World News Korner

Courtesy of HuffPo:

The head of RedState Women, a new Republican PAC in Texas aimed at rallying women voters for GOP gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, got a little tripped up on Sunday trying to explain the GOP's alternatives to the equal pay laws they oppose.

Cari Christman, executive director of the PAC, told WFAA that Republicans oppose the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act because "women want real-world solutions to this problem, not more rhetoric." The law, signed by President Barack Obama in 2009, allows women to file a claim against pay discrimination when she discovers it, not a limited amount of time after the unequal pay began.

When asked what her proposed solution to the gender pay gap might look like, she began repeating the point that women are "busy."

"If you look at it, women are extremely busy," she said. "We lead busy lives, whether working professionally, whether working from home, and times are extremely busy. It's a busy cycle for women, and we've got a lot to juggle. So when we look at this issue we think, what's practical? And we want more access to jobs. We want to be able to get a higher education degree at the same time we're working or raising a family."

Well that..uh...that makes..uh.....what just happened?

And since when does Sarah Palin wear a blonde wig?

I think Greg Abbott's new campaign slogan should be, "Vote Greg Abbott, the perfect candidate for those who just don't know WHAT the hell is going on."

P.S. Just in case you don't realize that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is a whole lot more than simply "rhetoric."

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Photo courtesy of Facebook

Courtesy of Post Star:

Nearly a thousand gun registration forms were turned into ashes Sunday.

The forms are used for people to register with New York State Police firearms that meet the state’s definition of military-style assault weapons. The deadline is April 15. Gun rights advocates gathered at the Saratoga-Wilton Elks Lodge 161 to burn the papers in a symbolic protest.

E.J. Stokes, leader of the Warren County chapter of New York Revolution, said he was participating because he believes in the U.S. Constitution.

“Once the Second (Amendment) falls, the rest will go with it. It’s an unconstitutional law, done in the middle of the night with no input from the public,” he said.

The event was organized by the NY2A Grassroots Coalition. NY2A co-founder Jake Palmateer said the goal is for people not to register their assault weapon as an act of civil disobedience.

“We are opposed to registration because the evidence is clear that registration leads to confiscation,” he said.

This fear of confiscation has apparently been given new life by a Canadian broadcaster who claimed that the same thing had happened there. He works for Sun News, which unsurprisingly in referred to as "Fox News North."

In fact Canada DOES have fairly aggressive gun registration policies. Which has resulted in an incredibly low number of gun deaths.

This from Business Insider:

The U.S.'s neighbor to the north also has outstandingly low gun casualty statistics. In 2009, there were 0.5 deaths per 100,000 from gun homicide — only 173 people. Still, the ownership is comparatively high — there are 23.8 firearms per 100 people in the country.

There is no legal right to possess arms in Canada. It takes sixty days to buy a gun there, and there is mandatory licensing for gun owners. Gun owners pursuing a license must have third-party references, take a safety training course and pass a background check with a focus on mental, criminal and addiction histories.

Licensing agents are required to advise an applicant's spouse or next-of-kin prior to granting a license, and licenses are denied to applicants with any past history of domestic violence. Buyers in private sales of weapons must pass official background checks.

Canadian civilians aren't allowed to possess automatic weapons, handguns with a barrel shorter than 10.5 cm or any modified handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most semi-automatic assault weapons are also banned. As a result of exemptions, several kinds of assault weapons are still legal in Canada, although this has been the source of some controversy.

And guess what, so far losing access to those automatic weapons has NOT resulted in martial law or the emergence of a police state in Canada, which is the conspiracy theory used by the NRA and 2nd Amendment fetishists in this country to argue for no gun registration or control at all.

Call me crazy, but the idea of having fewer automatic weapons on the streets, and low gun casualty statistics like those enjoyed by Canada, does not exactly make me terribly sensitive to the concerns of the chubby old guys who fear that losing their shiny black penis extender will negatively impact their manhood.

We need to make a change in this country, and it needs to happen now.

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As all of you know the idea that the religious community is under attack by liberals, and that their rights are being trampled on repeatedly, is a constant theme on conservative and religious websites and news outlets.

However Robert Boston of Salon has listed all of the special rights afforded to religious organizations in this country, and why the truth is quite the opposite.

