Tom Faranda's Folly

My town - Croton-on-Hudson - evidently has "exclusionary zoning."

Hmm. Well, you can't blame George Bush for this - the town is run by the Democrats.

Seven towns and villages in Westchester County have zoning that keeps out low-income families, making it exclusionary under state and federal law, and that may perpetuate segregation, the monitor in the county’s fair housing case said in a report released Wednesday.

Croton-on-Hudson, Harrison, Lewisboro, Mamaroneck town, Ossining town, Pelham Manor and Pound Ridge share problems with their zoning, including little or no land designated for multifamily housing, no incentives or mandates for affordable housing and slow progress in adopting a model fair housing ordinance, said the report by James Johnson.

******

Johnson’s report contradicts the county’s conclusion in several analyses submitted as required by the settlement that there is no exclusionary zoning in the 31 communities covered by the agreement.

“The report reflects months of work to determine whether the zoning in municipalities is compliant with two separate but related standards: broadly speaking, the duty to provide for the affordable housing needs of the municipality and the region, on the one hand, and the obligation not to establish zoning regulations that have segregative impact on the other,” Johnson said.

“Our work made clear (that) seven municipalities did not meet the first standard. I believe more data is required before one can conclude on the second,” he said.

        Johnson’s report is an effort to break an impasse that has stalled the implementation of the         housing settlement and put more than $20 million in federal funding to the county at risk.

NYT health update - "Can You Get Too Much Exercise?"

Yesterday I posted this from the Times weekly health section. NYT health update - short people get less cancer -YAY!

Here's another good article, which goes into some detail if you hit the link. The study has to do with participants in a Swedish cross-country ski marathon.

... the newest Vasaloppet-related study, published in June in The European Heart Journal, is worrisome. For it, researchers from Uppsala University and other institutions examined the health records of almost 53,000 race participants and found that the more races that someone had completed between 1989 and 1999 or the faster they had finished, the more likely they were to require hospitalization in the next 10 years for an abnormal heart beat, a condition known as arrhythmia.

Now the latest Vasaloppet study and a separate study of rats running the equivalent of several rodent marathons that was published this month in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology are likely to further the debate about possible upper limits to safe exercise. Providing some counterbalance, though, is another animal study, published this month in PLoS One, that suggests that even if strenuous prolonged exercise increases the chances of some arrhythmias, it may lessen the chance of suffering fatal heart problems.

******

In the Vasaloppet study, 1.7 percent of the racers suffered from some type of arrhythmia in the years after their race, a higher percentage than would be expected among such a fit population. But there was little consistency in the outcomes. Most of the affected racers developed atrial fibrillation, but some had bradycardia. The one constant was that those racers, male and female, who had completed the most races or finished the fastest were more likely than slower or more infrequent participants to develop an arrhythmia pronounced enough to require medical care.

******

According to Omer Berenfeld, a professor with the Center for Arrhythmia Research at the University of Michigan and co-author of the study, the finding suggests that vigorous exercise “may be pro-arrhythmic in the atria and may be anti-arrhythmic in the ventricles.”

 

 

Obama proposal: top corporate tax rate 28%; top small business rate 40%.

Yes that's right. A partnership, sole proprietership, sub-s corp. LLC, pay the individual top rate of 39.6%. Is that fair? Yes, maybe; it shows how confused the Administration is - clueless is the word.

In a speech delivered Tuesday afternoon, Obama did not explain why he thinks it's a sound economic idea to raise the top marginal tax rate on small businesses but lower it for corporations.

A very easy way to walk five miles every day!

From my friend Bernadette.

NYT health update - short people get less cancer -YAY!

Yay! But how come I got lymphoma? Here's the article from today's NY Times health seciton ,which is filled with good articles.

"Cancer Risk Increases with Height"

An analysis of 20,928 postmenopausal women showed that the taller a woman is, the greater her risk for a number of cancers, including breast, colon and skin cancer, among others. The finding, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, is not expected to change screening recommendations and shouldn’t alarm those with a tall stature. Instead, say scientists, the association between height and cancer may help guide researchers to study hormones and growth factors that influence height and may also play a role in cancer.

******

While the current study focused only on women, other research has also found an association between height and cancer among men. One study  found that taller men were at slightly higher risk for aggressive prostate cancer. In May, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that height differences between men and women may help explain why men have an overall greater risk of developing cancer in non-sex specific organs like kidneys and lungs.  That study, of 65,000 men and women, showed that sex differences in height may explain a third to a half of a man’s excess cancer risk compared to women.

******

The data for the latest analysis were collected from the Women’s Health Initiative, the largest-ever study of postmenopausal women. The researchers identified 20,928 women who had received a cancer diagnosis during the 12-year study period. The data set included not only the woman’s height but also her age, weight, education, smoking habits, alcohol consumption and whether she used hormone therapy. This allowed the scientists to control for other factors that could influence cancer risk and more closely determine the strength of the association with height.

