June 2009 Archives

This is fishy:

Officers then went to the Rainbow Lounge, which had opened about a week ago. They encountered two drunk people who made “sexually explicit movements” toward officers and another who grabbed a TABC agent’s groin, according to the police report.

That sounds like the unimaginative fabrication of prole males in need of a fast excuse. But here’s the giveaway:

No one was arrested for assault but about half a dozen people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, according to police records.

Uh, no. If you so much as lay a hand on a law enforcement agent, much less grab at his crotch, in what state do you not get charged with assault?

Chad Gibson, the alleged grabber, is in the hospital with a brain hemorrhage:

Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson was the patron who grabbed at the agent’s groin. Gibson was so drunk he was vomiting and struck his head when he fell, the chief said.

So, on the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the police raid a gay bar where they encounter a man who was not only audacious, but also vomitive. What an unusual confluence of events! (I know that when I happen upon people who are hurling chunks, I like to stand close enough to them that they can grab my crotch! Don’t you?)

We all know that people can drink themselves sick. But as an RN, I’ll tell you what else vomiting is a sign of: a hemorrhage that results from blunt force trauma to the head.

I don’t know what happened in that bar. I just know the cops’ story is suspicious.

Happily, a Democratic congressman says the Senate will flush it — it being the cap-and-trade bill.

Althouse is running a poll.

Michele Catalano says we’re not mouring the loss of an alleged pedophile. We’re mouring the loss of our youth.

The cure or treatment that goes undiscovered might be the one you need:

The U.S. is unique because it alone is the source of half of world-wide profits that provide the payoff for the complex, lengthy, and expensive process of developing new treatments. When other nations construct their health-care systems, they ignore the impact of their pricing policies on R&D incentives. As the dominant R&D funding wellhead, we do not have that option.

Mark Steyn explains.

Guess who’s planning to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects? Oh yeah.

Justice Alito says it’s time to press 1 for English.

If all you’re looking for is a garden-variety pain killer, then no: You may not rummage through a teenager’s underwear — especially not when the teen is still in them. I would have thought that, of all people, principals knew this. Don’t they work at a school?

Judas Priest! Yet another. I give up.

The U.S. Supreme Court has told Congress to revise a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act or watch as the court invalidates the law.

From the syllabus of the court’s opinion:

The historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable, but the Act now raises serious constitutional concerns. The preclearance requirement represents an intrusion into areas of state and local responsibility that is otherwise unfamiliar to our federal system.

Some media reported that the court had divided 8 to 1. That’s true, but misleading. The dissenter (and he dissented only in part) was Justice Clarence Thomas, who did not want to wait for Congress to act. He would have gone ahead and invalidated the law now.

SCOTUSBlog provides an excellent summary of the case and its significance.

Do you know why the nation has a shortage of primary care physicians? Or why it takes an average of 30 days to get an appointment with the doctor? Or why you spend more time in the waiting room than in the doctor’s office?

The disparity results from Medicare-driven compensation that pays more to doctors who do procedures than to those who diagnose illness and dispense prescriptions. In 2005, for example, Medicare paid $89.64 for a half-hour visit to a primary-care doctor in Chicago, according to a Government Accountability Office report. It paid $422.90 to a gastroenterologist who spent about the same amount of time performing a colonoscopy in a private office.

Meanwhile, in Boston, where people are under a mandate to have health insurance, it takes an average of 63 days to get an appointment with a primary care doctor.

While on the job, you must wear drawers. Do people not know that?

Nobody knows exactly what benefits they’ll get — probably not health insurance — but that isn’t the point. This is:

“Extending benefits to partners of gay federal employees is terrific, but at this point he is under enormous pressure from the gay civil rights community for having promised the moon and done nothing so far,” Richard Socarides, an adviser to the Clinton administration on gay issues, said Tuesday evening.

I can’t believe that people believe politicians who promise the moon.

Did Obama’s supporters think that a) he wasn’t a politician, or that b) he was, for some myserious reason, different from every politician who’s ever lived, or c) what? Their shock is shocking.

P.S. Confirmed. The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from extending full healthcare benefits to the same-sex partners of its employees.

We aren’t safe yet. But with Democrats in disarray, the prospects for “healthcare reform” have dimmed.

At least for now, and for the right reason: a bailout would encourage other states to follow suit.

Obama ignores “the crux of the health-care dilemma,” says Robert Samuelson:

Hospitals and doctors are paid mostly on a fee-for-service basis and reimbursed by insurance, either private or governmental. The open-ended payment system encourages doctors and hospitals to provide more services — and patients to expect them. It also favors new medical technologies, which are made profitable by heavy use. Unfortunately, what pleases providers and patients individually hurts the nation as a whole.

Take a look.

George Will calls for judicial activism:

Of course courts should not make policy or invent rights not stipulated or implied by statutes or the Constitution’s text. But courts have no nobler function than that of actively defending property, contracts and other bulwarks of freedom against depredations by government, including by popularly elected, and popular, officials. Regarding Chrysler and GM, the executive branch is exercising powers it does not have under any statute or constitutional provision. At moments such as this, deference to the political branches constitutes dereliction of judicial duty.

The top name for male babies in Texas? Jose.

“… the demographics of America are changing in a way that is deadly for the Republican Party as it exists today.”

Chastity Bono seeks twig and berries …

Judgment Day: “The state’s revenues from personal income taxes tumbled by 39.3 percent in May from a year earlier while revenues from corporate taxes fell by 52.1 percent …”

Whew: The troops have arrived.

(Ron Bailey explains how a public option plan would end your private health insurance.)

Wouldn’t you just die?

What say you? I say it’s a close call, which means I’d resolve it in the officer’s favor.

One the one hand, the cop didn’t need a taser to subdue this woman. She was physically no match for him, and she posed no threat to his safety. (As you watch, ask yourself: Did he look or sound afraid? Mad, yes. But afraid?)

And if, as his colleague suggests, the cop followed department policy, the policy should probably come in for review. Cops are supposed to be peace officers, not an occupying force.

On the other hand, if I refused, even once, to sign a ticket*; if I cursed; if I ignored the officer’s instructions; and if I dared him to zap me, I could hardly claim surprise when I found myself eating pavement.

Most important, if I started to walk off while telling the cop that “I’m getting back in my car,” I’d know I was going to get a taste of the secret sauce. Wouldn’t you?

One side point: The woman pointed out at least three times that she’s 72-years-old. Why did she think that relevant? Does age confer immunity from the instructions of law enforcement?

Watch and call it for yourself: