The woman, horrified that her and her son saw Williamson naked, called the police.

How does the police/District Attorney choose to deal with this situation? (Hint we are dealing with government officials here, throw common sense out the window)

A. Nothing. Police advise Williamson to make sure the windows are properly covered next time.
B. Nothing. The woman is advised not to take this shortcut again.
C. Both A and B.
D. The woman is charged with criminal trespass and violation of Williamson’s privacy. She could face up to 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted.
E. Williamson is charged with indecent exposure and could face up to 1 year in jail and a $2,000 fine if convicted.
F. Both D and E. Both parties broke the law as both parties violated the rights of the other.
G. Neither D nor E. Both parties broke the law, therefore the penalties offset and no charges will be filed. (Replay 3rd down?)

(See the correct answer below the fold.)

If you guessed E then you are correct.

Apparently no consideration was given the fact that the woman and her son were trespassing in Williamson’s yard or that she was looking into his home. Imagine if Williamson was a woman and it was a man cutting through the yard with his son. Would the woman be charged with indecent* exposure or would the man be charged for being a peeping Tom?

That will have to be another quiz for another day.

*It may depend on how “indecent” the woman looks naked : )

The prize for Chemistry was awarded to some scientists who worked on questions regarding how ribosomes interact with DNA. Worthy work, yes, but was not the work of the American scientist not guided by our dear leader, his work funded by the Federal Government? How can they ignore the work on many fields that is being inspired by the magnificent all-encompassing vision of our dear leader as he directs the human race towards ever greater heights of prosperity and scientific achievements?

Similarly the prize in Physics honors people for a improving the use of semiconductors in fiber-optic design. Yet were not grants from the U.S. Federal Government used to fund this research? Did not the enlightened guiding hand of the father of the people not show them the way, not just in this area but in all the areas pf research into physics? Thousands of lifetimes’ worth of research is conducted by people following the guidance of the great Helmsman, yet he receives no credit? Do we award the plank of wood for the actions it carries out when directed by a man at the rudder?

The prize for medicine ignores the millions who will have their lives saved when our Great Helmsman reveals his plan to reform our medical industry to ensure maximum care for all with great justice.

How many millions more will owe their lives to our president than to the work of these few doctors?

Our leader deserves all the prizes; the economics prize for keeping unemployment below 8.4%; the mathematics prize for improving accounting theory to minimize budget deficits; the peace prize for his efforts to make the world a more peaceful place by increasing the vigor with which Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan are pacified, and his offers to pacify Iran as well.

It is time that the Nobel Prize Committee recognized that our Dear Leader is guiding our great nation to produce numerous scientific, technical and social innovations that improve the lives of not just the happy people living in America but throughout the world.  Anything less is an insult to the tireless efforts of our leader that benefit humanity.

Update:  As this was going to press, the Nobel Prize Committee announced that the peace prize had been given to our dear leader.  While I praise them for finally coming to their senses on this one matter, I warn them that it is not sufficient.  Again, if one looks at all the fields covered by the various prizes,our leader’s contributions are far in advance of those made by anyone else.  Only the transfer of the other prizes to our dear leader from the people they mistakenly gave them to will appropriately and justly remediate the situation.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously envisioned the states serving as laboratories, trying “novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” And on health care, that’s just what they’ve done.

[…]

Despite these state-level failures, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing forward a slate of similar reforms. Unlike most high-school science fair participants, they seem unaware that the point of doing experiments is to identify what actually works. Instead, they’ve identified what doesn’t—and decided to do it again.

Of course if government did learn lessons of failed government policy…it wouldn’t be government.

Read the whole article to learn what future all Americans have in store should President Obama and the Democrats have their way.

You might be shocked as to exactly which nation it was about… or perhaps not…

War On Terror (New York Times) December 4, 1934 Soviet Arrests 71 In War On ‘Terror’ Spurred by the assassination of Sergei M. Kiroff, the Soviet Government has struck its heaviest blow in years at those whom it regards as plotters of terroristic acts against Soviet officials. With dramatic suddenness it was announced early this morning that seventy-one persons had been arrested and haled to trial before the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Thirty-two of these were seized in the Moscow region and thirty-nene in the Leningrad region. They are stigmatized as “White Guards” and accused of plotting terroristic activities. * * * * * By the terms of a decree adopted by the central government immediately after the Kremlin received the news of M. Kiroff’s death, terrorists and plotters are to be tried swiftly and to be executed immediately without opportunity for appeal.

