It won awards in 1973. Times change.

(ht Jesus General)

The NJ passed on the letter below. I wonder if they could justify not printing letters from us if we wrote a bunch of them saying that we should have a state auditor who would actually …you know…audit something.

Ken Matlusky for State Auditor // May 2, 2009 at 12:39 pm

Dear News Journal,

I read the article on Sunday, April 12th, about the horrible treatment of veterans at the State Veterans Center in Dover. I found the story disturbing, but unfortunately, I was not surprised, Last year you ran a story about a woman who was fired from the same Veterans Center after she blew the whistle on various problems. In 2007 and 2008, you reported the abuse of patients, massive theft from patient trust accounts, and the mistreatment of a whistleblower at the Delaware Psychiatric Center. Also, last year you ran a story about patient abuse at Emily P. Bissell Hospital, caught on hidden video, that the state declined to prosecute.

Many financial and abuse problems could be solved much sooner, but many state employees are afraid to come forward and risk the consequences. Whistle blowers need much better protection in Delaware. That is one reason why I am running for State Auditor in 2010. If elected Auditor I would be the best friend/advocate state whistle blowers ever had. I would back them up 100%, stand up to the Big Boys threatening them, and even publicly protest in front of the state agency where the whistle blower is being mistreated.

I know that is not the Delaware Way, but the Delaware Way is not solving these problems.
Sincerely,
Ken Matlusky, CPA
Democrat for State Auditor

Personally, I’d love to live through another Revolution.  My Spanish teacher at Sallies predicted one and I always wondered if he would be write or not.  It would be so nice to sit on the hill with a picnic basket, my wife and son playing frisbee and watching the confederates march in rows with their muskets.  How romantic war is.  (insert Nostalgic gaze into distance as well as patriotic music)

When asked if Georgia would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States, 43 percent of Republicans in the state selected independent nation, according to a poll published Friday.

The General Assembly of Georgia recently passed Senate Resolution 632 in support of the state sovereignty movement, by a vote of 43-1; an act Atlanta writer Jay Bookman characterized as accidentally threatening the state’s ties to the United States.

“In fact, Senate Resolution 632 did a lot more than merely threaten to end this country,” he wrote. “It stated that under the Constitution, the only crimes the federal government could prosecute were treason, piracy and slavery.

Although it is a stone cold lock that Castle is going to hang up his gloves, it is interesting to run down the cold, dispassionate  stats in a Castle/Biden match-up

Michael Newbold Castle: Born July 2, 1839 in Wilmington, Delaware. Only incumbent Republican Congressman currently representing a Democratic district. A graduate of Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and Georgetown University Law Center, he married Jane DiSabatino in 1992. Hates kids, especially the unborn variety.

Castle’s reputation for being a “moderate” was destroyed by slavish devotion to Bush era policies (95% of Bush era war policy votes favored the White House). Since the election of Barrack Obama, Mike Castle has not returned to his moderate roots, but has voted in lockstep with Republican leadership bent on obstructing America’s economic recovery. Among his positives in a match-up against Biden will be an ability to raise money from deep pocketed, out of state from Republicans determined to put at least one race in the “toss-up” category.

I don’t know how Castle intends to spin that straw into gold.

Let’s look at Beau.

Joseph Robinette “Beau” Biden III: Born February 3, 1969. American politician, soldier, and lawyer from Wilmington, Delaware. Currently serves as the Attorney General of Delaware, a Captain in the Delaware Army National Guard and son of Vice President Joe Biden.

A graduate of Archmere Academy, the University of Pennsylvania, and Syracuse University College of Law. Worked at the United States Department of Justice in Philadelphia where he served as a Counsel in the Office of Policy Development and as a Federal Prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Loves children. Biden and wife Hallie, have two children: a daughter, Natalie and a son, Hunter.

Biden stepped into the national spotlight at the 2008 Democratic National Convention when he introduced his father. He recounted the auto accident that killed his mother and sister and the subsequent parenting commitment his father made to his sons.

Biden is a member of the Delaware Army National Guard and serves as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps as part of the 261st Signal Brigade in Smyrna, Delaware. His unit was activated to deploy to Iraq on October 3, 2008, and sent to Fort Bliss, Texas for pre-deployment training, the day after his father participated in the 2008 presidential campaign’s only vice presidential debate. His father is on the record as saying, “I don’t want him going. But I tell you what, I don’t want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years, and so how we leave makes a big difference.”

