One of our readers alerted us to this interesting property-rights case (Kelo v. City of New London) before the Supreme Court now. According to Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe:
When Pfizer, the big pharmaceutical firm, announced in 1998 that it would build a $300 million research facility nearby, the city decided to raze Fort Trumbull’s modest homes and shops so they could be replaced with more expensive properties: offices, upscale condos, a luxury hotel.
Seven Conneticut home-owners are arguing that the government’s right of eminent domain does not allow the government to take property from someone to give it to someone else who may be able to use it more profitably.
Scotusblog has information and links for this case, albiet before the arguments were heard in Court.
Update: Professor Bainbridge has a good post on this. (Courtesy of Joshua Claybourn from In the Agora.)
Michael Barone has a great article over in Real Clear Politics on the way the liberation of Iraq has changed the face of the Middle East and the rest of the Arab.
The article is short, so make sure you read it.
According to VOA news the polls have closed in Kyrgyzstan. It will be interesting to see what the result is; so far it seems to have not been all fair play:
“The Kyrgyzstan election comes after several-thousand people in northern and eastern regions of the country blocked roads to protest court rulings that banned several popular candidates from running. According to the country’s Central Election Commission, in the eastern Tong district, the voting for one parliament seat was delayed for two weeks because the roadblocks made it impossible to deliver ballots.“The blockade ended on Saturday, but the disqualified candidates have called for their supporters to vote against all candidates. If a majority of voters vote against all the candidates in a particular district, a second election would have to be held. Preliminary results are not expected before Monday. “
Could this become the next orange revolution? Perhaps. In any case, Argus has been doing a great job following this story.
I’ve been trying to do some of my own studying on Social Security reform. In that light I found this calculator from Patrick Ruffini very helpful.
As far as I know it’s the only one that incorporates the President’s ideas as he stated them in his State of the Union.
Update: I see the Discoshamen also has some informative links on this subject.
Patrick Ruffini gives some very practical advice in his recent post Congressional Blogging: A Guide. As some one who really understands the medium well, he is able to tie together the components of blogging for those (who, even if we’re not a politician) are unsure how to go about it.
Four congressmen blog. Patrick notices that Senator Frist has been posting personal updates in a form of a blog.
Politicians from other countries have also started to blog, like the VVD finance minister in the Netherlands — Gerrit Zalm.
Congressman Kennedy from Minnesota this month announced that he’ll run for the Senate seat Democrat Senator Dayton is retiring from in 2006.
According to Minnesota Public Radio, Kennedy believes a successful campaign should be started as early as possible:
“Kennedy maintains a successful Senate campaign needs to begin very early in the year before the election.‘I’m a common sense, solution-based guy, 20 years in business, focused on how do you get things done,’ Kennedy explains. ‘And I think if you look at the successful Senate campaigns in the last cycle, almost all of those were announced in January or February. I do want to listen. I do want to reach out, meet as many as I can face-to-face, and that requires starting a little earlier.’
In fact, of the nine newly-elected senators in 2004, only two launched campaigns early in the year before the election, as Kennedy is doing now. And not since Democrat Paul Wellstone’s run for the 1990 election, has a Senate candidate in Minnesota begun formally campaigning prior to an election year.”
Kennedy has been taking several bloggers along with him on the campaign trail — including Garry Miller from the blog formerly known as Dayton v. Kennedy.
Garry has invited a couple other bloggers to join him. Together they are continuing the work to give the Senate another pro-family, pro-growth senator. Check out their pictures and commentary straight from the trail. You can also contribue to Kennedy’s campaign here.
(Courtesy of Hugh Hewitt.)
Stephanie Harmelin (one of Cornell’s many liberal columnists) wrote a very interesting article about Cornell conservatives that came out in today’s issue of the Cornell Daily Sun. I don’t agree with everything that she says, but I think it is certainly worth reading.
Last night I attended an event far more to my taste. Steve Moore, who became every conservative’s hero after the Club for Growth’s late tooth-and-nail primary battle in Pennsylvania, was visiting Cornell on the invitation of the College Republicans and Cornell Review to give a talk entitled “How the Ownership Society Will Help the US Economy”.
Though he spoke on many issues, the focus was Social Security reform and effects that privatized the system would have on American society and economy. There is not much doubt, I think, about whether reform is needed; but the practical aspects are less clear, and he answered many of my questions about how removing such a major part of our current ’social’-ism system could actually take place.
