Eideard

There’s an agenda behind those cookies the Girl Scouts sell, one bent on promoting communism, lesbianism and subverting “traditional American family values,” according to an Indiana lawmaker. That’s the reason Rep. Bob Morris, a Republican representing Fort Wayne, insists he won’t go along with a resolution meant to honor the Girls Scouts on the organization’s 100th anniversary…

“After talking to some well-informed constituents, I did a small amount of Web-based research, and what I found is disturbing,” Morris wrote Saturday to Republican House colleagues in a letter obtained by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

Morris alleged that the Girl Scouts of America and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts “have entered into a close strategic affiliation with Planned Parenthood,” which he claimed is trying to “sexualiz(e) young girls through the Girl Scouts.”

Even worse, he wrote, only three of the 50 role models promoted by the Girl Scouts have even “a briefly-mentioned religious background.” “All the rest are feminists, lesbians, or Communists,” he wrote.

As proof, Morris notes that the “radically pro-abortion” Michelle Obama is honorary president of Girl Scouts of America, which “should give each of us reason to pause before our individual or collective endorsement of the organization.”

After learning all this, he wrote, he pulled his two daughters out of the Girl Scouts and instead put them in American Heritage Girls Little Flowers, a parent-run group best described as a center for recovering Girl Scouts.

Heartwarming to view consistency in the ideology of our politicians. Even if it’s consistent dementia.

An Indiana jury convicted embattled Republican Secretary of State Charlie White in the early hours of Saturday on six out of seven felony charges including perjury, theft and voter fraud…

White was indicted last year on seven counts stemming in part from accusations that he lied about his home address while serving on the Fishers Town Council so that he could retain a stipend…Council members are elected to represent a district and must resign if they leave that area.

White had maintained he was living in the basement of his ex-wife’s home within the district he represented. Prosecutors introduced documents they believed told a different story, that he lived outside the district with his fiancee.

Under Indiana law, any public officer convicted of a felony must be removed from office…

The seven-count indictment even contended that White lied on his marriage license application and on an application to vote in a special election…Using his ex-wife’s address allowed White to retain a $1,000-a-month stipend for his council seat and continue to pursue his political ambitions, prosecutors said…

Separately, a Marion County judge in December ruled that White was not eligible to run for secretary of state in 2010 because he was not properly registered at his own address. White has been allowed to stay in office while he appeals that ruling.

The Marion County judge ruled that the Democrat White defeated by more than 340,000 votes in 2010, Vop Osili, should be declared the winner of the election.

No date was set for sentencing.

With the Republican campaign to limit voters in full swing around the country anyone think this will come up as a question in one of the Presidential Primary debates?

Here was a real crook – and Indiana Republicans did their best to defend his greedy little fraud.

 
An embattled Cincinnati-area state representative quit yesterday afternoon, caught up in controversy after being arrested for drunken driving in Indiana with a stripper in his car and Viagra in his system.

By making his resignation effective Aug. 2, Robert Mecklenborg, R-Green Township, ensured himself that he will be paid for all of July; if he had quit this month, his legislative salary would have been prorated. He also gets a bit more from the state retirement system…

His two-sentence resignation letter to House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, was sent electronically yesterday, although it had been in the works since Saturday, said Mike Dittoe, spokesman for House Republicans…

The latest blow against the GOP representative came last week when it was revealed that four days after he was charged with DUI, Mecklenborg signed a driver’s-license application in Ohio saying that he did not have any outstanding traffic citations. Mecklenborg, 59, had an expired driver’s license when he was pulled over by an Indiana state trooper on April 23…

…A dashboard camera video showed him repeatedly telling the trooper that he had not had anything to drink, even as he failed three field sobriety tests…

Mecklenborg was chairman of the House State Government and Elections Committee and sponsored a controversial bill that would require Ohioans to provide a photo ID before being allowed to vote. He also belonged to the Judiciary and Ethics Committee.

Mecklenborg was a good little loyal soldier in the Republican Army of hypocrites. He raised the family values flag every chance he had – supporting legislation against civil rights, against women having any choice or family planning opportunities, never heard of a war he couldn’t approve or a budget for working families and their children he wouldn’t cut.

When Jacob Barnett first learned about the Schrödinger equation for quantum mechanics, he could hardly contain himself. For three straight days, his little brain buzzed with mathematical functions.

From within his 12-year-old, mildly autistic mind, there gradually flowed long strings of pluses, minuses, funky letters and upside-down triangles — a tapestry of complicated symbols that few can understand.

He grabbed his pencil and filled every sheet of paper before grabbing a marker and filling up a dry erase board that hangs in his bedroom. With a single-minded obsession, he kept on, eventually marking up every window in the home…

Entirely normal for Jacob, a child prodigy who used to crunch his cereal while calculating the volume of the cereal box in his head…

Elementary school couldn’t keep Jacob interested. And courses at IUPUI have only served to awaken a sleeping giant.

Just a few weeks shy of his 13th birthday, Jake, as he’s often called, is starting to move beyond the level of what his professors can teach.

In fact, his work is so strong and his ideas so original that he’s being courted by a top-notch East Coast research center. IUPUI is interested in him moving from the classroom into a funded researcher’s position.

“We have told him that after this semester . . . enough of the book work. You are here to do some science,” said IUPUI physics Professor John Ross, who vows to help find some grant funding to support Jake and his work…

This is not what Jake’s parents expected from a child whose first few years were spent in silence.

