Category: News

A message from the President of Marquette University, anouncing the name-change-back-to-the-name-before-the-name-change:

I am pleased to announce that our athletics nickname effective July 1st will be the Golden Eagles. This decision was made by you, the Marquette community, through the “MU Voice” voting process. I want to thank all of you who participated in “MU Voice” for taking the time to vote for the nickname that we will use as we enter the Big East Conference on July 1st.

The decision, had it been left to the Marquette Community, would have been Marquette Warriors, but Marquette University is a European democracy. You can choose from amongst the choices your betters put before you, of which the most popular choice will not be allowed.

The name Golden Eagles has a proud association in Marquette’s history since it was our name from 1994 to the present. I am pleased that this tradition will continue in the Big East Conference, one of the most prestigious and competitive conferences in the nation. The Big East is also known for the academic quality of its student-athletes, and our Marquette student-athletes will be no exception. They excel both in the classroom and in athletic competition.

Marquette shows its committment to academic evidence by finding the last ten years indicative of history.

Ultimately, more than one-third of the Marquette community eligible to vote participated in either phase one or phase two of the voting process, with 35,777 total individuals casting votes. Thank you for your passion and enthusiasm for Marquette University. Your dedication is vital to ensuring our future progress and success.

Clicking a radio button and typing in a secret code number is not dedication. Volunteering, financial support, and whatnot are. I’ve done one of the above. Guess which, and you wouldn’t necessarily thank me.

Let me also thank Advantage Research, Inc., the independent firm that administered “MU Voice,” for creating and executing an honest, fair and scientific process. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work of the Nickname Advisory Committee, comprised of representatives from the Marquette community, for ensuring the integrity and transparency of this process.

No, no, thank you, Marquette, for expending a large sum of money on a farce that didn’t address anything but an ill-conceived name change on your part. Advantage Research just sucked up some dollars from students and those alumni who are dedicated and passionate, or at least just dedicated, to go back to a slightly less ill-conceived.

Of course, we know that Marquette is first and foremost an academic institution committed to educating men and women to be a leaven for good in our society. We must not lose sight of this important mission rooted in our 450-year Jesuit tradition. Thank you for your care and concern and for the pride we share in the values of this wonderful university. We Are Marquette!

You are Marquette. Me, I am just a guy who graduated there and managed to find a series of jobs in the private sector.

Well, one could assume that when one reads the latest column from Eric Mink, the television critic turned commentary editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Writing a rather standard piece attacking Cheney for Guantanamo Bay, Mink madlibs:

“They got a brand new facility down at Guantanamo,” Cheney told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last Thursday. “We spent a lot of money to build it. They’re very well-treated down there. They’re living in the tropics. They’re well fed. They’ve got everything they could possibly want.”

I kind of wish the ever-dizzy Blitzer had asked a couple of follow-ups: “Everything they could possibly want, Mr. Vice President? Like a fair and impartial process to see if they even belong there?

I assume that Mink means right to the United States court system (since military tribunals and so on would not be impartial enough). Of course, the people at Gunatanamo Bay are (everybody sing the chorus) illegal combatants, not even covered under the Geneva Conventions, but Mink wants to convey the benefits of U.S. citizenship upon people who dedicated themselves to killing American soldiers and , aside from the concrete practice of shooting American soldiers (not like killing citizens), who dedicated themselves in theory to destroying Christendom or the United States (great Satan and so forth).

No word on whether Mink would convey other benefits of citizenship upon other citizens of the world, such as sending Social Security checks to China (think how it would help prevent parents from killing little girl children who could not take care of them in old age!)

As long as Mink continues to help perpetrate his columnular identity as a stereotypical knee-jerk liberal lover of humanity, but not so much a keen observer of its nature, I will help. I think he would.

Good morning, sunshine. Now that Kelo has established how little justification your local government needs to seize your land, do you know what’s afoot?

Radley Balko rounds up gleeful local governments’ new projects.

Summer of the Pit Bull continues: Woman recovering from pit bull attack:

A San Jose woman was recovering from bites to her hands and arms after her 8-month-old pit bull mix attacked her in her home Sunday, police said.

The 36-year-old woman, who was not identified by police, was cleaning up after the dog got sick in the house in the 0-100 block of George Street when the dog attacked her about 6 p.m., according to San Jose Police spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten.

“For some reason, the dog ended up turning on her and attacking her,” Tepoorten said.

Not to be outdone, we get a sequel to the Summer of the Shark: Shark Attacks 2nd Teen Off Fla. Panhandle:

A teenage boy was bitten and critically injured Monday in the second shark attack in three days along the Florida Panhandle.

Man, I cannot wait till the hysteredia brings us the climactic conclusion in two years: Shark Vs. Pit Bull: The Reckoning (tagline: “People were only the appetizer”).

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)

I should have sympathy for the father of three children who were found dead in a car trunk in New Jersey. However, he and the media are all too happy to blame the police:

Dad: ‘Maybe they should have looked in the trunk’: Father of 1 of 3 boys found dead questions police methods:

As authorities began investigating why police failed to search a car trunk where three missing boys were found dead, the father of one of the children said Sunday he could not understand how they died so close to home.

