Richard Land had some interesting comments about Mitt Romney’s presidential chances today when talking about the 2008 field with Bill Bennett. (Land is the president of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the public policy entity of the Southern Baptist Convention.)

Land mentioned Romney with McCain and Brownback as someone who might be able to get the evangelical vote. Contrary to the assumptions of the media elite Land thought Romeny’s mormonism wouldn’t be a problem. According to Land:

I have people tell me well you know a Mormon can’t be elected. Well, I disagree with that. I think that if you look at the polling that says that thirty-seven percent of Americans would not vote for a Mormon, the majority of those are seculars who don’t like religion anyway and look at Mormonism as religion on steroids. Most evangelicals understand that we’re voting for a commander-in-chief and not a theologian-in-chief, and it’s going to depend on where they stand on the issues whether or not they’ll get the support of Evangelicals.

I think Land is right. The issues a candidate stands for matters more than the church they go to to most evangelicals. Just ask Harriet Meiers.

Take Back NY-24th had some intriguing news on Michael Acruri’s position on the Military Commission’s Act. Originally Arcuri had stated that he fully supported the law. This lead to quite a backlash among some of the more liberal elements in the district. However, even in the midst of much pleading Arcuri stood firm.

That is, until now. Perhaps in a bid to attract more hardcore liberals to the polls, Arcuri has decided to take on a much more nuanced stance on the Act. According to Take Back NY-24th’s post early this morning:

I got a telephone call this morning from a Democratic office holder in my town informing me that Michael Arcuri has finally reversed his endorsement of the Military Commissions Act, and now opposes the law. This person told me that the Arcuri for Congress campaign has promised people to announce Arcuri’s opposition to the Military Commissions Act on the Arcuri for Congress web site.

I regard this source as very credible. This source also told me that this statement promising to declare opposition to the Military Commissions Act has been made by Michael Arcuri to several different people.

The blogger immediately called the campaign headquarters, but was told that Arcuri’s position hadn’t changed one iota.

A rumor like this swirling around just before election day seemed curious though, and there had to be more truth to the fact than first apparent. Consequently I rang up the campaign headquarters and asked them if anything had changed.

And it has. Although earlier Arcuri supported the Military Commissions Act whole-heartedly, according to the lady I spoke with Arcuri now “has a lot more reservations” and would “work to reform the law”. After listening to Cheney’s speeches on the interpretation of the law Arcuri’s support has become more nuanced. However, I never was able to get a clear answer on whether he would now have voted for the law as is.

Trying to have it both ways? Well, it’s not the first time Arcuri has done that.

Update: From liberal blog Irregular Times:

Democrats in Michael Arcuri’s district are thus left today wondering why they should trust anything that Michael Arcuri tells them.

Indeed.

It’s a little late, but below we’ve included our rundown of Arcuri’s positions. We’ve also updated our post on Meier’s positions.

Ray Meier has been very open and honest in what he believes and what kind of specific philosophical ideas or policy proposals he supports. Unfortunately his opponent Mike Arcuri has been a lot less forthright. In debates Arcuri has often (I almost want to say always) resorted to unsubstantial platitudes or Bush-bashing.

I’ve tried to get as many specifics about what Arcuri believes as I can. Like I mentioned for Ray Meier, if I missed anything or misrepresented anything, please let us know so we can correct it.

So far I can’t find any specific position on taxes, illegal immigration, or academic freedom. (For taxes the only thing specific I can find is that he opposes the Bush tax cuts.)

War on Terror

Iraq
On Iraq Arcuri has been all over the place. In a forum hosted by local veterans a couple weeks ago he stated that he did not support a date specific for pulling out of Iraq.

He changed his opinion in some of the later debates. In a recent WSYR debate Arcuri said he wanted to pull out the National guard troops out immediately, and have all the troops out by 2007.
(more…)

Probably one of the more frustrating aspects of the NY-24 race is the fact that it’s hard to get solid information on the candidate’s position on different issues. Arcuri’s and Meier’s websites don’t give information on all their positions and it takes a lot of time to listen to every interview and debate. Fortunately, you can also call the campaign office to ask about a position. This is something I’ve done in a couple questions with both the Meier and Arcuri campaigns. The Meier campaign responded forthrightly; I have yet to hear back from the Arcuri campaign.