They found that for every 4-inch change in height, there was a 13 percent increase in risk for developing any type of cancer. The cancers most strongly associated with height were cancers of the kidney, rectum, thyroid and blood. Risk for those cancers increased by 23 to 29 percent for every 4-inch increase in height.

Amusing joke if you know ANY particle physics or read the newspaper science sections

My brainiac friend Laurie sent me this awhile ago (January, 2012 actually), with the following comment:

You are part of the few people who may be mildly amused.

Well, we'll see. And I was amused (It's short).

A Catholic physics joke

Part of Detroit's bankruptcy plan: push retirees into Obamacare

From the NY Times yesterday -

Similar proposals that could shift public sector retirees into the new insurance markets, called exchanges, are already being planned or contemplated in places like Chicago; Sheboygan County, Wis.; and Stockton, Calif. While large employers that eliminate health benefits for full-time workers can be penalized under the health care law, retirees are a different matter.

“There’s fear and panic about what this means,” said Michael Underwood, 62, who retired from the Chicago Police Department after 30 years and has diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Underwood, who says he began working for the city when employees did not pay into future Medicare coverage, is part of a group suing Chicago over its plan to phase many retirees out of city coverage during the next three and a half years. “I was promised health care for myself and my wife for life,” he said.

Pope Francis interview on contentious issues, as he returns to Rome

From the BBC - making lots of points on Church positions -

Speaking to reporters on a flight back from Brazil, he reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's position that homosexual acts were sinful, but homosexual orientation was not.

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?"

He also said he wanted a greater role for women in the Church, but insisted they could not be priests.

The Pope arrived back in Rome on Monday after a week-long tour of Brazil - his first trip abroad as pontiff - which climaxed with a huge gathering on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach for a world Catholic youth festival.

Festival organisers estimated it attracted more than three million people.

His remarks on gay people are being seen as much more conciliatory than his predecessor's position on the issue.

Pope Benedict XVI signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests.

Pope Francis said gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten.

******

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well," Pope Francis said in a wide-ranging 80-minute long interview with Vatican journalists.

"It says they should not be marginalised because of this but that they must be integrated into society."

But he condemned what he described as lobbying by gay people.

"The problem is not having this orientation," he said. "We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem."

On the role of women in the Church, he said: "We cannot limit the role of women in the Church to altar girls or the president of a charity, there must be more.

"But with regards to the ordination of women, the Church has spoken and says no... That door is closed."

Answering questions about the troubled Vatican bank, he said the institution must become "honest and transparent" and that he would listen to advice on whether it could be reformed or should be shut down altogether.

******

Asked about the recent protests by young people on the streets of Brazil, the Pope said: "The young person is essentially a non-conformist, and this is very beautiful.

"It is necessary to listen to young people, give them places to express themselves and to be careful that they aren't manipulated."

Asked about his simple lifestyle and use of a small car, he said it wasn't a good example when a priest had the latest model of a car or a top brand.

"At this moment I believe God is asking us for more simplicity," he added.

Soloing the Overlook Trail in Beacon, NY

With my trekking buddy Jeanne Marie temporarily abandoning me to visit her son in Paris (not exactly a hardship posting!) and Brigid tied up getting ready for a show on Sunday, on Saturday I decided to go a little further north in the Hudson Highlands on my own. Sort of a day-after-birthday treat. I was planning on doing the Fishkill Ridge, which is a walk-in and then a loop - but I couldn't find the trail!

So I changed up and went for the Overlook Trail, which also links to the loop, but decided as I started to only do the 3.4 mile round trip walk-in. I'd gotten a late start, and I realized I'd left my trekking pole at home - and it sure was steep - so decided on discretion. (Note on trekking pole. I use one, and I'm left handed, which is good for my arthroscopically repaired left knee. I paid for forgetting the pole all Saturday night and Sunday with an aching knee. Won't make that mistake again.)

A few pictures, and a video from near the top of Lamb's Hill, looking north. I think the rise was about a thousand feet - but could have been more. Or less.

Brigid took this picture as I left. This t-shirt is one of my favorite walking t's, nice color, small breast pocket (reading and sun glasses) and made of that "wicking" material. The hat is my Reds hat, sent to me from Australia by Brigid's niece June and her husband Andrew, who are fans of the Queensland Reds Rugby franchise.

Here I am at the spot I took the video below, with a change of hats. The gnats were so bad - even with Deep Woods Off - that I figured a wide brim Aussie-style hat might be better. Aussie style, but bought many years ago through LLBean. I don't wear it very often but I do bring it with me. Scary picture.

Here are some views, and below, a one minute video.

Looking north from the spot the video is taken

And here from the top of Lamb's Hill - only views are south to South Beacon Mountain (Highest point in the Hudson Highlands), and west, to Beacon and the Beacon-Newburgh bridge.

A one minute video -

 

Rick Warren's first sermon since his son's suicide

The author of The Purpose Driven Life and pastor of a huge mega-church.

