Religious Liberty

Recently the Right has been up in arms about threats to religious liberty. From PJ Media comes  the story of a simple man who just wanted to have family members come by for some bible study only to find the iron heel of the state grinding his religious liberty into a fine powder.

The truth, of course, rather different:

Michael Salman’s dispute with Phoenix dates to at least 2007, when, he claims in a video posted online, the city began harassing him and his wife as they tried to build a 2,000-square-foot game room adjacent to their home on their 1.5-acre property near 35th and Northern avenues.
“The only people who came to our home were family and friends,” Salman said in a video posted online before he reported to jail this week. “Our home was not open to the public; it was private.”
Information presented at Salman’s criminal trial directly contradicted his claim, however. For example, a private investigator testified that he was not acquainted with the Salmans when he attended the church and saw 40 or 50 people in attendance during regular services and 20 or 30 additional worshipers for special occasions such as baptisms.
Salman and his wife have not paid taxes on the property since an inspector from the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office approved Salman’s request to have the property classified as a church in 2008.

What awful things are demanded of the tax free church? That it not be up to code. Really much ado about nothing. How do we know that it really is much ado about nothing? Because I originally read about this grave threat to religious liberty here, the gist of which is still available here.

That's right the NRO realized it had been had and consequently scrubbed the story rather than apologize for trying to turn molehills into mountains.

The Tour

I was watching the Stage today and when Evans went on the attack Paul and Phil immediately hailed it as a "brilliant" maneuver. I check the stage profile and decided that it was a desperate move by a leader and team that recognized they were over matched. It was nearly Vino attacks in its breathtaking optimism. Evans would have had to be strong enough to stay away for the majority of the remaining mountains, he wasn't. Wiggins would have had to panic and tried to cover a deranged move, he didn't. Evans decision was as nearly breath-takingly stupid as Volckler's decision to go with Contrador last year.

What the attack and the stage did, however, show was that the idea that, as Armstrong used to say, that the Tour was an old man's game is false. Both Wiggins and Evans could have and should have been beaten by their younger and stronger teammates.

What happens next is, I think, the reason this largely leaderless tour is going to be so interesting. Also, can anyone explain what Jens' previous two attacks mean in terms of Radio Shacks  "strategy" for the rest of the tour. I would have been glad to see him win but it made no sense.

And also too it look to me like Volckler could hardly walk after his stage victory. Bets on his withdrawal?