In this post I’m going to attempt to give a detailed rundown of Ray Meier’s position on a variety of issues that I’ve gleaned from his website, statements to the media and debates and interviews he’s taken part in. In a couple days I’ll do the same for Mike Arcuri.

The information below is what I could find at the moment, I’ll update this post as we collect more information. If I’ve made an error, missed an topic, or misrepresented Meier’s position please respond by commenting or emailing me at coyote.soundingthetrumpet [at] gmail.com. Also, just because there is no information under a topic, doesn’t mean that Meier has not addressed this topic. It just means that so far I haven’t been able to find information about it.

War on Terror
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We’ve blogged often about Charlotte Wyatt, the little girl who was born prematurely to Darren and Debbie Wyatt in Portsmouth, England. Charlotte is three now, and every year of her life has been a tremendous fight to stay alive. The National Health Service fought for a “do not resuscitate order”, and won from the courts over the strenuous objections of her parents. Now the courts have ruled that Charlotte can’t live with her family, but must go to a foster home. Darren is fighting to continue to take care of her, but so far it has been a loosing battle.

Then yesterday, blogger took down the Charlotte Wyatt site hosted at blogspot without notice, saying that a British court had issued an injunction against the site. The blog had been regularly updated with pictures and news of Charlotte.

Fortunately, most of the blog was available in the google cache and moved very soon afterwards to a new site SaveCharlotte.com. Hannah, one of the bloggers at Save Charlotte writes:

Past experience has taught us that trust in the “system” and their views about what is best for disabled children is, at best, badly misplaced, and we feel that it is important that information about Charlotte’s case is available to the public. Therefore this blog will continue to be maintained.

The shutdown of Charlotte Wyatt’s blogspot site raises important questions. I’m not a lawer, but I thought Blogger was an American company based in California. Why did it listen automatically to a court order from a foreign country? Is Blogger also registered in the UK? Are there courts in other countries that can give similar injunctions to take down Blogger sites?

Lord Matt is hosting the google cache. Perhaps SaveCharlotte.com should be mirrored elsewhere as well, so that whatever happens information about her will not be wiped out.

New Jersey’s Supreme Court just ruled that all the benefits and privileges of marriage should be available to same-sex couples by the state constitution. This is the third state (after Massachusetts and Vermont) to grant gays special rights different from the rest of the population.

According to the 90 page ruling “[t]he Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or create a parallel statutory structure, which will provide for, on equal terms, the rights and benefits enjoyed and burdens and obligations borne by married couples.”

The entire ruling can be found here.

Hat tip: How Appealing.

Update: Katheryn Lopez writes , “My quick understanding of: Same-sex couples have to be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits that married couples have. The name to be given to the same-sex arrangement is left to the democratic processes. ”

A poll on the New York 24th District came out last week. It was done my Majority Watch, as a project of RT Strategies and Constitutent Dynamics. Of likely voters, Arcuri to Meier was 52% to 43%. Ray Meier has the support 73% of Republicans, versus the 84% of Democrats that support Michael Arcuri.

I have a hard time believing that Arcuri has a nine point lead in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by forty thousand voters. Two years ago Boehlart defeated his Democrat opponent 57% - 34%. Walrath, the candidate running for the conservative party got 9% of the vote.

Constituent Dynamics used automated polling, but I’m not sure if that is any more or less accurate than traditional polling.

The book sale in Ithaca is one of the three largest ones in the nation. It’s held two times a year, with about 300,000 titles for sale this fall and and 100,000 last spring. Collectors and ebay sellers come in hordes to rummage through shelves and shelves of books in the warehouse by the railroad tracks downtown.

