Republicans sound like they’re conducting a giant experiment in saying whatever they can get away with, and I suspect they’re surprised as any of us by some of the results.

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The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon – Thurs 11p / 10c

The annals of inappropriate departmentalization…or just the plain truth?

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.
In his suave but deceptive Los Angeles Times article (“Honduras’ non-coup,” Jul. 10) on the current Honduras crisis, Miguel A. Estrada recommends reading the Constitution of Honduras and other relevant legal documents before pre-judging the situation.

I’m fluent in Spanish. Over the past several days, I’ve read the Supreme Court case documents, the Honduran constitution and pertinent parts of the Honduran penal code, the full text of laws regulating referendums and plebiscites and citizen participation in government, as well as news and opinion reports from Honduran, Latin American and Hispanic media. I also consulted experts in Latin American social and political issues.

I found that the legal and logical deficiencies were so obvious that no neutral observer could conclude that Manuel Zelaya received anything remotely resembling due process. Neither the Supreme Court nor Congress had the power to remove him from office, although — interestingly enough — it appears he could have been detained and tried for criminal conduct by a special tribunal made up of Supreme Court justices. As far as I can tell, the only immunity from prosecution under the constitution is for acts of war committed by military personnel. Instead, President Zelaya was deported in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order to bring him before a court for arraignment.
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The story so far: Coupled since 2003 in the San Francisco Zoo, same-sex male partners Harry and Pepper nested together and even incubated an egg laid by another penguin. Female penguin Linda, who had some years earlier left her first mate for Fig (now deceased), hooked up with Harry and he moved in with her. Domestic violence occurred. The three quarreling penguins were separated by zoo authorities for a while, but eventually learned to get along. Harry and Linda successfully nested this year. Pepper seems fine with that now, but with the mating season coming up in August, things could change.
Photograph of Harry (left) and Linda by Cindy Chew. Go to original by Katie Worth, S. F. Examiner

Michael Scheuer as Glenn Beck nods approval:
“Only Osama can execute an attack that will force Americans to demand a government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary. “

By Walter Brasch

The Schuylkill County, Pa., justice system managed to do something that insurance actuaries do with mixed results–it determined not only the penalty for threats to a human life, but also the value of a human life.

Norman E. Nickle, 54, who lived in Pottsville, the county seat, was sentenced in April to two life terms, without possibility of parole after he pled no contest to killing two teens the previous year. Nickle’s only defense was that he was high on drugs and alcohol at the time of the murders.
Jarrid Finneran, of Shenandoah, was sentenced to 2-1/2 to five years in prison after a jury convicted him in December 2007 of pushing his girlfriend in front of a car. Finneran said that the incident was the result of an accident, was not deliberate, and that he and the victim continued their relationship after the incident. The jury, however, convicted him of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and disorderly conduct.
Kyle J. Bluge, 23, of Frackville, admitted he shook a baby in April 2008 to try to stop the boy from crying. A pediatrician testified that the physical abuse resulted in significant brain injuries. Bluge, who will be sentenced Aug. 5, could face 10 to 20 years in prison and a $25,000 fine for aggravated assault.
Mark P. Wilner, 40, of Mahanoy City, in June was found guilty of simple assault after a street fight that led to injuries to the victim who, according to court testimony, had begun the fight by punching a woman, causing her to fall to the ground. Wilner, who apparently initially tried to avoid confrontation, could be sentenced, June 29, to one to two years in state prison.

However, the life of Luis Eduardo Ramirez-Zavalo, 25, an illegal Mexican immigrant who lived and worked in Shenandoah before dying in June 2008 after a beating by a gang of about a half-dozen drunken Shenandoah Valley High School football players is worth no more than 23 months in a county jail for his assailants.
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Often forgotten, the some 800,000 Middle Eastern Jews fled or were summarily expelled for being Jewish in the 20th century, were the topic of “The Exodus Obama Forgot to Mention” by André Aciman in an op-ed published by The New York Times, June 8, 2009.
Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun responds.

The article reminds us of another level of complexity in the Middle East — the flight of some and expulsion of others of the 800,000 Jews who had to leave Arab lands in the 20th century, often having their property confiscated, often fleeing with justified fear for their lives, most of whom found refuge in the newly created Zionist state of Israel. Read more »

Contact: Brandon MacGillis, 202-88… and Andrew McDonald, 202-55…
Washington, DC – 06/10/2009 – The number of jobs in America’s emerging clean energy economy grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007, according to a report (PDF) released today by The Pew Charitable Trusts.  Pew developed a clear, data-driven definition of the clean energy economy and conducted the first-ever hard count across all 50 states of the actual jobs, companies and venture capital investments that supply the growing market demand for environmentally friendly products and services.

Pew found that jobs in the clean energy economy grew at a national rate of 9.1 percent, while traditional jobs grew by only 3.7 percent between 1998 and 2007.  There was a similar pattern at the state level, where job growth in the clean energy economy outperformed overall job growth in 38 states and the District of Columbia during the same period.  The report also found that this promising sector is poised to expand significantly, driven by increasing consumer demand, venture capital infusions, and federal and state policy reforms.

America’s clean energy economy has grown despite a lack of sustained government support in the past decade. By 2007, more than 68,200 businesses across all 50 states and the District of Columbia accounted for about 770,000 jobs. Read more »