“Oh my gosh, when he was 2, my fear was that he would never be in our world at all,” said Kristine Barnett, 36, Jake’s mother.

“He would not talk to anyone. He would not even look at us.”

RTFA. A delight. Not just for the tale of young Jacob; but, how his parents adapted and learned, experimented with freeing his latent abilities – sometimes regardless of the directions suggested by professional help more inclined to find the right box to put him into.

Great family story from all sides. And a young person I look forward to seeing in a larger picture someday.

Thanks, Mr. Fusion

Citing declining U.S. oil production and escalating world demand for energy, Navistar unveiled its new eStar all-electric delivery/cargo van in Elkhart, Ind., where the new vehicle will be built.

The eStar’s entry into the U.S. market has been long-anticipated. It is a culmination of Navistar’s 2009 acquisition of U.K. electric vehicle manufacturer Modec and a $2.4 billion investment by the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – funds that were matched by the trucking industry at large, for a total investment of $4.8 billion in the research and development of clean energy vehicles.

The new eStar is not a hybrid truck or a conversion from a gasoline- or diesel-burning vehicle. Rather, it is a purpose-built Class 3 delivery and cargo van that…balances the needs of the environment with the needs of businesses in the United States…

According to FedEx spokeswoman Deborah Willig, test vehicles evaluated by FedEx were able to work for an entire 8-hour day without requiring additional battery charges. And in the event that quick vehicle turnaround times are required, Terblanche said the battery cassette in an eStar can be swapped out in 20 minutes – much like a gigantic cell phone – returning the vehicle to the road for another 100 miles. Terblanche said the eStar easily is adaptable to future battery technology, which means the truck’s performance and range actually could improve as new power systems become available.

The first one off the assembly line goes to FedEx. Which makes great sense.

A judge late has granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting Greenwood High School from permitting student-led prayer at its May 28 graduation ceremony.

School officials said they won’t appeal U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker’s decision, effectively ending the dispute.

In the ruling, Barker wrote that “the process in place permitting a student-led prayer at Greenwood represents a clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, as does the delivery of a specific prayer set to occur as the result of that process during the upcoming 2010 graduation ceremony.”

Greenwood Superintendent David Edds said he was not completely surprised by the ruling…

“The reality is there is a precedent, and the case law that preceded the case today made our challenge difficult,” he said.

ACLU-Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk said he was happy about the judge’s ruling. The ACLU had filed the suit on behalf of valedictorian Eric Workman, who claimed the graduation prayer violates the First Amendment provision of the separation of church and state.

“This is what the Constitution demands in this instance,” Falk said of the ruling. “I would hope that the judge was quite clear in court. She viewed it as a teaching opportunity. I hope everyone understands the scope of the Constitution here.”

People who usually ignore democracy in it’s suppression – like in the U.S. Senate – are always willing to trot out a semblance of that special freedom when it serves a reactionary cause. One of the reasons for having a judiciary that understands constitutional law and how it may be used to support progress.

Which, of course, is the essential reason why reactionaries try to load the Supreme Court with ideologues.

Michigan State Police aiding one of the raids

The FBI said Sunday that agents conducted weekend raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio and arrested at least three people, and a militia leader in Michigan said the target of at least one of the raids was a Christian militia group.

Federal warrants were sealed, but a federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said some of those arrested face gun charges and officials are pursuing other suspects…

FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said agents arrested two people Saturday after raids in two Ohio towns. A third arrest made in northeast Illinois on Sunday stemmed from a raid Saturday just over the border in northwest Indiana, both part of an ongoing investigation led by the FBI in Michigan, according to a statement from agents in Illinois…

Michael Lackomar, a spokesman for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, said one of his team leaders got a frantic phone call Saturday evening from members of Hutaree, a Christian militia group, who said their property in southwest Michigan was being raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“They said they were under attack by the ATF and wanted a place to hide,” Lackomar said. “My team leader said, ‘no thanks.’ “

The team leader was cooperating with the FBI on Sunday, Lackomar said. He said SMVM wasn’t affiliated with Hutaree, which states on its Web site to be “prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren’t.”

“We believe that one day, as prophecy says, there will be an Anti-Christ,” the group’s Web site said. “Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment…

I’m a firm believer in staying alive “using equipment”. Mostly, that includes my TV set, CPAP machine, pickup truck to get to the grocery store in town on Saturday morning – stuff like that.

UPDATE: These terrorists planned to murder one or more law enforcement officers – then attack the funeral to kill even more law officers. Terrorist thugs seem to think alike no matter what nation houses their warren of cowards and killers.

The Maine artist who brought LOVE to the world is doing the same with HOPE.

Robert Indiana decades ago created the pop icon LOVE, known worldwide with its letters stacked two to a line, the letter “o” tilted on its side. Now he has created a similar image with HOPE, with proceeds going to Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

A stainless steel sculpture of the image was unveiled this week outside the Pepsi Center at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The campaign is selling T-shirts, pins, bumper stickers and other items adorned with HOPE.

Indiana’s…best-known work is LOVE, which he designed for a Christmas card for The Museum of Modern Art in 1964. The U.S. Postal Service featured it on a stamp in 1973, selling 333 million of them.

The McCain campaign had no comment on the Obama campaign’s use of the image. No HOPE. No kidding.

Every month, every year, some school board decides their essential mandate is to turn out mass copies of Mr. Potato Head.

Thanks, K B