FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog

The Los Angeles Times (free registration required) is starting a blog: Opinionblog The Opinion Manufacturing Division’s Invitational Free-for-All

Patterico has L.A. Times Blog, Take Two:

L.A. Observed reports that the L.A. Times Sunday Opinion section will be hosting a blog, starting tomorrow, to allow readers some direct (albeit limited and edited) input on selected topics.

There are two topics tomorrow: 1) parental involvement in their childrens’ education; and 2) Joel Stein — love him or hate him?

As a blog, I’m guessing it’s not going to be any great shakes, but it nevertheless strikes me as a positive step, and kudos to Bob Sipchen for once again being an innovator at the paper. I hope it works out better than the election blog did; that blog seemed clunky, little-visited, and hard to figure out. Still, they’re dipping their toes in the water, so give them some credit.

Flap, Patterico and other Bear Flag Leaguers met the L.A. Times Bob Sipchen at the L.A. Athletic Club Media Event.

Congrats to the Times.

Now, Bob, get that Trackback working on Kinsley’s editorials - is that asking too much?

Senator Harkin, Senator Kerry and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua Sandanista fame.

Robert Novak in his June 4 Column: New Confirmation Trouble has this about Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa:

On the day before Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen was confirmed by the Senate as part of a negotiated compromise, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin called her “wacko.”

Harkin, appearing on liberal Randi Rhodes’s national radio talk show, became animated as he said of Owen: “This is not a person to put on the bench for a lifetime appointment. This person is wacko! She’s wacko!”

On the same program, Harkin said Christian broadcasters are “sort of our home-grown Taliban.” He added: “They have a direct line to God. And if you don’t tune into their line, you’re obviously on Satan’s line.”

Captain Ed over at Captains Quarter’s has Harkin: Christian Broadcasters ‘Our Taliban’:

Thus goes the Democratic outreach to the Christian community. In fact, Harkin and Howard Dean have defined a new era in party-building for the Democrats, where any display of faith makes someone a “wacko”, and the equivalent of Islamic lunatics that beat men for flying kites and women for displaying their ankles. If Tom Harkin can’t tell the difference between James Dobson and Mullah Omar, then Iowans should check his corn to see what he’s been using for fertilizer.

Their fear and distaste for Christians borders on bigotry — and yet the media eats it up. Christians and other people of faith are increasingly repelled by this rhetoric, and hopefully will remember it when the Democrats claim at election time that they respect faith. If they did, they wouldn’t compare Christians to Islamofascist terrorists.

Biogtry against Christians is what Flap calls it.

Will this be the extraordinary circumstance exclusion for the next judicial appointee?

Justice Priscilla Owen

Flap previously posted (at my mirror and back-up Blog http://flapsblog.blogspot.com information regarding this case and the assault on the blogosphere:

Judge: Apple can pursue fan site sources and

Bloggers Speak up about the Apple Case

Now, Justene over at CalBlog reports:

Bloggers Likely to Win on Appeal

The Court of Appeals in California appears ready to overturn an order forcing bloggers to turn over confidential sources. Apple had alleged that the bloggers had published trade secrets. Apple argued and the trial court agreed that the allegation was enough to vitiate the bloggers’ rights under the First Amendment, the California Reporter’s Shield Law and other statutes. The trial court ordered the information produced and the matter was stayed pending the appeal.

While many rightly pointed out that the decision turned on the trade secret question, not the fact that it was bloggers in the crossfire, bloggers were concerned. The nature of the parties may have swayed the trial court to look more closely at the trade secret argument. Trade secrets are not new and there has never been a previous exception made to the protection of confidential sources for trade secrets. In addition, there was no guarantee that the appellate court would treat bloggers as the equivalent of journalists. Two groups of bloggers, the Bear Flag League and the specially-formed Online Journalists and Organizations, filed amicus briefs.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal issued an order indicating that it intended to overrule the lower court:

Respondent superior court is ordered to show cause before this court at a time and place to be specified by court order why a peremptory writ should not issue as requested in the petition for writ of mandate and/or prohibition. Real party in interest may file a return in opposition to the writ on or before 7-5-05. Real party in interest may choose to treat its preliminary opposition as the written return. If real party in interest does not do so and instead files a written return.petitioner may reply to the return within 20 days after it is filed in this court. Any PARTY desiring oral argument shall so inform this court in writing on or before 7-5-05 by completing and returning to this court the attached “Request for Oral Argument”

While oral argument may change the Court of Appeal’s final decision, it is unlikely. The reasoning will be disclosed in the written opinion.

This is very good news.