Now I’m not one of those pseudo-intellectual mental midgets who would compare the U.S. efforts directly to Stalins reign of terror (however they couched it as a “war on terror”); but one should at the least be able to recognize the historical irony.

As Congress lurches closer to a decision on an enormous overhaul of the American health care system, pressure is mounting on legislative leaders to make the final bill available online for citizens to read before a vote. […]

[…]

At town hall meetings across the country this past summer, the main topic was health care, but there was a strong undercurrent of anger over the way Congress rushed through passage of the stimulus, global warming and bank bailout bills without seeming to understand the consequences. The stimulus bill, for example, was 1,100 pages long and made available to Congress and the public just 13 hours before lawmakers voted on it. The bill has failed to provide the promised help to the job market, and there was outrage when it was discovered that the legislation included an amendment allowing American International Group, a bailout recipient, to give out millions in employee bonuses. […]

[…]

The [Sunlight Foundation] has begun an effort to get Congress to post bills online, for all to see, 72 hours before lawmakers vote on them.

“It would give the public a chance to really digest and understand what is in the bill,” Rosenberg said, “and communicate whether that is a good or a bad thing while there is still time to fix it.”

A similar effort is under way in Congress. Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Greg Walden, R-Ore., are circulating a petition among House lawmakers that would force a vote on the 72-hour rule.

Nearly every Republican has signed on, but the Democratic leadership is unwilling to cede control over when bills are brought to the floor for votes and are discouraging their rank and file from signing the petition. Senate Democrats voted down a similar measure last week for the health care bill.

Hope.

Change.

Transparency.

Damn…just…damn.

*Was it ever really?

More than 100 industry leaders and prominent authors — including directors Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Mike Nichols, Woody Allen and Neil Jordan — have signed a petition asking that [Roman] Polanski be released from Swiss custody. “Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision,” the petition says.

On the television show “The View,” Goldberg said, “I think he’s sorry. I think he knows it was wrong. I don’t think he’s a danger to society.”

I am rarely shocked by the hypocrisy of the Hollywood elites but I never dreamed that even these self-important hypocrites would come the defense of a child rapist. Though accused of drugging and forcibly raping his 13 year old victim, Polanski plead guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor. Yet Hollywood idiots such as Whoopi Goldberg go on national television and say things like “I think he’s sorry…I don’t think he’s a danger to society” and “it wasn’t ‘rape’ rape.”

If anyone has spent any time at all watching Dr. Phil, Oprah, To Catch a Predator, or virtually any other television program on the subject, one point that is often made is that pedophilia is “incurable” and are therefore offenders are always and forever a “danger to society.”*

Speaking of Oprah, where is she on this case? She spends a great deal of time and energy advocating stricter penalties for sex offenders and increasing budgets of local, state, and federal sex crimes task forces yet I have found nothing on her website or elsewhere about her thoughts on Polanski or the response of her Hollywood friends. Is she too afraid to offend her friends or does she also seem to believe that exceptions should be made for rich and famous celebrities?

Oprah, your silence is deafening.

My first thought was that this was another case of Hollywood exceptionalism but upon further inspection, this may not necessarily be the case. Had Roman Polanski committed a particularly heinous crime like voting for Bush, making a Jesus movie, or questioning Obama’s healthcare plan, these same people wouldn’t be signing petitions of solidarity or be so forgiving of him being a child rapist.

While the elites continue to point out that this crime occurred over 30 years ago and say we should forgive and forget, many thousands of individuals are required by law to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives. Some of these individuals’ crimes are actually quite tame** in comparison to what Polanski plead guilty to doing. In some extreme cases, registered offenders are forced to move if a school bus stop is moved closer to their home (yes, this means that even though the registered offender was already living there before the home was near a bus stop, s/he is required to move). Because no one wants to live near a sex offender, these individuals have great difficulty finding a place to live; some end up homeless living under bridges.