Rick Warren has preached thousands upon thousands of sermons, but this message was different. The last time he had stood the pulpit at his Saddleback Church in southern California was on Easter, seventeen Sundays ago — and five days before his youngest son, Matthew, 27, shot and killed himself, ending a lifelong struggle with mental illness. On Saturday night, for the first time since their son’s death, Rick and his wife Kay returned to their 20,000-member congregation. Together they faced the question tens of thousands of Christians have been asking: how are they — two of the world’s most famous Christians — able to hope in God in the midst of their despair?

UPDATE: here's a short video -

 

Spanish train crash survivor describes his experience

Pope as rock star

From the A.P.

Pope draws 3M in Rio in 1 of largest papal Masses

Pre-Mass "flash dance." Amusing to see the clergy/Bishops join in.

 

Second Medal of Honor will be given given to second soldier for same battle

Grim. Afghanistan, 2009. Who put the men in an indefensible position?

 

Race relations since President Obama took office

"Plummeted." Terrible. And predictable. And I did predict it, but not worth linking to my posts from years past. The current party in power requires racial tension. And, think Chicago.

Only 52 percent of whites and 38 percent of blacks have a favorable opinion of race relations in the country, according to the poll, which has tracked race relations since 1994 and was conducted in mid-July by Hart Research Associations and Public Opinion Strategies.

That’s a sharp drop from the beginning of Obama’s first term, when 79 percent of whites and 63 percent of blacks held a favorable view of American race relations.

Pope calls on the Bishops to grow a pair

Of course he didn't quite put it that way ...

Refreshing.

 

Very funny - Letterman: "Top Ten Bad Press Conference Opening Lines"

One of his best top ten's

 

Flash: Anthony Weiner confronted by Carlos Danger

HA! Will this guy be following him around throughout the campaign? "Why did you steal my name?"

A 21 second video -

Anthony Weiner Confronted By Carlos Danger

Like Wolf Blitzer said ...

Another birthday, as I turn 55 again

Following my old rule "Always subtract seven years", which really no longer works for me. 

Oh well. I will be posting over the weekend about losing 14 lbs of ugly fat (without cutting off my head) in the past six months.

Here I am June 23rd on Bull Hill, picture by Jeanne Marie Gagnon. Go here to learn more about that trek.

MSG Varsity gives it's outlook for Stepinac football

Good expectations, but a very tough schedule. They also got last year's JV record wrong; it was 7-1, not 9-1.

Summer football report: Stepinac

"Bush 41 Shaves Head in Solidarity With 2-Year-Old Leukemia Patient"

Nice story and nice picture.

Former President George H.W. Bush, 89, sported a clean-shaven head in solidarity with a 2-year-old named Patrick, who lost his hair when he started being treated for leukemia.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick on the Aaron Hernandez murder charge

The tremendously successful Belichick is known for making very few comments about his team or players.

Belichick On Hernandez: ‘A Sad Day On So Many Levels’

Video of the Spain train derailment

Almost like watching a toy train, only it's real.

Here's the the article, from the Daily Mail (UK)

Spanish train crash with over 80 dead.

A driver of the Spanish train which hurtled off the tracks and smashed into a wall, killing at least 80 people, previously boasted of speeding on his Facebook page.

Francisco Jose Garzon, one of the drivers on the train which crashed, leaving up to 141 people injured including one Briton, is reported to have posted a picture on the site of a train speedometer at 125mph last year.

According to reports he also boasted about how fast he was going. The webpage has disappeared after images appeared on Spanish TV and newspaper websites.

Alongside the photo, which was published in March last year, he wrote: 'What joy it would be to get level with the police and then go past them making their speed guns go off. Ha ha!.'

Some Brigid pictures: Croton Landing at sunset

Taken Tuesday evening, the 23rd. Unusual for Brigid, she used her android phone for these.

The last one has the 9-11 Memorial in the foreground & I think it's great.

Very atmospheric -

Interesting comments on the disappearance of atheists worldwide.

This is interesting since we keep hearingand readingabout how nonbelief/atheism is growing in the U.S.

From the Catholic League - I love the last line.

Vanishing Atheists

Bill Donohue comments on a study, “Christianity in its Global Context, 1970-2020,” published by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary:

Looks like the best days for agnostics and atheists are long past: in 1970, agnostics were 14.7 percent of the world’s population, and atheists were 4.5 percent; in 2010, the figures dropped to 9.8 and 2.0 percent, respectively; by 2020, it is estimated that agnostics will constitute 8.9 percent, and atheists will make up 1.8 percent.

Much of the decrease is attributable to the demise of that atheistic genocidal wonderland called Communism: the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a spike in religious affiliation, both in Russia and in Eastern Europe; China is also in the throes of a religious revival. Russia was 38 percent Christian in 1970, and in 2010 the number jumped to 71 percent. The world’s first officially atheistic state, Albania, is now 63 percent Muslim and 32 percent Christian.

It is expected that by 2020, the percent of the world’s population that is Christian will witness a slight uptick; the increase will be greater for Muslims. Asia, as a whole, is witnessing a sharp drop in agnostics and atheists, as are those who live in the Caribbean. Even in Europe it is expected that atheists will decrease markedly: they were 8.2 percent in 1970, and are projected to be 2.1 percent in 2020; agnostics are expected to stay steady at 13.1 percent. It is in places such as Northern America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand where non-believers will realize some gains.

