Welcome to Daily Contentions... Born in February 2003, DC is a daily-updated weblog covering a wide variety of issues, contemporary and timeless-- always with a unique perspective and open attitude.
Okay, there is a critical matter floating around out there, that I have yet to really address. I cannot shirk my duties any further... I'm speaking of course of the phenomenon known simply as... Sanjaya.
The phenomenon of Sanjaya has dramatic implications in the areas of law, entertainment, and...uh... foreign policy.
Ok, well, maybe foreign policy is a stretch, but Sanjaya actually could create an interesting legal case. Sites like Vote for the Worst and radio personalities such as Howard Stern have called on their audiences to vote for Sanjaya because he is so bad in their opinion, not because he is good. These actions create a colorable claim of tortious interference with American Idol's product. American Idol, afterall, is a competition to find the best, not the worst, singer.
That said, I don't think AI will bring suit, and if they did, they would probably lose. As Vote for the Worst points out, AI isn't just about finding great singers. The show uses bad singers and interesting personalities for ratings, especially in the earlier rounds.
But is Sanjaya's singing so bad that it deserves this sort of attention--that a girl on myspace is doing a hunger strike in protest!? I'd say no, it's definitely not. I voted for Chris Sligh the couple times that I cared enough to vote, because I thought he had the strongest vocals, but I don't think Sanjaya was the worst in the top 8 or 10 guys. Also, I think his last 2 songs have been his strongest in the competition.
Some of the guys are just bland, while others just sound like members of N'Sync. Sanjaya's problem is that while he basically never misses a note, he does not project his voice enough and he tends to trail off on the notes.
So yeah, I don't think Sanjaya deserves to win, but I sure hope he does. He simply makes for too interesting of a story every week. Nobody can deny that.
So the Democrats are taking a page from the playbook of the previous GOP-led Congress and playing pork politics. They've stuffed their Iraq-funding bill with millions and millions in pork spending to buy votes of support for the measure which sets a timetable for withdraw.
So when I ask my friend who works as a Senate staffer about this practice, the person simply dismissed the practice as the way Congress works and gets things done.
So there's talk that former Republican senator, Fred Thompson, may be considering a run for the presidency. He's in my favorite movie of all time, The Hunt for Red October and he's in Law & Order, so he's already got my support ;-)
Insurgents in Iraq have shown increasing willingness to target and kill Christians living there. The latest incident is repulsive. After midnight on Tuesday morning, armed insurgents entered the residence of the two nuns. One shot Sister Margaret Saour, 80, who is blind. The other, Sister Sister Fadhila Saour, 71, ran and was stabbed in the back.
These are the kindof men we're supposed to reason with? These are the men against whom we're going to use diplomacy? This is pure evil.
So far, Britain's response to Iran's holding of their soldiers suggest that Europe is indeed lost.
In 2004, Iran captured British soldiers and paraded them through the streets of Tehran. Iran received no substantive response for this hostile action.
Now in 2007, Iran is poised to do the same thing or worse and again the British do not seemed incline to respond. This BBC article is truly depressing.
Tony Blair's statement, that their dealings with Iran will enter a "new phase" if Iran does not immediately release the captured soldiers, seems promising at first; that is until it is explained. According to the Prime Minister's spokesman, Blair's words do not refer to military action nor even to "extreme diplomatic" measures such as kicking out Iranian diplomats.
In fact, Britain is so passive on this, that they are afraid of "escalating" the situation by even stating how they know that their soldiers were in Iraqi, not Iranian waters! So they're afraid from even stating the truth. Unbelievable.
So what is Britain's brilliant plan on getting its soldiers back? According to Richard Dalton, the former British ambassador to Iran, the different phase could include stepping up international pressure on Iran. This statement by him shows how out of touch the British and Europeans are on these matters:
"It could be that they think that by dramatising the fact that these people were taken on an international mission while in Iraqi waters even further, will give Iran pause and give them a chance to rethink."
Really? Really?? Since when has the current Iranian regime ever responded to international pressure or criticism?
A comment to the BBC by a UK man named Gary underscores the idiocy:
"The country of Iran needs to have a good long hard look at how this situation will look to the rest of the world."
The British bulldog has morphed into a poodle.
...
Talk is cheap. British politicians can speak of what Iran should do, of what Iran needs to do, or even of what Iran must do. But where does that get them? Speaking of 'need'; Europe needs to wake up to the fact that there are bad regimes left in this world and that talk will not always be effective against them.
On Europe and America's current course, we will talk ourselves straight into a hostile nuclear-armed Iran, bent on molding and fostering an Islamist middle east that is vehemently opposed to western values of democracy and freedom.