Flap looks forward to the conclusion of this appeal and a published opinion.

Stay tuned!

A California Toll Road

Leave it to the Labour government of the United Kingdom for new schemes to tax their motorists - A National Road Pricing Scheme:

British motorists face paying a new charge for every mile they drive in a revolutionary scheme to be introduced within two years.

Drivers will pay according to when and how far they travel throughout the country’s road network under proposals being developed by the Government.

Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport, revealed that pilot areas will be selected in just 24 months’ time as he made clear his determination to press ahead with a national road pricing scheme.

Each of Britain’s 24 million vehicles would be tracked by satellite if a variable “pay-as-you-drive” charge replaces the current road tax.

Want to bet whether the Parliament will divert some of these new taxes away from the roads and into their bankrupt National Health Service?

In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Mr Darling warned that unless action is taken now, the country “could face gridlock” within two decades.

Official research suggests national road pricing could increase the capacity of Britain’s network by as much as 40 per cent at a stroke, he said.

The rapid uptake of satellite navigational technology in cars is helping to usher in the new “pay-as-you-drive” charge much sooner than had been expected. Figures contained in a government feasibility study have suggested motorists could pay up to £1.34 for each mile they travel during peak hours on the most congested roads.

Although a fully operational national scheme is still considered to be a decade away, Mr Darling said local schemes could be up and running within five years. Manchester is considered a front-runner, with local authorities in the Midlands and London also pressing to be considered for a £2.5bn central fund to introduce the change.

Most of the necessary technology already exists. Lorries will be tracked by satellite and charged accordingly from 2007. The main obstacle to constructing a scheme to track Britain’s 24 million private vehicles is public opinion, and Mr Darling is determined to start making the case now.

Mr. Darling…. there is NO case to be made.

Oppressive taxation in the U.K is the norm - don’t make it worse.

Can you imagine what this will do to the cost of business travel and tourism?

The national road-pricing scheme, by contrast, has got to work so there’s “something in it for me”, said Mr Darling in advance of a keynote speech on the issue this Thursday.

There is nothing in this scheme except millions for the technology company providing the tracking equipment and billions of fresh receipts for the Labour Government.

Update #1

See Dubya over at Patterico’s blog has this California analogy:

A while back Patterico covered California’s plan to put a GPS chip in our cars that will track our position and charge us a user fee for every mile we drive within the state. There were also plans at the Federal/DOT level to implement the same sort of thing. Over at the Jawa Report a couple weeks ago, I covered a similar initiative in Oregon in quite a bit of detail. (The link to patterico’s original piece is in there).

If this still seems far-fetched, consider now that England is on track to implement a similar program in a couple of years. That’s fine for a surveillance-happy society that has no objection to state-sponsored scanners prowling their neighborhoods to monitor whether they are watching TV without paying their exorbitant Baathist Broadcasting Company tax. But I don’t see it flying here.

Dude, this is America. We love our cars because they give us freedom. The (amazingly talented) country guitarist Junior Brown has a great song about his car called “Freedom Machine”, about exactly that. You can go where you want, when you want, with whom you want. If you don’t like the town you’re in, you can pack up and bug out. Cars have been responsible for amazing social changes and much of the dynamism of American society.

And yet the Supreme Court has already held that cars and roadways are “pervasively regulated”, that we have little expectation of privacy in our cars, and so there’s probably not much stopping a statist court from blessing this incipient big Brotherism.

In other words, this will be unpopular with the public, but fine with our black-robed judicial betters, and probably with our tax-happy legislators too. Welcome to 1984.

Of course the California Legislature has made it a habit to divert gasoline taxes and motor vehicle registration fees for social welfare and other state programs.

Little to no chance of this ever gaining ground with the initiative and referendum process.

Thank God for Hiram Johnson.

Update #2

W.C. Varones has 1984 comes 21 years late.

The Left Strikes Back at John Bolton:

John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.

A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani “had to go,” particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.

Bustani, who says he got a “menacing” phone call from Bolton at one point, was removed by a vote of just one-third of member nations at an unusual special session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at which the United States cited alleged mismanagement in calling for his ouster.

The United Nations’ highest administrative tribunal later condemned the action as an “unacceptable violation” of principles protecting international civil servants. The OPCW session’s Swiss chairman now calls it an “unfortunate precedent” and Bustani a “man with merit.”

Wow!

The Left Strikes Back against Bolton with a “menacing phone call” and the results of a long time concluded U.N Administrative Tribunal.

I suppose he is responsible for the Intelligence Community gaffs preceding the Iraq War too.

Give Bolton an up or down vote!