Data like these undercut the superstition that the world is becoming increasingly secular. In the U.S., for instance, we hear a lot about the growth of the “nones,” those who are not affiliated with any religion. But even among this segment of the population, only 2.6 percent of Americans are agnostic, and a mere 1.9 percent are atheist.

In the U.S., as well as globally, the belief in nothingness is mostly confined to white people who stayed in school for a long time. Too bad they didn’t learn to think independently.

Even the NY Times has had enough of Anthony Weiner

RE: the latest revelations.

At some point, the full story of Anthony Weiner and his sexual relationships and texting habits will finally be told. In the meantime, the serially evasive Mr. Weiner should take his marital troubles and personal compulsions out of the public eye, away from cameras, off the Web and out of the race for mayor of New York City.

The last line of their editorial -

Mr. Weiner says he is staying in the mayoral race. To those who know his arrogance and have grown tired of the tawdry saga he has dragged the city into, this is not surprising.

What a sad spectacle and embarrassment for NY.

Hudson Highlands trekking with the Gagnon(s)

Three walks in three weeks. I already posted a little bit about our (Jeanne Marie and I) Father's Day 2.6 mile trip up Storm King mountain where we were serenaded by the cicadas, out for their every 17 year appearance. Go here if you want to see cicadas and hear them - Sunday's Storm King hike.

And here are a few more pix from Storm King.

Looking southwest, from near the top.

Looking north, that's the Newburgh-Beacon bridge.

And east, to Breakneck Ridge, across the Hudson River. Guidebooks for the Hudson Highlands refer to Breakneck and Storm King as "the twin citadels of the Hudson Highlands".

Why it's called Breakneck -

The latest in hiking fashions -

A week later - June 24th - JM and I went up Bull Hill (also called Taurus Mountain), a 4.8 mile circuit, that is a much tougher climb. But worth it - some really fantastic views. Bull Hill is just south of Breakneck Ridge.  

It starts in a rock quarry -

And turns up steeply - Jeanne Marie's right leg must have developed heat stroke

Shortly thereafter we were passed by several 80-something Chinese women, carrying 40 lb. backpacks ...

Storm King, viewed from near the top of Bull Hill

The best observation point is a bit below the summit - here looking south down the Hudson. That's West Point in the middle of the first picture, and then a zoom-in on the Point. Oh, and the third one is the excellent West Point rugby facility, down along the Hudson and paid for with private donations from West Point grads who played rugby.

Looking north, between two of the Breakneck Ridge ridges, is the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.

The down-from-the-summit part of the loop is relatively easy and has lots of interesting cairns and the ruins of estates.

Not to mention bugs. Can you see the camouflaged one?

Not sure what this is -

Here's a cairn -as a few of them were, lying across the trail - and my (small) contribution. Jeanne Marie insisted we add to them.

And as I said, lots of ruins - this was a private dairy farm that was part of the estate of the former President ofthe United Lead Co.

And the last hike. Canada Hill, south of Garrison and partly on the Appalachian Trail where it crosses Rte. 9, just south of the intersection with Rte. 403, and below Graymoor. With a side-trip up Sugarloaf Hill, the total trek was 7.5 miles.

Leaving from Chez Faranda: a rose between two thorns, as Damian came with us.

The side trip on the way up Sugarloaf Hill (not to be confused with Sugarloaf Mountain, north of Breakneck Ridge) offered the best view of the trip.

Pretty cool; Damian discovered some cactus

On Sugarloaf, a good view south to the Bear Mountain Bridge

An orange salamandery type creature! Maybe max 3 inches long ...

For my friend Kathy - there weren't too many of these around.

As he did for much of the hike, Damian lead the way. We completed the hike in about the same time Jeanne Marie and I did the (much harder) Bull Hill hike (about 4 hours). 

So that's it, so far this summer. I might have to do a solo hike this Saturday (the 26th) since Jeanne Marie is gong to Paris (!) to see her son Phil. Might be a Fishkill walk, or Breakneck Ridge. Not sure.

While most postings I put up only take a few (5 - 10) minutes, any time I do a narrative with pictures, it takes much longer. My guess is it took close to three hours, spread out between July fourth and the 23rd. But I like doing these, so there you go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hilltop Farms is closing

Too bad. You can read about it here -

It is with great regret to inform you of the closing of Hilltop Farms, effective Sunday, July 28th, 2013.

Shelby Steele on the the Civil-Rights Establishment and the Trayvon Martin case

I've put up some of Shelby Steele's columns (like Obama he has a white mother and black father) in the past - here's a good one from yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

On television in recent weeks you could see black leaders from every background congealing into a chorus of umbrage and complaint. But they weren't so much outraged at a horrible injustice as they were affronted by the disregard of their own authority. The jury effectively said to them, "You won't call the tune here. We will work within the law."

