Court Upholds Baptists’ Right to Proselytize (and Criticize) on Sidewalks at a Religious Festival

So holds Teesdale v. City of Chicago (N.D. Ill. May 26, 2011) (earlier ruling here), in a decision that is much like the one in the Dearborn, Michigan incident, though of course with a different religious group as the target:The Clerk of the Court is further directed to enter a declaratory judgment in favor of plaintiffs and against defendant City of Chicago as follows: A. Nine or fewer members of the Garfield Ridge Church may as a group or individually enter the public streets adjacent to and upon which any St. Symphorosa Family Fest is held, during the hours in which such St. Symphorosa Family Fest is open to the public. B. Such members may freely move about the public streets and distribute leaflets to others at the Fest. C. Such members may speak to individuals in attendance at the Fest but not use a bullhorn or other sound-enhancing devices. D. Such members may display one banner not to exceed four feet by three feet and may carry non-pole signs not to exceed three feet by two feet. via volokh.com

The Constitution provides for freedom of belief, but not freedom of practice or expression of this belief. The Defendants got their 1st Amendment rights, but are still limited by how they practice what they believe.

Gay Athletic Group Has First Amendment Right to Limit the Number of Straight Players on a Team

fine... I don't want any gay people on my blog. for that matter... no feminists either. and don't go crying to Washington State or the commonwealth of Massachusetts or something left wing like that. YOU ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED!!!!

(The Blaze) — A gay men’s softball organization is going head-to-head with three former bi-sexual players who claim that the group unfairly disqualified them for not being “gay enough.”
This week, a federal judge ruled that the organization does, indeed, have the constitutional right to limit the number of heterosexual players on each team (currently, the group allows for two straight players on each team). That said, the judge also ruled that the three players in question may bring their discrimination claims to trial. The Seattle Times has more:

From Apilado v. North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, 2011 WL 2148816 (W.D. Wash. May 31):

This case arises from the disqualification of a softball team from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series (GSWS). The event was operated by Defendant North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA) and attended by Plaintiffs Steven Apilado, LaRon Charles, and Jon Russ. The Plaintiffs’ team, D2, advanced to the final round and was playing in the championship game when the commissioner of the Atlanta league filed a protest under Rule 7.05 of the NAGAAA Softball Code against six players of the D2 team.
Rule 7.05 states that “[a] maximum of two Heterosexual players are permitted on a GSWS roster.” Penalties for violation of this rule include permanent suspension of the heterosexual player, disqualification and forfeiture of the offending team’s games, one year’s suspension of the team’s manager, and a minimum $100 fine imposed against the team’s association. Under Softball Code Section 1.15, Gay means “having a predominant sexual interest in a member or members of the same sex and includes both gay men and lesbians.” Softball Code Section 1.18 defines heterosexual as “having a predominant sexual interest in a member or members of the opposite sex.”
The Softball Code also establishes a mechanism for enforcing rule 7.05: the protest hearing. Rule 8.04 states that a protest can be filed by the manager of the opposing team, an open division director, or an association’s commissioner. Rule 8.06 establishes the procedure for these hearings: a protest committee convenes, the protest committee chairperson begins the proceedings by explaining the procedures, the protesting party explains the basis for the protest and presents any available evidence, the protested party has an opportunity to rebut the argument, the protest committee may interview players, and the protest committee conducts a vote by secret ballot to determine the outcome.
D2 lost the championship game. When it was over, NAGAAA’s protest committee conducted a hearing. Upon conclusion of the hearing, the protest committee determined that Plaintiffs were “non-gay,” and, therefore, that D2 was not eligible to compete in GSWS. The protest committee disqualified D2 from the tournament, declared its victories and second-place finish in the tournament forfeited, and recommended that Plaintiffs be suspended from NAGAAA softball play for one year.
[The Court finds] that NAGAAA is a “public accommodation” under Washington’s Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), Wash. Rev. Code § 49.60 et seq., and that NAGAAA unlawfully discriminated against Plaintiffs [in violation of this law] based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation ..., but that the First Amendment protects [NAGAAA’s] right to exclude those whose membership would negatively impact their expressive activity.... The first part of this Order [thus] holds that Defendant has a constitutional right to exclude anybody who does not share in its values....
The second part of the Order holds that Plaintiffs did not show a real and immediate threat of repeated harm [from the supposedly intrusive way in which the policy was applied –EV] because their injury resulted from the manner in which the written policy was applied, not from the language of the policy itself. [Text moved: The alleged events that led to Plaintiffs’ injuries — the protest committee asking personal and intrusive questions in front of approximately twenty-five delegates and observers, repeating votes until a verdict of “non-gay” was reached, and widely publicizing the verdict — cannot be directly traced to the written policy.] It did not appear to the Court that Plaintiffs were arguing that they were injured simply because NAGAAA adopted particular definitions of gay and straight, but rather because NAGAAA inquired into Plaintiffs’ sexual orientation in a way that was intrusive and disrespectful. Accordingly, the Court’s analysis is confined to the allegedly intrusive questioning, not the definitions of gay and straight.... Defendant could still be liable for its actions [in the questioning]. In a recent case, the Supreme Court looked to the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church, a virulently anti-gay group who display hateful signs at soldiers’ funerals. Snyder v. Phelps. The Court concluded that the First amendment does not protect all speech from claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress or invasion of privacy. Whether or not Defendant’s treatment of Plaintiffs at the protest hearing is deserving of First Amendment protection remains to be seen....

