Sit down before you read this… I would love to see the return of the Fairness Doctrine. That is right, love to see it.

I would be more than willing to sacrifice talk radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and other conservative leaning media in order to get some balance of opinion from ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The P.I., Good Morning America, The View, 60 Minutes, National Public Radio, 98% of all newspaper editorial boards, almost every college campus, teachers unions, labor unions…. what was that? The hell you say… it only applies to talk radio? Well that does not seem fair.

Never mind.

Today's Seattle Times letters to the editor page ran this:

Union ruling

WEA acted in good faith

Editor, The Times:

Under inflammatory headlines, but without an underlying basis of factual support, two recent editorials attacked the Washington Education Association after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the union ["Slapdown of WEA," Times, Opinion, June 15, and "WEA ducks and weaves after Supreme Court loss," Times, Opinion, June 19].

For the record, the Supreme Court decision was narrow, finding only that provisions of Washington campaign-finance law regulating union spending are constitutional. The court did not find, as The Times implies, that the WEA violated or intended to violate the law. Indeed, evidence presented in lower courts shows that the WEA made every good-faith effort to fully abide by an ambiguous and internally inconsistent set of rules.

My post of my personal thoughts about Tony Blair is still up from last night, but I have a noteworthy stand-alone update to deliver.  You may recall my comments (and Sir Giuliani's) about the former British Prime Minister's moral clarity and vision.  Well, by happenstance, Suzanne Fields in a Townhall.com column dated today wrote - and I'm clipping for the time-challenged:

"If you had told me a decade ago that I would be tackling terrorism," he wrote in the Economist magazine, in an essay titled "What I've Learned," not long ago, "I would have readily understood, but would have thought you meant Irish terrorism."

Actually, what he learned was that getting the Irish Republican Army to put down its guns and renounce violence was considerably easier than getting the Islamists to do the same. He learned that "international politics should not be simply a game of interests, but also of beliefs, things we stand for and fight for." Not an easy sell in a spectacularly fractured world.

And I use the word safe to mean spends a lot of taxpayer money for no good reason. I am not even going to attempt to comment on this… I am just glad we are not running a deficit or anything.

Here is the office press release.

EPA $100K grant to help make nail salons safer for patrons and workers in King County

Release date: 06/27/2007

Contact Information: Running Grass, EPA/Seattle 206-553-2899, grass.running@epa.gov ot Tony Brown, EPA/Seattle 206-553-1203, brown.anthony@epa.gov

(Seattle, Wash - June 27, 2007) – Both patrons and staff of nail salons in King County, Washington, will soon breathe a little easier, thanks to a $100,000 EPA Collaborative Problem-Solving Grant. The grant was awarded to the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle (ECOSS), as part of EPA’s Environmental Justice Program. The grant awarded to ECOSS is one of 10 awarded to community-based, non-profit organizations across the country. Each received $100,000 EPA Environmental Justice Grants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

From Townhall, Rich Galen has some good comments.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Ca) said on Sunday that she thought it would be a good idea if the Congress would pass a law bringing back what used to be known as "The Fairness Doctrine."

First some history to understand 'what' the Fairness Doctrine is, or more accurately,  what it was.

On Fox News Sunday this past weekend, Feinstein, according to Broadcasting & Cable Magazine said that "talk radio is one-sided and 'explosive.' She said it 'pushes people, I think, to extreme views without a lot of information.'"

Which sounds much like she's describing the Senate Floor debate on the immigration bill, but maybe that's just me.

The basic law covering the use of radio waves in the United States - including everything from radar to your local disc jockey - is built on the Communications Acts of 1934 and 1937 which, in turn, were based on the Radio Act of 1927.

[Round II HERE] 

First, let me say that I am a huge Tony Blair fan so this is from the heart being that my politics from the ripe age of 17 were guided by this man.  [Yes, I am now a "conservative" because I believe in free economies and freedom for all people... including Iraqis and Afghanis.  At one time freedom for all was a tradtional liberal ideal.]  I watched him ride to power with his gorgeous wife Cherie, launch Operation Desert Fox with Bill Clinton, provide the world with a moral alternative to Bill Clinton, take NATO to war for Kosovo with Serbia and on and on. 

All I can say is it’s about time the prosecutor’s office did something about this… 

Once upon a time (like the last 20 years), the Codeword was "Bipartisan".  What was really meant by "Bipartisan" was that the Democrat party gets their way 98%, and the Republicans get 2% of what they wanted.  If the Republicans wanted a more fair deal, they were NOT "Bipartisan".

The new Codeword is "Divisive".  As Kate at Small Dead Animals points out:

Note how frequently "progressives" from Obama on down (to, say, a Toronto Star writer I argued with recently) now use the word "divisive" as a prejorative.

Why is divisiveness a bad thing? Why is "unity" always a good? Aren't the "issues that divide us" precisely where our principles and passions lie?

Obama's right: Jerry Falwell was a divisive figure. So was Abe Lincoln (and NO, I'm not equating the two…)

Are progressives trying to smuggle a more insidious concept into public discourse by using the word "divisive" as an insult?

Hat tip to Publius Pundit. Click image to see full size version.

I admit it - I am a geek.  I love stuff like this.  Who knew that Washington State's economy was about the same size as Turkey?

I know Perri beat me to it, but here is my take on the Lady and her dog. 

The County should thanks her for exposing the loopholes that make fraud in King County so easy to commit but instead they are punishing her.

Instead of dealing with the law's obvious flaws, they will bully her with threats and intimidation.  This is senseless prosecution and retribution for poking the sleeping giant in the eye.  Period.

Woman registers her dog to vote; prosecutors growl

Jane Balogh had a pretty good idea who was calling when the phone rang and the caller asked for Duncan M. MacDonald.

Duncan is the dog Balogh registered as a voter seven months before the November 2006 election.

Duncan's absentee-ballot envelope was signed with a picture of a paw print.

That is the only thing that gave it away, isn't that ironic?  Had she scrawled a signature they would have accepted it.