Governing Ourselves
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told an administration official at a recent hearing that it's "insulting" for the government to tell consumers what light bulbs they can buy, because the government believes it "know[s] what's best for me." South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said in a statement that, "Americans are fully capable of choosing the best way to light their own homes and what best fits the needs and budget of their families ... it's clear the 'nanny state' mentality has gotten out of control in Washington."
A U.S. House committee approved a bill Tuesday to block a federal agency from regulating greenhouse gases, but the real drama broke out in the Senate, where Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe is pushing the measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced Inhofe's bill as an amendment to a small-business measure. McConnell said the time had come for the Senate to take a stand on the legislation, which is designed to strip the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases in response to climate change. But following hours of strongly worded debate, an attempt to reach an agreement on holding floor votes Tuesday evening apparently failed.
Call it the Nanny State run amok. By hosting an all-day White House conference on adolescent bullying last week, President Obama elevated a schoolyard issue to the level of public enemy No. 1... [h/t Cuz BD]
Students at Jenks East Intermediate will observe a naturalization ceremony this morning... Thirty-six participants from 20 different countries will take the Oath of Allegiance to become new U.S. citizens...
Spokesperson dies at age 29 related to obesity. Should restaurant be shut? [No. Why even ask. Let Darwin take its course. Nobody's forcing them to eat there are they?]
The Oklahoma House has killed legislation authorizing the Board of Health to develop rules for altering the gender on the birth certificates of people who have sex change operations.... voted 71-23 to defeat...
$424 million... "It's more than embarrassing," said Syracuse University public policy professor Henry Lambright. "Something was missed in the first investigation and the work that went on afterward."
A Virginia middle school student has been suspended for . . . opening the door for a woman whose hands were full.... You can't be too careful. Your average middle school, high school, or college can expect to see an on-campus shooting about once every 12,000 years....
...countries such as Iran and China block access to the internet at their peril. "The internet is the strongest force for individual self-expression ever invented...."
President Barack Obama's signature on a bill this week to grant the US Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco was historic, and represents a step in the march to eliminate tobacco use in this country by 2047, two national tobacco experts said today. [AAAHHHHH! "TOBACCO EXPERTS!" BEHAVIOR NAZIS! STOP THE TYRANTS! I hate tobacco, but SAVE US FROM SUPERNANNY!]
The New York City health department is moving forward with a plan that would require about 12,000 cigarette retailers to post large anti-smoking signs. [I hate tobacco, but GOD SAVE US FROM BIG NANNY GOVERNMENT!!]
A man who said he left a ruthless street gang in Central America and later won praise for his anti-gang work in Los Angeles was arrested Wednesday by authorities who allege he conspired to kill a rival even as he spoke out against gang life.
Composting will prevent tons of material from going to the landfill, create healthy soil for our local farms and help us fight global warming. [HELLLPPPP!!!!! THE REAL COMPOST IS BIG NANNY GOVERNMENT!!!]
Estimating the chronology of population migrations throughout mankind's early history has always been problematic. The most widely used genetic method works back to find the last common ancestor of any particular set of lineages using samples of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), but this method has recently been shown to be unreliable, throwing 20 years of research into doubt. The new method refines the mtDNA calculation by taking into account the process of natural selection - which researchers realised was skewing their results - and has been tested successfully against known colonisation dates confirmed by archaeological evidence, such as in Polynesia in the Pacific (approximately 3,000 years ago), and the Canary Islands (approximately 2,500 years ago).
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has plans to crack down on blogosphere payola with guidelines that would impose penalties on bloggers who promote products without adequate disclosure.... [WHY?] first time a government agency is attempting to hold bloggers accountable for the content they produce...
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling related to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.... ruled that a small voting district in Texas can seek to be exempted from the law's requirement that any changes in voting procedures must be approved in advance by the federal government....
President Obama signed into law today the toughest new measures ever on the tobacco industry designed to stop young people from smoking, a powerful habit that the president himself started as a teenager -- and one he is still grappling with on a day-to-day basis.... [IMPEACH THE HYPOCRIT & FREE TOBACCO! (And I REALLY hate tobacco!]
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor resigned Friday from an elite all-women's club after Republicans questioned her participation in it. Sotomayor said she resigned from the Belizean Grove to prevent the issue from becoming a distraction in her confirmation hearings. [TOO LITTLE TOO LATE if that's what she wants. Not to compare the organizations, but if a guy had quit the KKK only for those reasons, would you expect everybody to just drop the matter?]
Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household... anyone over 18 years of age who refuses to answer "any of the questions" on the census can be fined up to $5,000.... [IMPEACH! REPEAL! REVOLT!]
Supervisors suggest putting unemployed parents to work caring for their own children... "What we're saying is do not cut Welfare to Work outright...." [Right. Just redefine NOT working to be WORK (with all due respect to the hard work of motherhood)]
By a 5-4 vote, the nation's highest court refused to create a new legal right for post-conviction DNA testing, which has exonerated at least 232 people nationwide years after they had been found guilty.... The U.S. Justice Department supported Alaska and said a right to post-conviction DNA testing would "open the floodgates" for lawsuits seeking new tests for old evidence. It said the issue was best left to the states and Congress to adopt their own procedures.... [Oh, my, yes, we wouldn't want a "flood" of innocent people released, after working so hard to convict them. REVOLT!]
The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged...
A former Mc- Intosh County sheriff and undersheriff who were charged last month with taking confiscated cash from a motorist were caught up in an FBI sting that originated with another traffic stop 19 months ago, court records show.
For seven long years in Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, the four Central Asian friends gazed longingly at the azure sea from their cells. They were never allowed through the razor wire to paddle in the water. Now, suddenly set free in Bermuda.... "Our feelings are incredible. We did not think we were going to be this happy."
Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean... "I've had some inappropriate appearances that Keith Lewis has asked me to do.... one of them being Playboy... Another one was a gay movie premiere that he wanted me to attend incognito. He actually said he wanted me to wear a hat and go in disguise and attend this movie premiere promoting gay marriage and then come out with a statement the next day saying that Carrie Prejean attended a gay movie premiere....
Trash collectors in San Francisco will soon be doing more than just gathering garbage: They'll be keeping an eye out for people who toss food scraps out with their rubbish.... Mandatory composting part of city's plan to eliminate landfill waste by 2020... [Ah, the People's Wacky Republic of Califunny!]
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is putting the brakes on a guardrail at Lake Optima in Texas County, after hearing criticism from city and state leaders who call the project a waste of money.
The Senate struck a historic blow against smoking in America Thursday, voting overwhelmingly to give regulators new power to limit nicotine in the cigarettes that kill nearly a half-million people a year
A move by the IRS to tax the use of company-issued mobile phones is spurring efforts by the wireless industry and others to kill the idea.
Pages
Top 25 Blog-Heap-o'Links Headers
Mindful Webworks for art's own sake (and some for fun). The art and wonder of it all await your scrutiny.
Webworks dedicated to getting people and property from here to there in an intelligent and automated way, and all the history and means of transportation.
Webworks directly concerning (as opposed to merely inspired by) the Urantia Papers.
Subscribe to Urantiana
Webworks regarding human liberties and similar social and legal fundamentals.
Presented in illustrated documentary, what we know of his story, and the history of our community he inspired.
LEGAL AND SAFE! But your mother might not approve.