Three years probation and he has to stay in school or have a full time job allowing him to enroll at Hampton University for classes tomorrow and join the Division 1-AA Pirates and play football again in the Fall.

Gies was the person who, after the Nazis found and hauled the Franks away, found the writings that later became known as The Diary of Anne Frank.

I was in the 5th grade the first time I read that book. It had a huge effect on me. Before that I'd heard stories from my dad and my uncles about WW II and fighting the Germans and the Japanese, but it was all ancient history to me. Until I read Anne Frank's book. Reading that book made me aware of just how cruel and evil the world could be. And, in a way, it personalized the war for me. I wondered just how brave I would have been in the same circumstances.

I'm grateful to Gies for saving those writings all through the war and giving them to Otto Frank, Anne's father, when he returned from the concentration camp after the war. He was the only one in his family to survive the camps. I can only imagine his emotions when Gies gave him that part, the only surviving part, of his daughter.

Supreme Court rejects appeal in child pron case.

The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeal of a Virginia man who claimed a First Amendment right to superimpose the faces of real children over those of adults engaged in sexually explicit activity.

The man, Christopher Allen, had asked the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction for producing child pornography on grounds that the images were protected by the First Amendment because they did not involve any actual sexual activity by minors.

Mr. Allen is serving a 17-year prison sentence following his conviction on five counts of producing child pornography.

The trial judge and appeals courts in Virginia rejected his appeal, noting that the faces in Allen's child pornography all involved real children.

Allen ran a computer-based graphic design business from his home. He also cared for his niece at night and coached his stepdaughter's soccer team in a league for girls under the age of 10.

According to a brief filed in the case, Allen used computer technology and his graphic design expertise to take the faces of his stepdaughter, his niece, and several girls on the soccer team from ordinary photos and "morphed" them with pictures of adults engaged in sexually explicit acts. The resulting photos are described as "extremely graphic." The depicted girls were about seven years old, and their faces are readily identifiable, according to court briefs.

And, Supreme Court refused to challenge school dress code

The US Supreme Court has declined to take up the case of a Texas high school student who was barred from wearing a T-shirt to school with "Freedom of Speech" printed on the front and the text of the First Amendment on the back.

At issue was whether a public school dress code that bans all printed messages except those approved by school officials violated high school students' free speech rights.

The high court dismissed the case without comment. That leaves in place an appeals court ruling that upheld the school's policy, expanding the power of school administrators to ban student speech in instances where the restrictions are deemed content-neutral.

However, it's a very encouraging article for those of us who oppose it.  The title is "Stacking the Deck Against Proposition 8" - and goes into why we will probably win this round at the least.

I am liking this judge.  Everything our op-ed contributer considers "disquieting" is something I would consider "encouraging".  Personally, I find the existence of bigotry much more "disquieting" than the exposure of it.  If you are so confident in your beliefs that you are correct, why the fear of exposure?

I thought they had enough wingnuts and dingbats over at Fox but I guess there is always room for one more.  

Just as they keep hauling that lying bag of manure, Karl Rove, to give his "opinions" they will be dragging her dumb butt out there by way of "contributing".  The only contributing she is interested in maintaining is what is being drawn in by her PAC and whatever she can roust from public appearances.

The lame duck Assembly, in it's final day passed a considerably weaker bill than had cleared the senate a year ago, and adjourned, leaving the Senate with a take it or leave it on the Assembly draft. The Senate took it.

Removed, provisions allowing patients to grow their own. Left in, non-profit "compassion centers," analogous top dispensaries. Gov Corzine will sign in the morning, before leaving office at noon, tho incoming Republican Gov. Christie has indicated he's sign what amounts to the final bill, tho he'd have vetoed the earlier draft.

The guy makes me sick.

The White House is considering a tax on financial institutions to ensure that taxpayers who bailed out banks get paid back, a senior administration official said Monday.

The law that created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program empowered the president to ask Congress to recoup money if bailouts were not paid back in full.

SNIP

A spokesman for the White House's budget office would not confirm or deny reports about a possible tax on banks.

"There are - and will be - a lot of rumors about what is in our budget - most of them wrong," said budget office spokesman Kenneth Baer. "We are not going to get into the game of ruling in and ruling out rumors about what is in our budget."

LAS VEGAS -- As if Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) didn't have enough problems, say hello to Rory Reid, his eldest son. Looks just like him. He's running for governor of Nevada.

It will be Reid and Reid atop the November ballot in this state, the father running for his sixth term, the son making his first bid at statewide office. So far, this double bill is not going so great. Each candidate is dragging down the other, to look at the polls and listen to the Silver State's political oddsmakers. And neither is mentioning the other's campaign.