Appeals court blocks Pa. town's immigration law
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM (AP) – 59 minutes ago

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Hazleton, Pa., may not enforce its crackdown on illegal immigrants, dealing another blow to 4-year-old regulations that inspired similar measures around the country.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said that Hazleton's Illegal Immigration Relief Act usurped the federal government's exclusive power to regulate immigration.

"It is ... not our job to sit in judgment of whether state and local frustration about federal immigration policy is warranted. We are, however, required to intervene when states and localities directly undermine the federal objectives embodied in statutes enacted by Congress," wrote Chief Judge Theodore McKee.

Appeals courts are split on whether states and municipalities have the right to enforce laws dealing with immigration. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments over a 2007 Arizona law that prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

Hazleton, a northeastern Pennsylvania city of more than 30,000, had sought to fine landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and deny business permits to companies that give them jobs. A companion measure required prospective tenants to register with City Hall and pay for a rental permit.

Mayor Lou Barletta had pushed the measures in 2006 after two illegal immigrants were charged in a fatal shooting. The Republican mayor, now mounting his third try for Congress, argued that illegal immigrants brought drugs, crime and gangs to the city of more than 30,000 and overwhelmed police, schools and hospitals.

PHILADELPHIA – A Kraft Foods plant worker who had been suspended for feuding with colleagues, then escorted from the building, returned minutes later with a handgun, found her foes in a break room and executed two of them with a single bullet each and critically wounded a third, police said Friday.

Yvonne Hiller, 43, had gotten into an argument Thursday evening with her co-workers at the northeast Philadelphia plant, police said. After she was disciplined, she went to her vehicle, made several phone calls, and then grabbed a .357 Magnum and used it to force her way past security guards at the front gate.

About 100 people were at work at the plant, which makes Nabisco cookies and crackers.

Hiller walked to the third-floor mixing area and found four people in the break room. She had no quarrels with one woman and told her to leave. She then opened fire on the others, Philadelphia Homicide Capt. James Clark said.

"She believed they were spraying chemicals at her, saying things behind her back," Clark said.

Woman Shooter at Kraft Foods

I don't understand the whole workplace shooting thing. While it was once confined to postal workers, it seems all over the place now.

SB, I don't know how far back your "was once confined to" goes, but I doubt that workplace shootings were incipient with or ever confined to postal workers (I hope I'm not being too literal).

Dec. 30, 1999: Housekeeper Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva, 36, fatally shot five co-workers at Tampa, Fla.'s Radisson Bay Harbor hotel. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to life in prison.

_ Nov. 2, 1999: Copier repairman Byran Uyesugi, 40, fatally shot seven people at Xerox Corp. in Honolulu. He was convicted, sentenced to life in prison.

_ Aug. 5, 1999: Truck driver Alan E. Miller, 35, fatally shot two co-workers at Pelham, Ala., office, then killed a former co-worker. He was convicted, sentenced to death.

_ July 29, 1999: Former day trader Mark Barton, 44, killed nine people at two Atlanta brokerage offices before he committed suicide.

_ March 6, 1998: Former Connecticut Lottery Corp. accountant Matthew Beck, 35, fatally shot four lottery executives, then himself, in Newington.

_ Dec. 18, 1997: Fired employee Arturo R. Torres, 43, killed four former co-workers at maintenance yard in Orange, Calif., and was shot to death by police.

_ Sept. 15, 1997: Fired assembly line worker Arthur H. Wise, 43, shot and killed four at Aiken, S.C., parts plant. He was convicted, sentenced to death.

_ April 24, 1996: Firefighter Kenneth Tornes killed four superiors at Jackson, Miss., firehouse. He died on death row.

_ April 3, 1995: Former employee James Simpson, 28, shot and killed five people at refinery inspection station in Corpus Christi, Texas, then killed himself.

_ July 19, 1995: City electrician Willie Woods shot and killed four supervisors at C. Erwin Piper Technical Center in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to life in prison.

