SCOTUS (Barely) Stands Up To U.S. Taliban

The Supreme Court, yesterday, said that lower court judges were  wrong in considering solely the religious aspects when they ordered removed  a cross erected Mojave National Preserve by World War I veterans in 1934 as a remembrance of fallen comrades. By a 5-4 vote they sent the case back for the lower court judges to get it right and presumably allow the symbol, which has been covered in plywood, to stay.

The dissenters were as expected the crowd that takes its cues from the Washington Post —  Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Stevens.

I suspect that the confused quartet fail to see that the destruction of an historic cross isn’t much different than the destruction of historic Buddhist statues by the Taliban. Perhaps the Washington Post should point it out to them.

 

Smartest Liberal Publication In The World Covers The President

Smartest Liberal Publication In The World Covers The President — Liberals really are stupid. They are the kind that would tell jokes about Jewish merchants at a discussion on the problems of the Mideast. The problem for the rest of us is that they don’t realize this, and in fact consider themselves rather brilliant. This means that they close their minds and  inure themselves to correction to such a degree  that they  viciously attack those who attempt to provide it. After all, those who deign to disagree with them have to have some kind of serious character flaw such as racism or misogyny.

Anyway liberals really are stupid. The crown jewel of the liberal media establishment is the Washington Post which provides guidance to liberal politicians, bureaucrats, academics and lesser media figures throughout the world.

Yesterday, they ran a story about President Obama pushing alternative energy in Iowa. In lieu of the President’s pix, however, they used one of Malcolm X.

Really.

Expect President Obama to soon send National Security Adviser James Jones to Arizona to deal with our own border crisis. And expect his remarks to go something like this .

Smartest Liberal Publication In The World Covers The President

Philadelphia Inquirer Circ Jumps (Ha Ha)

This year’s spring report by the Audit Bureau of Circulations showed a  jump to 356,189 readers for the Philadelphia Inquirer making it the 11th largest newspaper in the country.

The report covered the six months ending March 31, 2010.

Last year’s March report had the broadsheet at 288,298.

So what accounts for this wonderful bit of news for the ink-stained wretches on North Broad Street? The Philadelphia Daily News is now  considered an edition of the Inky for the  purposes of counting circulation.

Last year, The Daily News had a circulation of 99,103.

So does 99,103 + 288,298 = 356,189? Oh let’s forget the math and not harsh anybody’s buzz. The Philadelphia Inquirer is now the 11th largest paper in the country!!!

Back North

I’m back from the land of fireworks, toll-free roads and 70 mph speed limits. The most jarring reminder might have been the I-95 rest stop in Lower Chichester, where the faucets and flushers were not hands free and the wooden picnic tables were chained to cement pads.

Granted, a year-long $5.9 million renovation project for the station  is supposed to start May 1 which hopefully takes them to where the Southern stops have been for at least a decade.

Maybe it will even have free wi-fi like the Florida Welcome Center. And, no, I’m not suggesting Pennsylvania give out free orange juice.

And GOP lieutenant governor candidate Russ Diamond has reported from the campaign trail that it is snowing outside of Scranton.

A Southern Swing

I just went due south a thousand miles to meet the lovely and wonderful Skyler Jane Lawrence who is even prettier than her picture, and who I suspect will turn out to bet every bit a pretty as older sister Kyley.

The South is an amazing place of 70 mph speed limits and clean roads. People seem to smile more south of D.C. Things happen that may seem funny to Northerners. The employees at a spotless Microtel in Walterboro, S.C. have orders to keep the lobbyTV tuned to either Fox News or the Weather Channel. The owner of a gift store on Jekyll Island — the one next to the “Rah” Bar — asks a woman she just met to watch her shop while uses the restroom.

And a billboard on I-95 a mile or so north of the Florda border asks in large letters “Who Is John Galt?”

Dixie gives you hope for the nation.

Specter Takes Gloves Off With Admiral Joe

So it is a horse race in the Pennsylvania Democrat senate primary.  Showing why he’s not called Snarlin’ Arlen for nothing, the incumbent Specter, yesterday, released a blistering attack ad against challenger Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) called “No Show Joe” in which he notes Sestak was “relieved of duty in the Navy for creating a poor command climate” and has the “worst attendance of any Pennsylvania congressman”.

Until this month , Specter, who is the party-endorsed candidate, had been leading the congressman handily in the polls.

Pass the popcorn.

Lower Merion Surveilled Students

Lower Merion Surveilled Students — Not a rare handful but 56,000 photos of Lower Merion students were taken by the school district’s laptop spy system over the last two years including those of the kids in various states of undress and in their beds.

Also, the websites they visited and online chats they made were also perused by district officials and appear to be the subject of faculty lounge gossip.

As the scandal runs its course probably one or two heads are going to roll at the Pennsylvania district in the Philadelphia suburbs but a whole lot of those tasked with educating the young and who think it quite appropriate to peek into their pupils privacy — for their own good, of course — will remain.

Meanwhile, at Maude Wilkins Elementary School in Maple Shade, N.J., a plan was cooked up to celebrate Women’s History Month by requiring third-grade boys to wear woman’s clothes to school for a day. Cheerleader outfits and poodle skirts were suggested.

