8/2 - Baby Announcement

posted by Stephen Lee @ 8/02/2006 12:30:00 PM 0 comments   

7/27

posted by Stephen Lee @ 7/28/2006 01:12:00 PM 0 comments   

7/26 - Neal Katyal

• Stossel Column. John Stossel’s July 19, 2006 column arguing against prohibitions on marriage between cousins is on-line here. According to the website Cousin Couples, most states allow marriage between first cousins, though some only allow such marriage when the couples will not bear children (site on-line here).

• The Word: Democrazy. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki spoke to Congress on July 26 after a two-day visit with President George W. Bush. An article about the address to Congress is on-line here; transcripts of appearances on July 26 and 27 with Bush are on-line here and here. Some Democrats have criticized Maliki for not condemning Hezbollah, which abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12, an action sparking Israel’s recent military actions in Lebanon.
  Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein recently ended a hunger strike protesting his ongoing trial. Hussein began the hunger strike on July 7 but began receiving food via a tube on July 23.
  As for that meeting between Hussein and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, they did meet in the early 1980s, but the context is worth noting. At the time, Rumsfeld was acting as President Ronald Reagan’s Middle East envoy and was visiting Iraq as one of many stops in that time period. His first visit to Iraq was no secret; instead, the New York Times reported at the time that the State Department was hailing it as “an effort to demonstrate to the Arabs the American desire for good relations with them as well as the Israelis.”
  At the time, Iraq was involved in a war with neighboring Iran, a war that Iraq started with an attack in 1980 and that would go on until 1988. The United States was officially neutral in the Iran-Iraq war, but did recognize Iran as more of a threat to U.S. interests. Iranian students had held Americans hostage from December 1979 to January 1981, and Iran had threatened to cut off oil supply routes.
  Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran does appear to have been a concern to the United States at the time. Official documents (on-line here) indicate that the United States did know that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iran and had warned Iraq against doing so as early as November 1983. According to official documents, Rumsfeld did not raise concerns about chemical weapons in his December 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussein, but did tell Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq that the United States’ “efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us[,] citing the use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf, and human rights.”
  The United States then publicly condemned Iraq’s chemical weapons use on March 5, 1984. Rumsfeld visited Iraq again weeks later, and documents indicate that “bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use, despite our repeated warnings that this issue would emerge sooner or later.”
  Despite Iraq’s continued use of chemical weapons, the United States formally restored diplomatic relations with Iraq in November 1984 (Iraq and all other Arab nations broke ties with the United States in 1967 after Israel’s war defeat of Egypt, Syria and Jordan).

• Stephen’s Sound Advice: What to Do in a Blackout. Panic. Arm yourself. Be prepared. Eliminate perishables. Turn everything on. Get it on.

• Reference to Supreme Court Decision. The United States Supreme Court decided on July 29 that the Bush administration’s order creating the military commissions being used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay exceeded the limits set by Congress for convening military courts (on-line here). A majority of justices also held that the procedures for the commissions did not satisfy the Geneva Convention’s requirement of a “regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”

• Superhero Stamps. DC superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Green Arrow and Plastic Man are featured on new 2006 commemorative stamps. Future stamp sets might feature Marvel superheroes such as Captain America and Spider-man. A press release is on-line here and a recent article is on-line here.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 7/27/2006 08:12:00 AM 0 comments   

7/25 - Bill Donohue

• Commentary on Better Know a District. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida) appeared on the show on July 20 and is on-line here. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Georgia) appeared on the June 14 show and is on-line here.
  The morning talk shows are not the first to ask why politicians appear on the show. A New York Times article from February 2006 is on-line here.
  By the way, the Ten Commandments, otherwise known as the Decalogue, are drawn from God's speech to Moses on Mount Sinai in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 20. As generally understood, the first four commandments deal with the beliefs and practices of Christians and Jews. The last six are moral and ethical rules dealing with general behavior and are thus applicable to non-believers.
  1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
  2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
  3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
  4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant.
  5. Honour thy father and thy mother.
  6. Thou shalt not kill.
  7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
  8. Thou shalt not steal.
  9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
  10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant.

• The Word: Opposite Day. President George W. Bush vetoed a bill (H.R. 810) that would have changed Bush’s federal policy and would have allowed for federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells that are taken from embryos that would otherwise be destroyed. The Senate passed the bill by a 63-37 vote on July 18, Bush vetoed the bill on July 19 (veto message on-line here and press conference on-line here), and the House, which had passed the bill in 2005, failed to get the 2/3 majority necessary to override the veto.
  While federal funding has been limited, California has been working to fund stem cell research. On July 20, the day after Bush’s veto, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the California Department of Finance to move forward on a $150 million loan to the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (release on-line here). The institute was established in 2004 after California voters passed a referendum that will provide $3 billion in funding for stem cell research and is on-line here.
  Embryonic stem cells have been controversial in recent years, first because of their derivation from aborted fetuses, and then because of their connection with a particular kind of human, non-reproductive cloning. Stem cells in general are unspecialized cells that can self-renew indefinitely and that can develop into more mature cells with specialized functions, and embryonic stem (ES) cells are derived from an early-stage embryo. Whether the federal government should fund the development of such cells grew into a major policy question in recent years, culminating with Bush's decision on August 9, 2001 to allow federal funding for research on then-existing stem cell lines as long as the lines were derived from embryos that were already destroyed and that had not been created specifically for research (on-line here).

posted by Stephen Lee @ 7/26/2006 07:46:00 AM 0 comments   

7/24 - Howell Raines

• U.S.A! The British Open is on-line here. The Tour de France is on-line here. The Miss Universe pageant is on-line here.

• The Rapture. The concept of the Rapture, which has reached a wide audience in recent years through the popular Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHave and Jerry Jenkins, holds that Jesus will take away devout Christians will be taken to Heaven before seven years of suffering that will precede Jesus's return to Earth and his rule for a thousand years. The basis for this concept is a reading of some parts of the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation, and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, which holds that "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout … and the dead in Christ shall rise first : Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
  However, some religious leaders dispute the entire Rapture concept as well as the Left Behind series. The Illinois Conference of Bishops (on-line here) has said that the Rapture concept "is not supported in Scripture" and has criticized the Left Behind series as "a vehicle for anti-Catholic sentiments" and for "reinforce[ing] an unhealthy and immature belief in a harshly judgmental God whose mercy we earn by good behavior."

• The Word: Moral Minority. Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, lost the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in Georgia, getting 44 percent of the vote to Casey Cagle’s 56 percent.

• Threat Down: Camp Quest! Religion in School! La Porte, Indiana! Shyamalan! Kix! Camp Quest is on-line here. An article about schools arranging their holiday schedule for religious holidays is on-line here and a list of religious holidays approved by the New Jersey State Department of Education is on-line here.

• Reference to Jayson Blair. Former reporter Jayson Blair, 27, resigned from the New York Times in May 2003 amidst reports that he had falsified stories and committed acts of plagiarism.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 7/25/2006 08:37:00 AM 0 comments