Louisiana Monks challenge state law making their work a crime… making & selling caskets

It’d be funny if it weren’t sad.

Or, would it be sad if it weren’t funny?

Either way, it’s sad and funny.

Or, should that be ironic?

Whatever it is, it’s weird… and unjust.

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It’s Illegal for Monks to Sell Caskets In Louisiana

By Claire Suddath on June 01, 2012

The monks just want to sell caskets. That’s the simple plea of a relatively simple case, in which a Louisiana monastery—St. Joseph Abbey, about an hour outside New Orleans—is suing the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors for the right to sell their handmade wooden caskets. Only licensed funeral establishments can sell caskets in Louisiana, which means that St. Joseph’s monks would have to hire a funeral director, install embalming equipment, and construct a funeral parlor even though they have no plans to embalm the deceased or perform actual funerals. “They would have to take an exam about the whole panoply of funeral directing,” says Scott Bullock, an attorney with Institute for Justice, which is representing the monks. “It’s like telling someone who sells shoes that they have to first become a podiatrist.”

Photograph by David Moore/Gallery Stock

St. Joseph Abbey, founded in 1889 as part of the Order of Saint Benedict, has been producing caskets for as long as its monks can remember, but until recently, they were only used for the private burials of their own members. In the 1990s they built a few coffins for the funerals of local bishops and the Catholic community began to take notice. “People would come to our funerals and see them and ask

Off duty cop in hoodie gets roughed up in Montgomery, Alabama

Shades of Trayvon…

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Off-duty Montgomery police officer claims racial profiling over hoodie incident at mall

Published: Monday, April 23, 2012, 10:56 AM     Updated: Monday, April 23, 2012, 11:44 AM

By Kent Faulk — The Birmingham News

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — A Montgomery police officer claims in a lawsuit that he was off-duty in plain clothes at a Montgomery mall last month when security officers assaulted him after ordering him to remove his sweatshirt hoodie.

Terence Scott, 26, filed the lawsuit April 11 in Montgomery County Circuit Court against ERMC, a Chattanooga, Tenn.,-based company that provides security for Eastdale Mall. The lawsuit also names one security guard and two other unnamed security guards as defendants.

Eastdale Mall is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit that seeks unspecified amounts in damages.

Efforts to reach an attorney for ERMC have been unsuccessful this morning.

Among the claims in Scott’s civil lawsuit are negligence, assault and battery, wantonness, and that security guards used

Publisher sues “faith healer” Benny Hinn: Violated contract’s “Morality clause”

Helpful hint for Benny Hinn:

KEEP YOUR PENIS IN YOUR PANTS!

NOT your twice-divorced neighbor’s wife’s pants!

Benny said, “I forcefully, categorically, and absolutely renounce the lies that have been spread about me and want to set the record straight with you. There is nothing inappropriate or morally improper about my friendship with Paula White. There has been no immorality whatsoever!”

Hey, Benny... answer this question for us, bro. Were your penis AND your hands, or any other part of your body anywhere else other than on your person?

Hell no, man! We got the pics, bro! Your hand was in hers! So the only question that remains is, “What other body parts were in or on her body parts?”

Huh?

C’mon, bro Benny… man up. Were you sexual with her?

It’s time for some brutal honesty here, man.

Are you a

AL Gov. Bob Riley to BP: No lawsuit waiver on final oil spill claims

Does it come as any surprise that the Multinational Corporation BP has no allegiance or loyalty to anyone or anything save their profit, executive compensation and shareholder payouts?

And yet – as astute observers note – politics makes strange bedfellows. Appointed by President Obama, Administrator Feinberg is being paid by BP in excess of $10 Million annually. But… would Democrats have expected this kind of “favor for the people” from their president?

Pressure on Kenneth Feinberg to disclose BP pay deal
By Moira Herbst
http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-53083520101122
NEW YORK | Tue Nov 23, 2010 2:03am IST
(Reuters Legal) – There has never been anything quite like Kenneth Feinberg’s $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims Facility. Established to compensate victims of the BP Plc(BP.L) oil disaster, it essentially invests one man with full power over how the money is distributed, while he is being paid by the company and unsupervised by any government body.

Gov. Bob Riley: No lawsuit waiver on final oil spill claims

Published: Saturday, December 11, 2010, 5:00 AM
Updated: Saturday, December 11, 2010, 12:06 PM
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/12/gov_bob_riley_no_lawsuit_waive.html
by Dan Murtaugh, Mobile Press-Register

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley has urged BP PLC and President Barack Obama to make sure that Gulf Coast residents don’t have to sign liability waivers to accept claims payments.

Oil spill claims czar Ken Feinberg recently launched the second stage of his claims process, in which he will offer people final settlements or interim quarterly payments.

The final settlements require the claimant to

AT&T data taxing Class Action settlement reached

Everybody hates lawyers… until they need one.

While some would go so far as to extol alleged virtues of the abolition of taxation, asserting that no one should not pay any taxes whatsoever – such as the radical liberal Mises Institute, whose ivory towered Social Darwinistic professorial adherents theorize of such a Utopian society – the vast majority of us live in the real world, where taxation upon income, purchases and transactions are a daily part of life.

However, the purpose of this post is not to espouse a particular position, but to inform. Toward that end, it very much appears that for many years, AT&T Mobility has – in violation of applicable federal, state and/or local law(s) – independently taxed Internet service it provided to smartphone owners – such as the iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, etc.

Thus, if you have ever used any AT&T Mobility Internet service – whether you have ever owned a smartphone or not (there are numerous cell phones that can access the Internet, even though they’re not categorized as “smartphones”) – you are a member of a class, and are entitled to a settlement.

For your convenience, there are few questions with answers posted below; and for further reading and details, the link to the website is: ATTMSettlement.com.

“Why do you want to work for Huntsville Hospital?” A Lesson in (dis)honesty.

Honesty… is it ALWAYS the best policy?

Recently, I’ve found that some search engine terms which have led to my blog include this question “Why do you want to work at Huntsville Hospital“?

In Huntsville, Alabama – where I’ve resided for many years – there are ONLY TWO hospitals in town.

One, Huntsville Hospital, is a public not-for-profit, and the other, a much smaller Crestwood Medical Center, is a private, for-profit hospital.

Many of the professors and instructors at the Nursing School from which I graduated have privately expressed their frustrations to their students, and to me, about Huntsville Hospital’s virtual monopoly on the hospital-based healthcare delivery in Huntsville, AL.

Part of that problem stems in large part from

Troy King claims Pharmacy Lawsuits Frivolous – OR – “I practice law AND (bad) medicine!”

Using my “Bob Riley and Troy King: The Saga Continues” post on Monday, February 1, 2010, as a guide, I crafted a “Letter to the Editor” (LTE) which was published by “The Times Daily,” a Florence, AL area newspaper serving the Shoals area and greater Northwest Alabama.

Here, in its entirety is the letter. I have redacted my name – though if you ask politely, via e-mail, I will share. I have nothing to hide.

“Alabama Attorney General Troy King has recently come under fire for requesting judges in five counties to

Madison City Schools, Superintendent, Principal & Assistant to be Sued over Todd Brown’s murder: Negligence

“The way I look at it, when that child comes to school, they become

Bob Riley and Troy King: The Saga Continues

It’s well known that Alabama Governor Bob Riley and Attorney General Troy King, both Republicans, have been at odds with each other over