Laissez-faire

I can’t believe some of the cool secret gadgets my new car has. Why, with just a flick of a button on the mirror, I can get all the cars behind me to dim their lights

- Spud Anderson

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To counter the story below, I have personally designated 8 PM EDT on 3/29 as “light up the sky” hour in an effort to combat global warming hysteria and nonsense. Please support this effort by turning all your household indoor & outdoor lights on. The use of available flood lights is especially encouraged.

Our goal should be to light up the planet to a great enough extent such that any intelligent beings passing by our planet would see that the majority of us have made a decision to embrace science and technology instead of regressing to the dark ages.

Why? Because I personally find the idea that a “lights out” evening is somehow “noble” is beyond grotesque. Good grief - - we’re emulating North Korea. What the hell is noble about that ????

On the contrary, I see a sinister intent behind “Earth Hour.” Given the fact that environmental lunacy is intentionally driving us into perpetual energy scarcity (ANWR and off-shore drillings are off limits, coal is “bad”, nuclear power is “bad, global warming nonsense has become a religion, etc.), rolling blackouts will soon be commonplace throughout much of the US. In other words, “Earth Hour” is about preparing the serfs for what is to become commonplace.

Do you really want to “celebrate” that ??

Smitty, 3-26-08

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Source: http://www.eponline.com/articles/60073?recipid%3B=

Don’t Forget to Turn Off the Lights on March 29
March 24, 2008

World Wildlife Fund has named HP as the official U.S. technology partner for Earth Hour, the global climate change event taking place at 8 p.m. EDT on March 29 (www.earthhour.org) in cities around the world.

During Earth Hour, millions of individuals and businesses will turn off their lights for one hour, demonstrating that by working together, we can all make a difference in the fight against climate change.

“We can’t stop climate change in a single hour, but through Earth Hour 2008 we hope to raise awareness and encourage people to make energy reduction a priority long after the lights come back on,” said Richard Moss, vice president of WWF’s Climate Change program. “We are pleased HP has shown such strong leadership among companies in the technology sector and is developing models for the entire industry on how companies can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and promote energy efficiency.”

“Collaboration is key when it comes to addressing the effects of climate change,” said Pat Tiernan, vice president of Social and Environmental Responsibility at HP. “Furthering our alliance with WWF supports our goal to educate others about climate change and energy efficiency.”

During Earth Hour, some of the world’s most iconic skylines, including those in Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco, will go dark for one hour in this dramatic call for action on climate change. With a total of 25 cities participating in 10 countries, Earth Hour will be the largest voluntary power down in history.

HP is committing financial and technical support to Earth Hour as the national technology partner for the event. This effort builds on the company’s pioneering relationship with WWF to address the causes and consequences of climate change. HP is promoting the event to its employees around the world, providing technology at events in each of the four U.S. cities and, most importantly, joining millions around the globe by turning off the lights at its facilities.

“If you can read this, you must be a Republican”

– Protest sign seen in Florida

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“Peace” protesters at the upcoming Republican National Convention in St. Paul have hitched their wagon to ANSWER, a Stalinist group, which has a colorful history of “supporting “peace” and “pacifist” groups:

- It lead rallies in support of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist torture-state in 2003
- It supported the butchers of Beijing after the slaughter of Tiananmen Square
- It supports the last official Stalinist state, North Korea, in the mass starvation of its citizens
- It supported Slobodan Milosevic after the massacre at Srebrenica
- It supports the mullahs of Iran, the narco-gangsters of Colombia and the bus-bombers of Hamas. ”

Source: http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2006/20060814121904.aspx

Do ya supposed all the modern-day hippies participating have a clue (or even care) who they are enabling ???

– Smitty, 3-23-08

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Source: http://www.startribune.com/business/15481531.html

Activists unite at U meeting in planning GOP protests
By CHRIS SERRES, Star Tribune

February 9, 2008

The nation’s three largest antiwar coalitions appear to have cast aside their differences and agreed to support a mass antiwar march on the Republican National Convention in September.