Here is that list:

• Religious groups enjoy complete tax exemption, a very powerful and sought-after benefit.
• Unlike secular nonprofit groups, houses of worship are not required to apply for tax-exempt status. They receive it by mere dint of their existence.
• Houses of worship are assumed to be tax exempt as soon as they form. This exemption is rarely examined again and is revoked only in cases of extreme fraud (such as someone claiming that the entity he or she has formed is a church when it’s really a for-profit business). Houses of worship are free from the mandatory reporting obligations that are imposed on secular nonprofit groups. For example, secular groups that are tax-exempt must fill out a detailed financial form and submit it to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) every year. This document, called a Form 990, must be made available for public inspection. Houses of worship and ministries are not required to fill out and submit these forms.
• Religious entities are not required to report their wealth to any government agency. The question often comes up about how much money houses of worship raise every year or what the value of the land they hold is. There is no way of knowing this because they are not required to tell anyone.
• The IRS has the power to audit individuals and secular groups at the merest suspicion of wrongdoing or financial irregularities. Houses of worship, by contrast, are very difficult for the IRS to audit. This is so because Congress passed a special law governing church audits that requires the IRS to show heightened scrutiny before initiating such procedures. In addition, church audits must be approved by highly placed IRS officials.
• Religious groups enjoy a loud and robust public voice. They own television and radio stations all over the country (all tax exempt, by the way). They own publishing arms, and they maintain various outreach sites on the Internet. The ability of religious groups to proselytize and spread their theology is limited only by the imaginations of their leaders.
• Across the country, religious groups own a network of hospitals, secondary schools, colleges, social-service agencies, and other entities that often enjoy a cozy relationship with the government. Many of these institutions are subsidized directly with tax funds—even though they may promote religion. In recent years, religious groups that sponsor charitable services have seen themselves open to a host of new taxpayer assistance through the so-called faith-based initiative.
• Religious groups are often exempt from laws that secular organizations must follow. A house of worship or a ministry can fire employees at will if those workers violate (or are merely suspected or accused of violating) some tenet of the faith. A religious school, for example, could fire a woman who becomes pregnant out of wedlock. A corporation or a secular nonprofit would not be able to do this. In many cases, religious groups are free from following even basic laws designed to promote health, safety, and general welfare. Houses of worship are routinely exempted from laws designed to improve access to facilities for those with disabilities, for example. In some states, daycare centers and other facilities sponsored by religious groups are wholly exempt from routine inspection laws.
• Many religious groups engage in extensive lobbying on Capitol Hill and in the state capitals. Under federal law, there is virtually no regulation of their lobbying activities. Federal law exempts from oversight “a church, its integrated auxiliary, or a convention or association of churches that is exempt from filing a Federal income tax return.” This means that, unlike other groups, religious organizations are not required to report the money they spend attempting to influence legislation or to register their lobbyists. In rare cases, some states have tried to impose minimal regulations, such as public financial-disclosure reports, on houses of worship. The religious groups often fight such laws and call them an infringement of their religious-liberty rights.
• Many legislators are quick to placate religious groups and the clergy. The results of their lobbying campaigns are often successful. In the 1990s, when some religious groups began to complain about experiencing difficulties with zoning issues and the ability to build houses of worship where they pleased, Congress was quick to pass a special law called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. This law essentially trumps local zoning regulations with a federal fiat—even though, for many years, zoning had been considered a matter best handled by local officials.
• Religious groups are often treated with special deference in cases of suspected law breaking. Anyone who doubts this need not look beyond the experience of the Roman Catholic Church during the pedophilia scandal. A secular corporation that engaged in such a massive cover-up and acts of deception would have found its top leaders behind bars. Yet in that scandal, only a handful of relatively low-level clergy were held accountable.

Boston tacks this disclaimer at the end of his list:

I have created this list not necessarily to criticize or call for changing these policies (although some of them are overdue for scrutiny) but to make the point that the leaders of religious organizations have very little reason to complain. Their position is an exalted one. They are well regarded by lawmakers, and their institutions are not only tax supported in some cases but are also beyond the reach of secular law. What they are experiencing is not persecution; it is preferential status.

I have always been aware of the special rewards and privileges enjoyed by organized religions in this country, but I have to say that seeing them all listed out like this is making me sick to my stomach.]

All that, and STILL they demand more, while demanding that others have less.

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Courtesy of Wired:

Car dealers fear Tesla. In states across the country, powerful car dealer associations have lobbied to ensure the electric car maker and its direct-sales model are kept out. This movement claimed another victory this week when New Jersey banned Tesla stores in the state.