Why did the civil-rights leadership use its greatly depleted moral authority to support Trayvon Martin? This young man was, after all, no Rosa Parks—a figure of indisputable human dignity set upon by the rank evil of white supremacy. Trayvon threw the first punch and then continued pummeling the much smaller Zimmerman. Yes, Trayvon was a kid, but he was also something of a menace. The larger tragedy is that his death will come to very little. There was no important principle or coherent protest implied in that first nose-breaking punch. It was just dumb bravado, a tough-guy punch.

The civil-rights leadership rallied to Trayvon's cause (and not to the cause of those hundreds of black kids slain in America's inner cities this very year) to keep alive a certain cultural "truth" that is the sole source of the leadership's dwindling power. Put bluntly, this leadership rather easily tolerates black kids killing other black kids. But it cannot abide a white person (and Mr. Zimmerman, with his Hispanic background, was pushed into a white identity by the media over his objections) getting away with killing a black person without undermining the leadership's very reason for being.

******

One wants to scream at all those outraged at the Zimmerman verdict: Where is your outrage over the collapse of the black family? Today's civil-rights leaders swat at mosquitoes like Zimmerman when they have gorillas on their back. Seventy-three percent of all black children are born without fathers married to their mothers. And you want to bring the nation to a standstill over George Zimmerman?

There are vast career opportunities, money and political power to be gleaned from the specter of Mr. Zimmerman as a racial profiler/murderer; but there is only hard and selfless work to be done in tackling an illegitimacy rate that threatens to consign blacks to something like permanent inferiority. If there is anything good to be drawn from the Zimmerman/Martin tragedy, it is only the further revelation of the corruption and irrelevance of today's civil-rights leadership.

 

Dementia and sexual activity

Wow, here's a very difficult situation. I have great sympathy for the head nurse and administrator. The expression "You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't" comes to mind.

To make a small (very small) joke, they really got screwed.

What followed illustrates one of the most complex and unexamined issues facing elderly care facilities as the Baby Boom generation enters old age: How to determine if residents with dementia have the mental capacity to consent to sex.

The Windmill Manor incident and its lengthy aftermath also show that nursing homes, regulators and families are not prepared to deal with that question.

“It ruined my life,” the director of nursing at the time, Karen Etter, said in an interview.

She was fired.

“It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to live through,” said Steve Drobot, the former Windmill Manor administrator.

He was fired, too.

Hit the link for the whole feature, which is posted on Bloomberg/Business Week.

Today is Feast of the second most important woman in the New Testament

UPDATE: From my friend Ellen -

"Yes, and today at Mass I heard in a homily she was the 1st Christian Mystic for she saw our Lord with the eyes of the self at the Crucifixion then in dying with Him as we should all do saw Him through the eyes of the SELF risen. I totally agree." 

 

Mary Magdelene

Wikipedia has a good entry on her. It is quite extensive, with information on the various religious traditions, including Bahai.

Mary Magdalene (original Greek Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή),^[2] or Mary of Magdala and sometimes The Magdalene, is a religious figure in Christianity. She has been called the second-most important woman in the New Testament after Mary the mother of Jesus.^[3] Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus as one of his followers. She was present at Jesus' two most important moments: the crucifixion and the resurrection.^[4] Within the four Gospels, the oldest historical record mentioning her name, she is named at least 12 times,^[5] more than most of the apostles. The Gospel references describe her as courageous, brave enough to stand by Jesus in his hours of suffering, death and beyond.^[3]

Mary of Magdala at the Empty Tomb window at St. Matthew's German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Charleston, South Carolina

WSJ on SWAT teams: Have we gone too far with the warrior cop theme?

An article that needs to be read in full to be appreciated. I'm sure thoughtful people can disagree on the extent/need to have a paramiltary arm of domestic police forces. But using a SWAT team to arrest Tibetan Monks on a USA peace tour who've overstayed their visas - seems a bit much.

Rise of the Warrior Cop

Is it time to reconsider the militarization of American policing?

On Jan. 4 of last year, a local narcotics strike force conducted a raid on the Ogden, Utah, home of Matthew David Stewart at 8:40 p.m. The 12 officers were acting on a tip from Mr. Stewart's former girlfriend, who said that he was growing marijuana in his basement. Mr. Stewart awoke, naked, to the sound of a battering ram taking down his door. Thinking that he was being invaded by criminals, as he later claimed, he grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta pistol.

The police say that they knocked and identified themselves, though Mr. Stewart and his neighbors said they heard no such announcement. Mr. Stewart fired 31 rounds, the police more than 250. Six of the officers were wounded, and Officer Jared Francom was killed. Mr. Stewart himself was shot twice before he was arrested. He was charged with several crimes, including the murder of Officer Francom.

The police found 16 small marijuana plants in Mr. Stewart's basement. There was no evidence that Mr. Stewart, a U.S. military veteran with no prior criminal record, was selling marijuana. Mr. Stewart's father said that his son suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have smoked the marijuana to self-medicate.

Early this year, the Ogden city council heard complaints from dozens of citizens about the way drug warrants are served in the city. As for Mr. Stewart, his trial was scheduled for next April, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. But after losing a hearing last May on the legality of the search warrant, Mr. Stewart hanged himself in his jail cell.