On Saturday, United for Peace and Justice, which played a key role in organizing the anti-war march that drew an estimated 500,000 people at the 2004 Republican convention in New York, and two other large groups — International ANSWER and the Troops out Now Coalition — formally announced their support of a mass antiwar march at a planning conference at the University of Minnesota.

In recent years, these three large coalitions - which represent thousands of smaller antiwar groups nationally — have not endorsed each other’s national demonstrations, due to differences over policy focus and personalities.

But those differences, if they still exist, have taken a back seat to political expediency, and the broader cause of removing the Republicans from the White House, activists said Saturday

The show of unity signifies a level of cooperation that has not existed in the recent past and likely will enhance turnout at the march, which organizers predict will draw at least 50,000 people and upwards of 100,000.

“Because of their signing on, this will truly be a national demonstration, not just a regional or local demonstration,” said Meredith Aby, a local antiwar activist working on the conference.

Pressing police for a permit

However, logistical obstacles remain. The Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, which was formed locally last year, has been pressing St. Paul police for months for permits to nail down a march route that will take protesters near the Xcel Energy Center, where the convention will be held.

The police have cited a city ordinance saying that demonstration permits are issued no more than 180 days in advance.

Some activists said they fear a repeat of the 2004 GOP convention in New York, when the permit process dragged on until days before the event.

The weekend conference at the U was an opportunity for the activists to discuss strategy and ways to increase participation.

With the Iraq war recently taking a back seat to the economy as a central campaign issue, there was talk among participants about broadening the message to address the economic impact of the war, including the military budget’s drain on domestic programs

“There is an economic crisis that’s like a steamroller rolling forth,” said Sara Flounders, a representative from Troops Out Now Coalition, speaking before an auditorium of more than 150 activists. “We don’t know how that will look in six months … but it’s important to remember that war and years and years of militarism is coming home.”

Chris Serres • 612-673-4308

Does anyone know anything about “Utilitarianism” ?? I’d never heard of it before, but it must be the richest religion around, because they collect “donations” monthly from everyone I know or threaten to cut off their water, phone, gas or electricity !!

– Unknown

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Hello MN ACLU Chapter ?? Is anyone home ???

MN liberals would be screaming to high heaven if the below story were about a MN Taxpayer-financed Christian school.

Here is their reaction to the below story: _______________

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Source: http://www.startribune.com/featuredColumns/16404541.html

Are taxpayers footing bill for Islamic school in Minnesota?
By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune

March 9, 2008

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) — named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain — is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Its approximately 300 students are mostly the children of low-income Muslim immigrant families, many of them Somalis.

The school is in huge demand, with a waiting list of 1,500. Last fall, it opened a second campus in Blaine.

TIZA uses the language of culture rather than religion to describe its program in public documents. According to its mission statement, the school “recognizes and appreciates the traditions, histories, civilizations and accomplishments of the eastern world (Africa, Asia and Middle East).”

But the line between religion and culture is often blurry. There are strong indications that religion plays a central role at TIZA, which is a public school financed by Minnesota taxpayers. Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students’ religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion.

TIZA raises troubling issues about taxpayer funding of schools that cross that line.

Asad Zaman, TIZA’s principal, declined to allow me to visit the school or grant me an interview. He did not respond to e-mails seeking written replies.

TIZA’s strong religious connections date from its founding in 2003. Its co-founders, Zaman and Hesham Hussein, were both imams, or Muslim religious leaders, as well as leaders of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN).

Since then, they have played dual roles: Zaman as TIZA’s principal and the current vice-president of MAS-MN, and Hussein as TIZA’s school board chair and president of MAS-MN until his death in a car accident in Saudi Arabia in January.

TIZA shares MAS-MN’s headquarters building, along with a mosque.

MAS-MN came to Minnesotans’ attention in 2006, when it issued a “fatwa,” warning Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that transporting passengers with alcohol in their baggage is a violation of Islamic law.

Journalists whom Zaman has permitted to visit TIZA have described the school’s Islamic atmosphere and practices.

“A visitor might well mistake Tarek ibn Ziyad for an Islamic school,” reported Minnesota Monthly in 2007. “Head scarves are voluntary, but virtually all the girls wear them.” The school has a central carpeted prayer space, and “vaguely religious-sounding language” is used.