via volokh.com

The North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance oversees gay softball leagues in dozens of U.S. cities and runs an annual tournament called the Gay Softball World Series. Three men claim in a lawsuit filed last year that their team’s second-place finish in the 2008 tournament in Washington state was nullified because they are bisexual, not gay, and thus their team exceeded the limit of two non-gay players.
[U.S. District Judge John] Coughenour did say that questions remain about the way the softball association applied its rule, including whether the questions asked about the men’s sexuality at a protest hearing were unnecessarily intrusive. Therefore, the case can proceed toward a trial set for Aug. 1, he said.

The men say that they were unfairly questioned about their sexuality in front of an audience and that the group listening to their responses held a vote to determine whether or not they were actually gay. The Daily Mail continues:
The men’s lawsuit alleges that they were individually questioned about their sexuality – in a room containing as many as 25 people. Panel members then voted on whether they men were gay or not.

via weaselzippers.us

don't expect the progressives to apply these things even handed.

Uemployment up to 9.1%

Democrats call it recovery...
WASHINGTON (AP) —
A bleak jobs report suggests
the recovery from the Great Recession
will be longer and bumpier
than many economists
had envisioned...

meanwhile:
ISRAELI UNEMPLOYMENT
DROPS TO 6.1%: _
Israel’s unemployment rate
declined to its lowest level
in almost three years

Most_economists say job growth should strengthen later this year as gasoline prices drop further and the economy recovers from the effects of natural disasters in the U.S. and abroad. But the recovery is starting to weaken 17 months before the 2012 election, which could hurt President Barack Obama's re-election prospects.

The unemployment rate in May inched up to 9.1 percent from 9 percent, the Labor Department said Friday; when Obama took office, it was 7.8 percent.
The Conference Board, a business research group, predicts the rate will be 8.5 percent at the end of next year. That would mean Obama would face a higher unemployment rate than any president running for re-election since World War II. More... via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com

I thought it dropped. yikes!

Seattle student: Weiner photo meant for porn star

The young woman who was sent a lewd photo from the Twitter account of Rep. Anthony Weiner says she doesn’t think the New York Democrat was hacked, but that he may have been trying to send it to a porn star with a similar name.
Gennette Cordova, a 21-year-old college student from Seattle, posed for a photo shoot with The New York Post on Thursday and shared her side of the story with the paper.
“Her name is Ginger — it makes sense he might have mixed us up,” Cordova said, referring to Ginger Lee, a stripper and porn star who follows Weiner on Twitter.
In March, Lee tweeted about wanting “sexual relations” with Weiner and, less than two weeks later, she wrote that she’d received a private direct message from the congressman. Weiner had also followed Lee on Twitter but said he stopped doing so when he found out who she was.
Weiner said in an interview with CNN earlier this week that he thinks his note to Lee was a “fairly pro forma thing that goes out” to people who follow him on Twitter.
Weiner, who has said he asked a lawyer to look into the hacking but hasn’t reported it to the authorities, further fanned the controversy when he said earlier this week that the picture might be of him.
Though some reports have suggested otherwise, Cordova, who issued a lengthy statement over the weekend, said she’s never supported Weiner’s claim that his account was hacked.
“Everyone’s [writing] that I backed [Weiner’s] contention that there was a hacking,” she told the Post. “But I never mentioned anything about a hacking.”
Cordova said she’s become “collateral damage” in the Weiner scandal and “just want[s] this to be over” so that she can move on with her life. She wants to work as a restaurant hostess or law firm assistant this summer while on vacation from school.
Cordova’s been overwhelmed with interview requests and “people are saying, ‘You need a book deal’” but she said she’s not interested. “What for? This isn’t my place, I just want to get it over with.”
“I’ve just been thinking about how I can get my privacy back,” she added.
Meanwhile, Weiner’s Washington office staff on Thursday called Capitol Police after being approached by a reporter from New York’s CBS affiliate who said she wanted Weiner “to say something to his constituents, the people who have to vote for him.”