Though it always requires a careful hand to remove something that so many of our poorest people have come to depend on, he comprehensively addressed many of the key issues that would be involved. We already know its problems, and how it short-changes many of those who need it’s help most. But how can it be reformed, when there are so many people who have grown old with the system already?
Currently 12% of your paycheck goes to the government, and under the new system you would still pay some of that– 6% to the SS bank to help pay for Grandma, and 6% to a personal account. What about the poorer people who aren’t used to handling investments? They can get some hand-holding, but it’s never too late to learn. Chili switched successfully to private retirement accounts in 1980, and it’s citizens are not all university grads. Now every factory worker is the proud owner of a little investment book, wherein their personal retirement savings are noted. If Chilean laborers can figure this out, American workers can too.
Sure there are some people who really don’t know how to invest, but the regulations would be such as to ensure that they couldn’t do anything unsafe. And for the people in this country who are just genetically socialist, and want the government handling their money for them… well, they can stay with the old system. There’s no kicking anyone out; this is about giving people choices.
But it’s a question of control — who will control these billions of dollars? Will it be a couple hundred people in Congress, or the workers of America?
I liked the point he brought up in conclusion. In the old days, the liberals had the catch-phrase “Power to the People”. Now we’re taking that over, as we fight to give more rights to the working people to do what they want with their money, with lower taxes, school choice, and personal retirement accounts.
The event was held in one of the larger lecture rooms, and though the room was not half-full, the attendees were all eager listeners. An intense question-and-answer time at the end lengthened the forty-five minute session to a full hour and a half, and I think we all left with a much better grasp of the issues surrounding economic reform. Perhaps even ready to go out and debate someone, in hopes that the rest of our liberal campus could understand it too.
I had to wait for about ten minutes, because I had come early to reserve a good seat, and so I had time to notice many things about the place where Howard Dean was about to give his speech explaining his plan to reform the Democrat Party. It was a very small auditorium with only 360 seats–probably one of the reasons I had to make sure I had a ticket for it. I also noticed how religious everything looked, almost exactly like the inside of a church. The Anabel Taylor Auditorium, where he spoke, is mainly used for religious events. A lot of people from different MSM networks where there, and it surprised me how big their equipment was, and how much of it they had. They all got permission to video tape and take pictures from the balcony, or from the back of the auditorium.
After about ten minutes of waiting, the president of Cornell Democrats, Timothy Lim came up and introduced the new Chairman of the Democrat Party: Howard Dean. To my surprise, he was mainly introduced to us as someone who realized the necessity and power of the blog. Everyone, myself included, stood up and clapped as he entered the room, and walked up to the stage. Besides when he left the room, that was the only time that I stood up, or clapped in the whole speech, for most of the time, whenever the room erupted in clapping, I just sat down, shaking my head vigorously to show my displeasure. I am sure that Dean noticed me, as I was quite far up in a small auditorium. Many times I wanted to jump up and prove that he was lying, but kept myself down, knowing that the whole place would be very hostile to me, and that I could get myself into big trouble.
He also started his speech with talking about the power of blogs, and that things really should start in the living room, when a bunch of people came together and decided that they wanted change, they would design fliers, and pass them out, and the Dean headquarters would hear about it only a couple weeks later. He believed that his living room model, as well as the Internet, which he admitted to have found out only by accident, were the ways that a campaign should be run, he also encouraged people to give their five or ten dollars to the candidate that they supported. He mentioned that, through the internet, his campaign had raised more money then any other campaign.
He said that “blogs are important because they let us [politicians], know what people are thinking” I hope that he will read this post, and thus know exactly what I am thinking.
Congressman Maurice Hinchey was present, sitting in one of the front rows reserved for different people from Cornell Democrats. I meant to ask him some questions, especially as Dean was so much praising blogs, but he quickly escaped out of a side door, and was gone by the time everybody was done clapping. I am not sure if he even stayed to listen to the whole speech.
Dean said (as he also said at the rally) that to win the Democrats had to ignore Republican issues — “Gun, God, and Gays”, as well as abortion. I felt it almost sacrilegious to be giving such a message from a sanctuary with stained glass behind him. Although he though that “Republican issues” were best ignored, he at least twice mentioned homosexuality, and said a lot about abortion. The important issues he said, where things like healthcare, jobs, etc. . . These were the things that he thought the Democrat party had to get big on. A big mistake of the Democrat party, he said, was that they believed that their were such things as swing states, and that they would lose if they only campaigned in these states, but that they had to campaign everywhere.