According to the Pioneer Press, TIZA’s student body prays daily and the school’s cafeteria serves halal food (permissible under Islamic law). During Ramadan, all students fast from dawn to dusk, according to a parent quoted in the article.

In fact, TIZA was originally envisioned as a private Islamic school. In 2001, MAS-MN negotiated to buy the current TIZA/MAS-MN building for Al-Amal School, a private religious institution in Fridley, according to Bruce Rimstad of the Inver Grove Heights School District. But many immigrant families can’t afford Al-Amal. In 2002, Islamic Relief — headquartered in California — agreed to sponsor a publicly funded charter school, TIZA, at the same location.

TIZA claims to be non-sectarian, as Minnesota law requires charters to be. But “after-school Islamic learning” takes place on weekdays in the same building under MAS-MN’s auspices, according to the program for MAS-MN’s 2007 convention. At that convention, a TIZA representative at the school’s booth told me that students go directly to “Islamic studies” classes at 3:30, when TIZA’s day ends. There, they learn “Qur’anic recitation, the Sunnah of the Prophet” and other religious subjects, he said.

TIZA’s 2006 Contract Performance Review Report states that students engage in unspecified “electives” after school or do homework.

Publicly, TIZA emphasizes that it uses standard curricular materials like those found in other public schools. But when addressing Muslim audiences, school officials make the link to Islam clear. At MAS-MN’s 2007 convention, for example, the program featured an advertisement for the “Muslim American Society of Minnesota,” superimposed on a picture of a mosque. Under the motto “Establishing Islam in Minnesota,” it asked: “Did you know that MAS-MN … houses a full-time elementary school”? On the adjacent page was an application for TIZA.

In addition to the issues raised by TIZA’s religious elements, there are reasons to be concerned about the organizations with which it is connected.

Group linked to Hamas

Islamic Relief-USA, the school’s sponsor, is compared to the Red Cross in several TIZA documents. In 2006, however, the Israeli government announced that Islamic Relief Worldwide, the organization’s parent group, “provides support and assistance” to Hamas, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.

Meanwhile, MAS-MN offers on its web site “beneficial and enlightening information” about Islam, which includes statements like “Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr.”

At its 2007 convention, MAS-MN featured the notorious Shayk Khalid Yasin, who is well-known in Britain and Australia for teaching that husbands can beat disobedient wives, that gays should be executed and that the United States spreads the AIDS virus in Africa through vaccines for tropical diseases.

Yasin’s topic? “Building a Successful Muslim Community in Minnesota.”

TIZA has improved the reading and math performance of its mostly low-income students. That’s commendable, but should Minnesota taxpayers be funding an Islamic public school?

Katherine Kersten • kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, Think Again, which can be found at www.startribune.com/thinkagain.

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– Smitty, 3-16-08

When the police told me that anything I said could be used against me in a court of law, I eagerly shouted, “Fur handcuffs and an ostrich feather!” Hey, who WOULDN’T want to be on the receiving end of that kind of justice ??

– Unknown

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Source: http://www.startribune.com/local/16147867.html

Behind bars, then back behind the wheel

By DAVID SHAFFER and GLENN HOWATT, Star Tribune staff writers

March 3, 2008

James Monroe Crumble shouldn’t get behind the wheel of a car.

Yet that’s exactly where police have found him — 68 times.

He has the most traffic tickets of any Minnesotan for driving without a valid driver’s license. He got his first ticket in 1999, on his 15th birthday, and the latest last Sunday in north Minneapolis.

He is a prime example of a category of drivers who authorities say care little about traffic laws. In Minnesota, 14,091 people have been cited five or more times because they never got a license or have had it withdrawn, according to a Star Tribune analysis of state traffic records. More than 500 have been cited 14 or more times.

Court records show that such illegal drivers stay on the road even after repeated convictions, fines, jail stays and court orders not to drive. Many of them can’t or won’t get auto insurance, and instead drive vehicles registered in others’ names.

“They are coming in over and over again,” said St. Paul City Attorney John Choi, whose office has repeatedly prosecuted Crumble, including five cases since 2002 in which he served up to 81 days in jail.