#Weinergate rolls on for Rep. Anthony Weiner, New York Democrat. Now we're learning that the plagued congressman shared private communications with porn star and stripper Ginger Lee. In a March 13 tweet, Tennessee-based Lee indicated that Weiner sent her a private Twitter message:
"You know it's a good day when you wake up to a DM from @RepWeiner," Lee tweeted. "(I'm a fangirl, y'all, he's my trifecta of win.)
When contacted by The Daily Caller, Lee wouldn't say what Weiner sent her in that private direct message, or DM in Twitter-speak. via nation.foxnews.com

this is bullshit. it just means there is a possibility that Ginger set Wiener up. The only good thing about this is that I am learning how to spell Wiener's name right finally

meanwhile... 

Clinton Calls Google Hacking Claim ‘Very Serious’

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has described Google’s claim that Chinese hackers tried to break into hundreds of e-mail accounts as “very serious”, despite official Chinese denials.

Google says that it has uncovered a campaign run from inside China to monitor secretly the e-mails of senior US government figures, South Korean officials and other users of its Gmail service.
“These allegations are very serious,” Clinton said, adding that the US was “very concerned about Google’s announcement regarding a campaign that the company believes originated in China to collect the passwords of Google e-mail account holders”.
She said that the company had informed the State Department before making the news public.
But the US, which is seeking to improve relations with China across a range of areas, has not brought the issue up bilaterally with Beijing.
The White House, which said that President Barack Obama had been informed of the developments, added that it was not aware that any official US government accounts had been hacked into, although the US does not prohibit officials from using private e-mail accounts such as Gmail.
Reflecting the early stage of the investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is taking the lead in looking at the claims, said only that it was “working with Google to review this matter”. But Beijing responded angrily to Google’s statement. “Blaming these misdeeds on China is unacceptable,” said Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman, at the ministry’s regular press conference.
Google’s claim that the attacks appeared to originate from Jinan is the most serious claim of China-based internet intrusion since a previous incident involving the company last year.  via matzav.com

obviously there is a problem.  many twitter accounts are hacked through email.

the good news is Sarah Palin was caught wearing a Star of David

The bad news is this happened because everyone was probably looking at her boobs. People seem to look at Sarah's breasts a lot and report what message she is sending out. Magen David via myrightword.blogspot.com

Palestinians Building Invasion Tunnel To Israel?

the_Palestinian_Authority_has_announced,
as part of a $1 billion economic development fund,
a plan to construct a subway tunnel between Rafah and Beit Hanoun
read more via propagandistmag.com

North Korean Tunnel

FAT GAZA: The Humanitarian Crisis Myth

Suggestion:
Start with above ground light rail

image via modernegypt.info, lightrailnow.org,
fuckfrance.com, zioneocon.blogspot.com,
and via csmonitor.com

Egypt permanently opens Gaza border crossing

The Heavenly Puss

It is fitting for these evil times. Watch how Tom goes to Heaven and gets rebuked at the Pearly-Gates for persecuting little Jerry.. And remember this; God will demand that the people that persecuted YOU sit at your feet. via themadjewess.wordpress.com
not sure if Judaism sees it that way. it says you will be judged, but the Torah does not dictate a binary situation. Many rabbis said our goal is to get as close to G-d as possible.