******

In 2006, 38-year-old optometrist Sal Culosi was shot and killed by a Fairfax County, Va., SWAT officer. The investigation began when an undercover detective overheard Mr. Culosi wagering on college football games with some buddies at a bar. The department sent a SWAT team after Mr. Culosi, who had no prior criminal record or any history of violence. As the SWAT team descended, one officer fired a single bullet that pierced Mr. Culosi's heart. The police say that the shot was an accident. Mr. Culosi's family suspects the officer saw Mr. Culosi reaching for his cellphone and thought he had a gun.

Assault-style raids have even been used in recent years to enforce regulatory law. Armed federal agents from the Fish & Wildlife Service raided the floor of the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville in 2009, on suspicion of using hardwoods that had been illegally harvested in Madagascar. Gibson settled in 2012, paying a $300,000 fine and admitting to violating the Lacey Act. In 2010, the police department in New Haven, Conn., sent its SWAT team to raid a bar where police believed there was underage drinking. For sheer absurdity, it is hard to beat the 2006 story about the Tibetan monks who had overstayed their visas while visiting America on a peace mission. In Iowa, the hapless holy men were apprehended by a SWAT team in full gear.

The whole article is revealing; hit the link above.

Yankee catcher Chris Stewart's great play

Foul ball catch in the stands and then the throw - helps the Yanks to a 5-2 win in Boston.

Stewart's big play

 

Obamacare database worse than NSA?

From one of those right wing websites ...

Would you trust thousands of low-level Federal bureaucrats and contractors with one-touch access to your private financial and medical information? Under Obamacare you won’t have any choice.

As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous. - See more at: http://rare.us/story/move-over-nsa-here-comes-the-obamacare-big-brother-database/#sthash.n09iKT2R.dpuf

You have to hit the link to read the whole thing, which is interesting and not very long.

 

As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous. - See more at: http://rare.us/story/move-over-nsa-here-comes-the-obamacare-big-brother-database/#sthash.d4fThH1u.dpuf

As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous. - See more at: http://rare.us/story/move-over-nsa-here-comes-the-obamacare-big-brother-database/#sthash.d4fThH1u.dpuf

As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous. - See more at: http://rare.us/story/move-over-nsa-here-comes-the-obamacare-big-brother-database/#sthash.d4fThH1u.dpuf

Stupid: Judge rules Detroit bankruptcy unconstitutional

What kind of dolt is this woman? She's a County Circuit Judge, whatever that is.

Lady, they have no money. If their limited cash flow goes into pension benefits, what will they use to pay the police, EMS, the sanitation people - all those keeping the city from plunging further into darkness?

Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said that Detroit's bankruptcy filing violates the Michigan Constitution, which bans any action that threatens to cut the pension benefits of public employees, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Lawyers representing the city's pension funds and some retirees had won an emergency hearing Thursday afternoon to block the bankruptcy filing, CNN Money reports. The hearing was scheduled to start at 4:11 p.m. But at 4:06 p.m., word came that Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr had already filed the bankruptcy paperwork with the federal government.

Aquilina told those lawyers that she had planned to grant their injunction.

In three rulings she issued Friday, the judge wrote, “Plaintiffs shouldn’t have been blindsided,” and “this process shouldn’t have been ignored.”

Blindsided? Everyone knew the city was broke. Maybe the Judge can order Detroit to print it's own money and pay their obligations that way ...

Hypothesis on how Mars lost it's atmosphere

Funny title, but an interesting short video.

 

Study: "Devout Catholics" and sex; more and better

HA! I knew it!! Other studies have confirmed this. And the link below does link to other recent studies.

Devout Catholics Have Better Sex, Study Says

Fagan said the group was working on gathering more recent data on sexual enjoyment, but that the existing statistics spoke for themselves, and specifically as they relate to Catholics.

Detroit's bankruptcy

Pathetic and no surprise at all.

Here's the story from the Detroit News - Decades of decay, high debt lead Detroit into bankruptcy

And here from a year or so ago.

Flashback: Obama boasted in 2012: ‘We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt’

“[W]e refused to throw in the towel and do nothing,” Obama said. “We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt, I bet on American workers, and American ingenuity and three years later that bet is paying off in a big way.”

Who is going to pay for the municipal pension plan obligations - or healthcare?

A city official notably said the federal government should bail out Detroit, though the president has made no indication that’s a possibility.

Following a meeting last month with Wall Street creditors, Orr estimated Detroit’s budget deficit at $380 million, and the city’s long-term debt at $20 billion.  Creditors are being asked to take about 10 cents on the dollar of what’s owed to them.

 

Krauthammer on Obamacare and the Unions recent complaints

After blindly supporting the legislation.

 

Jimmy Carter supports the Zimmerman jury decision

The jury made the “right decision” in the George Zimmerman murder trial, former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.

