State Rep. Joe Preston Accused Of Assault - News Story - WPXI Pittsburgh

State Rep. Joe Preston Accused Of Assault - News Story - WPXI Pittsburgh A local lawmaker is facing charges after a confrontation at his office.

Police said state Representative Joe Preston, of East Liberty, is accused of assaulting a woman.

Preston denied the allegations against him.

Preston said the woman came into his office and refused to leave.

But police charged Preston with one count of simple assault.

Ouch.

McLean of New Zealand rules herself out of Beijing Olympics

30th July 2007

North Shore swimmer Hannah McLean has opted out of consideration for next year’s Beijing Olympics.

The Melbourne Commonwealth Games medalist wants to take a break from the sport but may return to top level competition.

McLean said she is unable to give the commitment that is demanded in top level swimming for a tilt at the Olympics. She has had a break after the world championships earlier this year and plans to spend the next year living in Europe after recently becoming engaged.

It is not a move that McLean has taken lightly.

“This has been an extremely difficult decision for me and one that I have taken very seriously. However I am confident that I have made the right choice,” McLean said.

“Although I will not be swimming in Beijing I would like to leave the door open for the possibility of competing again. This is not an official retirement.

“I am now at a stage in my life where I no longer feel that I can give every ounce of myself to swimming. And I believe that it is that unwavering commitment which is necessary to perform at the very highest level.”

McLean has been one of New Zealand's highest ranked international swimmers, securing a bronze medal in the 200m backstroke at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and at the FINA World Swimming Championships last year. She also holds the Commonwealth Games Championship record over 100m backstroke and was ranked fourth in the world over the distance in the same year.

Her coach Jan Cameron said she backs McLean’s decision but hopes she may return to top level swimmer in the future.

“Hannah has found it increasingly difficult to put everything into swimming and to get a balance in her life that will still allow her to perform to the highest level,” Cameron said.

“Hannah is an absolute perfectionist and anything less than her very best is not good enough. She is the model of a dedicated and committed elite athlete.

“She leaves a big hole in our programme and our relay aspirations but at the same time it opens an opportunity for others to put their hand up.”

McLean said she has enjoyed the opportunities that swimming has provided.

“It’s been an honour for me to swim for New Zealand on the international stage. I have always held the highest expectations of myself in how I go about achieving my personal goals and performing for my country.

“I’ve been humbled by the support of not only my family, friends and sponsors but also by the rapidly increasing group of fierce New Zealand Swimming enthusiasts. There are now so many more kiwis who understand what a tough sport swimming is and how hard it is to break into the international ranks.

“I am also incredibly appreciative of the support of Swimming New Zealand throughout my career. The federation has taken huge strides in how it nurtures and supports its elite swimmers over the last few years.

“I know the personal development and unique experience of swimming will translate into whatever new pathways and challenges I choose to take up in the future.”

Nice messages.

Issues strain the ties between Pittsburgh mayor and Allegheny County executive

Issues strain the ties between Pittsburgh mayor and Allegheny County executive At first blush, it looked like the fates had aligned to bring the city and county together.

Comments welcomed.

U.S. must diversify to win medals count in '08 Games - Monday July 30, 2007 1:43AM

SI.com - More Sports - U.S. must diversify to win medals count in '08 Games - Monday July 30, 2007 1:43AMChina may displace the United States as the top gold medal team when the Olympics open a year from now - Aug. 8, 2008.

Our water polo teams are have qualified.

China will take 1-million vehicles off the road in August. Try to do that in L.A.

DeSantis must play hardball - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

DeSantis must play hardball - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Mark, you can win. But you must play hardball just to get to first base."

Some coaching from Dimitri to DeSantis fills his Trib column.

The 'schooling' that DeSantis wants from the employees of the city should NOT occur in the first 100 days. Rather, I side a bit with Dimitri. The schooling needs to occur throughout the campaign and throughout the transition period.

After Bob O'Connor won the mayor's office in the early November election, I was puzzled at how long he took to do anything. The schooling and interviews and decisions need to come in the weeks after the November 6 election and before the early January period when the oath of office is taken.

The first 100 days needs to be celebrated with one big block party (I'd still like to throw mine in the Wabash Tunnel, by the way) and ninty-nine days of new leadership with real advances in policy and progress on many political fronts.

Furthermore, the first 100 days after this election need to be counted as 50. The vote in November 2007 is for a two-year term, not a four-year term. The first 100 days makes a nice benchmark for typical four-year terms. In these times, and in this situation, a 50-day review is in order.

