is when they show up. The CFR didn't involve themselves in anything that caused an increase in the sales tax, i.e. the Stadium, or the Rent Seeker's Trust Fund Economic Development tax.

The only question that remains...have they promised Louisa Valencia a south-side elementary school in return for her support?

And did she take the deal?

The number of Midland bloggers continues to increase.

New to the art, vocation, hobby, time-killing endeavor is Sinking Feelings.

WFB on Hunter S. Thompson:

"One can be sorry that Hunter Thompson died as he did, but not sorry, surely, that he stopped writing."

Ouch.

And here is a picture guaranteed to set every tooth in the Willis/Dean wing of the Democratic Party on edge.

So, what is it now? Oh, yeah.

Chimpy McBushitlerburton, The World's Dumbest Fascist: 752

Moonbats: 0

Has anyone else noticed how much more attractive Lebanon's protesters are than our own?