More stuff piled on - 8 April 2010

Greetings, purveyors of justice, science, and libraries, (although not necessarily in that order). Do we have some doozies of news for you.

Starting with the justice part, two hits. The Obama Administration has gone farther than even his predecessor and claimed the right to pass summary judgment and execution on an American citizen anywhere in the world because of his nebulous terrorist ties. This may be the first instance where we see the awful consequences of making a precedent of setting aside civil liberties when confronted with the word "terrorism". And worse, unlike before, the nominal opposition will be cheering this President on as he takes this path, cutting the people who are against this idea for sane reasons down to a small percentage.

Second, rescue efforts are ongoing, but grim, in attempting to recover any survivors from a mine blast that has killed at least 25. The company that owns the mine, Massey Energy, has shown a fairly callous disregard for their workers safety, with numerous and repeated health and safety violations and fines levied against them at the location in question. The company paid fines, repeatedly, to almost $1 million USD, and then racked up more for not actually improving the condition of the workers there. And they’re a non-union operation, we note, so it’s not like the workers could collectively walk out with a fighting chance of having conditions change.

And speaking of skullduggery, Did we mention that a fake-grassroots campaign to get you to put faces to stories of people who love coal oh so very much is using stock photos, where file names don't match people names?

And then one bit of excellent science - ununseptium, atomic number 117, has made a debut appearance. If confirmed elsewhere by another laboratory, then some researchers get the incredible task of putting a name to a new element, which is exciting. Although some may put it up there on the interest scale with figuring out the backstory behind a 1,000 pound lead coffin of Roman provenance.

For yet another reason why you need libraries, not that you, intelligent readers, need explanation, the critical thinking and source analysis skills that you need to seprarte good Googlestuff from drek are right in your librarary's wheelhouse - the librarian, public or school, is the person most likely to teach you that skill.

Out in the world of people, lighting up on a flight will net you the suspicion of being a terrorist. I know it’s tough, but seriously, one should be able to go without nicotine for the duration of the flight, yes?

After acknolwedging that the video is real, the military raised questions about the editing process of the video showing an American helicopter attacking Iraqi civilians released by Wikileaks.

Tensions continue between the Afghan President and the American President over pressures from Washington to fight graft and corruption and the need for Mr. Karzai to not appear a puppet of the United States.

In the United States, the birth rate of teenagers declined, after an uptick in previous years. The article is very careful not to say that comprehensive programs, like the one instituted by the current administrator, have something to do with the downturn, while also saying that abstinence-only programs might have contributed to it. What, us, biased? Never. Or at least, not as blatantly as the prosecutor for Juneau County, Wisconsin, warning teachers that teaching the underage about proper contraceptive use could be construed as being a party to sexual assault if the teens are sexually active, and that merely knowing teens are sexually active could result in a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Because minors are forbidden from having sex in the state. The prosecutor defends himself by saying, “The Legislature put this law into effect. I’m just offering my legal opinion on it. But I would suggest that teachers not choose to teach sexual education classes until the new standards are repealed.” Said prosecutor also believes that standards could allow for Planned Parenthood to get into schools and that teachers would be forbidden from teaching that promiscuity is wrong. Said standards require teachers to teach proper contraceptive use, as well as the possible penalties for underage sex, so I think they’re covered on the “promiscuity is wrong, at least according to the law” department. We’ll see whether this letter results in actual prosecution of anything, or whether this is a scare tactic.

Managing to one-up that, though, is the Dallas man declaring his intent to use deadly force against a clinic while filing for a restraining order against police who would try to stop him from doing so. The man was arrested before he could carry out his stated intent. I think he’s a bit loony, though, to ask law enforcement to bar law enforcement from enforcing the laws against attacking and possibly killing other people. Further details of the person seems to confirm the theory that not all of his mental faculties are functioning properly.

The President is making changes to the national security strategy document to remove language that implies the United States sees Islamic countries first and foremost as potential terrorist zones. Related, but not really, interfaith gatherings between different adherents of the Abrahamic sects in Washington, D.C..

