Birmingham Blues

This is a really nice story. I didn’t grow up in Birmingham, but I’ve listened to older members of our church talk about Norwood when it was one of the best neighborhoods in town. One elderly lady told me about riding the streetcar to our downtown church on Sunday evenings — it was [...]

Unfortunately, this perennial stinker will be back.
I like what Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) had to say:
“While I take offense at disrespect to the flag,” he said, “I nonetheless believe it is my continued duty as a veteran, as an American citizen, and as a United States senator to defend the constitutional right of protesters to [...]

Good. Exploiting domestic oil sources may seem like a fine idea in the abstract, but if the derricks start appearing off the coast of Florida, neither residents nor tourists will be happy.
The bill would end a 25-year ban on drilling off much of the U.S. coastline. It could bring rigs as close as 50 [...]

It’s Day 9 of jury deliberations in the Siegelman-Scrushy trial. Jurors left early yesterday because one of them was feeling ill. Probably from all the prosecution testimony about corruption and all the defense invocations of Dr. King.

Tom DeLay seems to be confused about where he lives. When this happens in older people, we usually take them to the doctor for an evaluation. DeLay goes to court. At issue is whether or not he’s “eligible” to remain on the Sugarland Texas ballot in November after winning the Republican [...]

…for possession of Viagra without a prescription, a no-no under his plea agreement. His lawyer says his doctor gave it to him under a different name for “privacy purposes”. Officials confiscated the Viagra and let Rush go.
Not to worry, though. If Rush gets desperate for more of the little blue pills, all [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings tomorrow into Bush’s use of signing statements and other attempts to circumvent the law.
“It’s a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution,” the committee’s chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m interested to hear from the administration [...]

I don’t guess this should come as a surprise to anyone. The Kansas law in question, according to the Anniston Star article (subscription required),
says juries should impose death sentences if aggravating evidence of a crime’s brutality and mitigating factors explaining a defendant’s actions are equal in weight.
Justice David H. Souter, writing for the [...]

Wow! That’s a real news flash…
Alabama drivers log more than 13,000 miles per year each, which means that, once again, I’m above average ;). My kids don’t have that many activities compared to their peers, but I still put at least 16,000 miles a year on my momvan.
Alabama ranks second in the Southeast [...]

It’s so nice to hear the voice of reason in the midst of pseudo-patriotic hysteria.
Thank you, Dianne Feinstein.
Composition teachers all over the country are indebted to the Democratic senator from California for an editorial published Tuesday in USA Today. Instead of tearing their hair out trying to instruct students in the finer points of logic, [...]