It’s a paradise for book lovers, and so it was quite a treat for some friends to pick me up and take me over there late yesterday morning. Even if I’m not interested in buying anything (which I was) I find it exciting to see thousands and thousands of books and to smell the damp page leaves of a Dickens or Chaucer.

The book sale runs for about a month, with the prices decreasing every week, and the books being continually restocked. This weekend most books were $3, and trade paperbacks $1.50. However, over the next couple weeks the price will go down till 25 cents. . . and then comes the highlight of the book sale. On the final day, all books go at a dollar a grocery bag.

Most Cornell students seem to miss it, even though only a short walk away and on the bus line or.

Wasn’t it Erasmus who said, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes”? If that describes you, you may be less hungry after visiting the Ithaca Book sale.

Which House seats in NY are in play? National Journal has a rundown here of the different House races. There are 29 House seats and currently 9 are held by Republicans and 20 by Democrats.

NY-24, where Ray Meier and Mike Arcuri are battling it out, certainly was the best chance for a Democratic pickup. It’s an empty seat, but with the recent rape ad and Arcuri’s continuing stumbles, Meier’s position is looking a lot stronger. However, now with the latest poll, Democrats are a lot closer to knocking Tom Reynolds off in NY-26. I haven’t heard any bad news about Randy Kuhl in NY-29, but I can’t imagine him to be doing too well in the national climate.

We must remember that all three of these districts usually vote Republican by large margins. Therefore the Republicans have a large structural advantage. However, in some way that fact shines an even harsher light on our current environment. There should have been no need to defend these seats so strongly.

Real Clear Politics is a daily must check for anyone following the political scene here in America. Recently they’ve updated the House seats that are in play.

It looks bad for Republicans. Real bad. The list now includes 40 seats. They’re done in order of vulnerability, but the first thirty are all Republican. The Reier-Arcuri race is #12.

The Mark Foley scandal (which we haven’t discussed on this blog even though it has been discussed pretty much everywhere else) has hit the Republican just when they could do without bad news.

However, the Democrats have also done two things to make this year more competitive.

The Democrats have recruited many more stronger challengers than the Republicans have this year. Although in a normal year these guys might have not much of a chance, they’re there ready to ride the wave. When the Republicans take a hit, the Democrats have positioned their candidates to immediately take advantage.

The Democrats so far into the election have also done a better job hiding their agenda than in past elections. Almost all the Democrats in close races voted for the Military Commission Act. Here in our own race, Michael Arcuri told veterans he didn’t support a date specific pullout of Iraq, although later he admitted he did.

This hiding of their agenda need not be substantial. The superficial impression, as long as it doesn’t look superficial, is even more important. In a Democrat ad somewhere in the South I saw recently the candidate put in a pretty convincing “God willing”. A few days ago there was a national Democrat spokesman on Fox news who with a smile and a slight Southern accent asked people to trust Democrat party to clean up Washington.

Democrats have almost always had to act more conservative then they really are, but this year their act is a little more sophisticated. We even see in some cases, such as Arcuri’s, this has actually back-fired. Democrats are either not voting or not campaigning because they feel betrayed.

Most voters are not stupid, and they are just now starting to turn into the election. Although in some states voting has started, in most states there are still four weeks till the election. Will the tide turn before then? We’ll have to wait and see.

According to the Utica Observer Dispatch, that Michael Arcuri is touting his new five point job plan, at his new website.

Biggus Dickus has done some elementary sleuthing, and found out, however, that Michael Arcuri didn’t even draw this plan up. According to the pdf history, it was drawn up by Philip Klinkner of Hamilton College.

The campaign has since redone it’s pdf to take out this embarrassing detail. However, you can find the old pdf here.

Is Michael Arcuri saying one thing to one group of people and another thing somewhere else? It sure looks that way.