Minnesota has taken steps to confront and reform such drivers, yet the problem has persisted for years. As a group, these drivers are at least twice as likely to be involved in a fatal accident, experts say.

Last month, a driver with 14 citations for driving after his license was revoked was charged in a hit-and-run accident that killed a pedestrian on University Avenue in St. Paul. He allegedly told a passenger in his car that he fled because he didn’t want to be caught again with no license.

As it turns out, police often catch people who are driving without a license.

Usually they have lost it for some earlier offense, including driving while intoxicated or unpaid traffic tickets. Their cars often are impounded immediately, though police say they sometimes allow a licensed passenger to drive the vehicle away.

In most cases, the penalty is the same whether it’s the first offense or the 68th. The typical fine is about $180, and the driver’s license is revoked — again — usually for a few months. In some cases, offenders get up to 90 days in jail, and serve two thirds of that time if they’re on good behavior.

About 10 percent of the 14,091 scofflaw drivers are considered “inimical to public safety” because of prior drunken-driving offenses, according to the newspaper’s analysis of 1997-2007 tickets. Their licenses have been taken away, and when caught behind the wheel, they face stiffer penalties and up to a year in jail.

Yet, repeat offenders are difficult to keep off the road. In some cases, it appears the only times they aren’t driving is when they are locked up, according to police, court officials and others.

“They just do not care what the courts say,” said Gregory Pye, senior commander for traffic enforcement in the St. Paul Police Department. “They do not care about the norms of society. They see their own needs as paramount.”

Choi, the city attorney, said one-third of cases his office handles are drivers without licenses or insurance or both. For many, it’s a cycle — one ticket causes a revocation, then comes another ticket for driving while revoked, followed by another revocation and another fine, an impounded car, difficulties getting auto insurance and eventually jail time.

Many offenders don’t have much money, so as the fines, reinstatement fees and insurance problems multiply, even people who want to become legal drivers may find it hard to get out of the cycle, he added.

Undoing the legal mess

In Minneapolis, unlicensed drivers with no more than three repeat offenses can opt for community service instead of fines, and be given time to apply for license reinstatement, said Hennepin County District Court Chief Judge Lucy Wieland.

In some southern Minnesota courts, judges will give almost any repeat, unlicensed offender one chance at reinstating his license and clearing fines. One key requirement during the court-supervised process is “if you drive again, you are out of the program and you are going to jail,” said Mower County District Judge Donald E. Rysavy, who co-founded the program nine years ago.

While some offenders don’t care about having a license, Rysavy said that others “weren’t bad people, but they were getting no help at all in trying to clear their past records.” Since the program began, he said, there has been a dramatic decline in no-license driver cases in court.

Many of the successful participants have been Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens or green card holders who became legal drivers, he said. The program doesn’t apply to illegal immigrants, who are not eligible to get a license.

Minnesota has taken more steps than some states to confront the problem, including early intervention with drivers on the verge of cancellation and special plates for some convicted drunk drivers, said Robert Scopatz, director of research for Data Nexus Inc. of College Station, Texas, who has studied the problem for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Some states have imposed progressive penalties for multiple offenses, vehicle forfeiture and other measures, Scopatz said. But such things cost money, and no state has tried them all, he added.

Yet another arrest

When Minneapolis police officer Eric Madson pulled over a car in north Minneapolis last Sunday, he knew nothing of Crumble’s record as Minnesota’s most-ticketed unlicensed driver.

Madson pulled the car over for having windows tinted too darkly.

“He told me right away that he didn’t have a license,” Madson said. “I could smell marijuana coming from the car … so I patted him down and found a bag of weed in his pocket.”

Madson said his squad car computer showed that Crumble, 23, had many prior traffic tickets, but he said he didn’t know the full tally until a reporter called him about it. Madson said he ordered the car towed to an impound lot, and wrote Crumble a ticket for misdemeanor marijuana possession, tinted windows and driving after revocation.

Crumble didn’t land in jail that day, but he still could. He’s been there at least seven times previously, sentenced each time to 90 days, the maximum for misdemeanor unlicensed driving. A state motor vehicles official said Crumble has never had a driver’s license.