Just yesterday, Radley Balko reported at The Agitator that Georgia sex offenders were ordered to live in the woods…until the story broke and the public outcry forced them back out of the woods. Balko points out that they will have to once again notify the state of their new address even though they have nowhere to go (which is not an excuse; failure to notify the authorities could result in arrest).

If these sex offenders have to endure this sort of treatment, it only stands to reason that Polanski should endure the same. Sure, I suppose none of these other sex offenders directed Oscar winning movies but I’m sure that many of them made positive contributions to society as well, their sex offenses notwithstanding.

Whether its Roman Polanski, Roman Catholic priests, or any other individual who chooses to abuse children, justice demands that the criminal justice system treats them the same. Shame on the Hollywood hypocrites and Polanski sympathizers who demand anything less.

*I don’t know if this is in fact the case or not. I’m not certain that even the experts know if pedophiles can be reformed or not.

**An 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old for example. Some states make no distinction between sex between teenagers, sex between teenagers and young adults, or the stereotypical pervert who sexually assaults prepubescent children.

Plans to replace the traditional pint glass with one made of shatter-proof plastic will not be accepted by drinkers, the pub industry has warned.

The Home Office has commissioned a new design, in an attempt to stop glasses being used as weapons.

Official figures show 5,500 people are attacked with glasses and bottles every year in England and Wales.

…

“There’s going to be quite a push behind this in terms of the Home Office.”

The Home Office Minister, Alan Campbell, said the redesign could make a significant difference to the number of revellers who are injured.

He said: “Innovative design has played an important role in driving down overall crime, including theft, fraud and burglary.

“This project will see those same skills applied to the dangerous and costly issue of alcohol-related crime and I am confident that it will lead to similar successes.”

When I first came across this on Lowering The Bar, I thought it must be false. I thought even the Brits would avoid pushing themselves into a reductio ad absurdum. They were warned about the slippery slope, and responded by saying that slippery slopes are dangerous and it’s a lot safer to be all the way down at the bottom!

Stories like this almost make me feel like my home, California, is free!

It’s a good thing I didn’t live in Saratoga Springs, New York:

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The first day of school, already a happy and trying event for any student, saw a little additional stress for Maple Avenue Middle School student Adam Marino.

Marino and his mother, Janette Kaddo Marino, left for school by bicycle on Wednesday morning, as they often do in good weather, despite a phone call placed to students’ homes by school officials, asking parents not to allow students to walk or ride bikes to school.

(…)

One section of the school policy states: “The Board of Education forbids the riding of bicycles by students to and from Maple Avenue Middle School.” Another section also prohibits riding to elementary schools.

In an apparent contradiction, a third section states: “Secondary school pupils may ride their bicycles to school and shall park them in the racks provided.”

The policy was written when the Maple Avenue school opened in 1994, and has never before been reviewed, Superintendent of Schools Janice White said.

Remember, they’re from the government and they’re here to help you.

The above video clip from The Daily Show, while very humorous, illustrates a fundamental problem of government: shortsightedness.

In this example, the State of Arizona is offering to sell the state capitol for $735 million and rent it back from the new owners.

“What happens next year when you have to pay rent?” asks Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones.

Sen. Lopez responds that the state government is more concerned about this year…they will deal with the next year’s budget (and subsequent budget) shortfalls when the time comes.

If this doesn’t illustrate the shortsightedness of government (at all levels), I don’t know what does. Our government officials do not look far beyond the immediate future (i.e. the next election). They don’t worry about the insolvency of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the long term financial difficulties of the bailouts etc, they will worry about those problems (which they created and will also blame on the free market, big business, or lack of regulation) when they can no longer pretend the problem doesn’t exist. If they are lucky, the other party will be in power by that time and the American public will turn its anger against that party by voting them out.

What the American public needs to understand is that whether the blue team or the red team controls the levers of power, this shortsighted mentality is standard operating procedure for both. They are not interested in solving long term problems but trying to appear as though they are.

Politicians will not be accountable for their deceitful actions until we, the people, hold them accountable.

…I won’t hold my breath.

First of all, Obama has probably ignited a new trade tensions that may cause a trade war between the US and China. The last time a global trade war broke, well….the Great Depression was a result. The Asian and US stock markets were down this morning on the news.

More importantly, it seems that Barack Obama may be putting American lives at risk on the highway. Consumer Reports’ official blog had a writeup that was interesting to say the least.