At the recent debate at the Donovan Middle School in Utica Arcuri says that we need to set a definite timetable to exit Iraq. Look at this, according to the Rome Sentinel:

Regarding the war in Iraq, Arcuri said a phased withdrawal plan is needed, and if one is not presented then a troop withdrawal should begin in 2006 and be completed in 2007.
Meier told Arcuri “your position has changed,” and said Arcuri previously was opposed to a withdrawal timetable. He said a public timetable would be a “recipe for stepped-up terrorist activity.”

Is Ray Meier speaking the truth? Did Michael Arcuri’s position change?

Well, actually, it looks like his position did change, and not that long ago. Just over a month ago, Arcuri spoke at a forum hosted by local veterans. NCPR has a clip on their website. Here is the relevant part of the transcript, starting at time 3:40:

Reporter: Here’s one of the questions that was put to the candidates by a local TV anchor, Andy Jenks.

Anchor: Do you support a date specific pullout of the US military in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? We’ll start with Senator Meier.

Meier: No. If you announce a date certain for a pullout it will vastly make more dangerous the lives of the servicemen and women who are currently who are serving in those two theatres of operation. But, i would say the mission needs to be more clearly delineated. And I think that means putting much more pressure on the Iraqi coalition government to get it’s own armed forces and security forces standing up and operating. And if you look at the events of the last few days that means we have to take much more direct action against both the Sunni and Shii militias who are waging not just an insurgency but what now borders on a civil war.

Arcuri: In Iraq I don’t believe we should have a date certain. I think that that would jeaporadize the safety of the troops. However, I do believe that we need a plan for bringing our troops home. They a done a fine job there. They have done a magnificent job. They’ve removed a dicatator. They’ve instituted a democracy. We are training an army. They have about a two hundred seventy thousand person army and police force there. We have done a good job. Our soldiers have acted valiently. It’s time that we have a plan and start to bring them home. And I think that this administration owes it to the American people and owes it to our military to develop a plan to bring our soldiers home and to bring them home soon.

A couple days ago Senator Frist tried to free the Child Custody Protection Act by filing for cloture. This bill would have made it illegal to transport a minor across state lines to get an abortion without her parents consent.

Neither the pro-life side or the pro-choice side were expecting Frist to file for cloture. However, the National Right to Life Committee and the Susan B. Anthony List sprung into action. The bill had passed the Senate by a large margin earlier this year, so we were hopeful we could get the sixty votes.Jill Stanek of Prolife Blogs was actually in D.C, and able to report on the bill.

However, it seems though all our efforts were in vain. Last night Santorum Blog reported that the cloture vote had failed. The yeas and nays are here. I’ve posted the senators who voted against cloture below the fold. (more…)

A couple days ago I wrote about an oppurtunity to volunteer with Rick Santorum’s campaign. His campaign uses a cool new online service called Team Volunteer, which allows volunteers to sign in and get phone numbers to call instead of having to drive to a phone bank. I’m not sure why other campaigns such as Ray Meiers or any of the other Republican senatorial or house campaigns haven’t been using it. It’s a lot easier than the traditional way of setting up phone banks at different locations.

You can either use your local phone or your free minutes on your cell phone. However, there is even an easier way. You can use Skype, the free internet phone that’s available for Windows, Apple, and even Linux.

Usually Skype is only free from one computer to another. However, till the end of this year, Skype has made it free to call anywhere in the United States.

This means that you don’t have to have use a cellphone or live in Pennsylvania. With Skype you can call voters in Pennsylvania at no cost.

Interested? Sign up for Santorum’s campaign.

Disclosure: See link in right hand column.

One of the top House races in this midterm election is right in our backyard, in NY -24. This is actually an open seat because Sherwood Boehlart, the Republican who held the seat since 1982, has retired.

Boehlart was probably one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress. He voted several times against the ban on partial birth abortion, and got a %100 rating from NARAL for 2005 and 2006. Club for Growth tried unsuccessfully to oust him during a primary by supporting his opponent David Walrath the last two elections.

However, now we finally have a candidate that conservatives can be proud of — Ray Meier. He’s prolife, been endorsed by the Republican Study Committee and New York’s Conservative Party. (In New York you can be endorsed by two parties.)

