John's Recommended Articles

Government takes too much authority and not enough responsibility.
It is the government's job to warn and inform. That's what we have the National Weather Service for. It is not government's job to command and control and make microdecisions about the lives of people who want to do it their own way.

Governments always start out saying they're going to help, and always wind up pushing you around. They cannot help it.

We are losing the balance between the rights of the individual and the needs and demands of the state. Again, this is not new. It's a long slide that's been going on for a long time. But Katrina and Rita seemed to make the slide deeper.

An Unconstitutionally Teachable Moment: "...a 2005 appropriations bill requiring all institutions that receive federal funds, including thousands of schools, to teach about the Constitution every September 17, the anniversary of its signing...provide(s) a perfect 'teachable moment,' a chance to explain how, when it comes to education, federal policymakers have ignored the Constitution for decades.

Article I, Section 8 lists the few -- and only -- powers belonging to the federal government. They include the power to borrow money, regulate commerce with other nations, establish post offices, raise and regulate military forces -- and little else. In contrast, the list of powers the Constitution does not delegate to the federal government is almost limitless, including powers to fund schools, regulate schools, and even require schools to teach about the Constitution.

...one would think our legislators -- especially the Constitutional "experts" among them -- would understand that the federal government has only a few, enumerated powers, and that the states and people have all the rest."

BY JALAL TALABANI - Mr. Talabani is president of Iraq.: "Thank you for liberating my country. Please don't leave before the job is done.
American forces are in Iraq at the invitation of the democratically elected government of Iraq, and with the backing of a United Nations Security Council resolution. Your soldiers are in my country because of your commitment to democracy."

JPL.NASA.GOV: News Releases: "And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress. "

New York Times: "At Yale and other top colleges, women are being groomed to take their place in an ever more diverse professional elite. It is almost taken for granted that, just as they make up half the students at these institutions, they will move into leadership roles on an equal basis with their male classmates.
There is just one problem with this scenario: many of these women say that is not what they want.
Many women at the nation's most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. "

"You've got to hand it to the advocates of big government. They're never embarrassed by the failures of government. On the contrary, the state's every malfunction is declared a reason to give government more money and more power.

....it's no accident that governments often fail at their tasks. The incentives are all wrong. Profit-seeking companies are constantly driven to innovate, improve, cut costs, and deliver better service for less money, lest they lose customers to their competitors or even go out of business. Churches and charities are motivated by love and commitment, as well as by the need to satisfy donors or run out of money. Governments can raise taxes or print money. If a government agency fails at its mission, the usual response is to give it more money next year--not a very good incentive for success."

"Long known as the No. 1 “Stone-Cold Sober School,” BYU has now been named the fittest college in the United States, in an article by Men’s Fitness magazine.

Students and colleges participating in the study were ranked according to weight gain, level of physical activity, bad habits (alcohol, fast food, cigarettes and sedentary activities), amount of sleep and campus culture of fitness."

For its first 150 years (with a few exceptions), our Constitution stood as our Founders, and more importantly, "the people," intended—as is—in accordance with its original intent. ....

Prior to the reign of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the courts were still largely populated with originalists, who properly rendered legal interpretation based on construction of the Constitution's "original intent." However, FDR grossly exceeded the Constitutional limits upon the authority of his office and that of the legislature in his folly to end The Great Depression (the latter falling victim to World War II—not FDR's social and economic engineering). FDR's extra-constitutional exploits opened the door for the judiciary to follow the same path—to read into the Constitution what was necessary to make it conform to the demands of the prevailing political will.

In the decades that followed, the notion of a "Living Constitution," one subject to all manner of judicial interpretation, took hold in the federal courts. Judicial activists, those who legislate from the bench by issuing rulings based on their personal interpretation of the Constitution, or at the behest of likeminded special-interest constituencies, were nominated for the federal bench and confirmed in droves.

This degradation of law was codified by the Warren Court in Trop v. Dulles (1958). In that ruling, the High Court noted that the Constitution should comport with "evolving standards...that mark the progress of a maturing society." In other words, it had now become a fully pliable document. Indeed, the Constitution has become "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please," as Thomas Jefferson warned, and the judiciary, in Jefferson's words, "the Despotic Branch".

Consequently, we now have a Constitution in exile, its having becoming little more than a straw man as the courts have become increasingly politicized. To wit, in recent decisions, judicial activists on the Supreme Court have cited "national consensus" and "international law" as factors in their decisions.

On Wednesday of this week U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in government schools constitutes a "coercive requirement to affirm God." That, of course, is factually inaccurate (AKA "a lie"). Students may refrain, on their own or at their parents' discretion, from repeating any or all words in the Pledge.

Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, though he could have ruled against and said he was "bound by the Constitution of these United States." ....

The Federalist Papers, as the definitive explication of our Constitution's original intent, clearly define original intent in regards to Constitutional interpretation. In Federalist No. 78 Alexander Hamilton writes, "[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment...liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments." In Federalist No. 81 Hamilton notes, "[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution..."

George Washington advised, "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all."

Today, 218 years hence, Justice Antonin Scalia says of judicial activism, "As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to 'do what the people want,' instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically."

While the words "conservative" and "liberal" are ubiquitously used to describe Republicans and Democrats respectively, these words properly should describe whether one advocates for the conservation of our Constitution, as originally intended, or its liberal interpretation by judicial activists. Does one want to conserve Constitutional limits on the central government, or liberate those limits?

Though there is no way to prevent all cancers, experts agree that for most people a handful of small changes greatly increases the odds of living a longer, healthier life.

"Price controls, however, come at a cost. Lower prices result in more demand for fuel than do higher prices. That’s why the first thing we notice about price controls is that they lead to shortages. "

"Countless academic studies show that kids learn better in private schools or in public schools that manage to remain independent of central bureaucracies. While there are exceptions, universities are more decentralized, more innovative, and less constrained by mindless rules and regulations like teacher certification requirements and class-size restrictions. "

NOLA.com: Times-Picayune Breaking News WeblogThis is one of the best sites I've found for news out of New Orleans.