The newspaper attempted to contact Crumble repeatedly through people who know him. One woman said he didn’t have a phone. He did not return messages, nor could he be reached at his last reported address in St. Paul.

Though his record is long, it consists entirely of misdemeanor offenses, and no serious crime. He’s been stopped for loud music, watching television while driving and various other violations. His profile on MySpace says he is a computer programming graduate of Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis, which the school confirmed.

He soon will be back in court, and a prosecutor said she will seek another jail sentence.

“This is one of the worst driving records I have ever seen,” said Mary Ellen Heng, assistant Minneapolis city attorney.

dshaffer@startribune.com • 612-673-7090
ghowatt@startribune.com • 612-673-7192

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– Smitty, 3-9-08

I don’t get it. If auto-eroticism is legal, then why is statutory rape a crime ?? What makes sex with a car more morally acceptable than sex with a statue ???

– Unknown

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The judge gives someone who raped a 9 year old (that was in his custody) 27 years which is double the “state guidelines.” BTW who are the “legal experts” who came up with these “state guidelnes” ………. 12 years for raping a child??? In my world, about 27 years would have been the sentencing “floor” for such an act.

Anyone kudos to this judge ……….. but barbs to the original judge who awarded custody of the 9 year old to this guy despite a prior rape conviction “because that crime was 10 years old and probation officials described him as a “success story.”

– Smitty, 3-2-08
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23196734/

27-year sentence for rape of girl, 9

By JIM ADAMS / StarTribune
startribune.com

A Hastings man who raped his ex-girlfriend’s daughter after gaining custody of the 9-year-old got some justice Friday: a 27-year prison sentence.
Justin P. Farnsworth, 34, who had a prior conviction for raping a Carver County teenager, received more than twice the 12-year sentence that state guidelines recommend for first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Dakota County District Judge Robert King found Farnsworth was a predatory offender and declared the crime deplorable and egregious.

Farnsworth apologized in court, his voice cracking at the end, said Monica Jensen, spokeswoman for the county attorney’s office. The victim, who is now 13, was not in court but her mother was.

Farnsworth said he didn’t understand why he had raped the girl and hoped she got the counseling she needed. He also apologized to his family, Jensen said.
Farnsworth’s first victim, assaulted in 1994 and now 27, also was in court for the sentencing, Jensen said.

Farnsworth was charged in November 2004 with raping the girl in his Hastings apartment. He pleaded guilty in April 2005. Later that year, he tried to withdraw his plea, arguing it was coerced. His appeal went to the state Supreme Court, which upheld the guilty plea last September.

During a hearing in January, a prosecutor played a social worker’s videotaped interview with the 9-year-old girl. She told the social worker that Farnsworth had sex with her on many occasions. She said he showed her sex movies and “whooped her” or threatened her when she didn’t comply. Farnsworth said he would kill her if she told, the girl said.

The girl has had extensive counseling but she still finds it difficult to trust men, except her grandfather, her mother testified earlier. She said her daughter still has nightmares.

With credit for time served during his appeal and good behavior in prison, Farnsworth would be eligible for supervised release when he is 49 in November 2022, said County Attorney James Backstrom. But before release, the county attorney’s office will review the case for possible indefinite commitment of Farnsworth as a sexually dangerous person, “which I consider him to be,” Backstrom said.

The 9-year-old had been living with Farnsworth and his two younger daughters for about a year after he broke up with the girls’ mother. The mother, who was living with a friend in western Minnesota, agreed to let her daughters live with Farnsworth, officials said.

Dakota County Judge Joseph Carter granted Farnsworth custody of the 9-year-old girl in October 2004. He knew of Farnsworth’s prior rape conviction but noted that it was 10 years old and that probation officials described him as a “success story.” The judge also relied on a court-appointed custody evaluator who records said recommended that the girl live with Farnsworth, who had a stable home and job, unlike her mother.

Less than a month after Farnsworth won custody, the girl told a neighbor woman that he was molesting her. Police said there was no indication that Farnsworth had molested his own younger daughters.