On the surface, the fear is hard to fathom. In New Jersey, for instance, sales of Tesla’s $70,000 Model S reportedly number in the hundreds. But if you dig a little deeper, it becomes obvious why dealers are worried. They don’t just fear Tesla’s cars. They fear Tesla’s plan to create a world where you never have to bring your car into the shop again.

The first and most striking way Tesla kills the dealer service department cash cow is downloads. As part of its sales pitch, Tesla says you should think of its Model S sedan as “an app on four wheels.” That may sound like vacuous Silicon Valley marketing copy, but the company isn’t just being metaphorical. Software is at the heart of what keeps Teslas running. These internet-connected cars are designed to self-diagnose their problems. The vehicles can also download software fixes or updates — even new features — much like an iPhone when Apple puts out a new version of iOS. When fixes happen over the air, there’s no need for a shop in the first place.

The ability to repair a car via software is especially important when the vehicle itself consists of so much new technology that traditional mechanics don’t know how to fix. The flip side is that without an internal combustion engine, there’s not as much to fix. I’ve written before that a Tesla without its outer shell looks like a cell phone on wheels. It’s basically just a big battery. That means no spark plugs, no air filters, no fuel pumps, no timing belts. In short, Teslas don’t have any of the parts that force you to take your car in for “regularly scheduled maintenance” — services that can cost dearly at the dealer. But it’s hard to charge for an oil change when there’s no oil to be changed.

As you can imagine a vehicle that requires no gasoline and no oil changes, would drive the oil companies into a near panic.

And so it has. Enough so that it has a long history of working against the electric car industry.

I think there is little doubt that this is the wave of the future, and speaking just for myself, the idea of a car that can self diagnose and solve problems via the internet is incredibly attractive.

However, and I almost hate to bring this up, before this country puts all of its eggs in the electric car basket, we need to completely overhaul our electrical grid, beef up security, and move to more solar power to meet our energy needs.

Right now we are incredible vulnerable to sabotage, and before we dispense with fossil fuel powered cars altogether that must be addressed.

However in the meantime I am looking forward to helping my daughter purchase a car that will NOT leak oil all over my driveway, and one which I can plug into the wall to charge rather than to stand in the freezing cold at a gas station spending money to support oil producing countries in the Middle East.

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You know I realize that was kind of comical looking but there are heavy lights hanging over the heads of those anchors and diving under the desk like cowards could have been the only thing that saved their lives.

It kind of reminds me of when I was kid and we had a substitute teacher from out of state, who reacted to a short, but rather powerful, underground jolt by screaming, diving under her desk, and yelling at the class to do the same.

Instead we sat there laughing at her.

She never really did get our attention again for the rest of that class.

By the way Dennis Zaki is in LA right now working on some TV deals, and when I e-mailed him to ask if he had felt the quake he wrote back, "Nope, sleeping."




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Judge Elizabeth Foote

Courtesy of Raw Story:

The parents of a Buddhist student in Louisiana ridiculed by a creationist teacher won their lawsuit against the school district, the American Civil Liberties Union revealed Friday.

The student, known as C.C., was asked by sixth-grade teacher Rita Roark to answer the following question on a test: “ISN’T IT AMAZING WHAT THE _____________ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

When C.C. failed to respond “Lord,” Roark responded “you’re stupid if you don’t believe in God.” She also frequently denigrated his Buddhist faith, as well as the Hindu faith, referring to both as “stupid.” When his parents complained to Sabine Parish Superintendent Sara Ebarb, they were told that “this is the Bible belt,” so they should expect to find the Christian God in the classroom. Ebarb advised them that if they wanted an ungodly classroom, they should transfer C.C. to a school where “there are more Asians.”

Judge Elizabeth Foote of the U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana sided with C.C. and his parents, citing that Roark’s behavior — and the school’s decision to defend it — clearly violated “the Free Exercise and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

With regard to the specific behavior of Roark, Judge Foot wrote that “[t]he District and School Board are permanently enjoined from permitting School Officials at any school within the School District to promote their personal religious beliefs to students in class or during or in conjunction with a School Event.” Furthermore, “School Officials shall not denigrate any particular faith, or lack thereof, or single out any student for disfavor or criticism because of his or her particular faith or religious belief, or lack thereof.”

The judge also ordered all the members of the school board to undergo training to make them more sensitive to their responsibilities with respect to the First Amendment.

And remember THIS happened in Louisiana, home of Bobby Jindal who has been pushing Creationism into the public school system for some time now.

This is a huge reality check for them, and hopefully for others in the religious right that they can no longer force their belief system onto others with impunity.

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