As things are, it is fairly frightening when high-ranking members of any political party appear to not know the basics of the things they're opposing. Makes opposition that much harder when you seem not to know what problems there are that you can provide alternate solutions to. Especially if it takes more than 17 minutes to give a full and complete answer to a question about health care. (For some, that answer was a filibuster that gave no answer to the question asked, of course.)

As the day of filing one’s taxes approaches, the statistic reappears that about one-half of the country should be paying zero net in taxes, due to credits and deductions. That says something about income levels in the country, that’s for sure. I still wonder why our corporations and rich persons aren’t more proud of their tax-paying, saying, “I supported several thousand of my fellow Americans single-handedly!”

Finally, meet the Republican whose gone grassroots for homosexual marraige, and is doing his best to point out all the very deep ties the LDS church had to California's Proposition 8, up to the possible insinuation that the National Organization for Marriage is/became a front group for the church in California.

In technology and sciences, evolution at work - an enzyme that assists in breaking down seaweed has found its way from marine bacteria to the guts of the Japanese, for whom unsterilized nori is a regular part of their diet, another Australopithecus - let the debate begin as to whether this one is in the line that leads to Homo, multicellular organisms that exist without the requirement of oxygen discovered on Terra, which will probably boost the percentage, currently at 20 percent, of humans that believe extraterrestrial life lives with us on Terra, disguised in human shape, and getting one step closer to a sonic screwdriver.

an appeals court in the United States rejected the case that the FCC had authority to impose policies such as "net neutrality", for now allowing Internet Service Providers to impose their own rules about traffic across their networks, which could damage applications such as peer-to-peer sharing, video watching, and online gaming if they are relegated to a tier that slows or blocks that traffic. Congress can still enact legislation that would give the FCC that power, if they so choose.

And in the opinions. LZ Granderson reminds us that no matter what far-right groups believe about homosexuals, they're people, too, living lives not that different from yours, but with the added burden that their sexual preference can get them fired or dismissed from military service and they’re barred from the joys of marriage and parenting in several states.

Mr. Chapman expresses skepticism that the new accord will actually reduce stockpiles by a whole lot, and expresses his belief that nuclear weapons are still an effective deterrent to conflicts getting too worldwide and bloody, because the only way to win the nuclear game is not to play. If that is the case, we would hope Mr. Chapman would be more in favor of reducing stockpiles to the very least needed to retain his deterrence dream.

Mr. Krauthammer believes that President Obama is determined to be a one-man wrecking crew to destroy all the traditional friendships of the United States, with the United Kingdom taking the brunt of the attacks. Mr. Blackwell adds Canada to the list, based on Secretary of State Clinton's insistence that true maternal health means reproductive health as well, taking a dig at conservatives here at home as well as apparently causing headaches for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. (I’m not as up on why this is so as I should be. Explanations?)

I suspect they also believe that the President is not serious about putting the thumbscrews to Iran, because he chooses to go through the United Nations and seek Chinese and Russian support. I think the President does this because he suspects China and Russia would help Iran, not also apply the pressure, if the U.S. went unilateral.

On the matter of health care, Mr. Harsanyi accuses Congress of stifling legitimate debate on health care costs by calling forth CEOs to explain why they're indicating negative impacts from the passage of the bill. Telling, however, is Mr. Harsanyi’s assertion that corporations deserve exactly the same rights and Constitutional protections as individuals. Corporations are not people, Mr. Harsanyi, no matter what the talking points and the corporations say, and they should never be equated. Also, that he sees the Congress as having a nefarious agenda when they might just wonder what the reasoning is behind these claims says something about the polarized view of the world prevalent on this issue.

Elsewhere, Mr. Tucker insists that the government lied about the bill and the mainstream media helped to cover up the bad parts of the bill, parts we are only now getting to see. Dr. Fodeman suggests that the new law creates even more bureaucracy to get between a doctor and his patients, further disincentivizing the practice of medicine. And, of course, there will also be long waits, rationed care, and reimbursement rates far too low to let doctors make a living.