Anibal Cruz, 38, said the family assumed that police looked in the trunk of the car that was parked just steps from where the boys were last seen playing.

“That was the first place to look,” Cruz said. “You can look through the windows and check inside. That is simple. Maybe they should have looked in the trunk.”

I want to stay away from personally impugning the parenting skills required in this endeavor, since I wasn’t there and I only get the understanding and facts of the situation as provided by the media.

I do wonder why it’s necessary to fault the police for the children’s deaths. If this explodes into a lawsuit against the police, then I will impugn the parents of the children. But not now, damn it. He lost three children and grieves, lashing out. Hopefully, he’ll recognize that the police weren’t at fault and to blame them at a time like this disservices them and his children’s memory.

The media should take steps to keep him from looking bad, too, during this emotional time and not amplifying his comments into an indictment of sloppy police work.

Some bloggers think that restrictive state statutes might prevent eminent domain abuse. Like Owen at Boots and Sabers:

As this ruling states, “for more than a century,” the high court has favored “affording legislatures broad latitude in determining what public needs justify the use of the takings power.”

That a nice hope. I’ll dash it with two words: interstate commerce.

Because believe you me that the first time the City of Podunk wants to hand a nationwide company a set of tract homes and small businesses so it can build a plant or office complex but cannot because the state has restricted it, some cabal of coporate lawyers are gonna shriek that the state’s laws restrict interstate commerce.

Dustbury also wrestles with this. I hope I’ve helped settle the question, although it’s not the answer any citizen of this country should enjoy.

The Scientology is strong with this one.

PROPERTY RIGHTS: Tear down the castle:

Conservatives have been trying for years to breathe more life into the constitutional protection of property rights. Many saw the sympathetic cause of the New London homeowners as a foot in the door. But their view could have handcuffed economic development.

The court’s decision may fuel the trend for big box stores to displace little businesses and homes, as in Sunset Hills. But it also will help cities improve their economic health or aesthetics. In essence, the decision is a bow to modernity. There aren’t castles anymore.

Bowing to modernity. Apt. All should bow to our new overlords, for whom the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has always been the voice, supporting eminent domain to build ballparks for private companies and to revitalize downtown St. Louis.

There aren’t any castles any more for the common man, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch undoubtedly looks forward to the days when the serfs learn their places as bound to the land of their lords.

So can local governments now take intellectual property rights and give them to others? Because think of how much more profitable a movie theater would be if it didn’t have to pay the studios 90% of the ticket price….and how much more tax money for public use the local government would get….

And all that expensive software they need to run? Eminent domain! It’s all free!

Does the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision mean that my municipal government can determine that food products I have already ingested could better serve the public as fertilizer in the flower bed in the median of the Maryland Heights Expressway and compel me to report, finger in throat, to expel the contents of my stomach for public use?

If so, I hope the soil is very basic as I drink a lot of coffee and don’t want to burn the petunias.

Poll: Most want Congress to make sure Internet safe:

Most Americans believe the government should do more to make the Internet safe, but they don’t trust the federal institutions that are largely responsible for creating and enforcing laws online, according to a new industry survey.

From the paragons of efficiency that brought you the Transportation Security Administration.

A woman at an airport falls prey to larcenous predators: The DEA:

A Quincy woman carrying $46,950 in cash through Logan International Airport claims she was on the way to see a Texas plastic surgeon when federal drug agents seized the money she planned to use for a procedure on her buttocks and breasts.

“The agent looked at my buttocks and told me that I do not need an operation,” Ileana Valdez, 26, told a federal court yesterday in an affidavit contending she got the cash from selling her Dorchester business and two homes.

As some of you know, if law enforcement thinks you have too much cash on you, they can just take it and hold onto it for you until such time as you successfully sue to get it back.

DEA Special Agent Anthony Pettigrew said, “This is her version of events on that day. When there’s a hearing, DEA will present its version of what happened on that day.”

How nice; the DEA doesn’t plan to present evidence of wrongdoing. The DEA will present its version of what happened.

Can my local government seize my other private possessions now and turn them over to retailers to sell again? Because the city of Maryland Heights could undoubtedly put the sales tax paid by someone else on the things I formerly owned to good, public use.

UPDATE: I’ll take Illinois in the pool for the first government to try it.

Supreme Court rules: All Your Base Are Belong To Us.

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.

“The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin rounds up.

Alternate Title: Supreme Court Acts to Solve Housing Bubble Problem

Longer Yellow Lights Reduce Accidents.

But longer yellow lights don’t balance municipal budgets, so don’t expect the cameras to go away.

The transcripts and recordings of the last words during airline crashes.

(Link seen on Boots and Sabers.)

Should cities be ISPs?

No.

Somehow, they get a whole story out of it.

Interesting word choice, Mr. Blankley:

Although this is a heavily researched book that includes amongst its sources almost a hundred people who are or were personally close to Mrs. Clinton, this is not a peek through a keyhole. Instead, it is a peek — and more than a peek — into the mind of Hillary. And, whether you like or hate Hillary, the inside of her mind is a fascinating place in which to rove about.

Now I know I will look for Hillary to be bushed from how politics have gored her.

(Link seen on Power Line.)