He admitted that, if nothing was done to Social Security within about 30 years benefits would have to be reduced to 80% of what it is now. He thought that something had to be done with Social Security, but that it could not be privatizing it. He said that he thought “privatizing social-security has a lot more to do with how much money Wall-Street has poured out to the President”. He said that a Wall Street bonds were not secure, and that their would be some people who would be doing well, and some who would not be doing so well.–Depending on what they had chosen to invest in. No better option then the President’s plan was given, even though somebody specifically asked for one. He said that only Bill Clinton had been able to balance the budget, and that Democrats were the only people who were fiscally conservative.
He talked a lot about defense, saying that he though that how much money was used on defense was not the big issue, the big issue was how that money was spent. He thought that it was very bad to borrow money at all, not even for defense, because if the three countries that America is borrowing from: China, Japan and Saudi Arabia decide, the value of the dollar can go way down. He especially mentioned Saudi Arabia, a country where according to him, they teach Islam to their kids from 0-3, telling them to hate each other, and to hate America. According to him, this was not a country we should be in debt to. I was very surprised that he would say such a thing about Islam, and even more surprised that nobody said or did anything about it, especially after the big outcry last semester against Sara Townsley�s column �Mecca, We Have a Problem�.
A couple very interesting, and not very well founded statement that he said, but which don’t really belong in any category are: “Because Democrats think better, they’re a better party to Control America”, and: “It is so typical of Republicans not to think ahead”
He talked a lot about labor unions, and said that making it difficult to join a labor union, made it very hard for people to be financially secure. He said that if a factory closes down, then their are all of a sudden lots of people who used to be getting 20 dollars and hour, with benefits, and who are now having to work for WalMart for only Seven dollars and fifty cents without benefits. He said that he was proud that he had never bought from WalMart, because even though they charge a dollar to a dime less, they push wages lower in China. He said that he would gladly pay the extra amount of money to make sure that everyone would get a fair wage. Although at first he said that he believed in free trade, later on he turned around and clarified himself saying that we should only have trade agreements with countries that have similar labor standards as America.
He criticized people for thinking that if they voted, it would be enough, for just voting he might give you a “D”, not a “F”, but still not great. If you want to sustain democracy, you have to run for office, although you might not think you’d be really good at it, probably everyone in the room thinks that they can do a better job then our current President. If you can’t run for office, at least you should help in other peoples campaigns, and that you should donate money.
According to Dean, a very small percent of Americans have health insurance, and that it is something that every American deserves. It should not necessarily be free, but every American should be forced to get insurance. He said that when John Kerry’s healthcare plan, which he really liked and said was very similar to his own, was released, President Bush called it “Socialism”, when Republicans start “name-calling”, you know that they don’t have anything better to say.
He also mentioned a big company who had just said how good this would be, because they pay more money on their employees health insurance then on steel (this company buys a lot of steel, I wish I could remember the name) He said that “We need healthcare reform”, and spent a lot of time talking about this. He also criticized how much George Bush was doing to take care of poverty, especially child poverty.
I meant to ask him a question, and when they allowed people to start lining up in the isle, I got a pretty good place. However, questions were being screened, and because my question was about abortion, they decided that the person in front of me would be the last person to ask a question. I felt bad for all the people who were standing in line behind me. (They did not want to obviously reject my question, but knew it was not going to be one that would make Dean very happy.) Even though he did not want to talk about “Republican issues”, and even though I was not allowed to ask my question (which was going to be whether or not the Democrat Party would change it’s views on abortion or not. I was going to mention a Zogby poll that said that 56% of Americans, and 60% of Americans between 18 and 29 years old think that in most cases abortion should be illegal). I think that my question was basically answered.
He said that the Democrat party’s position on abortion would not change. Democrats instead should be very subtle; they should change what words they use, and in most cases just try to ignore the issue. He said that he hated that Americans like to call the Democrat party the pro-abortion party. He did at least twice say that he though everyone agreed that abortion was bad, but that a women should be able to decide about her own health-care.
Dean always talked like he assumed that no women would choose abortion, because it was bad, but it was up to them, and they should come to that decision themselves. Should murder become legal, because we think that people should be able to make a wise decision themselves?
Hurray! Judge George Greer extended the order a second time preventing Micheal Schiavo from pulling Terri’s tube, this time until 5 pm on Friday.
“Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer extended until Friday an emergency stay that was to expire Wednesday afternoon. He said he also needs more time to determine whether Terri Schiavo needs more medical tests to determine if she has greater mental capabilities than previously thought.”
The Florida Department of Families and Children has also moved to intervene.
Let’s keep on praying!
Today Cornell has the dubious honor of hosting the new chairman of the Democratic National Committe, Howard Dean. Below are some pictures of a noontime rally held in his honor, and Raccoon will be attending his talk later and reporting back then.
Bracing himself in the cold Ithaca wind…
A mixed crowd– disillusioned liberals, loyal fans and a few less-than-welcoming College Republicans
Ho Plaza hasn’t been so full in a while
The American flag seems oddly out of place.
College Republicans making themselves heard
Judge Greer issued a temporary stay till tomorrow. As Richard at Blogs for Terri writes:
“Attorneys for the Schindlers have just been notified that Judge Greer has granted their Emergency Motion for a Temporary Stay. The new Stay will hold over until after tomorrow’s hearing and by its terms will remain in effect until 5:00 pm, February 23.
“2nd DCA Issues MANDATE Without Further Instructions As expected, the 2nd District Court of Appeals issued its Mandate this afternoon at 1:00. The stay protecting Terri’s life has now expired by its own terms. A motion for a new stay is set to be heard by Judge Greer tomorrow at 2:45. [more]
“Attorneys for the Schindlers have been advised that Judge Greer is in possession of the 2nd DCA’s Mandate and their Emergency Motion for a Temporary Stay, and that he intends to rule on that motion this afternoon as soon as possible.”
This is a wonderful answer to prayer, but the battle still goes on.
Update: This is a great web movie of Terri, showing that she certainly isn’t just a vegetable.
Carpe Bonum has several great posts on the Hinchey controversy, including an indepth profile of the congressman. Michelle Malkin has also posted on this, as well as Confederate Yankee.
It seems Hinchey is standing by his statements in the midst of a gathering blogstorm.
I have class very shortly, but this was too urgent to not post.
Tim from Pro-life Blogs reports:
Today [yesturday], the courts rejected the pleas of Terri’s parents to stop her husband, Michael, from withholding food and water from her. He has promised to begin starving her tomorrow [today] at 1 pm.Most of you are aware that Terri is not a “vegetable” or “brain-dead” as Michael and his lawyers claim, but responds to others and is aware of her surroundings. She laughs, smiles and, according to her nurses, has a small vocabulary.
Terri is not on life support and is healthy. She needs help eating and is fed through a tube (helping someone eat and drink who is impaired has never been considered artificial life support).
While Michael asserts he is carrying out Terri’s wishes, he waited until after he received a large sum of money from a lawsuit against her doctors before making this claim . During the lawsuit, he alleged negligence and motivated a financial award with the potential cost of
Terri’s rehabilitation.However, Terri has been denied rehabilitation that experts testify could allow her to eat and talk. The courts in Florida have consistently blocked appeals to give Terri proper tests and therapy that would improve her life.
Terri may not have the capabilities she once had, but she is no less valuable and no less a person.
Here is what you can do to help Terri:
Pray for Terri and her family.
Blog - communicate the truth about what is going on and rally support for Terri and the Schindlers.
Visit BlogsforTerri for information and to join the team of blogs for Terri.
Deluge Gov. Jeb Bush with emails and phone calls. He has the power to intervene. Here is his contact information:Governor Jeb Bush
jeb.bush@myflorida.com
850 / 488-4441
850 / 487-0801 (fax)Support HB701(click here).
Important - Bypass the Mainstream Media - pledge support a paid
advertisement in the St. Petersburg Tribune to inform its 450,000 paid
subscribers about what is really happening to Terri.Your participation in help is desperately needed.
Please do whatever you can.
Maurice Hincey, the Democrat Congressman from the Ithaca area, addressed a community forum two days ago. According to Little Green Footballs:
“An LGF reader was present in the audience and happened to be recording as Rep. Hinchey launched into a barking moonbat conspiracy rant worthy of Democratic Underground, telling the audience he believed the fake CBS memos were planted by Karl Rove to discredit Dan Rather, and divert attention from President Bush’s ‘draft dodging.’
“When our reader asked Hinchey if he had evidence for these charges, he first said, ‘Yes, I do,’ but when asked a second time he admitted he did not.