The idea was killed by outraged parents but those who conceived and approved it remain.

In every state, children are indoctrinated not educated. They are given information that is often false and against their parents wishes. The propaganda is often not even subtle as this particular item handed out in a Texas classroom illustrates.

So what to do?

It’s time to start recognizing that education is too important to leave to those who are not interested in it, namely those who run our public schools. It’s time to start understanding that those who put roadblocks in the path of removing bad teachers are not interested in education.

And it’s time to start realizing that those who put roadblocks in the path of teachers who want to go beyond the work allowed by their contract are not interested in education.

In the case of Pennsylvania, it’s time to realize that those who refuse to teach or allow others to teach in their place are not interested in education.

The solution is to give parents the power to fire their teachers. This is the genius behind school choice. If teacher isn’t competent or fails to teach what had been contracted, the parent takes the voucher money and gives it to someone who does what is expected.

BTW, this gives the teacher the power to fire the student too, if you will. If the student is a bully who makes life miserable for the other customers, the teacher can and will tell the parent to take the voucher money and give it to someone else, perhaps a specialist in bullies.

America spends $972 billion on education. It’s time to stop wasting it and fire our public schools.

Lower Merion Surveilled Students
Lower Merion School District watches over student Blake Robbins
Lower Merion Surveilled Students

Famous Philadelphia Sports Fans

Matthew Clemmens and Ed Rendell

Philadelphia sports fans took another black eye  when 21-year-old Matthew Clemmens reportedly purposely vomited on an 11-year-old girl at the April 14 Phillies-Nationals game. In this case the black eye was literal as can be seen from Young Mr. Clemmens mug shot  and, with a nod to the presumption of innocence, well -deserved if the reports are accurate.

At least Mr. Clemmens had the excuse of being fat, drunk and stupid.

Clemmens, however, has inspired retrospectives of notable moments in Philadelphia sports fan history that should give some pause. Here is one from NBCPhiladelphia.

The second item describes an incident at the Dec. 10, 1989 Eagles-Cowboys game at Veterans Stadium in which the Dallas players were pelted with ice-balls made from snow the city never managed to get around to cleaning up from a storm several days earlier. Then District Attorney Ed Rendell bet a young fan $20 he couldn’t reach the field with one of the ice balls. Rendell lost the bet but he would go on to become the city’s mayor, the state’s governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

So, Mr. Clemmens take heart. Dean Wormer’s  famous bit advice may not apply to you and your future might be bright after all.

Pennsylvanians, please note. Mr. Clemmens is a resident of Cherry Hill, N. J. while Gov. Rendell is a native of New York City.

 

AP Anti-Pope Distortions

AP Anti-Pope Distortions — First The New York Times , now Associated Press.

Once respected conveyors of information have now become archetypes of bigots.

The New York Times on March 25 accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, of intervening to prevent a priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, from facing penalties for cases of sexual abuse of minors. It was quickly shown to be false.

On April 9, AP put on the wires that the future Pope Benedict “resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children” in 1985.

Well, lo and behold, it seems those pleas were made by the pervert priest himself , Father Stephen Kiesle, who was seeking dispensation from his vow of celibacy.  It seems Cardinal Ratzinger was not inclined to let him off the hook. You think AP might have  thought that worthwhile to mention that tidbit?

Further, abuse cases at the time were the responsibility of the local diocese, in this case Oakland.

This means, IOW, that Cardinal Ratzinger had no authority to remove Kiesle from the ministry. That, however, doesn’t matter in this case because the Diocese of Oakland had already done so after he was after he was arrested in 1978 on misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct and received three years’ probation in a plea bargain. Kiesle, however, went on to do volunteer work which Oakland Bishop John Cummins kiboshed upon learning that he was doing so.

Kiesle was laicized two years after the controversial letter, on the eve of his 40th birthday which was in keeping with the then policy  of not granting dispensations to priests under the age of 40.

Kiesle was convicted in 2004  of molesting a girl in 1995–note: this was eight years after his defrocking. He was sentenced to six years in prison. He lives today in  California as a registered sex offender.

And has anyone ever wondered at why the same crowd that expresses so much outrage at Pope Benedict is equally outraged at the Boy Scouts policy of not allowing homosexual scout leaders?

AP Anti-Pope Distortions

AP Anti-Pope Distortions

Mechanical Failure Reportedly Not Cause Of Osprey Crash

Mechanical Failure Reportedly Not Cause Of Osprey Crash — The April 8 Bell Boeing CV-22 Osprey crash in Afghanistan was apparently not due to mechanical failure according the aviation website  FlightGlobal.Com.

The crash occurred as the craft was landing in a wadi around 1 a.m. under brown-out conditions.

Killed were the pilot, a flight engineer, an army Ranger and a civilian.  Others were injured.

The military has ruled out enemy fire.

The Osprey’s fuselage, cockpit,avionics, and flight controls are built at the Boeing Helicopter plant in Ridley Park with the rest of the machine being built by Bell Helicopter in Texas.

Mechanical Failure Reportedly Not Cause Of Osprey Crash