What about Ray Meiers opponent, Mike Arcuri? So far it looks like he’s pretty left wing — he’s pro-choice and supports gay marriage. He also hates the Bush tax cuts.

You can donate to Meiers campaign here. I’ve posted a map of the district below. (If you would like to see a bigger version, click here.)

The Design Paradigm has just posted another press release from Cornell’s IDEA club over a very interesting development on campus. Cornell University will offer it’s first class on Intelligent Design this summer.

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, April 9 The Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell would like to applaud Allen MacNeil, the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Department, and Cornell University on this summer’s new course, BioEE 467: Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?

Five and a half months after President Rawlings� State of the University address condemning intelligent design, this course is Cornell�s first to focus on the theory from a historical and scientific perspective. Based on books such as Dembski and Ruse’s Debating Design and Behe’s peer-reviewed Darwin�s Black Box, the course purports to sort out the various issues at play, and to come to clarity on how those issues can be integrated into the perspective of the natural sciences as a whole.�

This four credit seminar course, taught by the EEB Senior Lecturer Allen MacNeil, will also take a broader look at the historical disputes surrounding evolution.

Although we have been on opposite sides of many debates, we have always appreciated MacNeil�s commitment to the ideal of the university as a ‘free market-place of ideas.’ We have found him always ready to go out of his way to encourage diversity of thought, and his former students speak highly of his fairness. We look forward to a course where careful examination of the issues and critical thinking is encouraged.

More on this can be found at Allen MacNeil’s own blog, EvolutionList.

Update: Over at Telic Thoughts there has been some very interesting discussion about this course with Allen MacNeil himself. Head over there to check it out.

In a surprising development, Richard Harrison, chair of Cornell’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department seemed to disagree that evolution was a fact in a panel discussion at Cornell yesterday evening. Professor of Neurobiology & Behavior Kern Reeve concured, explaining that he did not like to say evolution is a fact, just an extemely well-supported theory.

Richard Harrison took part in a panel discussion with intelligent design proponent and biophysics professor Cornelius Hunter in a panel discussion on intelligent design and evolution. The discussion was attended by around 250 people in the Engineering school’s largest auditorium.

Responding to questioning from Professor Hunter, Professors Harrison and Reeve admitted that evolution was not a fact. Hunter was trying to make the point that evolutionists and evolutionary textbooks routinely say evolution is a fact.

If this really is Harrison’s and Reeve’s opinion, and not just an equivocation in the middle of a debate the two professors disagree with the majority of evolutionists, including evolutionists such as Stephen J. Gould and the astronomer Carl Sagan who repeatedly argued that evolution is a fact. Professor Harrison also puts himself at odds with the textbooks used in the major evolution classes here at Cornell, including Futuyma’s textbook Evolutionary Biology, which says that, “. . . evolution is a scientific fact. But the fact of evolution is explained by evolutionary theory” (pg. 13). Futuyma continues later in the chapter: “The explanation of how modification occurs and how ancestors give rise to diverse descendants constitutes the theory.”

During the question and answer period, members of the audience also had trouble with Hunter’s allegation that evolutionists said evolution is a fact. One evolutionist in the audience made the point even stronger, by saying that no self-respecting scientist or biologist would call the theory of evolution a fact.

Liam, a resident of Luton writes in the comments with some insights on Thursday’s story about religious freedom and school uniforms:

I come from Luton, the town in question, in Bedfordshire. I went to a neighbouring school. There are some points of fact that need to be stated first.

Luton is a town of just under 200,000 people, about 45,000 of whom are Muslim, mostly from Bangladesh, Kashmir and Pakistan. There are several other immigrant groups in the town, Irish, West Indian, African, Eastern European etc, (I count myself amongst them). It is therefore a very diverse community.

The school in question, Denbigh High School, has a school roll that is 80% Muslim. The headmaster of that school at the time this issue came up in 2002, is himself a Muslim. Most of the Board of Governers of the school, and the Parent/Teachers Organisation are Muslim, as are a large amount of the teachers.