“Our reader pressed the issue, ‘Don’t you think it’s irresponsible to make charges like that?’ Hinchey replied, ‘No, I don’t, I think it’s very important to make charges like that …”
The transcript is here, and the audio (very good quality, 2.7 MB) is here.
(Hat tip: Lorie Byrd at Polipundit).
I just noticed, the blog Jewish Current Issues has some excellent posts on the controversy over President Summer’s remarks.
We mentioned it briefly when the tempest first broke. Luboš Motl, a physicst from Harvard has also been covering the story.
The transcript is here. As you can easily see from Summer’s first paragraph, he was very carefull not to be offensive:
I asked Richard, when he invited me to come here and speak, whether he wanted an institutional talk about Harvard’s policies toward diversity or whether he wanted some questions asked and some attempts at provocation, because I was willing to do the second and didn’t feel like doing the first. And so we have agreed that I am speaking unofficially and not using this as an occasion to lay out the many things we’re doing at Harvard to promote the crucial objective of diversity. There are many aspects of the problems you’re discussing and it seems to me they’re all very important from a national point of view. I’m going to confine myself to addressing one portion of the problem, or of the challenge we’re discussing, which is the issue of women’s representation in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions, not because that’s necessarily the most important problem or the most interesting problem, but because it’s the only one of these problems that I’ve made an effort to think in a very serious way about. The other prefatory comment that I would make is that I am going to, until most of the way through, attempt to adopt an entirely positive, rather than normative approach, and just try to think about and offer some hypotheses as to why we observe what we observe without seeing this through the kind of judgmental tendency that inevitably is connected with all our common goals of equality. It is after all not the case that the role of women in science is the only example of a group that is significantly underrepresented in an important activity and whose underrepresentation contributes to a shortage of role models for others who are considering being in that group. To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture. These are all phenomena in which one observes underrepresentation, and I think it’s important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation.
(Hat tip: Powerline)
Word has it that the Democrat National Senatorial Committe is recruiting two pro-lifers to run for the Senate — Robert Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania and Rep. James Langevin of Rhode Island. Casey would run against one of the most pro-life and pro-family senators. James Langevin is up against a very RINO, very pro-choice Republican, Lincoln D. Chafee.
According to the Jewish World Review:
For many prominent Democrats, that’s a key lesson of 2004. Will Marshall, who runs a centrist policy think-tank in Washington, said: “When we take absolutist positions on abortion (by refusing to support any curbs, such as parental notification), we’re not showing respect for the moral qualms many voters have. We’ve got to bond emotionally with middle America, show cultural empathy, and not view these people as retrogrades or latent clinic-bombers.”William Galston, a former domestic policy advisor in the Clinton White House, took a swipe at the abortion-rights lobby, a key faction within the Democratic base: “Those who won’t ever compromise on `choice’ should spend a bit more time with folks who aren’t 100-percenters. Because if the 100-percenters keep insisting on total obedience, they will end up dominating a party that will never again win another national election.”
We can’t lose Santorum, but unfortunately I don’t think we’ll miss Lincoln Chaffee much. Hmm, maybe Club for Growth should stage another primary battle.
Over in England the former head of the Conservative party, Iain Duncan Smith, says the blogosphere may change his party’s fortunes. As he writes:
“But the blogosphere will become a force in Britain, and it could ignite many new forces of conservatism. The internet’s automatic level playing field gives conservatives opportunities that mainstream media have often denied them. . . .“Blogger communities are going to be much more powerful. They will draw together not only local people but patients who have waited and waited for NHS care. They will organise parents of disabled children who oppose Labour’s closure of special-needs schools and evangelical Christians who see their beliefs caricatured by ignorant commentators.
“All this should put the fear of God into the metropolitan elites. For years there have been widening gaps between the governing class and the governed and between the publicly funded broadcasters and the broadcasted to.
“Until now voters, viewers and service users have not had easy mechanisms by which to expose officialdom’s errors and inefficiencies. But, because of the internet, the masses beyond the metropolitan fringe will soon be on the move. They will expose the lazy journalists who reduce every important public policy issue to how it affects opinion-poll ratings.
“Tired of being spoon-fed their politics, British voters will soon be calling virtual town hall meetings, and they will take a serious look at the messenger as well as the message. It’s going to be very rough.”
Let us hope he is right.
