What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread, feel free to share.
Here’s a few from me.
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Atheists lose another one.
From TheNYPost
“A New York judge has tossed out a lawsuit seeking to stop the display of a cross-shaped steel beam found among the World Trade Center’s wreckage.
Federal judge Deborah Batts on Friday rejected the arguments of a national atheists’ group.
American Atheists had sued the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s operators in 2011 on constitutional grounds.”
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More NY news, this is not as good. Also from TheNYPost
“New York’s big government — with its hands deep in taxpayers’ pockets and regulations controlling everyone’s lives — has made the Empire State the worst in the nation for personal liberty, a new study shows.”
“The university found New York’s government slams citizens from every angle — from huge taxes to tight controls on business to myriad rules on all kinds of fun.
“New York has, by a wide margin, the highest taxes in the country,” the report found.”
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Poor airports. Apparently nobody has explained to them that laws don’t apply to the Obama Admin.
From YahooNews
“Airport operators are mounting a legal challenge to the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to cut funding for 149 air traffic control towers, accusing the agency of violating federal law meant to ensure major changes at airports do not erode safety.
Several airports are now asking a federal court to halt the plan and compel the FAA to more carefully study the potential safety impact, said Carl Olson, director of the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Ill. He warned that without a more cautious approach, lives will be put at risk by cuts that he contends are arbitrary and the result of reckless political brinkmanship in Washington.
“I think everybody’s going to realize what the industry knows, and that is there is a razor thin margin of error in aviation and any diminishment of safety is going to have an immediate and cascading effect,” Olson said in an interview Friday. “And all the talk to the contrary won’t change that fact.”
Hey it was either this or less vacations. Guess which one they picked? 🙄
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You can take the Dictator out of the KGB, but you can’t take the KGB out of the Dictator.
From TheWashingtonTimes
“Governments and rights organizations are decrying raids by Russian authorities on more than 2,000 international and domestic advocacy groups, what observers say is an unprecedented campaign to silence critics of the Kremlin.
In the past couple of weeks, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has conducted surprise inspections at hundreds of locations, including the offices of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Transparency International.
In addition, Russian groups that receive money from foreign donors have been targeted, as have religious groups, environmental advocates, and cultural exchange and education programs.”
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Ah yes, the oh so tolerant left. I’m sure the faculty agrees. 🙄
From NationalReview
“Ben Carson, the noted pediatric neurosurgeon, has become the target of a petition by Johns Hopkins students who want him removed as the medical school’s commencement speaker this spring.
Dr. Carson became a media sensation in January when he questioned Obamacare and progressive taxation in a speech to the National Prayer Breakfast as President Obama sat just a few feet away from him.
With his new prominence, Carson has apparently also riled some liberals, including these Johns Hopkins students. Last Tuesday, he told Sean Hannity of Fox News that “marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.””
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And we’ll finish up with a stunningly honest admission of how they really feel, for a change.
From TheWeeklyStandard
“Florida legislators considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion were shocked during a committee hearing this week when a Planned Parenthood official endorsed a right to post-birth abortion.
Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion should be left up to the woman seeking an abortion and her abortion doctor.
“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”
“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.”
Not shockingly this is the same group of affiliates Michelle Obama’s aide left to take a CEO position in. I posted that story on Thursday from LifeNews
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Wandering Views 
Thanks, AJ! The George Mason study on freedom in the states should provide entertainment after golf. Here is the link:
http://freedominthe50states.org/
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I have long contended that the US has become a hierarchy of preferences. The Treyvon story teaches us that black still trumps brown. Kobe Bryant teaches us that black trumps female (he got away with rape), but homosexual trumps black (he was fined for a “gay slur”). Dr. Carson should have been paying attention. He is free to attack Obama (that’s black on black), but homosexuals are at the top of the list and can not be criticized by anyone.
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Ricky, this is list of who trumps who is depends on how likely the groups is to vote democrat and badly they need them to continue to vote democrat. It has nothing to do with who needs the protections. You can see this is how Muslims always trump women and Jews. But the Carson story shows that at the very bottom of the list are minorities who dare to go over to the enemy.
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Ricky, the is list of who trumps who depends on how likely the group is to vote democrat and how badly they need them to continue to vote democrat. It has nothing to do with who needs the protection. You can see this is how Muslims always trump women and Jews. But the Carson story shows that at the very bottom of the list are minorities who dare to go over to the enemy.
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Disregard my first post . I didn’t proofread it.
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Suzy Lee Weiss, a high school senior from Pittsburgh, has a delightful piece in the WSJ today, “To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me: If only I had a tiger mom or started a fake charity.”
For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would’ve happily come out of it. “Diversity!” I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would’ve been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.
I also probably should have started a fake charity. Providing veterinary services for homeless people’s pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you’re using someone else’s misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you’re golden.
She, also, claims that being the youngest of four, her parents caved to too many of her weaknesses. She wishes now that she had a Tiger Mom.
The piece is rather heavy with ego but saved with humor and instructive on what the top colleges are up to in admissions.
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KBells, You may be on to something. Think of the various favored groups that at some point have been important to the Democrats: blacks, browns, women, the disabled, homosexuals, animals (represented by PETA), trees (represented by their huggers), Muslims, atheists, transgendered people, etc. In a few years I’ll be one of the elderly, but I fear they will no longer be a favored group.
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Russia has taken another intelligent step to protect its children:
http://rt.com/politics/gay-couples-report-foreign-973/
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Brad Schiller, a University of Reno economist did a major study and came up with the following conclusion.
We do have serious poverty in our economy, even more so in this lingering recession. And everyone favors the rising real wages and living standards that come with productivity advance and economic growth. But advocates of a higher minimum wage put the cart before the horse. A growing economy generates good jobs; higher wages don’t grow the economy. And the overwhelming evidence is that higher minimum wages reduce the availability of jobs at the lowest end of the job market.
The truth is that the minimum wage is a factor in the unemployment rate of unskilled young people, especially minorities, and that most workers earning low wages move up in wages over time.
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