95% of the children come from minority ethnic backgrounds and fully 75% have a first language that is not English. 85% percent of pupils come from poor families.

Given the above, the superb results achieved by the school, as highlighted by their last full inspection by H.M. Inspector of Schools in 2004, are a testament to the hard work and dedication of the staff and of both the head teachers during this period.
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The Law Lords in Britain’s highest court decided yesterday that schools in England could enforce their dress policy, if they had consulted with the local community before instituting the policy.

One such school uniform was challenged by seventeen year old Shabina Begum, who wanted to wear a jilbab instead of a hijab and a shalwar kameez, which the school allowed. She argued that according to her religion she must dress modestly.
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Amid the port uproar, the excitement or distress surrounding South Dakota’s abortion law, and the frequent political scandals, the House of Representatives has managed to quietly approve a food labeling bill.

Food labeling bill, you say. What’s so exciting about that? This is not just any food labeling bill, this is the National Uniform Food Safety Labeling Act — a bill that will end the different standards states have set up regarding food labeling. Although this bill may be constitutional it goes completely against the idea that the local government closest to the people knows what is best. If Californians want stricter labels than Texans, Californians should be able to get their way, especially when they’ve enacted label laws by popular referendum, such as California’s Proposition 65.

Unfortunately, there has been little upcry from conservatives. Professor Brainbridge writes:

It strikes me as a perfectly plausible exercise of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause. The Clause’s basic function, after all, is to prevent the economic balkanization that arises when states subject interstate commerce to disparate regulation.

Maybe, but I’m not convinced.

Leslie Burke was born in Lancaster, the oldest in a family of five. He was pretty normal when he was growing up–but had the hardest time balancing. This was the only indication that things were not quite right.

In 1983 he was working as a postman when his employer asked him to get a physical. He was diagnosed with Cerebellar Ataxia. Their is nothing that you can do about this disease, and he was told that he would not see his 40′th birthday–he did, four years ago. The only thing that you can do is to just get on with life.

He did this, and has got a lot done since the doctor’s diagnosis 18 years ago. This condition gets worse and worse, and he is now in a wheelchair all the time. He was worried that when his condition has progressed,and he can no longer speak or eat by himself, the hospital would decide to remove his feeding tube, like they did with Tony Bland.

Last year, on July 30 2004 he won the court battle that said he must be given food since he wanted it to be continued. The hospital filed an appeal last September and the appeals court will hear them this coming Thursday (May 19) and come to a decision.

Cerebellar Ataxia does not affect one’s mental ability–and he will mentally be completely there, it will only affect his physical abilities. He does not look forward at all to the prospect of slowly dying off because of starvation–even though the doctor’s think it dignified.

Click here to go to his website, which has lots of more info on the case.

Source is: SaveCharlotte.com | Crossposted at BlogsforTerri

Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of the landmark “Roe vs. Wade” descision of 1973 that legalized abortion throught the United States spoke at Cornell this evening. On August 8, 1995 Norma McCorvey accepted Jesus into her life as her personal saviour, and has been a strong supporter of life ever since. She now works as a counselor, goes on speaking engagments, and has worked to overturn Roe vs. Wade. She many times mentioned that if you are considering getting an abortion, or need post-abortion counseling, you should give her a call.

Norma McCorvey shared her testimony, and then answered several questions from the audience–questions that were written on index cards and read by one of the members of the Cornell Coalition for Life (the sponsoring student organization).

The story of how abortion was legalized in America began on a Sunday morning in a Jehovah witness church service. Norma’s Dad was preaching that if you smoke or drink alchohol you will die and burn in hell. Then he asked if anyone had any questions. Norma spoke up. “If smoking and drinking will cause one to burn in hell” she said, “then what are those cigarette’s in your pocket there? And what are those brown bottles that you and mother drink from?” Norma’s father was very angry with her, and sent her outside to wait in the car. Norma did not wait in the car. She ran away.

