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Showing an abundance of caution, the United States Supreme Court has ruled to protect the proceedings of the Proposition 8 discrimination trial in San Francisco, blocking efforts by the trial judge, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn to allow cameras into a

Federal Judge Vaughn Walker

California federal courtroom for the first time.

Less than four weeks ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that it was time to begin a pilot project exploring the benefits of broadcasting federal civil trials.   It is somewhat remarkable that the long-protected privacy of California federal courtrooms would become negotiable just weeks before the start of the Proposition 8 discrimination trial.   The Ninth Circuit’s “pilot project” immediately opened the door for Federal Judge Vaughn Walker to take extraordinary legal steps, on New Year’s Eve no less,  to extend the project to include the discrimination suit against Protect Marriage.  With every day, the prosecution of Protect Marriage seems to be led, not just by formidable constitutional attorneys David Boies and Ted Olson, but by Judge Walker as well.  An outraged National Review Online columnist, Ed Whelan, notes that by waiting until New Year’s Eve to make procedural moves to broadcast the Proposition 8 discrimination trial, Judge Walker essentially precluded the public from having any opportunity to oppose it.  In a letter written directly to the Judge, Whelan publicly challenges the motives behind the move:

Before Google Maps or navigation systems, there were shepherds and there were stars.

In the Old World, shepherds knew the sky and the terrain like a well-worn map.   They were quite different from farmers of the time, who had the means to at least own land or to buy livestock.  Shepherds survived on meager wages earned by watching the flocks of others.  Even so, they were well-travelled and moved from pasture to pasture, hillside to hillside.  If there ever was a change in the sky, or a happening on the horizon, shepherds often would have been the first to see it, and likely the first to tell of it.

There has always been great poetry in the way Heavenly Father sent word of the Savior’s birth, dispatching a beautiful chorus of angels to proclaim it to lowly shepherds.  There was also a message in this method.  By breaking the news on the hillsides above Bethlehem where only shepherds dwelt, those shepherds would be the ones to have the privilege of announcing to many that the greatest shepherd of all had been born into the world.

As President Obama envisions a future with multi-trillions in additional debt for Americans it is vital that taxpayers shouldering the price of federal government check out the latest statistics.

“The Tax Foundation reported last week that more than 143 million individual income tax returns were filed in 2007,

Tax Pain

and 46.6 million of those returns had a zero or negative tax liability, setting a new record for the number of “non-payers.” This group represented almost one out of every three tax returns filed in 2007 (32.6 percent, see chart above), and reflects tax filers whose exemptions, deductions, and credits wiped out any federal income taxes that would have been due. According to the Tax Foundation, every dollar withheld from the paychecks of the “non-payers” during the year was refunded, and in about half of the cases, substantial additional money was refunded to the tax filer. There were an additional 15 million people in 2007 who did not earn enough income to file a tax return, bringing the total number of Americans who paid no federal income taxes to more than 61 million, or 39 percent of the tax-eligible population (158 million including filers plus non-filers).”

Read the ugly details here.   Long…….sigh.

www.blog.american.com/?p=7951

This week,  California First Lady Maria Shriver is taking a seat on the Today Show couch and talking about the “new world” for women in the United States.  She has just released  “The Shriver Report” which offers empirical research about family life, working life, and the

Shriver on Today's Women

constant balancing act that is a reality for women who try, or need to be part of both worlds.

Maria Shriver is a good reporter and always has been.  Now she adds to her perspective, enormous life experience as a mother of four, a front row seat in political life, and eight years as a Governor’s wife touring the communities of California.

I highly encourage viewing her segments airing on the NBC Evening News, or Today, or MSNBC this week.  There is a lot to learn from her reports. It is valuable to know the source of the research as well.  The American Policy Institute, partnering with TIME Magazine, conducted polling of 3,413 people throughout the U.S.  Both men and women were polled in the study.   For your information, former Clinton aide, John Podesta, is the head of the American Policy Institute.  Scanning the initial findings, the results are telling.

Broadcasters and pundits ccould be a bit more kind in their reviews of President Obama’s surprise Nobel Peace Prize.  He IS the first

Making Peace

African American to sit in the White House.  It is odd that, according to CNN, the Nobel Committee closed nominations shortly after Obama was inaugurated.  His “peace” efforts were still wet ink droplets on the page at that time.

In any event, Barack Obama will give the money to charity, all $1.4 million of it, which after taxes will be something over $700,000.  Donating the balance to charity will shelter the remainder of his government salary this year!  Those are the realities.

Past Peace Prize recipients include Al Gore, Henry Kissenger, Jimmy Carter, and of course Martin Luther King.  I thought it might be interesting to remember the names and acts of women  who have been recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize .  Turns out there’s a lot of politics…..in peace.

Chemotherpay at Duke Cancer Clinic

This article in today’s Salt Lake City Deseret News is so vital and informational to those who have or who are or who will confront Cancer in their families, that True North takes the opportunity to excerpt it here and thanks writer Lois M. Collins for her great piece and for spreading the news of the work of Massachusetts firm,  Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, for their innovatoins in Cancer research.

FIRM TAKES ENGINEERING APPROACH TO TREATING CANCER

A Massachusetts company with strong Utah ties is approaching the finding and fixing of cancerous tumors as an engineering challenge. It believes most solid tumors are triggered by one or more of six distinct systemic signaling-mechanism breakdowns and it’s developing treatments to repair them.

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Mass., on Thursday announced a $530 million exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with French pharmaceutical giant sanofi-aventis for the development and co-commercialization of a drug targeting the first of those

signaling breakdowns.