Erik got 4th in the Junior Olympics 11-12 boys 50 breast

Erik got to swim in finals tonight in the 50 breast. It was an event he won at the BB Championships. Video of the race may be posted later.

Meanwhile, he and I missed part of the Crafton swim team picnic. Both started at 6 pm.

Erik and Grant both got high-point awards for their respective age groups. Sweet.

Crafton's Pool Filter is Broken - no water polo for Monday

The first day of the three weeks water polo camp to be hosted at Crafton has been called off due to a broken swim pool filter. The filter went down Sunday night with a cracked part or some thing. So, the pool needs to be closed. Hence water polo practice is off.

We'll start as soon as the pool re-opens. I expect it to be a short delay.

Tomorrow would be a great day for heavy storms and showers -- while the pool is closed.

Stay tuned.

SI.com - More Sports - U.S. enjoys Pan Ams medals fest, eyes Olympics - Sunday July 29, 2007 1:29AM

SI.com - More Sports - U.S. enjoys Pan Ams medals fest, eyes Olympics - Sunday July 29, 2007 1:29AM: Americans did their best work in Rio, not surprisingly, in sports where there is true depth: swimming, shooting, gymnastics. And in team sports where the United States has long been a powerhouse: softball, water polo and women's basketball.

Cincinnati - Losing a great coach

The Cincinnati Post - Losing a great coach: The sudden death of former Xavier University basketball coach Skip Prosser at age 56 has shocked Greater Cincinnati.

A Pittsburgh native who adopted Cincinnati as his second home, Prosser spent 15 years at Xavier, first as an assistant to head coach Pete Gillen, then as head coach for seven seasons between 1994 and 2001. Even after he left Xavier for the head coaching job at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., Prosser maintained close ties to Cincinnati - as well as a house in Mount Lookout.

The Power to Destroy.

IRS loses challenge to prove tax liability
Lawyer is acquitted after arguing income levy lacks legal foundation

By Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily.com

The Internal Revenue Service has lost a lawyer's challenge in front of a jury to prove a constitutional foundation for the nation's income tax, and the victorious attorney now is setting his sights higher.

"I think now people are beginning to realize that this has got to be the largest fraud, backed up by intimidation and extortion and by the sheer force of taking peoples property and hard-earned money without any lawful authorization whatsoever," lawyer Tom Cryer told WND just days after a jury in Louisiana acquitted him of two criminal tax counts.

And before you consign him to the legions of "tin foil hat brigades" who argue against paying taxes, and then want payment to explain how to do that, he addresses the issue up front.

"These snake oil peddlers have conned millions of dollars out of many well-intended patriots and left a trail of broken lives in their wake. These charlatans should be avoided, not only because they will lead you to bankruptcy and prison, but because by association they discredit those who are telling the truth," he said.

The truth, he said, is where he comes in, with the launch of a new Truth Attack website that is intended to build on his victory, and create a coalition of resources to defeat ultimately the income tax in the United States.

Although the legal citations in the case tend to run the length of paragraphs, Cryer told WND the underlying issue is not that complicated. Essentially, he argued that income is not necessarily any money that comes to a person, but rather categories such as profit and interest.

He said the free exchange of labor for compensation has been upheld as a right by the Supreme Court, but that doesn't necessarily make the compensation income.

If ever such an argument were to be presented widely, Cryer said, the income to the federal government would plummet. But not to worry, he said, the expenses could be reduced equally by eliminating programs, departments and agencies that also have no foundation in the Constitution.

"The Founding Fathers intentionally restricted the taxing powers of the new federal government as a measure of restraint on its size. By exceeding that limited taxing authority the federal government has been able to obtain resources beyond its intended reach, and that money has enabled the federal government to exceed its authority," he said.

For example, he said, the Constitution does not empower the federal government to regulate education, or employment, and agriculture, yet it does so.

The jury in U.S. District Court in Louisiana voted 12-0 to find Cryer, of Shreveport, not guilty of failure to file income taxes for two years. He had been indicted in 2006 on charges of failing to pay $73,000 to the IRS in 2000 and 2001. The next step in his personal case will be up to the IRS and prosecutors, if they choose to continue the issue, he said.

But for the rest of the nation, he's working with Save-a-Patriot, the Free Enterprise Society, Live Free Now and his own Lie Free Zone to spread the message of the truth.