After she left home, Norma went to live with one of her girlfriend’s, taking drugs, smoking, and drinking as much alchohol as they could. Norma lived a very sinful lifestyle, for many, many years. One day Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee approached her and asked her to sign an affidavit to challenge the Texas law on abortion. That was the only thing that she did. She never went to any of the court hearings, and then one day, as she was picked up the newspaper, she found out that her case had reached the Supreme Court, and had made abortion legal throughout the United States.

After this, Norma worked in several abortion clinics. Her job was to get people to come, and thus to fill their clinics weekly quota. (They had to make about $40,000 in abortions a week.) She described the pre-abortion counseling given in all of them as nothing more then the Doctor asking the patient to sign the neccesary legal paper.

One day, Operation Rescue came to the abortion clinic where she worked. She did not know what to do, first she thought she should call the police, then she thought she should call the press — in the end she called both. Operation Rescue arrived with all their large posters of aborted babies, the Press was there, and the police were there. The posters were too much for her — and she quickly tried to have them removed. Finally she made an agreement with Operation Rescue that they could talk for three minutes with each patient if they would take the signs away — she said that just these three minutes made the amount of abortion’s they did drop by about 65%.

In 1995 Norma accepted Jesus as her personal saviour. She was very sad about her history, but told us that she has been forgiven, and “her sins are as far away now as the east is from the west”. Now Norma has started Roe no More Ministries, she gives woman pre- and post- abortion counseling. She also travels around the country, sharing her testimony.

This event was co-sponsored by Community Development, Campus Crusade for Christ, the Cornell Political Coalition, the Bioethics Society of Cornell, the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the Office of the Vice President for Student and Academic Services, Cornell College Republicans, Cornell Catholic Community, Cornell Advocates for the Family, Catholic Circle, and the Office of the Vice President for University Communications.

Update: The Cornell Daily Sun also has a great report on this.

I just got a telephone call from Judge Boyd. He was very nice, and cleared up a lot of questions I had about the case.

The basic overview of what he told me was that the whole family was in agreement when they came to court, and that they had all decided that Beth Gaddy should be made the legal guardian (under certain conditions). Three doctors should evaluate her condition, and all of the family would agree to their suggestion. He did not have to decide anything, he just wrote down what they agreed to. He made Gaddy the guardian, but made her so under the condition that she must make sure that Mae Magouirk was given proper food and care. He also told me that he ordered that none of the family members could try to convince any of the doctors to their side, and that the doctors were ordered to check her within 24 hrs, or as soon thereafter as possible, because time was important. He has promised to send me a copy of the court order, I will make it available as soon as I receive it.

I asked him how it could be that he had made these orders, and yet they had not been obeyed? He told me that he had no clue that his orders were not being carried out, and that the family should have let him know. Then he would have been able to enforce his orders; but as it was they did not let him know what was going on, so he could not do anything about it.

He was also very concerned that blogs were not, as he put it “doing a better job checking things out”.

Cross posted at: Blogs for Terri

George Greer seems to think that he is the High King, and everybody must obey his every word. He does not seem to realize that their is a difference between his position, and that of the Turkmenbashi (of Turkmenistan, of course he realizes that he has a different jurisdiction). Thus he struts about, ordering people to be starved to death, and law enforcement officers not to intervene.

If he was a simple justice, his duty would be to interpret the law, and to defend it, but he seems to think that his duty is to make it, and to tell all other leaders to obey.

According to the Florida State Constitution, Article I Section 2 (courtesy of Blogs for Terri):

All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty. No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability.

It seems to me that the decrees of “his majesty” are completely ordered without the law in mind, but most certainly not as a justice, interpreting what that means.

A terrible thing about this situation, is that powerful people like Gov. Jeb Bush, and law enforcement like the Department of Children and Families are actually listening to him, and afraid to make any move to save life, and to uphold the constitution. Jeb Bush should completely disregard the decrees of “High King Greer”, and should order the National Guard, or the Police force to come in and rescue Terri by force, and he should also order the arrest of this dangerous man.

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.