There has been a lot of talk last year about out of control judges who seem to make their own laws on the spot and don't care about justice.  One article I read recently really makes me question the sanity of certain judges.

The article is at http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/13553455.htm

The case deals with family law, where a man divorced his wife and ended up having to pay $1200 in child support.  So far, so good.  Two years later, one of his relatives looked at the picture and pointed out that the kid doesn't look even close to him.  Sure enough, a DNA test confirmed it.  This happened when the child was 5 yrs old.

Not surprisingly, the man sued for fraud and to have the payments stopped.  What was surprising was that the court ruled AGAINST the husband citing the statute of limitation and ducking the issue of fraud.  More below the fold...

I'll get the quotes speak for themselves:
"Angela Brown of Euclid, a single mother living with little income in a government-subsidized apartment, bought five houses in one day, qualifying for hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that she has no way of paying off."

"David Crosby of Cleveland, a night-shift postal worker, bought six houses - four in one day - through an identical loan deal that plunged him into a sea of debt."

As I was typing up a reply to bonddad's diary on outsourcing, it started to grow larger and larger.  At some point, I decided it would be better to post it as another diary.  I hope it isn't against the rules or anything.  The rest is below the fold.

BTW, bonddad's diary is here: http://dailykos.com/story/2005/7/18/93025/1558

Hope this isn't a repost.  It's a truly bizarre story.  Apparently the guy had nearly 100K of med bills and decided to kill a federal employee in order to go to prison, since he was about to have his home sold away.

read the story at http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBZ5WUC5BE.html

I shit you, not!  See http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/05/cheerleaders.law.reut/index.html

"The state's House of Representatives voted 85-55 to approve a bill that would forbid sexy cheers and give the Texas Education Agency authority to punish schools that allow "overtly sexually suggestive" routines at football games and other events

The proposal must go to the Texas Senate for consideration.

"People are calling and telling me how disgusting it is to see sexually suggestive routines on the part of marching units or cheerleaders," said State Rep. Al Edwards, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill."  More below the fold.

from http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/04/23/saudi.elections.ap/index.html "JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Candidates on a "golden list" backed by conservative clerics swept the final stage of Saudi Arabia's landmark municipal elections, according to results announced Saturday."

What I found particularly ironic and disturbing at the same time is how similar this is to the elections over here.  Every candidate is practically required to make a public statement of faith.  I'm curious how many votes Kerry had lost thanks to the likes of Papa Razi.

Are we that far off from a political system that is closed to anyone who's not officially (or unofficially) endorsed by the church?

See http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/09/rice/index.html

So, Today King George's latest cheeleader was busy warming everyone up for a new and exciting military adventure in the country called Iran.

The most surprising comment (to me) was that she mentioned going to the UN.

Now, when did the neocons ever need the UNs approval to invade a country?  Like...never!

spotted at http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/533432.html

Boy, oh, boy.  Looks like the lines are being quietly drawn in the sand.  Anyway, the missiles are the surface-air variety.  Predictably enough, the Israelis are hopping mad, while the US is none too happy.

To me, it really sounds like Russia along others are preparing Iran and Syria for a US invasion.  Anyone knows that the US military depends on the airpower to throughly chew up all targets for the ground forces.  A quality AA screen can seriously slow down any invasion.

The original article is at http://www.kirkcenter.org/kirk/ten-principles.html

Surprising as it may be, some excellent articles still get posted over there.  Right now, I feel like I just found a diamond in a 10ft high heap of s***.  I guess that also explains why there are zero replies to it over there.

What surprised me is that the article is extremely lucid and politically neutral.  Not only that, it's almost free of the typical bible thumping.  Also, a lot of the principles outlined in the article seem to mesh pretty well with the liberal stances regarding many issues.  Oh, and the current administration is violating just about every single one.  At least someone out there thinks that conservatism isn't all about prayer, thinly veiled narcissism, and whoring the country out to the big business.  It's a pretty long read, but definitely worth it!

Maybe I'm just too nervous about this, but it seems to me that the current projections are made purely to make * look like he's winning.  What the hell is up with handing Our Great Leader so many states and not even projecting PA to Kerry (44% with 60% Kerry and 40% Bush - no way a lead like that can turn around).  I can understand cutting Texas to Bush right away, but is it so damn hard to at least give Kerry credit where it's due?

In case anyone is wondering, the map I'm F5-ing is at:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/

First off, this is my first entry.  Please don't kill me if I mess up :).  I spotted this on WRH and I thought it was an interesting thing to bring up here.

The site in question is moveamericaforward.org that bills itself as "a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization committed to supporting America's efforts to defeat terrorism and supporting the brave men and women of our Armed Forces."  However, the WHOIS lookup was a bit more revealing:  The site was registered to Russo Marsh & Rogers - a known Republican PR firm.  Right NOW, DNS entries for both sites even resolve to the same ip (66.81.15.233).