"There are three points that are important," he told WND. "There's no law making the average working man liable [for income taxes], there's no law or regulation that allows the IRS to contend that earnings are 100 percent profit received in exchange for nothing, and the right to earn a living through any lawful occupation is a constitutionally protected fundamental right, and it is exempt from taxation."

Spokesman Robert Marvin in Washington's IRS office told WND the Internal Revenue Code provides for taxation on salaries or wages, but when pressed for a specific citation, or constitutional provision, he said, "I can't comment."

Cryer's encounter with tax law began more than a decade ago when a friend told him the income tax was sham. Cryer started researching, hoping to keep his friend out of trouble. But his conclusions, after years of research, were exactly what his friend told him.

He researched not only tax laws, but also the documents pertaining to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution as well as the first income tax.

He said throughout his battle, he's offered at every turn to pay taxes if the IRS could show him the authorization, and that never has happened.

"The Criminal Investigation Division and Department of Justice both responded only with 'your position is frivolous.' I had never stated a position, so how could they know whether it was frivolous?" he said. "Imagine my sending you a bill for $1,000 and when you call me and ask what the bill was for I simply said, 'that position is frivolous, just write the check and send it in.'"

His acquittal, he said, was a precedent because it means "people can see and recognize the truth."

He said multiple Supreme Court opinions have affirmed an individual's ownership of his or her own labor, and "exercising your fundamental rights" is not taxable. "It is definitely a trade. What most people receive in the form of wages, salaries or in my case fees that they personally earned for their labor is not received in exchange for nothing."

He said there might be a profit that should be taxable, but there might not.

"The IRS lets Wal-Mart sell a trillion dollars worth of goods, but they can back out their cost of goods [before being taxed,]" he said. "The IRS considers, in the case of a Wal-Mart wage earner, 100 percent of what he takes in is profit."

"But he's using his life, energy and work lifespan, and depleting it as he goes," Cryer told WND. "[Working] is a God-given fundamental right that is protected under the Constitution and can't be taxed any more than exercising freedom of speech."

While he waits to see what, if anything, the IRS and Justice Department will do next in his case, he's working to coordinate the groups that are battling taxation as unconstitutional.

"I have started a campaign to unify [the work] and we've got a number of organizations that are sponsoring and supporting this campaign," he said. The goal is to get everyone "who is aware of the truth" organized so they can spread the word.

He warned without a restoration of constitutional basics, the nation is lost.

"Read your Constitution and you will see that the federal role does not include ANY authority to regulate or tax any citizen directly and that WE expressly reserved the right to rule and govern ourselves as States, not as mere political subdivisions," his website says.

"The Constitution does not allow the government to run your lives, but the money it is stealing from millions of Americans is the fuel for its over-reaching and kibitzing. Take the money back and we and our states and communities can again be free," he said.

The fight is over "our FREEDOM from rule by a DISTANT RULER, just as we fought to free ourselves of a distant England over 200 years ago," he said.

Man 'calmly' shot to death by masked gunman

What is going on?

Man 'calmly' shot to death by masked gunman Pittsburgh police Lt. Kevin Kraus said at least one shot was fired inside the store before the victim fled and collapsed in the middle of Perrysville Avenue.

The gunman followed the victim out of the store and 'calmly' walked over to the injured man and shot him at point-blank range several more times, the police reported.

Transit service cutbacks canceled

Pennsylvania is famous for this. Pennsylvania does not create new jobs. Rather, Pennsylvania creates new taxes.

Transit service cutbacks canceled The state has granted County Chief Executive Dan Onorato the authority to introduce a tax on alcoholic drinks of up to 10 percent and up to a $2-a-day tax on car rentals. Mr. Onorato would like to shift the burden of subsidizing Port Authority away from property taxes.

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat may have just been fired

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat The Mayor has 60 days to fill the positions before the City goes straight to hell.

Interesting post.

Republicans shy away from proposed YouTube debate

These other Rs are chicken to face off in a modern format because they know that the older gentleman, Ron Paul, will crush them. Ron Paul rocks on the internet. Ron Paul has rocked at the last debates too.
Rudy has to play defense now and he is slipping. And, he'll slip farther and farther down in the view of the public.

Republicans shy away from proposed YouTube debate It looks like the Republican candidates for President won't have to answer questions from snowmen anytime soon, as their Democratic counterparts recently did.

Plans for a CNN/YouTube debate for the GOP seemed to be melting Thursday after front-runner Rudy Giuliani said scheduling conflicts would keep him away from the Sept. 17 faceoff. Formal invitations went out Thursday.