11 Christians were arrested last October for singing hymns, reading the Bible, and holding up signs with messages on them saying thing such as “God Forgives Sinners” and “Celebrate Sodomy” at one of Philadelphia’s annual city sponsored “Outfests” Obstructionist homosexuals, calling themselves the “pink angels” held large pink boards in front of the signs and blew whistles loudly to drown out the reading of God’s word, preaching and hymn singing. The Daily Times describes what happened:
“The soft-spoken preacher who travels the country skirting the edge of civil disobedience, a Temple grad who claims the Bible spoke to him at an early age, is unflinchingly polite throughout the tape.
“But in less than 30 minutes, he and his followers were arrested. It happened after Marcavage refused an order to lead his preaching flock to another location. Marcavage had obeyed several previous orders, but when he was threatened with arrest, he started to question the authority of the police.
“What law am I breaking?” he kept asking.
“An answer never came, but when he was released from a jail cell 21 hours later, Marcavage and his team of lawyers learned he was accused of numerous charges, like possessing an instrument of crime (a bull horn), reckless endangerment and inciting a riot.
All 11 protestors were arrested and jailed. According to a Press Release from Repent America (the organization that organized the protest):
At a preliminary hearing held December 14, Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge William Austin Meehan dismissed charges against six Christians who were evangelizing at the 2004 “Outfest”, but upheld felony and misdemeanor charges against four others accused of “hate crimes” at the homosexual celebration. Judge Meehan also banned the four men from doing any type of evangelism within 100 feet of any “gay and lesbian event”.
Charges were also upheld against a 17 year old girl, the fifth member of the “Philly 5″, though I believe at a seperate trial. Charges against the first six were dismissed because they were not seen quoting Scripture in a 20 minute video of the whole period, (Red Oasis posted a link to a 7 minute condensation of this video) like the five who charges where upheld against.
Last Thursday, on the 17′th of February Judge Pamela Dembe, after watching the video decided that they were not guilty. According to Agape Press, the judge ruled that:
“Peaceful expressive activities like those of the Christian demonstrators are fully protected by the First Amendment. She also stated that prosecutors were unable to make even a minimal showing of any criminal conduct.”
Although I am very happy that Judge Dembe has made this decision to uphold free speech, it is hard to believe that the City of Philadelphia has indicated that they may appeal this decision. Instead they should issue a public apology and train their police officers so that something like this will never happen again.
Sounding the Trumpet was unfortunately not credentialed as a CPAC blogger, but several good bloggers were and have been reporting on the speeches and blogging escapades in the last few days. Check out Redstate, Kevin McCullough.
The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC is the largest gathering of conservatives that occurs once each year. This year the speakers include Gingrich, the vice-president Dick Cheney, Ann Coulter, and Herman Cain, the black activist who ran in the Georgia Senate primary.
The world was prematurely deprived of a masterpiece of modern art last week, as cleaners accidentally scrubbed down an apparently trashed bathroom at the National Review of Live Art in Glasgow.
It seems that, plebian as they were, the cleaners did not recognize the “soap stuck to walls, toilet paper littering the floor, and unpleasant stains on the tiled walls” was anything more than a disreputable mess. They set quickly to work to make things clean again, and when they were finished, there was nothing left to showcase the genius of Angela Bartram, an “English visual artist who specialises in showcasing extreme bodily functions”. The work in the ladies bathroom was not there by accident; it was there as an installation of modern art, sanctioned by the art festival’s directors.
Read the entire store in The Scotsman here.
But isn’t it good that at least the government will sponsor such art, so that artists like Ms. Bertram, who might be underestimated in a marketplace environment, can be supported by grants out of the public pocket?
Hat tip: The Daily Ablution
In what I believe to be their first ever pro-life declaration, the United Nations passed a ban on human cloning during a meeting yesterday. Nobody has to listen to them of course, but if the United Nations has banned it, there is more of a chance, at least in nations that listen to the UN, that there will be a bit of hesitation before it will become legal. According to an Family Research Council Press Release:
After three years of negotiation, the United Nations voted for a total ban on human cloning by 71-35 with 43 abstaining. The United States joined with Costa Rica, Uganda and with over 60 nations to ban human cloning. The United Kingdom, Belgium and Singapore have been leading the fight against this moral initiative.The United Nations has called on Member States to adopt urgent legislation outlawing all cloning practices “as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.”
LifeSiteNews.com also has an interesting article about this.
