News Cycle Roundup: 4/14/2009
Good Tuesday morning to all. Some very interesting developments across the nation today involving Cuba, sexting, San Francisco-European-NY values...and we begin in Texas, a state I've been considering moving to...if I can:
Leading Drudge today, it looks like Texas is mad as hell 
at Washington telling it what to do, but it still needs the federal money..
Vermont wants to legalize sexting for kids . One can assume that all the other pressing issues in the State are pretty much wrapped up.
Reason's Greg Beato sighs at the War on the "sagging pants" of kids.
Clarence Thomas speaks (!) with some kids about his unease with all this focus on "rights," and prefers "Obligations and repsonsibilities."
Kos, on a poll: Do these words scare you? New York. San Francisco. Europe. France. Well, unless you live down South , probably not.
Megan McArdle: Look, this is why health care costs what it does.
Marc Ambinder: And this is why Republicans should support a form of UHC.
Moe Lane Tiptoes around the implicit support of the fall of the Cuba embargo.
Warren Buffet gets behind an electric car (developed in the Far East).
The Minnesota Senate race is still going on as Franken is re-delcared the winner , pending Coleman's upcoming appeal.
and we're apparently happy about our economic future again ....
- Charles J's blog
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Comments :
I know that Ohio is working on a sexting law too
I know a legislative intern at the statehouse who is writing a memo on such a law at the very moment... we were actually discussing it Friday. My suggestion is to decriminalize possession of "child porn" by minors and only keep trafficking in child porn for $$ a felony; a minor coercing another minor to pose for pornographic pictures would remain a felony subject to certain age tests like the statutory rape laws. Transferring a pornographic image of someone other than yourself to someone other than the person in the picture could be kept a minor misdemeanor, I suppose.
skymutt: accept no substitutes!
Drudge!
Man, that's scraping it ;-)
I checked this out, because I've not seen any kerfuffle about it. I can't locate the exact bill to confirm the precise makeup of the sponsors, but it appears that a bipartisan group of Texas legislators sponsored what appears to be more of a, er, dog and pony bill than a serious one, basically saying that the 10th amendment still applies.
The governor's press conference can be seen here
. It was from the 9th, so it must be a slow news day for Drudge for him to, er, drudge that up from last week. Based on his comments, the motivation appears twofold...one, to make some political hay while the sun shines, and two, to state his position with regards to what I am assuming are some issues with the strings attached to new federal money for unemployment benefits.
Having been on both sides of the unemployment issue myself, as both employee and employer, my anectdotal take is that if the system is skewed, it is not towards the employer.
Bottom line though, with regards to federal dollars in general, Texas has for decades and still does receive less than the amount Texas sends to DC. We had a better link for that data, but this was the backup
I found for that this morning. I don't know if anyone has yet developed any data regarding the spending in the stimulus package by state, though; that might be interesting to review. According to the Comptroller's website 
, Texas will be getting 16 billion, but I have no idea how that compares per capita versus other areas.
I'd say come on down, Charles ;-) Unemployment here is 6.5% (2% less than the national average), mortgage foreclosures are down 14% from last year. This site
has assorted other data.
But this is my favorite part of living in Houston. I took these snaps last fall. The fireguys had come out to patch up my next door neighbor who fell, then they stayed to play with the neighborhood kids. This is a solidly middle-class neighborhood. If you look closely, you'll see the rainbow.
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s32/Deejpix/DSC00191.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s32/Deejpix/DSC00196.jpg
PS...my apologies for the format. Some days that text editor and I don't seem to get along.
Gov. Perry had a...
"When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him" moment.
With his:
"We didn't like oppression then, we don't like oppression now."
Except for the whole slavery, and treating the blacks like there was some kind of caste system with them on the bottom....
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
legalize it!
There is pretty much nothing more pressing than decriminalization, at least if the act can be decriminalized quickly without substantial opposition. Stupid laws place a major burden on the people who get busted for violating them.
In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.
Justice Thomas talked about
I hope he's talking about his days at St. John Vianney Minor Seminary.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,