University Of Pittsburgh at Bradford - Maps & Directions

University Of Pittsburgh at Bradford - Maps & Directions Maps and Directions

Coach Ed, formerly of the Jewish Community Center of the South Hills swim team, TWIST, Tidal Waves, is about to begin a new coaching job. He is moving to coach Pitt Bradford.

Pitt Bradford is a Division III swim program, men and women. The pool is just 5 years old. The team is small and needs to grow.

Way to go Ed. We'll miss you.

NY Times article -- worthy of full reading. Many quotes of note.

Ron Paul - Presidential Election of 2008 - Elections - Candidates - Republicans - New York Times

The Antiwar, Anti-Abortion, Anti-Drug-Enforcement-Administration, Anti-Medicare Candidacy of Dr. Ron Paul

NY Times article on Ron Paul includes: Alone among Republican candidates for the presidency, Paul has always opposed the Iraq war. He blames “a dozen or two neocons who got control of our foreign policy,” chief among them Vice President Dick Cheney and the former Bush advisers Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, for the debacle.

Other interesting quotes from the article (slight edits). Do read the article.

- Ron Paul is the candidate of many people, on both the right and the left, who hope that something more consequential than a mere change of party will come out of the 2008 elections.

- Ron Paul is particularly popular among the young and the wired.

- Spreading a message has always been just as important as seizing office. Politicians don’t amount to much. But ideas do.

- Power asserted by modern presidents has been usurped from Congress, and that much of the power asserted by Congress has been usurped from the states.

- Ron Paul's vision has won most favor from those convinced the country is going to hell in a handbasket. His message draws on the noblest traditions of American decency and patriotism; it also draws on what the historian Richard Hofstadter called the paranoid style in American politics.

Quote with a minor factual blunder: Paul grew up in the western Pennsylvania town of Green Tree. His father, the son of a German immigrant, ran a small dairy company. Sports were big around there — one of the customers on the milk route Paul worked as a teenager was the retired baseball Hall of Famer Honus Wagner — and Paul was a terrific athlete, winning a state track meet in the 220 and excelling at football and baseball. But knee injuries had ended his sports career by the time he went off to Gettysburg College in 1953.

The fact is, Ron Paul became a swimmer after that knee injury. Swimmers are athletes too, even at Gettysburg College! Later in life, Ron Paul would be a 'swim parent' to his kids. His son become a nationally ranked butterfly swimmer while growing up in Texas.

- Ron Paul was annoyed by the evangelicals’ being so supportive of pre-emptive war, which seems to contradict everything that he was taught as a Christian.” The religion is based on somebody who’s referred to as the Prince of Peace.

- You cannot fake out markets, no matter how surreptitiously you expand the money supply. Spend more than you earn, and you are on the road to inflation and tyranny.

The quote above is a good one to remember when thinking about local politics and the operations of the URA and Grant Street politicians.

- For Ron Paul, everything comes back to money, including Iraq. “No matter how much you love the empire,” he says, “it’s unaffordable.” Wars are expensive, and there has been a tendency throughout history to pay for them by borrowing.

- Ron Paul (in the US House) warned against the rewriting of banking rules that laid the groundwork for the savings-and-loan collapse of the 1980s.

- Ron Paul tended his own Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE) and kept up his contacts with other market-oriented organizations.

- A heavily funded effort by the National Republican Congressional Committee tried to defeat Ron Paul. The National Rifle Association made an independent expenditure against Ron Paul. Former President George H.W. Bush, Gov. George W. Bush and both Republican senators endorsed Paul's opponent. Paul had only two prominent backers: the tax activist Steve Forbes and the pitcher Nolan Ryan. Ron Paul won.

- Republican opposition may not have made Paul distrust the party, but beating its network with his own homemade one revealed that he didn’t necessarily need the party either. Paul looks back on that race and sees something in common with his quixotic bid for the presidency.

- Ron Paul has been elected to the US Congress three times as a nonincumbent.

- Ron Paul is a politician of prodigious gifts.

- Ron Paul votes against pork-barrel spending even for his own district. In a rice-growing, cattle-ranching district, Paul consistently votes against farm subsidies. Ron Paul votes against FEMA and flood aid, and the district is along the Gulf. In a district that is home to many employees of the Johnson Space Center, Ron Paul votes against financing NASA.

- A newspaper in Ron Paul's district generally opposed him for re-election on the grounds that a “lone wolf” cannot get the highway and homeland-security financing the district needs.

- Ron Paul is a very charismatic person. He has charm. He does not alter his position ever. His ideals are high.