_ July 1, 1993: Gian Luigi Ferri, 55, a mentally disturbed man with a grudge against lawyers, killed eight people and himself in a San Francisco law office.

_ June 18, 1990: James E. Pough, 42, killed 10 people and wounded four others before killing himself at a General Motors Acceptance Corp. office in Jacksonville, Fla.

I guess it wasn't isolated to the post office, but wasn't that the origin of the phrase "going postal"? No matter. It's just horribly sad.

LMFAO! ARE YOU KIDDING? 'Out of respect' for whom? Fuck you. 'Compromise'? Fuck off.

Vile, repelling douchebag.

So long as we've learned nothing from 9/11, we'd actually be best to forget it. We've got to go beyond naive naval-gazing jingoist outrage.

Also, I find it revealing that the primary concern about Terry Jones was that his actions could "endanger our troops"; that is, in case that's gone over your flag-flying head, the concern about Terry Jones is that it might threaten an illegal imperialist war that has claimed thousands of lives - he is not being discouraged because it's a horrible act of bigotry.

Just as revealing is the notion given by the ruling establishment and its putrid media that one man's actions can "endanger" or undo an entire war effort - nice to know there's a great stronghold on Afghan after nine years of being there, and that the hatred felt toward this war hasn't anything to do with its gross illegality...

Seriously, fuck me.

No, you go fuck yourself.

DT, immediate victory is not the only acceptable outcome of our efforts in Afghanistan. We've been fighting the Mafia for almost 100 years. Have we won yet? No. Have we significantly injured its ability to operate? Yes. The same is true in Afghanistan. Now, Al Queda cannot use Afghanistan with impunity to plan and train for its operations against us and it has been forced to deploy some of its resources to defend itself against us. Thus, those resources cannot be used to plan and execute attacks on our soil.

And Goombah, we can't trash over 200 years of our trying to do the right thing and defending and propagating freedom and liberty by flattening an entire country. Unlike Japan and Germany, the peoples of Afghanistan hardly know what is going on in the village a few miles away let alone what is going on their country and they cannot in the least be construed as supporting something they know little or nothing about. The same was true in Vietnam. Those peole were just trying to get through each day. We need to be persistent. It will bear fruit.

Er um... opinions without personal insults? Remember that rule??

And if it's against the rules, then why hasn't he been suspended?

Hopefully the public warning will suffice for now.

I have Internet Explorer 7 and also Firefox. Can anyone tell me why it is that as of an hour or so ago I can connect to Firefox but not IE??? I keep getting the message that "remote device or resource won't accept connection????" I did remove a Norton program which had expired a few months ago but other than that I didn't make any other changes before this happened. I'm confused. Oh, and when I click "internet access" it does say "connected".

I have no idea, TIS, and don't really have time right now to help much, but a quick google of your problem brought this. Give it a shot: "Try going to tools > internet options > connections tab > lan settings > make sure those three boxes aren't checked" Hopefully that'll do it?

My friend just said she went to a restaurant (Il Giardinello) down the street from me and Joe Pesci was there!

He's probably still there, but I don't wanna look like a fool.

Earlier last evening, without warning, I suddenly got my Internet access back from my cantankerous home PC (aka The ComputerSaurus).

I have no idea how or why this happened. I had run a Scan Disc cleanup on The Monster, but no errors were detected. I then defragmented The Beast for good measure - but I had done this in the past with no improvement whatsoever. But now, in addition to actually deigning to connect me to the Internet, I think ol' M-5 is actually running a little faster than before. (I had installed an updated version of AOL a couple of weeks ago and, up to now, the damn thing didn't work at all.)

So, it looks like I'm back, at least for the time being.

Hallelujah!

HooooooooHah!!!

We'll just see how long this lasts...

On the other hand, my printer croaked several days ago. Figures. I went to my local Staples to buy a new one, only to find that no one is making printers that are compatible with my ancient computer's equally ancient operating system. Can't update my damn McAfee virus protection program either, for the same reason.

Dammit, Dammit, Dammit, Dammit, Dammit.