.

How can a political opposition function when it is delusional?

David Anderson:

I was listening to WDEL this afternoon and heard our Congressman say that he would either run for Senate or retire. Talk about a trial balloon. He wants to see if the party will rally behind him for senate when we already have a candidate who can win. Christine O’Donnell would be a superior senator in my opinion. She would be able to bring a much needed perspective of a principled, youthful, and thoughtful citizen who is still connected with regular life.

I can’t type that well when I am laughing hysterically.

El Somnambulo’s favorite REM song,  from back in the day when Michael Stipe had hair, and ’80’s hair at that:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Ouyl7k_iU&feature=related[/youtube]

REM:  ‘Harbor Coat’  from  “Reckoning”  (1984)

This aurally-gorgeous album (produced by Upper Darby’s Todd Rundgren) became even more gorgeous when artificial enhancements (such as ‘the things we did on grass’) upped the ante:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozu8KGFH-CU[/youtube]

XTC:  ‘Grass’  from  “Skylarking”  (1986)

The Beast Who Slumbers got your attention w/XTC? Good, b/c XTC had an alter ego, called the Dukes of Stratosphear. They often did homages/parodies of their favorite bands. But here’s the catch…they didn’t do covers, they did songs that sounded sometimes even better than the bands they were saluting. If you like the Beach Boys as much as ‘bulo does, or even don’t for that matter, you just have to listen to this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRcXWGLummo&feature=related[/youtube]

The Dukes of Stratosphear:  ‘Pale and Precious’  from  “Psonic Psunspot”  (1987)

As long as ‘bulo’s engaged in Saturday Morning Beautiful Harmony Immersion Therapy, he’s gonna cheat, just a little. While this song is from a seminal ’70’s album (if you like what you hear, buy the album, it’s a classic), this performance is from 1983. Since the harmonies and the song give him chills, he opts to share them with you:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e3sqtoRG-Y[/youtube]

The Roches:  ‘Hammond Song’  from  “The Roches”  (1979)

We close out with a double shot of classic ’80’s soul. First, one of the great veteran soul men who deserves more than to just be remembered for “Across 110th Street”, although he certainly deserves to be remembered for that. Guys, tell ‘bulo if the guilt befalling the protagonist of this song has ever happened to you. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Bobby Womack:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovmS20sc2_U&feature=related[/youtube]

Bobby Womack:  ‘I Wish He Wouldn’t Trust Me So Much’  from  “So Many Rivers”  (1985)

Finally, if this guy hadn’t, from the start, been a legend in his own mind, he truly could have been a superstar. This fleeting glimpse from his brief heyday (see if you remember this one) will show you what might have been, and will also show you the incipient narcissism that ultimately was his downfall:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmi_qbUGCKo&feature=related[/youtube]

Terence Trent D’Arby:  ‘Sign Your Name’  from  “Introducing the Hard Line According to…”

Barring hijackings, see ya next week. El Somnambulo’s finding so much cool stuff from the ’80’s that he’s just getting started…

Following up on Donviti’s recent post on Art Downs descriptions and thoughts on our President, Art Downs gives us a follow up of his own:

Is Obama evil or just plain stupid, a polished ghetto rat who is as cleaned up as Biden once claimed him to be?

Yeah. Art Downs is a racist.

You want to call the President names? Fine. We called Bush tons of names because we did not like him or his policies. Call him just plain stupid or evil. We did that to Bush too. But ghetto rat?

Yeah. Art Downs is a racist.

I love this quite honestly.

Last week, we wrote about the Fordham law professor who assigned his information privacy law class to compile a dossier on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

The professor had chosen Scalia as the target for privacy invasion because of the Justice’s remarks at a January conference organized by the Institute of American and Talmudic Law. Scalia’s views on the privacy of personal information online are summed up nicely by this quote:

“Every single datum about my life is private? That’s silly,” Scalia [said].

(And his views are summed up at greater length here by privacy expert and GW Law Professor Dan Solove.)

Professor Joel Reidenberg and his class now have a 15-page dossier on Scalia, including his home address, the value of his home, his home phone number, the movies he likes, his food preferences, his wife’s personal e-mail address, and “photos of his lovely grandchildren.”