- “So many times, people say to us, ‘We don’t like his vote.’ But they trust his heart.”

- Admired for his fidelity to principle and lack of ego. “He is one of the easiest people in Congress to work with, because he bases his positions on the merits of issues.

Just last night on a local blog I ranted a bit about how the folks on city council rely upon back slapping and back stabbing. They don't have much else to go on. The working together of the council members was part of a discussion because of the cat license folly.

If I was on city council, I'd hope to be easy to work with because I'd be one who, like Ron Paul, bases positions on merits -- not political personalities.

- Ron Paul is independent but not ornery. Paul has made a habit of objecting to things that no one else objects to.

Right on! (I know, ... I'm quixotic and ornery.)

- In October 2001, Ron Paul was one of three House Republicans to vote against the USA Patriot Act.

-- In today’s Washington, Ron Paul’s combination of radical libertarianism and conservatism is unusual.

- Ron Paul’s ideological easygoingness is like a black hole that attracts the whole universe of individuals and groups who don’t recognize themselves in the politics they see on TV.

- To hang around with Ron Paul's impressively large crowd of supporters in Manchester, N.H., in June, was to be showered with privately printed newsletters full of exclamation points and capital letters, scribbled-down U.R.L.’s for Web sites about the Free State Project, which aims to turn New Hampshire into a libertarian enclave, and copies of the cult DVD “America: Freedom to Fascism.

Humm.... Are all newsletters 'privately printed?' Are there public printed newsletters? Is the NY Times a private or public newspaper?

Humm.... I've passed out the DVD, "America: Freedom to Fascism." It went to those at Pittsburgh's BootCamp (PodCamp). It isn't a 'cult' flick. It is a documentary.

Humm.... I use exclamation points and capital letters.... !!!! and even HUMMs too!!!!

Only the NY Times would us "U.R.L." with periods between the letters. OMG, tt is a web address. Big deal.

Humm.... the Free State Project is what it is. It is New Hampshire, as is Free Talk Live.

Ron Paul is not a conspiracy theorist. But the elitists at the NY Times is sure to interview a bunch of them to get quotes about Ron Paul for a feature on Ron Paul.

- Ron Paul's campaign is a clearinghouse for voters who feel unrepresented by mainstream Republicans and Democrats.

Great ending. But, the article did not end there. The NY Times article went on to editorialize with smugness. Ron Paul can be the next president of the United States because more people are upset with American politics than not.

Doyle hires O'Connor's son

Doyle hires O'Connor's son They replace Sabrina Saunders and Jason Tagano, both of whom were hired into Mr. Ravenstahl's administration in recent weeks.

Asked whether he was upset that Mr. Ravenstahl hired away two of his staff members, he said that's 'not anything that serves any productive purpose to talk about, anyway. ... If we fight, we fight in private.'

This is a very little "if." Hire O'Connor as his loyalty isn't with Ravenstahl. Hire Patterson as his loyalty isn't with Ravenstahl. Then the staff won't jump as quickly.

Lots of Pittsburgh's politics is about jobs -- and even a mentality of 'taking food off of my plate.'

Teeing Off - Rough questions about the mayor's golfing excursion - Views - Revelations - Pittsburgh City Paper

Pittsburgh - Teeing Off - Rough questions about the mayor's golfing excursion - Views - Revelations - Pittsburgh City Paper: "I just want to know the odds here."

The odds are 100% certain that Luke is clueless about liberty, freedom and salvation for our city. Luke is cut from the same cloth as Onorato and crew. He won't fix the ills of the city. Those are the odds as I see them.

The Darn News: Open Up Your Heart And Let This Fool Rush In

Insightful quote:

The Darn News: Open Up Your Heart And Let This Fool Rush In It sounds like DeSantis will make the city's fiscal ruin his clarion call. Unfortunately, the only thing Pittsburghers find scarier than math is the Republican Party.

Yes, DeSantis is going to make the city's folly in finances his 'clarion call.' Folks can move to Clarion County too. That gives new meaning to 'Clarion Call.'

Pittsburgh mayoral hopeful urges frank talk - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Pittsburgh mayoral hopeful urges frank talk - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review A 'citizen-police council' in which residents of high-crime neighborhoods would work with police officials to decide how to deploy police and other public safety resources.

Sure. This is fine.

How about a policy move to end the war on drugs.

How about efforts to re-build the citizens police academy. We need to get some grass-roots leadership after the grass-roots people are in the know. I don't want dumb decision making because its all we know among the citizens.