THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Turning back the tide of information overload with a digest of the latest developments in news conservatives need to pay attention to:

† Look before you leap: Part II (second item): The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a law Gov. Rick Perry (TX) signed last May that requires women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound scan and to listen to a physician's detailed description of the fetus (related article, third item on page), The Wall Street Journal reports:

In a constitutional challenge to the law, U.S. District judge Sam Sparks of Austin ruled in August that it violates physicians' free-speech rights by compelling them to "advance an ideological agenda with which they may not agree, regardless of any medical necessity, and irrespective of whether the pregnant women wish to listen."

A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit reversed Judge Sparks, concluding that the law merely requires physicians to provide "truthful, non-misleading information" and therefore doesn't violate their free-speech rights. The Fifth Circuit ruling clears the way for Texas to enforce the sonogram law, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement.

"The Texas sonogram law falls well within the State's authority to regulate abortions and require informed consent from patients before they undergo an abortion procedure," Mr. Abbott said. …

North Carolina and Oklahoma have similar laws, Ms. Northup said, but courts there have blocked the laws on free-speech grounds.

The TX law was one of a record 92 abortion restrictions passed by state legislators in 2011, The Washington Times reports:

[The restrictions] rang[ed] from bans on most abortions after 20 weeks of gestation to changes in rules governing abortion clinics, the Guttmacher Institute said Friday.

"In 2011, nearly three times as many abortion restrictions were enacted, compared with any other previous year," said Elizabeth Nash, manager of Guttmacher Institute's team that tracks state issues. …

[L]awmakers introduced more than 1,100 provisions in 2011 – a sharp increase over the 950 introduced in 2010, Guttmacher said in its new report. The institute counts each discrete element of a law as a provision, since laws typically have multiple sections.

† Is Hillary Clinton campaigning for president?: Former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-R-D) sees Bill Keller's bet that dumping Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton will be the winning ticket (related article, eighth item on the page) and ups the ante to Hillary Clinton replacing Barack Hussein Obama on the ticket, The Washington Times reports:

Asked during an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board Tuesday whether Mrs. Clinton should replace Mr. Biden, Mr. Specter replied, "That's the second-best alternative. A better alternative is to make Hillary the [presidential] nominee. As long as we're talking about dumping, let's go to the core problem."

† Chevy Volt: An electric Edsel: Thanks to government fuel economy regulations, automakers are featuring newhybrid and electric cars at the Detroit auto show. “If only buyers were arriving as fast as the cars,” The New York Times reports:

Hybrid sales waned as gasoline prices ebbed in 2011, declining to 2.2 percent of the market from 2.4 percent a year earlier, according to the research firm LMC Automotive. Meanwhile, sales of the Nissan Leaf electric car and the Chevrolet Volt plug-in each fell short of expectations.

Analysts do not expect the segment to grow significantly this year: the combination of gas prices below $4 a gallon and higher upfront costs for the cars is not attracting consumers. …

“The market is going in one direction and fuel-economy regulations are going the other direction,” said Jeremy Anwyl, vice chairman of the automotive information Web site Edmunds.com. “Just because people start building more of something doesn’t mean the segment grows.”

Regardless, the automakers have little choice but to develop and try to push more hybrids as they prepare for fuel-efficiency requirements that call for significant increases later this decade.

† Living in these mad, mad, Madoff times: IL’s so-called "roadkill bill" allows anyone with a state furbearer license “to salvage pelts or even food from the unfortunate fauna that prove no match for steel-belted radials,” USA Today reports:

Despite snickering from some lawmakers, the bill sailed through the General Assembly – twice, because lawmakers overrode a veto by Gov. Pat Quinn, who worried that motorists might suffer the same fate as the critters. …

Joking aside, at least 14 states have laws related to roadkill, including those that let motorists' keep animals they hit, though some pertain only to deer or bears, according to an informal survey for The Associated Press by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Idaho soon may join the list, after a three-year push by one legislator to allow roadside salvage of game animals. The state's fish and game agency, which once objected to the idea, is awaiting legislative review of a rule that would allow it "under some circumstances."

