News worth waking up for

What did it take to pulll me back from the brink? To get me back to blogging after a month-long hiatus? Just a couple pieces of good news, that's all!

First, a few rank-and-file members of the CTA are finally using their voices (interesting that they're able to do so without the assistance of, indeed at the chagrin on, their union bosses, eh?) to speak up about the theft of their money through compulsory dues being funneled into political uses. The Contra Costa Times reports on the lawsuit filed by ordinary teachers against the CTA for hiking members' union dues to fund the CTA's fight against the governor and the eminently desirable ballot measures to be voted on in November. The same union blowhards who run ads that say Prop. 75 will "silence the voices of teachers" can be heard here shouting down state senator Tom McClintock's attempt to laud the efforts of the teachers at a press conference about the lawsuit. Heh.

Next, on the patently illegal and indefensible confiscation of firearms in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina - what's that? You didn't know the Constitution was water-soluble, and that some flooding and power outages can render one of our nation's most fundamental rights (and IMO the most important to have during a crisis like post-Katrina New Orleans, as evidenced by the proliferation of parasitic but ultimately cowardly looters) null and void? Apparently law enforcement in New Orleans and Louisiana thought so, and though some out-of-state National Guardsmen and state police who were there helping resisted that order (notably from states who respect gun rights like Texas), others - like those from my beloved People's Republic of Kalifornia - had no problem executing that order and went about it with gusto. Well, a dispossessed gun owner (who had his own effective and legal means of personal protection stripped from him at gunpoint while he was rescuing people in his own boat), the Second Amendment Foundation, and the NRA filed suit in a U.S. district court to put an end to the confiscation and return those seized firearms to their rightful owners, and Friday the court ruled in their favor, granting a restraining order against law enforcement from taking any more weapons. Bravo!

Lastly, not really news in the same sense as the above, but a great story nonetheless: Notre Dame head football coach Charlie Weis shows that he's a class act by granting the dying wish of a 10-year-old ND fan (named after ND alum Joe Montana, no less). Coach Weis visited Montana last week and agreed to let him call the Irish's first play from scrimmage; he picked "pass right" - Joe Montana's play. After a fumble by Washington landed the Irish on their own 1-yard-line for their first offensive play, QB Brady Quinn asked Weis what they were going to do (Weis told the team about Montana's play call before the game). Weis simply said, "We have no choice, we're throwing it to the right." Young Montana didn't get to see the game (at least not with perishable eyes), but the Irish completed the play for a first down at their 14. I challenge any football fan dad to not instantly respect Charlie Weis 10X more than they did prior to Saturday. He's not just coaching football, he's teaching life - and I know of what I speak.