I don't know who comes up with these but this one is very funny--meet The Lie Girls .

Flag waving, bible thumping babes are waiting for you to help them spread their freedom.

If you're easily offended, skip it.

A Kansas California judge yesterday told a 24 year old marijuana possessor that he could either go to jail or join the military.

Brian Barr was the victim of a home burglary. He shot and killed the intruder, and all agreed it was a justifiable act. Barr, while waiting for the cops to come, hid his marijuana stash. What upset the Judge was that Barr had a weapon and marijuana in his home.

After announcing that the Probation Department had recommended 240 days in jail, and praising the probation officer assigned to the case, Moody gave Barr the option of enlistment instead. "There's an awful lot of good in this young man," said Moody, citing Barr's record as a student, his civic involvement and his intervention in a Salinas bank robbery last year. Barr's father, William, is the county superintendent of education.

Even the DA was surprised because people in that county are usually sent to drug treatment, not prison. And the military suggestion was never discussed and had never occurred in the county before.

Apparently, this was a common option during the Vietnam war. The Judge said,

...when he was bused to Monterey as a draftee 30 years ago, many of the other young men on board had chosen the Army over jail.

Young Mr. Barr has one month to make up his mind.

by TChris

Bump and Update: Rule change approved.

Rules are made to be broken ... or at least changed, when they become inconvenient. And so we hear of Republican threats to change the time-honored Senate rule that permits the minority party to thwart the majority's overreaching by resorting to a filibuster -- Republican threats that are unwarranted, as explained here.

And now we hear of a proposed change of rules in the House.

House Republicans plan to change their rules in order to allow members indicted by state prosecutors to remain in a leadership post, a move designed to benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in case he is charged by a Texas grand jury that has indicted three of his political associates, GOP leaders said today.

Of course, the rule was adopted by House Republicans in response to Dan Rostenkowski's misbehavior, but hey, he was a Democrat. The rule is no longer convenient for Republicans, so it's gotta go.

Outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft gave a farewell address Monday to the International Association of Police Chiefs. He told them America was safer from terrorists and violent criminals. The next day, the Association responded: Baloney, they said.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) said that cuts by the administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever to public safety threats. The 20,000-member group also said in a statement that new anti-terrorism duties for local cops - which have come as state and local budgets have declined and historically low crime rates have crept upward - have pushed police agencies to "the breaking point."

Among other things, members of the chiefs' group have long complained about localities having to pay millions of dollars in overtime costs when the U.S. government issued terrorism alerts. The group also is annoyed that President Bush (news - web sites) is phasing out a $10 billion program begun by the Clinton administration in 1996 to help local departments hire tens of thousands more cops.

IACP President Joseph Polisar, the police chief in Garden Grove, Calif., said hundreds of police officer jobs have been lost across the nation during the past four years. And proposed cuts in federal aid in the 2005 budget could reach almost $1 billion, threatening hundreds more, the chief said.

You can fool some people some of the time....[link via Raw Story.]

Rush Limbaugh just won a round and we're glad. It's a potential victory for patients' privacy rights. Congrats to Roy Black, Limbaugh's attorney, for convincing the Florida appeals court to allow the Florida Supreme Court to decide the issue.

The appeals court ruled a few months ago that it was ok for prosecutors to seize Rush's medical records without telling him first.

CIA Chief Porter Goss sent out a memo telling employees to get on the Bush bandwagon...he warned of more firings to come. Our earlier thoughts that CIA staff were revolting against Goss may have been inaccurate -- this sounds much more like a purge.

Update: CNN reports the CIA denies Goss told workers to back Bush.

The Department of Homeland security is requiring that its 180,000 or so employees amd contractors sign a three page secrecy pledge. The pledge covers sensitive but unclassified information.

Congressional critics and government watchdog organizations such as the Federation of American Scientists call the policy a potentially precedent-setting expansion of official secrecy whose provisions are overly broad and unworkable, if not unconstitutional.

This, just after the 9/11 commission report criticized the government for over-classifying information? [hat tip Crooks and Liars.}

16 may be too young to serve in the military, and there may be no draft coming (according to Bush, at least) but that hasn't stopped Louisiana from thinking ahead to when there may be a draft: In order to get a driver's license, those as young as 16 must register with the Selective Service

There may be no "plans" for a national military draft, but that hasn't kept Louisiana from registering teenagers too young to serve in case conditions change. During the recently concluded presidential campaigns, the major candidates repeatedly said they had no plans to resume compulsory military service.

Their promises were not reassuring, however, to Larry Chevalier of Glenmora who was alarmed when his 16-year-old son Nathan had to register with the Selective Service System in order to get a driver's license.

When was this law enacted? In 2003:

the Legislature passed Act 373 in the 2003 session dictating that all males aged 15 up to 18 seeking a first-time driver's license or an OMV identification card must register with Selective Service.

[link via What Really Happened.]

Looks to us like Tom DeLay is about to get indicted. Why? Because, as TChris wrote earlier, the Republicans are moving for a rule change. Wednesday's Washington Post says:

House Republicans proposed changing their rules last night to allow members indicted by state grand juries to remain in a leadership post, a move that would benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in case he is charged by a Texas grand jury that has indicted three of his political associates, according to GOP leaders.

The proposed rule change, which several leaders predicted would win approval at a closed meeting today, comes as House Republicans return to Washington feeling indebted to DeLay for the slightly enhanced majority they won in this month's elections. DeLay led an aggressive redistricting effort in Texas last year that resulted in five Democratic House members retiring or losing reelection. It also triggered a grand jury inquiry into fundraising efforts related to the state legislature's redistricting actions.

It now looks like Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) will graduate to Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee after all. He received some key Republican backing Tuesday.

We think now that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the current chair, has given his blessing, it is all but a done deal.

These are graphic...just awful....but as the site's author says:

The people in these pictures are just as important as the men and women that died on september 11th. a mother who loses her child suffers the same no matter what her nationality might be. she doesn't want a lecture on politics or religion. she wants her son back.

[comments now closed.]

[2/26/05: The comment that referenced "the next Timothy McVeigh" has been deleted.]

Atrocity of the day in Utah today...a 25 year old minor drug dealer was sentenced to 55 years. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Cassell was clearly troubled by the decision, but not enough to take a stand against it:

The judge then urged Mr. Angelos's lawyer, Jerome H. Mooney, not only to appeal his decision but to ask President Bush for clemency once all appeals were exhausted. He also urged Congress to set aside the law that made the sentence mandatory.

Judge Cassell said that sentencing Mr. Angelos to prison until he is 70 years old was "unjust, cruel and even irrational," but that the law that forced him to do so had not proved to be unconstitutional and thus had to stand. The sentence was all the more ironic, he said, because only two hours earlier he had been legally able to impose a sentence of 22 years on a man convicted of aggravated second-degree murder for beating an elderly woman to death with a log. That crime, he argued, was far more serious.

We wrote about the case in September, after a hearing at which Cassell asked both sides:

"Is there a rational basis," he asked, "for giving Mr. Angelos more time than the hijacker, the murderer, the rapist?"

So what was Mr. Angelos' offense?