We checked in with the Justice to see how he felt about his online information being aggregated and mined by the professor and his 15 students.

Scalia was far from pleased (though we were pleased that a Supreme Court Justice would honor Above The Law with a response). Check out his reply to us, after the jump.

Here is Justice Scalia’s response, in all its scathing glory:

I stand by my remark at the Institute of American and Talmudic Law conference that it is silly to think that every single datum about my life is private. I was referring, of course, to whether every single datum about my life deserves privacy protection in law.It is not a rare phenomenon that what is legal may also be quite irresponsible. That appears in the First Amendment context all the time. What can be said often should not be said. Prof. Reidenberg’s exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any.

What movie have you recently seen at the theater?  Rented or Borrowed?

Me, I am on a man-date to see “Wolverine”.  I now have a buddy that I c an call up and ask if he wants to go see the latest Dick Flick.  It is awesome!  My wife is fine with it, his wife is more than fine with it!

Last night I saw the movie “Body of Lies” with Decaprio and the bloated Aussie aka, Russel Crowe.  The movie had some depth to it, but it wasn’t one of DiCaprio’s best.  The premise was DiCaprio was teh awesome CIA Field agent that was after a mad Muslim Bomber.  Ohhhhhhh, how tense right?  There was of course a torture scene that was sort of horrible, but could have been worse.  Given the point it was trying to make it should have been.  All in all I give the movie 3 Medium pizzas.  The acting makes up for the plot.  Being that is was these two heavyweight actors you should expect more, but because it was these guys they made it a good movie and worth watching. 

What say you?

I venture over to the so called Common Sense site every once in a while to see what the oxymoron’s have to offer. I have those writers that I care for and those I don’t.  The kind hand that Art extended to me a few weeks ago not with standing, this post speaks volumes to me and I would like some other opinions before I fly off the handle on the name calling that appears to be one step removed from using a more common term close to the hearts of some people.

Obama appears to be making a play for the ghetto rat portion of his base by revising the penalty differential between powdered and processed cocaine. Crack possession is treated more harshly (for equal quantities) than the powdered variant. This seems to discriminate against minority offenders and this claim has a statistical basis but one can always lie with statistics.

uhhhhhh, wow. Ghetto rat.  Minority.  Crack.  No doubt Art is referring to the Irish Catholic segment I guess.

We have just begun to evaluate a short post but we have to digress a little into typical Art assumptions. Art has been pelted around before when it comes to his answers and his facts most recently by UI the chemist. Art isn’t a chemist and he was schooled by one.

Cocaine (unlike opiates) is not physiologically addictive. In the powdered form, it was considered an elitist treat. A gold coke spoon might be openly worn on a chain in a disco while a hypodermic syringe would mark one as a low-life. Coke was the ‘in drug’ with many of the beautiful people. Yet it is destructive to most users and is rather costly. I have never seen a regular user been able to escape a social harm from use of the drug and there are credible reports that some surgeons in California enjoy a nice income from restoring badly damaged nasal septums. Powder is still considered ‘cool’ in some circles. I would not snort a line if it were free and legal.

Uh, Anyone want to take a stab at the first sentence? Ok, I will. WRONG. It is physiolically addictive. Television would have been a better example but this is Art and in his own mind his facts are facts.  That is the world according to Art.

As far as his regular user comment.  I guess Art doesn’t know people on ADD meds…As for the rest “credible reports”? To use a Daily Show reference…”Some Guy” comes to mind.

And this little piece of booger sugar is priceless:  “Powder is still considered ‘cool’ in some circles.”  Hilarious in some circles for sure.

Now back to the real meaning of the omnipotent one’s post

Crack is processed cocaine and it is not associated with the allegedly beautiful people. It offers a relatively quick and cheap effect. While the snorters may blow their salaries and trust fund on junk and even dip into the till, they tend not to knock over liquor stores and mug people to subsidize their pleasures.

Wonder who Art is referencing on this one? Any takers?  Must be Obama’s German Bratwurst voting bloc.

Thus the rationale for the difference in penalties.
As a thug-hugger, Obama will certainly act in behalf of the criminal element in his base.

I could be wrong and I won’t jump to conclusions. I will allow you the reader to draw an assesment.