“I think the jury made the right decision based on the evidence presented, because the prosecution inadvertently set the standard so high that the jury had to be convinced that it was a deliberate act by Zimmerman that he was not at all defending himself, and so forth,” Carter told Atlanta news channel WXIA. “It’s not a moral question, it’s a legal question and the American law requires that the jury listens to the evidence presented.”

WSJ op ed: "More people have left the workforce than got a new job during the recovery—by a factor of nearly three"

Businessman and publisher Mortimer Zuckerman epitomizes limosine liberalism, but long ago he soured on Obama (after supporting and voting for him in 2012).

He's written several op eds in the Wall Street Journal over the past few years, bemoaning the economic policies of the administation.

Here's yesterday's.

Mort Zuckerman: A Jobless Recovery Is a Phony Recovery

In recent months, Americans have heard reports out of Washington and in the media that the economy is looking up—that recovery from the Great Recession is gathering steam. If only it were true. The longest and worst recession since the end of World War II has been marked by the weakest recovery from any U.S. recession in that same period.

The jobless nature of the recovery is particularly unsettling. In June, the government's Household Survey reported that since the start of the year, the number of people with jobs increased by 753,000—but there are jobs and then there are "jobs." No fewer than 557,000 of these positions were only part-time. The survey also reported that in June full-time jobs declined by 240,000, while part-time jobs soared by 360,000 and have now reached an all-time high of 28,059,000—three million more part-time positions than when the recession began at the end of 2007.

That's just for starters. The survey includes part-time workers who want full-time work but can't get it, as well as those who want to work but have stopped looking. That puts the real unemployment rate for June at 14.3%, up from 13.8% in May.

******

That brings us to a stunning fact about the jobless recovery: The measure of those adults who can work and have jobs, known as the civilian workforce-participation rate, is currently 63.5%—a drop of 2.2% since the recession ended. Such a decline amid a supposedly expanding economy has never happened after previous recessions. Another statistic that underscores why this is such a dysfunctional labor market is that the number of people leaving the workforce during this economic recovery has actually outpaced the number of people finding a new job by a factor of nearly three.

What the country clearly needs are policies that will encourage the modernization of America's capital stock, where investment in modern production has plunged to the lowest levels in decades. Policies should also be targeted to nourish high-tech industries, which will in turn inspire the design and manufacture of products in the U.S. where they would be closer to the American market, spurring more hiring. This means preparing a skilled workforce, especially engineers suitable to work in manufacturing, and increasing the number of visas available to foreign graduate students in the hard sciences—who are now forced to leave America and who then work for foreign competitors.

Unfortunately the one ponit Zuckerman never made in the op ed is the total mishandling of our domestic energy reserves and the dysfunctional Administration policies on energy. Too bad.

Proof of Global Warming

From my friend Ellen - and this is what men are wearing!

Cable News Race

Monday, the day of the big Zimmerman trial analysis -

MON., JULY 16, 2013

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,859,000
FOXNEWS THE FIVE 2,056,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,920,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 1,910,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,689,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,589,000
CNN PIERS 1,378,000
CNN COOPER 1,258,000
CMDY DAILY SHOW 1,197,000
FOXNEWS FRIENDS 1,113,000
CMDY COLBERT 1,047,000
MSNBC MADDOW 819,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 743,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 717,000
MSNBC SHARPTON 696,000
MSNBC HAYES 655,000
MSNBC MORNING JOE 444,000
CNNHN GRACE 444,000

 

TalkLeft - liberal lawyer website - on the Zimmerman verdict.

UPDATE: Angela Corey is demanding Harvard fire Dershowitz for criticizing her.

I never heard of TalkLeft until yesterday when I saw a posting that Anne Althouse - Law Professor at University of Wisconsin, and about the only blog I actually visit every day - quoted them and put up a link.

Lawyers Reacting to Zimmerman Verdict

If you are interested in this case, you should hit the link - all sorts of stuff - perhap surprising from a leftist blog (but I guess they're honest ...)

Such as:

Alan Dershowitz is harsher. He thinks Angela Corey should be disbarred. Law Professor William Jacobson thinks a special prosecutor should be appointed to investigate this "special prosecution."

Alan Dershowitz, of course, one of the most famous and sought after lawyers in the Contry - was a full professor of law at harvard, at age 28.

Here's another quote from the original poster -

As I've said a hundred times on this site, the criminal justice system was not designed to cure every conceivable social ill. If we're going to address racial injustice in the criminal justice system, the focus should be on actions of police and prosecutors, and laws that unfairly target minorities and are arbitrarily enforced in a discriminatory manner.

And -

This case has been miscast as a civil rights issue since the day the Martin family's lawyers came on the scene. If the public wants to be believe them, that's their right. If they want to bring civil lawsuits against George Zimmerman or law enforcement or public entities, that's their choice. But when it comes to those lawyers and their public relations team using their bully pulpit to inflame passions and exert undue influence on the actions of law enforcement and public officials, including elected prosecutors, who have a duty not to bring charges without a good faith belief they can prove those charges beyond a reasonable doubt, all the while having a financial stake in the outcome of related civil litigation, I object.

Oh, so true!

