In an obvious attempt to re-heat the leftovers of the journalism v. blogging debate, Post blogger Mitch Mulhall writes, “journalists presume a mantle of authority based on an intellectual decorum they think most people would rather not bother with… Case in point, the Killian documents, submitted on 60 Minutes Wednesday (September 4, 2004) by then-host Dan Rather to impugn President Bush’s National Service Record. Blogger Charles Foster Johnson took a look at the documents and realized that the typographical qualities... could not have been accomplished by any typewriter contemporaneous with Bush’s military service... Consider insead Mr. Rather’s relevance today.”
Post blogger Mitch Mulhall dissects the U.S. Supreme Court decision to disengage a "well established militia" from the Second Amendment's right of an individual to bear arms. "Justice Scalia pens over 50 pages positing what he thinks the Constitution's framers were thinking when they wrote the 2nd Amendment," he blogs. "It’s an interesting read, one I’m not done digesting. The upshot? Scalia asserts that service in a militia is a result of the fact that Antifederalists feared a Federal Government would disarm the people, thereby neutralizing citizen militias and subjecting them, through military force if necessary, to the mandates of Government."
GSPI--[A] boy twice named Palisade's Peach King now faces 332 years in prison as a 27-year-old man. Why? A shameless, Fear-and-Loathing addiction to Crystal Meth.
Christopher Hitchens underwent waterboarding last February. He puts a lie to the notion that waterboarding “simulates drowning.” After undergoing this act, he claims waterboarding is no mere simulation. It’s drowning. “It would be bad enough if they did have something—suppose they wanted to know the where a relative of yours was, or a lover, say, ‘well, I’m going to betray them now, because this has to come to an end; I can’t take this anymore.’” Hitchens then goes on to pose the unthinkable: what if they got the wrong guy? Then, he posits, such a person would be in real danger of losing his or her mind...
[J]ournalists presume a mantle of authority based on an intellectual decorum they think most people would rather not bother with… Case in point, the Killian documents, submitted on 60 Minutes Wednesday (September 4, 2004) by then-host Dan Rather to impugn President Bush’s National Service Record. Blogger Charles Foster Johnson took a look at documents and realized that the typographical qualities—the leading, kerning, and superscripting—of the documents could not have been accomplished by any typewriter contemporaneous with Bush’s military service, c. 1973. Johnson created an animated .gif that plotted the scanned image of the Killian document over a Microsoft Word generated copy. The result? Don’t think for a moment that having a journalism degree makes you implicitly more diligent or thoughtful than the rest of humanity. I’d implore you to ask Dan Rather about this, but I’m fairly certain his answer would be a stalwart defense Killian document validity. Consider instead Mr. Rather’s relevance today.
Last Thursday, the United States Supreme Court (USCS) decided the thirty-two year old, Washington D.C. gun ban is unconstitutional.
Take two things from this decision:
1. The 2nd Amendment is not inextricably linked to the concept of "militia."
2. The right extended by the 2nd Amendment is—like speech—not unlimited or unqualified.
The USSC rejected D.C.’s legislative attempt to impose a total ban on guns. The ban failed the Court’s Constitutional metric. Read more into this at your own peril...
Taco Bell my favorite fast food place has decided I as a customer need to know all about their hiring practices in Glenwood Springs. Give me a break right on the counter when I order my food I need to know all about your hiring practices with this big document right on the counter that states we E-Verify? Great you want us all to know your staff is legal.
… and the model of Toyota sports car I rented in Palm Springs. I drove through shallow valleys, smokey hillsides, navigated crowded freeways and sudden brake lights. I saw signs to places I’d never heard of, some I had: San Bernadino, Sam Dimas, Pasadena, Glendale, Encino… I turned left on Ventura Boulevard and right when I came to the Pacific Ocean…
When I got to Pepperdine, I stepped out of the sports car and stared out onto the Pacific. A pale gray haze blurred the blue of both the sea and the cloudless sky. It wasn’t merely an absence of Mt. Sopris. Hell, I’d learned to deal with looking at the flatness of West Texas. No, it was a gut feeling. I walked around campus for about twenty minutes and drove away without attending the Law School interview I’d traveled so far for.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no regrets. I’m quite pleased by the life brought on by the choices I made as a younger man. Still, I can’t help but wonder what my life might be like had I made different choices—even the ones that were purely incidental. I can tell you this with certainty: had I made any one of those decisions differently, I would not be writing this tonight...
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If Hubris drives the desire to leave a legacy, humility provides the satisfaction of watching a legacy come to pass without ceremony, celebration, or fanfare, of feeling a life lived well, despite itself…
From: Scott Chaplin
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 10:25:03 -0700
Hello Friends and Neighbors,
I am strongly urging all of you who live in Garfield County (as well as those of you in neighboring counties who care about the future of the region) to come the the River Valley Ranch House in Carbondale this Friday at 5:30 pm. County Commissioner candidates Steve Carter and Steve Bershenyi will be on hand to introduce their platforms and answer questions.
I would consider this race to be one of the most important local political races in recent history in Western Colorado. It is also one of the most exciting because we have the potential to bring about one of the most profound political changes in over 30 years for our area. Garfield County politics has been dominated by a variety of Republicans who have almost blindly supported any and all demands from the gas industry. This has resulting in a great deal of environmental degradation that will continue haunting the County for years to come. The County leaders have also done little to support intelligent growth management, affordable housing or public transportation; just to name a few important causes.
The Con Man gets a visit from Lt. Colonel Dick Merrit and Seaman Dan Glidden, two retired veterans who stand for all that's good about those who have served the country. Also: a bit of a rant of flag lapel pins and taking back the lapel flag pin--and the flags--from those who desecrate it with faux patriotism.
You may take this as a challenge and/or invitation to change the future toward a sustainable civilization! The USA grows by 3.1 million annually on its way to adding 100 million people in 30 years. What drives that population overload? Legal and illegal immigration! Water shortages, energy costs, gridlock, crowding, air pollution and quality of life hang in the balance and can only worsen with added population.
I opened this morning’s edition of the GSPI to learn that we’re being overrun by wildlife. That’s right, wring your hands and run screaming into the night, there’s beavers eating trees in Noname and Grizzly Creek, and bears are eating llamas in Rifle. I tell you, I’ve lived here a long time, but I can’t remember the last time life here seemed so tenuous, so
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
