Tag Archives: Pennsylvania

Is This The Direction We Should Be Heading ?

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The Corner at National Review posted an article today by Andrew McCarthy about a recent court ruling in Pennsylvania.

The article reported:

A state judge in Pennsylvania has dismissed an assault and harrassment case against a Muslim defendant who admitted attacking the victim. Magistrate Judge Mark Martin, a veteran of the war in Iraq and a convert to Islam, ruled that Talag Elbayomy’s sharia defense — what he claimed was his obligation to strike out against any insult against the prophet Mohammed — trumped the First Amendment free speech rights of the victim.

So let me get this straight. The assault victim, Ernie Perce, an activist atheist, paraded last October in a “Zombi Mohammed” costume. As a result of this, he was attacked by Talag Elbayomy. According to this judge, Mr. Perce’s First Amendment free speech rights are not valid since Mr. Elbayomy’s god was insulted. OK. So do this mean that if I want to attack someone physically for some of the anti-Christian artwork that has surfaced in recent years, I can do that and not be convicted? If I kill them, is it still ok?

This is totally ridiculous. I am not sure if appeal is an option in this case, but it should be. The U. S. Constitution trumps sharia law. If the judge does not believe that, he has no business being a judge in America.

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Do Politics Influence Where People Choose To Live ?

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Map of USA showing states with no state income...

Image via Wikipedia

Yahoo Finance posted an article yesterday entitled, “States Where No One Wants To Buy A New Home.” Since I live in one of the states on the list (Massachusetts is listed as number 7 of 10), I read the article.

The map above shows all the states with no state income tax in red and the states that tax only interest and dividend income in yellow. I am not sure how much of a factor this is in the number of housing starts. It is interesting, though, that none of the states with no state income tax are on the list of states with the lowest number of housing starts.

The article reports:

Surprisingly, our list of states where few permits have been issued recently is different from the typical list of the worst housing markets. California, Nevada and Florida are always on those lists because homes are vacant and home values continue to drop. But the three are not on this list. It may be that prices have dropped so low in these markets that home inventory has begun to move, even if only tentatively. Instead, markets where housing permits are very small in relation to total homes are markets in which builders have abandoned any hope of near-term sales.

In case all you really wanted to do was see the list, here it is:

  1. Rhode Island
  2. West Virginia
  3. Illinois
  4. Michigan
  5. Connecticut
  6. Ohio
  7. Massachusetts
  8. New York
  9. Maine
  10. Pennsylvania

What in the world do these states have in common? I suspect there are a lot of reasons for the number of building permits to decrease in these states. Michigan for instance has lost a lot of businesses due to the tax policies of recent state administrations. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have state income taxes and business environments that do not necessarily encourage businesses to migrate there. New York is a very expensive place to live, although I believe the current governor is trying to ease the burden on the state’s taxpayers. It is interesting to me that these are all states in the northern areas of the country. Could it be that as the baby boomers age, they are simply looking for warmer places to live?

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