"You shouldn't let that stuff go to waste," said Rep. Richard Harwood, an Idaho Republican who said he took up the cause after a game warden threatened a neighbor with a $350 fine if he messed with a run-over bobcat near his home for a hide that could net $200. "To be able not to grab it was kind of stupid. Why let it go to waste?"

† Fed up with farmers: Center for Immigration Studies details how farmers “lose money” when they are forced to curtail the number of illegal crop pickers they hire or to pay their employees the prevailing minimum wage (which removes much of the incentive to hire illegals) or provide housing for them:

You can legitimately call it a $10 million loss if the farmers invested, say, $60 million in the crop and received $50 for their produce. You could, with a little less honesty, say that you expected the harvest to be worth $60 million, but you got only $50 million, and then not discuss how much was invested in the crop.

Or you could define what you invested in such a way as to inflate the cost numbers. You could, for instance, say that the value of an acre of land was $400 an acre a year (a made- up number) when it really was $200 an acre a year – and who would know the difference? …

There are many reasons why a crop can spoil that have nothing to do with workers. The crop may be so harmed by droughts or pests that the farmer decides not to harvest it, on the grounds that he will lose money – and then put the blame for the rotting produce on the lack of workers. …

The most basic part of the labor supply/demand equation is the imbalance between the wage levels that growers have traditionally paid, and the slightly higher levels that would attract the workers they need. This is never discussed. …

The media always presents – unchallenged – the numbers, the concepts, and the arguments of the growers. No one asks why a significant part of the American economy, labor-intensive agriculture, should be given a free pass for their extensive employment of illegal workers.

† State Department employee in child porn sting: In a plea deal with federal prosecutors State Department security officer James Cafferty has pleaded guilty to a single felony count, transporting child porn, The Smoking Gun reports:

Cafferty …  faces a mandatory minimum prison term of five years (though a judge could sentence him to up to 20 years in custody). …

In a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Cafferty admitted that when he returned to the U.S. from England in August, he carried three hard drives containing up to 15,000 child porn images (both photos and videos). Digital storage media found in Cafferty’s Largo, Florida home during a law enforcement search contained more than 30,000 child porn images.

During questioning by federal agents, Cafferty “admitted ‘photo-shopping’ himself into scenes constituting child pornography.”

† Obama to offer jobless a pocketful of miracles -- but no wages: President Barack Hussein Obama’s summer-jobs initiative that will create 180,000 “work opportunities” in the private sector in 2012, of which 110,000 will be mentoring and unpaid internships, The Hill reports:

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the “opportunities” are all new and were not jobs that would have existed anyway. …

She noted that the unemployment level among those aged 16 to 24 is 16 percent, far higher than the 10.7 percent in 2007 before the recession began.

Yeah, and jobs without paychecks is just what they need. 

† 10 reasons Michelle Obama should be proud – really proud – of America: This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series (previous article, last item on the page) meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Rory O'Conner, who was fishing in a kayak half a mile off the coast of Sarasota, FL, when he spotted a dog swimming up to his small craft, Geekosystem.com reports: 

[He] quickly reeled in his fishing line once he saw the dog … and pulled Barney into his kayak. He dried the dog off and headed for shore, and during this time, Barney was perched on the back of kayak, a very small space, too afraid to move, clearly traumatized in some way. … It turned out Barney was involved in a deadly DUI crash; he was out for a jog with his owner, and a drunk driver struck and killed her not too long before the dog fled to sea. … 

[O'Conner] brought barney to a vet, and the dog only sustained a few minor injuries. Using a tracking implant, the vet discovered that Barney belonged to Donna L. Chen, which is what led to the discovery of the crash and Donna’s unfortunate fate.

Barney was returned to Chen’s family. The driver who killed her, Blake Talman, 22, had left the scene of an earlier crash and is facing charges that include DUI manslaughter and DUI property damage.