Richard, from Hyscience (One of the main players in the “Blogburst for Terri”) had an exculsive “blogger” interview with Bobby Schindler (Terri Schiavo’s brother) yesterday. Here are a few of my favorite parts of the interview, and the parts that have most to do with blogs and bloggers, you can read the whole interview at Hyscience.
Question 4: What message would you like to see bloggers communicate?
Terri’s condition, from the beginning of this court battle, has been mischaracterized by the media. Although the court has sided with Michael Schiavo’s two doctors at the original trial in January 2000 that Terri is in a PVS condition, there have been at least twelve doctors since then that have testified to the court adamant that Terri is NOT in a PVS. Additionally, these doctors have testified that with proper therapy Terri could improve significantly, be taught to speak, and learn to eat food again, which would then mean Terri would not need the assistance of a feeding tube.
Also, all the abuse/neglect that have been ongoing since 1993. It astounds me that the court allows Michael Schiavo, as Terri Schaivo’s legal guardian, to treat Terri in the manner that Terri is being treated. From not permitting Terri to go outside for over four years, to ordering Terri’s nurses to pull her shades completely shut in her room. You can read the list of abuses at www.zimp.org/abuse
Lastly, state agencies that are in place to protect people like my sister are grossly failing their responsibilities to protect vulnerable adults like my sister.
There has never been an investigation conducted to see if Michael Schiavo attacked Terri the night she collapsed, despite the overwhelming evidence that has been gathered the last two years suggesting that something horrible happened to Terri that night (Please visit www.zimp.org/stuff). For example, there exists a bone scan taken in 1991, illustrating broken bones throughout Terri’s body, but only was recently discovered in November 2002, and no agency in the state of Florida seems to care how this occurred, and that Terri’s husband might be the reason Terri’s in the condition that she is in today.
These state agencies are also permitting the abuse/neglect of my sister regardless of numerous Florida Statutes that are clearly being violated. These agency have a responsibility and a duty to protect vulnerable adults, but for some unexplained reason they will not intervene in my sister situation
Question 5: What can bloggers do to support the Schindler family and Terri?
It might sound like a cliche, but getting the truth out about Terri’s condition, open an investigation to see what happened the night Terri collapsed, and to investigate all these abuses and neglect that are ongoing.
Question 6: Have blogger made a noticeable impact in the fight for Terri?
Yes, my family is getting flooded with emails asking how to help and offering prayers of support. I am also seeing the increase of acitivity and stories that are being written in support of my sister. As I said, this has been very uplifting and inspiring for my family to read and we are so grateful for the time every blogger is taking to bring out the truth and save my sister. I’m also grateful for the time everyone is taking to write and contact people that can help save my sister. I only wish that I was able to respond to everyone. Maybe when we save Terri, I can sit down and thank each and every person that has taken the time to email my family supporting my sister’s life.
In the brand new BlogsforTerri.com, Richard writes that:
“The ‘BlogsForTerri’ interview with Bobby Schindler was conducted in behalf of all 100+ blogs in the organized group. The interview was by all of us and for all of us…”
We are in that organized group. Thanks a lot Richard, for interviewing Bobby on our behalf, and on the behalf of countless of other bloggers who think Terri has a right to live, and not be starved to death by her unloving husband.
The United States Supreme Court will be decide tomorrow whether or not to accept the case of Norma McCorvey (the Jane Roe in “Roe vs. Wade”) requesting that the they would overturn Roe V. Wade, some of the reasons for her requesting that this ruling be overturned can be found in the “Petition for writ of Certiorari“:
“Since the original judgment in Roe v. Wade , factual conditions surrounding abortion have changed significantly demonstrating that abortion hurts women. Evidence of the changed factual conditions includes: the testimony of women harmed by abortion; medical studies documenting abortion injuries; an explosion of knowledge since 1973 concerning the effects of abortion on women; and, the fact that abortion clinics to do not provide the normal doctor-patient relationship anticipated by Roe. There have also been significant changes in legal conditions, including forty-six states that have enacted laws transferring the burden of unwanted child care to society…”
LifeNews.com, the website where I found out about this, has a very interesting article about this. According to them:
“The Justice Foundation [a pro-life law firm that has been handling the case of McCorvey] indicated that the members of the court will discuss hearing the case on Friday and will release their decision on Monday.”
I wonder what the chances are that these judges will decide to hear McCorvey’s case. It’s an extremely important case, if they decide to hear it, and if they once again decide in favour of “Roe”…
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