HOAs come to LEGO-TOWN

Well, it's not in the form of a Home Owners Association, but it has the same ideas. Namely that "ownership" isn't worth much or is actually BAD.

TCS Daily:L'Eggo My Lego

The Legos were returned and the children allowed to continue building their "legotown" only after they agreed to some guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that...

"All structures are public structures" [no private ownership]

"All structures will be standard sizes." [no deviation from the accepted norm in size]

"It's important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building."
[i.e. OWNING the building means nothing]

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Miracle baby comes back from the dead

Miracle baby comes back from the dead | the Daily Mail

This seems to me to be a true "miracle" yet scientifically its just "statistically unlikely" or something like that. People throw around the word "miracle" but fail to acknowledge who or what did the miracle, was is a "miracle of modern medicine"? or a "miracle of God"?

Was it truly a "supernatural" or "unnatural" event, of just one we don't understand?

Personally I think truly supernatural, God-caused events happen all the time and we credit it to luck or randomness. In a way we are blind to the miracles that happen every day.

It good that some of them do actually get reported in the news. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

No Dancing in the Land of the FEE

You can't even DANCE without a city license!!

And of course you can't play music for people to dance to with paying the music labels or artist or something...

And don't even try to do the Electric Slide without permission...

So much for the "Land of the Free"... more like the "Land of the FEE" [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Robin Reliant Space Shuttle Video

This is incredible....

Top Gear turned a car (a Reliant Robin, roughly the British equivalent of a Pinto or a Gremlin -- minus a wheel) into a SHUTTLE...

(Note, in the video, the guy with the radio controller is waiting to land the shuttle once it separates from the tank..)



Background Info....
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Bar Sued for Playing Songs Without Paying Licensing Fees

I never knew this was required.

Apparently paying for the CD isn't enough! If you play the CD publicly you have to pay an EXTRA fee. I wonder if I can still play CD's while someone else is in my car? If you SING the song, you have to pay an EXTRA fee. I wonder how many high-school garage bands are in violation of this!! And my daughter runs around the house singing kid songs all the time. If she sings to another kid and entertains them using someone's copyrighted material, am I going to get sued?

The sheer greed of these people, who want to get continuously paid for work they did years ago astonishes me.

FOXNews.com - Florida Bar Sued for Playing Songs Without Paying Licensing Fees [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Florida Tax Changes

Fascinating...
...Replace all property taxes (for permanent residents) with a larger sales tax. Hummm....

BreakingNews [This Post Continues after the jump...]

US copyright lobby out-of-touch

sad, but true....BBC NEWS | Technology | US copyright lobby out-of-touch [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Not my Steak Too!!!

Now I have to give up eating meat to prevent global warming....

Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet | csmonitor.com

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems,"

I don't know about everyone else, but I've lost count of all the "most significant contributors".... how many are there now?

and I guess making this statement...

"....CO2, which remains the main global warming culprit"

without any support is just par for the course these days. But people better than me question whether this has ever been proved. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Growth Stopping Treatment for Disabled 9 year old

I'm going to have to think about this one for a while before saying much.

At first I would not do everything the parents did, but that is from fear of side effects and future problems that are not known. If I knew there would be no issues down the road, then this treatment would at least be an option to me.


I'll see if I can find the website this article mentions...here it is...
http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/


Update
Now disabled groups have forced a meeting with the AMA. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Non-Citizens allowed to Vote?

What the heck is this??? It sounds completely nonsensical to me, but according this this non-citizens used to be allowed to vote.
This baffles me...

LET ALIENS VOTE: ACTIVISTS By FRANKIE EDOZIEN - Regionalnews - New York Post Online Edition

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN
February 20, 2007 -- Immigrant-rights activists yesterday renewed their push to allow legal noncitizens to vote in the Big Apple. A bill that would grant permanent residents and other legal immigrants the right to vote in municipal elections has been stalled in the City Council since last year. "More than 50,000 adult noncitizen taxpayers in those two districts are disenfranchised by citizenship voting laws," said Cheryl Wertz, of New Immigrant Community Empowerment, referring to today's special election for council seats in Brooklyn and Staten Island. Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), the sponsor of the Voting Rights Restoration Act, said that years ago, when immigrants were mostly European, they had voting rights. "Then when the complexion of immigrants changes, then all of a sudden, the laws change," he said. Ron Hayduk, a CUNY professor, concurred, saying immigrants voted in national elections from 1776 through 1926.

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Fetus or Baby?

This is incredible. After seeing this, I don't see how anyone can support allowing abortion after 21 weeks (unless the mother's life is actually endangered). It's just unconscionable. Yet the democrats still support abortions up until birth. Why?

BREITBART.COM - Tiny Baby to Leave Florida Hospital [This Post Continues after the jump...]

What the Founding Fathers Really Intended

Will: What the Founding Fathers Really Intended - Newsweek George F. Will - MSNBC.com

best quotes:

...Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who warned against what Hayek called "the fatal conceit" of governments thinking they can allocate wealth and opportunity more reasonably than can markets.

and...

...James Madison's Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined."

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McCain and Roe V. Wade

McCain: Roe V. Wade Should Be Overturned

"I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned," the Arizona senator told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states.

Well, this is looking good.... [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Global Warming Scaremongers

I couldn't have said it better myself....

Scaremongers [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Journalistic Freedom

This is an important topic. This guy video taped a public demonstration and sold some of the footage to news organizations. The Government has subpoena the whole tape, which Mr. Wolf will not give them, so he's in jail. They also want him to testify.

I can understand (but not necessarily agree with) not testifying about what people told him as a reporter, but I don't understand not turning over the tape. Its evidence of what actually happened that day, anyone standing in this public place would have seen the same thing, there is nothing "private" about it, nothing "confidential" about it. The people in the video did not ask for confidentiality when what they were doing was a PUBLIC demonstration. So why protect it?


As I understand it, If I see a crime, I have to report it. As a citizen I have no right to refuse to testify about what I see or hear or know (unless it incriminated myself). So why do "reporters" claim this right? What makes them special? The internet is making more and more people into "amateur reporters" so the distinction is becoming harder to make. Soon there will be no one left that can be subpoenaed.

I think everyone has a responsibility to truthfully testify about what they see, hear, or know if there is reasonable reason to think they know something useful. Without the power to force people to testify, our court system, and indeed our society will slowly breakdown.

I don't think its fair when Journalist talk about the dangers of loosing the rights of Journalist not to testify when they fail to acknowledge the dangers on the other side of the issue. The more people who are "exempt" for testifying about what they know, the more Dangerous our society becomes, I also think it's DANGEROUS for the government to recognize two classes of citizens, Journalist and non-journalist, we should all have the same rights, and we should all be required to testify when needed. These Dangers must be balance with the dangers of a police state or 1984-type government.

Democracy Now! | EXCLUSIVE: Imprisoned Journalist Josh Wolf Speaks Out From Jail After Over 170 Days Behind Bars

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