On Friday March, 09, I wrote about what Justice Ginsburg said in regards to the Defense of Marriage Act, during her talk to the IU School of Law. Specifically, Justice Ginsburg said pretty bluntly that she felt the DOMA excuses states from honoring same-sex marriages from other states, as might otherwise be required under the Full Faith & Credit clause.
At the time, I wrote that this pretty much seals the constitutionality of the DOMA, as I felt the conservatives certainly would uphold the DOMA. But not so fast. In this post by Ann Althouse, she quotes Justice Scalia as saying he does not feel that the federal government has the power to regulate marriage. So maybe enough of the conservative justices would oppose the DOMA under the theory that it's not within Congress' enumerated powers.
If--nay, when--this battle comes before the courts, the legal battle could get pretty interesting.
Not sure what I'm exactly talking about? Consider this. A Massachusetts gay couple gets married. They then decide to move to Ohio, where gay marriage is outlawed. They apply to have Ohio honor their Massachusetts clause. Ohio refuses and cites the DOMA. The couple says that the Full Faith & Credit clause requires Ohio to recognize the marriage and claims that the DOMA is unconstitutional. Get it now?
Check out this graph on Real Clear Politics, which shows the shift in federal government spending in the U.S. from defense to social security and other entitlement payments from 1956 to 2006.
Bigoted anti-gay amendment being considered in Indiana
By Luke
Indiana's General Assembly is getting ready to take up a proposed amendment to the Indiana constitution which reads as follows:
"Marriage in Indiana consists only of the union of one man and one woman. This Constitution or any other Indiana law may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."
Indiana already has a law against gay marriage, but this amendment would go even further. Despite proponents claim to the contrary, the amendment's second sentence would most likely block companies and organizations from even giving benefits to same-sex couples. Such has been exactly the case in Michigan where courts there have interpreted the language in this fashion.
Many patriotic Americans disagree about what we should do in Iraq and they disagree about whether or not we should have toppled Saddam's regime in the first place.
However, we should not be blind to the fact that much of the active protesting anti-war crowd is flat-out anti-American. They burn American flags, compare our government to Hitler's Nazi regime, and belittle and condemn our troops.
Need some examples? How about this: vandals painted a red blotch over a "Support Our Troops" sign hanging outside the office of a Michigan congressman this week. Or this: in Portland, Oregon this week, anti-war protesters burned American flags, burned an effigy of a U.S. soldier, and carried a sign that read, "F*ck the troops." It doesn't get any plainer than that.
To do these kinds of things, the protesters show that they are ignorant and/or disdainful of the principles upon which this great nation was built and ignorant of the fact that we're trying to protect those principles around the world.
The more active our foreign enemies become the more active the enemy within becomes.
We should listen. Here is what he had to say in this article:
“America simply cannot continue along this course,” said Gates in written testimony delivered to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which is holding a hearing on “Strengthening American Competitiveness for the 21st Century.” Gates said the U.S. is facing serious problems in delivering a work force that can rise to the global challenge.
“When I reflect on the state of American competitiveness today, my immediate feeling is not only one of pride, but also of deep anxiety,” Gates said in his prepared remarks. “Too often, we as a society are sacrificing the long-term good of our country in the interests of short-term gain.”
Gates said in too many areas, the U.S. is “content to live off the investments that previous generations made for us — in education, in health care, in basic scientific research — but [is] unwilling to invest equal energy and resources into building on this legacy to ensure that America’s future is as bright and prosperous as its present.”
I used to fear that the danger of Hillary was that she was quite different from her husband--where Bill was a political chameleon, Hillary was a driven liberal ideologue. Now I realize that's not the case at all. Hillary's no different than Bill... Well she's probably not as smart.
Whether she's always been this way or her time in the Senate has changed her is no matter. The woman cannot give a straight answer to any substantive question posed to her.
John McCain often suffers from this syndrome too, in case you were wondering.
So we made the move to Daylight Savings Time two weeks earlier this year and we'll be falling back two weeks later. As a Hoosier who has only been on DST for about a year, this is a bit distressing ;-)
But in all seriousness, the energy savings originally thought to correlate with DST seems to have been exaggerated. In fact, according to this real world study from Australia, DST creates no energy savings at all.
Without any energy savings, why go on DST? Further, we now only have about 3 months out of the year when we aren't on DST. Why are we going through the trouble of switching our clocks twice a year? Why not just go on DST the entire year--thus actually going on Standard time and just shifting timezones eastward?
Finally, have any of these so-called conservatives who support DST even thought of the free market? The economic marketplace includes goods and labor, and labor exerts a natural force as to when each company's hours should be. Adam Smith would be rolling in his grave to see DST.