More moderately, Mr. Henninger suggests that the real reason for all the health care protests is that the American people are concerned that the government is growing too big and too powerful, and that can’t be dismissed easily. We’ll compare this with Mr. Williams' Tea Party apology, insisting that tea partiers, while overwhelmingly white and male, are not racists, nor is the Tea Party founded on racist principles. Instead, he says, it’s a bunch of working-class white men out of a job and angry that the government doesn’t seem to be working on putting them back to work. Mr. Sowell says "Pics or it didn't happen" in response to the allegations of teabaggers hurling racist and homophobic remarks at members of Congress, before suggesting the President is a racist (or at least unafraid of playing the race card) himself. In the second part of the series, Mr. Sowell expands the idea to any government practice involving minorities, using “under-representation” as a way of getting their biases enforced, and he claims that several bloody conflicts were started by the idea that one group was “under-represented” or that another ethnic group was doing better and that just wasn’t acceptable, so we should drop the idea, and if certain ethnic groups happen to be under-represented, that’s their fault and nobody else’s.

On the other major objection to health care, the WSJ's opinion that an individual mandate basically rips to shreds all of the Article I and 10th Amendment limitations on the federal government's power.

And in the crackpot department, the Washington Times says that it would be silly for someone to think the government would track people through their implanted medical devices...before suggesting that the government will try to track you through your medical devices. That’s kind of paranoid, there.

Mr. Hill says that fairness is wrong, when it comes to economics and the running of a country, and that while it is unfair, The Market (A.P.T.I.N) and Freedom are still the best arbiters of who deserves what. While also adding on that the rich pay most of the taxes anyway, and that doctors, who go into enormous debt, are now being thought of as “slaves” because people are “entitled” to their services. It sounds very much like I got Mine, Frak You.

The othe side of this argument coin is what Mr. Bozeman says - Americans should be about Freedom and Individual Rights, and not let the Nanny State take away their Freedom at the price of entitlements. We should Pull Ourselves Up By Our Bootstraps, and if you can’t, it’s because you’re laxy. I Got Mine, and if You Don’t, You Don’t Deserve It, Frak You.

On the economy, the conservative CW is that the economy is laregly becoming dependent on the government, while not giving any credit to the possibility that stimulus spending helped and using the statistic that government workers outnumber private sector workers as the reason why several things need to be repealed or suspended so that The Market (A.P.T.I.N) can recover back to what they think a booming economy is.

The Washington Times runs an editorial about several phony products receiving an Energy Star rating, despite their sometimes comical inefficiencues, probably as a way of trying to make you distrustful of green energy seals and motives and as a possible set-up to instill doubt about a climate bill, if one appears.

Getting out of opinions, Mr. Hawkins, after suggesting the Democratic members of Congress could be replaced with minimum-security con men at no real change to the government and quips that the government no longer really respects the Constitution and its limited powers, gives his list of seven Democrats that are his personal Worst Persons list - Robert Byrd (too old and sick), Barney Frank (“sexual deviant” and both john and pimp of homosexual prostitutes, apparently, when he’s not running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the ground), Alan Grayson (thin-skinned asshole who gets away with it because he’s rich), Alcee Hastings (convicted of breaking rules, now in charge of making rules), Maxine Waters (dumb funneler of stimulus cash and supporter of the Rodney King riots), Charles Rangel (always looking for ways to make the tax code screw you while evading his own taxes and earmarking your money in his honor), and Pete Stark (same as Rangel). If we excise all the stuff that isn’t policy or practice objections, we have a much shorter column, and one that might be worth something.

Last for today, the President threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Washington Nationals, and received boos when he was shown wearing a Chicago White Sox cap. One of these days, a President will show some real love of baseball - wearing the Old English D when he throws out the first pitch.