Last Call

Louisville Courier-Journal winger nutjob John David Dyche is calling it quits after the paper refused to publish his latest screed on how evilly liberal the Louisville Courier-Journal is.

Conservative columnist John David Dyche will no longer write for The Courier-Journal after the newspaper rejected a piece he'd written that suggested reforms to the editorial page and that the paper disclose political affiliations of editors and reporters.

On Monday, Courier-Journal Editorial Director Pam Platt told Dyche that his most recently submitted column would not be published. Platt explained that piece didn't reflect what he was supposed to be writing—a conservative take on the issues of the day, according to Dyche's transcript of a voicemail left by Platt.

Dyche wrote back to Platt and C-J Publisher Wes Jackson arguing that he'd never before been told what his column was supposed to be about and that a conservative take on issues includes "liberal media bias." Dyche told Platt that if the paper wouldn't change its mind, he'd sever their relationship. Platt wished him well on future endeavors.

"I never had a column censored or refused before," Dyche told WFPL on Friday. "I wrote about things that were interesting to readers and things that were public issues. I thought this was both. Media bias, the status of newspapers, et cetera. This seemed to me to be interesting, and the only problem apparently was that it was about The Courier-Journal itself. They just don't seem willing to subject themselves to the same scrutiny and demands that they routinely subject others to."

Platt responds via e-mail: "I believe my remarks about the reason I declined (the) column and my best wishes to him in the future have been posted."

Any newspaper editor will tell you that if you've got a problem with the paper's op-ed rules, formal or informal, writing a column for public consumption about your beef with them is the last thing you do.   No newspaper is going to want to make themselves the story, so Dyche did it for them.

If you can show me where in the Constitution it says that Dyche has the inalienable right to slag his employer in his column and that they must print it, go for it.  And let's remember, Dyche then tendered his resignation, he wasn't fired.

Good riddance.  His column was crap anyway.

Right Out Of Existence

The LIBERTY and FREEDOM guys apparently have no issue with using the power of government to regulate small businesses right out of existence, as long as those small businesses are women's clinics.

The Alabama House of Representatives is expected to take up abortion legislation Tuesday that supporters claim will protect patients in clinics and opponents claim will close down abortion providers.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, R-Pelham, would require physicians at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at local hospitals; require clinics to follow ambulatory clinic building codes and make it a felony — punishable by up to 10 years in prison — for a nurse, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant to dispense abortion-inducing medications.


McClurkin and other supporters of the bill, known as HB 57, argue that the nature of abortion should require strict regulations, and claim that abortion clinics have a higher rate of regulatory violations than any other providers.


“When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body,” McClurkin said in an interview Thursday. “That’s a big thing. That’s a big surgery. You don’t have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that.”

So in one fell swoop, Alabama will all but close the last remaining few clinics in the state by making it impossible to meet the criteria, and to criminalize birth control drugs like Plan B.   Hell, depending on how they define "abortion-inducing medications" it could make prescribing any birth control a state felony.

But remember, small government, individual choice, freedom and liberty...unless it comes to your uterus.

Science, GOP Style

This Huffington Post article calls out the stupidity of Mary Sue McClurkin, who decides to change science to make her point.  As always, those pesky facts get in the way.

Alabama state Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin (R) is pushing legislation that would impose restrictions on abortion clinics -- a move that she argues is necessary because the procedure is a major surgery that removes the largest "organ" in a woman's body.

“When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body,” McClurkin told the Montgomery Advertiser on Thursday. “That’s a big thing. That’s a big surgery. You don’t have any other organs in your body that are bigger than that.”

Most junior high science classes could easily dissect this argument, and it is yet another embarrassment for a group already famous for being at odds with science.  She could at least use the correct word.  Oh wait, if she uses the correct word then her entire argument falls apart.  Very well, then.  Let the clown car skid into the courtroom once more.

Maybe this whole thing is just an argument for better elementary education in Alabama.

StupidiNews!

• Olympic runner Oscar Pistorious faced his first court date in South Africa with the defense arguing he shout and killed his girlfriend because he thought she was a burglar.
• CBS News reports that the motive for alleged Newtown shooter Adma Lanza was to "beat" the death toll of 77 gunned down by Norwegian Anders Brevik in 2011.
• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a surprise trip home to Caracas on Monday after his ongoing cancer treatment in Cuba.
• Legendary LA Lakers owner Jerry Buss has died at the age of 80, his teams took a record 10 NBA titles in the space of 34 seasons.
• Google continues to bet big on its Project Glass wearable computer glasses, recent Glass Foundry events produced 8 teams to develop code for the devices.