THE DAILY BLADE: Change You Can Believe In
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 1,000 likely voters finds that 64 percent of voters think that Republicans will likely win control of the House in November, 56 percent believe the GOP will likely win a majority in the Senate and 47 percent say there will be a noticeable change in the lives of most Americans if Republicans win control of Congress.
Silent Prayer New York Times columnist Ross Douthat discusses the debate over whether people who believe in G-d should pray for famously voluble atheist Christopher Hitchens, who has throat cancer, calling it “a rather unfortunate exercise”: Surely it goes without saying that he should be prayed for, but surely it would be better if the people doing the praying kept it to themselves a little more. Talking about it all the time can seem a bit smug, or even Pharisaical. … I’m glad to see, though, that Hitchens himself - at least judging by his comments in this interview with Hugh Hewitt - is responding to the prayer campaign with forbearance, grace and even gratitude. Reading Douthat’s post, The Stiletto is reminded that when a member of her family was stricken with a catastrophic illness, a friend who is an agnostic prayed for his recovery - not because he believes in G-d, but because The Stiletto does and he knew it would comfort her. That too, was gracious. Art Does Not Imitate Life Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Francois A. Rivera threw out the findings of judicial hearing officer Frances Lippa, who relied on the "sworn testimony" of Ellen Kahn, who had been a "plaintiff" on "The People's Court" to determine that she must comply with a determination by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development that she did not qualify for succession rights to her late mother's subsidized apartment under the NY state's Mitchell-Lama Law, reports New York Law Journal: "'The People's Court' is not a court, body, agency, public servant or other person authorized by law to conduct a proceeding and to administer the oath or cause it to be administered," Kahn v. New York Department of Housing, 15020/09. "The show has voluntary participants, who are not actors, who speak about disputes on a stage that resembles a court. The words or statements uttered by these participants are not testimony. They are neither sworn nor reliable." … "[T]he statements made on the show have no more probative force than the words of an actor reading from a script in a play," Rivera wrote. "The only difference between the two is that the participants of the show may freely ad-lib their lines." The judge remanded the matter to the city department to be considered without reference to Kahn's television appearance.
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