CNN: Anderson Cooper's interview with Juror B37

The juror who's looking to write a book (her husband is a lawyer and she has grown children)

One of the jurors who acquitted George Zimmerman said she had "no doubt" he feared for his life in the final moments of his struggle with Trayvon Martin, and that was the definitive factor in the verdict.

If anything, Zimmerman was guilty of not using "good judgment," the juror said.

"When he was in the car, and he had called 911, he shouldn't have gotten out of that car," she said.

She also said she believes Martin threw the first punch in their confrontation.

"I think the roles changed. I think George got in a little bit too deep, which he shouldn't have been there. But Trayvon decided that he wasn't going to let him scare him ... and I think Trayvon got mad and attacked him," she said.

CNN, FOX News strong on Zimmerman ratings, MSNBC far behind.

MSNBC crushed in Zimmerman ratings race

In the 10-11 p.m. hour on Saturday night, when the verdict in, Fox News had 3,682,000 total viewers; CNN had 3,407,000 total viewers and won the coveted demo with 1,716,000 viewers aged 25-to-54.

In the same hour, MSNBC had 1,298,000 total viewers -- about one-third of Fox's total -- and a mere 510,000 viewers in the demo.

Wall Street Journal on the Zimmerman verdict

Sensible.

An American criminal defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's the standard to keep in mind when considering the jury's not guilty verdict Saturday for George Zimmerman in the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

The case has been fraught with racial politics from the start, but inside the Sanford, Florida courtroom, the jurors had to wrestle with the standard that is a hallmark of American justice. No one but Mr. Zimmerman knows what happened that early evening in 2012 when he followed Martin, an unfamiliar young, African-American male visiting the neighborhood. A scuffle ensued, Zimmerman shot Martin in what he says was self-defense, and prosecutors never produced an eyewitness or even much evidence to disprove Mr. Zimmerman.

The verdict compounds the tragedy for the Martin family, but no one can claim that their son was not represented in court. The state threw everything it had at Mr. Zimmerman. Gov. Rick Scott replaced local prosecutors with a special team from Jacksonville, the judge often ruled favorably for the prosecution, including the addition of the lesser manslaughter charge (in addition to second-degree murder) at the end of the trial.

******

Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP is already lobbying Attorney General Eric Holder to indict Mr. Zimmerman on federal civil-rights charges. To do so and win a conviction would require proof that Mr. Zimmerman was motivated by racial animus when the record shows little more than a reference by Mr. Zimmerman to "punks" in a comment to a police dispatcher.

Millions of Americans would see such federal charges as an example of double jeopardy, and a politicized prosecution to boot. In this context, it was good to see Mr. Obama's statement Sunday that "we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken."

There's more good sense, if you hit the link.

Stem cell transplant as HIV treatment

Last week there was good news about doing a bone marrow transplant (in essence, a stem cell transplant) to treat HIV. It's now six and a half years since my stem cell transplant, to rebuild my immune system after the high dose chemo I received, treating my lymphoma.

An crucial difference between my tranplant and theirs; mine was autologous (I was given back my own stem cells, removed before my high dose chemo) and theirs was allogenic (transplant from a donor). you can read a little about both types here. Allogenic transplanats are much more dangerous.

They were being treated for lymphoma - not sure if it was caused by their carrying the HIV virus - and their transplants were several years ago.

After Marrow Transplants, 2 More Patients Appear H.I.V.-Free Without Drugs

Two H.I.V.-infected patients in Boston who had bone-marrow transplants for blood cancers have apparently been virus-free for weeks since their antiretroviral drugs were stopped, researchers at an international AIDS conference announced Wednesday.

The patients’ success echoes that of Timothy Ray Brown, the famous “Berlin patient,” who has shown no signs of resurgent virus in the five years since he got a bone-marrow transplant from a donor with a rare mutation conferring resistance to H.I.V.

The Boston cases, like Mr. Brown’s, are of no practical use to the 34 million people in the world who have H.I.V. but neither blood cancer nor access to premier cancer-treatment hospitals.

But AIDS experts still find the Boston cases exciting because they are another step in the long and so-far-fruitless search for a cure. They offer encouragement to ambitious future projects to genetically re-engineer infected patients’ cells to be infection-resistant. At least two teams are already experimenting with variants on this idea, said Dr. Steven G. Deeks, an AIDS researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, a discoverer of the virus that causes AIDS and the president of the International AIDS Society, called the findings about the Boston patients “very interesting and very encouraging.” The announcement about the cases was made at the society’s annual conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Hit the link forthe complete article.

World record baseball catch - dropped from 1200 ft.

Coverage in the Telegraph (UK) of all places.

 

Another funny Jeanne Robertson video: "Left Brain vs. Intruder"

Over the past three years I've posted four Jeanne Robertson videos - here's the first one (very, very, funny), back in October, 2010.  Jeanne Robertson: "Doing the Pashmina Toss Flip" To see the others, just type Jeanne Robertson in the search box above.

Here's her latest - you have to listen carefully and of course "left brain" is her husband.

 

Prosecutors & defense speak after the Zimmerman verdict

And here's the defense