As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say,

"It's always something!"

Signor V.

You laid off the porn for a month.

Bastardo!

So I'll type one-handed.

BFD

Signor V.

Good to see you back SV..

SV:

From where do you get your emoticons?

The "More Smilies" link on the left, under the shoutbox

Are you kidding me that you have the audacity to talk to anyone on these boards like that? Look at the context, Capo. I clearly meant "out of the respect" to the 9/11 thread.

I will have to agree with one point you made - your last statement.

Goombah, there are plenty of Board members who value each other's posts. There is worth to reading those posts and continuing to post yourself. Some Board members have an unresolved rage against something in their lives and they use the Board as a finger-tapping outlet. Just ignore them and continue with your contributions.

You've got a Capo-free week, so don't worry about that...

(Sept. 4) -- An American cartoonist's rendition of the Mexican flag is causing controversy south of the border, where Mexicans say it's offensive to taint their national symbol with images of drug violence.

Political cartoonist Daryl Cagle's drawing, which ran on the front page of several Mexican newspapers this week, shows what's normally a regal-looking eagle at the center of Mexico's flag riddled with bullets and bleeding. It's a reference to the drug wars that have riled Mexico and left more than 28,000 people dead there in less than four years.

"Editorial cartoonists look for readily recognizable metaphors and that's an obvious one for Mexico," Cagle told CNN.

But some Mexicans say they're offended by the cartoon. Like the American flag, Mexico's banner is a national symbol under which many soldiers and civilians have given their lives. They say Cagle overstepped his creative license in this case.


"It is a shame that a patriotic symbol like our flag, which is so beautiful to me, can be mocked by a stupid cartoonist," one angry reader complained to the Mexican newspaper El Universal. "I think there are many other ways to graphically protest what's happening in our country."

The Mexican Embassy in Washington weighed in on the issue, with a spokesman Ricardo Alday saying Thursday that Mexico "respects and defends freedom of speech and freedom of expression" but "differs" with Cagle "on the use he makes of the Mexican flag and the message it conveys."

In a letter to MSNBC.com, which employs Cagle, Alday said the cartoon "triggered a negative response from some sectors of Mexican public opinion."

Mexican Flag Cartoon

Best post EVER!

Ditto!

Goom, awhile back you gave me the best advice I've ever received on this board: To use the "ignore" feature. And it worked wonders for me! I hardly ever want to quit his place anymore .

So just follow your own advice, my friend .

Anyone see Lady Gaga's meat dress at the VMA awards? Was it real? Were there maggots, as PETA insists?

Meat dress??

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lady Gaga said the controversial "meat" dress she wore at the MTV Video Music Awards was intended to make a statement.

Winning eight prizes at Sunday's ceremony, the glam pop performance artist chose to accept one of her statuettes wearing nothing but a raw, red meat dress with a matching purse, that became one of the most talked about moments of the televised show.

"If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones," Lady Gaga, 24, told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres on her TV program broadcast on Monday.

"And, I am not a piece of meat," she added.

Sunday's outfit comes on the heels of a meat bikini Gaga donned for the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan's September issue. It was one of several different costumes the singer wore on Sunday, including one that looked like a large black trash bag.

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said that "wearing a dress made from cuts of dead cows is offensive enough to bring comment."

Lady Gaga told DeGeneres she meant no disrespect to anyone that is vegan or vegetarian, and called herself "the most judgment free human being on the earth."

Singer Cher, whom Gaga asked to hold her meat purse while accepting her award on stage, defended the 24-year old songbird.

In a series of several tweets regarding the meat dress, Cher wrote on Monday that as an "art piece it was astonishing!" and that the meat purse was "genius."

Continuing on Twitter, Cher added: "modern art elicits discussion, introspection & conflict! Everyone's talking about it! BINGO!"

Lady Gaga's eccentric outfits, string of hit records like "Bad Romance" and "Paparazzi" and startling live stunts including setting her piano on fire, have made her a worldwide pop culture phenomenon over the past two years with more than 10 million album sales.