The Obama administration on Friday imposed a new 35-percent tax on tires made in China. That includes many of the S- and T-rated tires in our recent upcoming tire test of all-season passenger car tires. More than half of the top 10-rated tires in the November issue are imported from China.

The tariff is likely to increase prices on tires for consumers at least in the short term, as China is by far the largest tire producer in the world. Also, some tire models could be harder to find temporarily if manufacturers decide to switch production to another low cost country.

China’s crime apparently was that it built low cost tires which are better in quality than tires made by Obama-supporting union thugs. The United Steelworkers Mafia couldn’t have that so they decide to try and eliminate the competition.

Average Americans may pay for this blatant act of political pandering…with their lives in some cases.

Because the tire industry is very competitive, tiremakers may not be able to pass the price whole price increase along to consumers for long. But we at Consumer Reports are concerned that the higher tariff may indirectly compromise safety by giving consumers incentive to delay replacing worn tires. The move is likely to put some pressure on consumers, but more on tire manufacturers.

In addition to the lost jobs at our ports and among our importers when China retaliates and/or as a direct result of this tax increase, in addition to higher tire prices, in addition to the economic and diplomatic damage this has caused, in addition to the clear example of old style political payback behind closed doors and without public input, this tax increase may prove fatal for some Americans who will have accidents that will be caused by worn tires that they could not replace because they cannot afford them.

“Hope and change” indeed.

“I can make a firm pledge….no family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase…..not any of your taxes”-Barack Obama, September 12, 2008

Once again, President Obama has lied to the country. After raising cigarette taxes earlier this year, Obama just ordered another tax increase. This time, he raised every American’s taxes without a vote of Congress and with the simple stroke of a pen. Obama increased taxes on Chinese-made tires.

In one of his first major decisions on trade policy, President Obama opted Friday to impose a tariff on tires from China, a move that fulfills his campaign promise to “crack down” on imports that unfairly undermine American workers but risks angering the nation’s second-largest trading partner.

The decision is intended to bolster the ailing U.S. tire industry, in which more than 5,000 jobs have been lost over the past five years as the volume of Chinese tires in the market has tripled.

It comes at a sensitive time, however. Leaders from the world’s largest economies are preparing to gather in Pittsburgh in less than two weeks to discuss more cooperation amid tensions over trade.

The tire tariff will amount to 35 percent the first year, 30 percent the second and 25 percent the third.

Which means American consumers will see an increase in prices of at least 35% for their tires in the name of saving 5,000 jobs. Chinese and US companies with factories overseas are not going to pay the tariffs, they’ll pass them on to consumers. There is also the latest example of the Obama administration diplomatic ineptness of angering trade partners before major trade talks with China among other countries. Also, there was not much public debate over this, since this decision was reached behind closed doors with the help of an obscure Federal trade panel with no citizen input.

Of course with the Obama administration, there’s always someone or some group to be paid back.

Although a federal trade panel had recommended higher levies — of 55, 45 and 35 percent, respectively — the decision is considered a victory for the United Steelworkers union, which filed the trade complaint.

The United Steelworkers union endorsed Obama’s presidential bid and the Steelworkers had a massive grassroots effort that claimed credit for helping win Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia; among other states.

“Hope and Change” indeed.

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of drunkenness?

Well now that you put it that way…

JERICHO, Ark. – It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn’t hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps.

The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court.

[…]

It’s unclear exactly what happened next, but Martin said an argument between Payne and the seven police officers who attended the hearing apparently escalated to a scuffle, ending when an officer shot Payne from behind.

Incredibly, the prosecutor says he doesn’t plan to file charges against the officer but the victim of the shooting, Payne, could face misdemeanor charges from the incident.

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, no one should go broke because they get sick, and no one should be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. (But I also believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions especially from personal experience. And I won’t urge you repost this for the rest of the day. :-p I also hope that we can develop a system that truly works.)

My Response:

And we should all have unlimited money, and free ponies. And everyone should have free food and houses and college and… and… and…

There’s no such thing as free. Do you have the right to hold a gun to my head, steal my money, and use it to pay for someone else’s healthcare?

If you personally don’t, then why does the government have the right to do it on your behalf?