- The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has overturned the district's gun ban on 2nd Amendment grounds! The Court said that 2nd Amendment protections "...are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued intermittent enrollment in the militia." The Supreme Court has not heard a 2nd Amendment case in 70 years. Could this be the one?
- Servicemembers are challenging the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy forbidding gays in the military. The challenge was dismissed as a matter of law at the district court level and has been appealed to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. This is the first such challenge after the Supreme Court's landmark Lawrence v. Texas decision.
I'm reluctant to mention her at all, but silence on the matter of her use of an anti-gay slur at CPAC a couple weeks ago would be misleading on my part.
What bothers me even more than her use of the slur is the reaction that it got: loud applause. Thankfully, Giuliani, Romney, and McCain all condemned the remark. But then again Sean Hannity and other lock-steps defended the comment as a joke.
Joke or not, it was terribly wrong. Andrew Sullivan persuasively explains the distinctions in this post. This is a matter of intent, and her joke was intended to demean two groups at once.
Ok, I have a backlog of posts, so if any of the matters in these first few posts seem stale, my apologies...
First up: Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family is doing his best to keep his evangelical brethren in line--his line, of course. Rich Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals pointed out that he thinks Christians should be concerned for the environment and act as stewards of God's creation.
How did Dobson respond? He attacked Cizik, saying that Cizik was distracting people from the great moral issues of our time: "...the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."
As if Christians must only focus on 3 issues rather than totality of the human condition! Dobson is a political hack. The sooner honest Christians realize that the better. The problem is that Dobson doesn't even realize it.
Justice Ginsburg visited my law school this week, giving one speech last night and two more informal sessions today. I went to the talk this morning. I didn't take notes, but here are the biggest take-away points:
First, Justice Ginsburg seemed to be moving pretty slowly. I realize she is advanced in years, but this echoes an article I read just last week that said she was moving more slowly than usual. That said, she was eloquent and quite engaging. I welcomed the opportunity to see the human side of the Justice.
Second, I asked her why she thought the court's caseload had decreased the last two terms and she said that she sees this as a blip and that she expects the caseload to increase to normal levels by next term.
Third, in an extended answer regarding her opinion in the Lawrence v. Texas case, she quickly mentioned the Full Faith & Credit clause and its application to the Defense of Marriage Act which allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages registered in other states. You may recall from an earlier post that I asked Justice Thomas a few years ago about this exact matter. While Justice Thomas evaded the question somewhat, Justice Ginsburg directly stated that she felt that the DOMA directly excuses states from granting credit under the FF&C clause. This puts this legal question to bed in my mind. If a liberal justice says this, then the court would never have the numbers to rule otherwise.
Fourth, when asked about her thoughts on international law and its role in American jurisprudence, she analogized the weight she gives international legal opinions to that she would give to a respective law review article here in the states.
Finally, when asked about the Lawrence opinion and the evolution of the definition of marriage, someone presented the slippery slope argument to her: what about equality for polygamists, etc.? She almost cavalierly dismissed this argument but gave no indication that she has drawn a logical line to to address such issues in the future. She said that the Lawrence decision occurred under the "equality principle," even though in her own opinion in that case, she cited substantive due process not the equal protection clause in ruling that all cases of sodomy could not be made illegal. It was Justice O'Connor's concurrence that argued from an equal protection perspective.
He has not officially said so, but his actions blatantly say that he plans to run President. The latest is that he gave an interview to Dr. James Dobson, head of the evangelical-political group Focus on the Family. In the interview Gingrich admitted that he had an extramarital affair while he was Speaker of the House and pushing the impeachment of President Clinton.
Politics is largely a game of opportunity, and this election's opportunity is staring Newt right in the face: no strong conservatives have presented themselves as candidates for the Republican primaries. Newt is largely viewed as a staunch conservative, but he knows he needs to face his past marital problems head-on if he is to gain the support of the evangelical right. Thus this interview confirms his candidacy in my mind.
Now I know I said that I had placed a moratorium over myself in regards to discussion of the 2008 presidential election, but Newt's candidacy seems disruptive enough to deserve mention.
Attaching riders to spending bills was a practice I criticized of the Republican-controlled Congress last term. Now it seems the Democrats are more than willing to use the same tactic.
This is one of the most pathetic riders I've ever seen:
Lawmakers are pushing to add billions of dollars to the administration's war-funding request to meet a host of unrelated demands, including those from California fruit farmers hit by freezing temperatures, ranchers whose livestock were killed in Colorado blizzards and children poised to lose their health insurance.
The potential add-ons threaten a battle in the coming weeks with the White House. Bush has never vetoed a spending measure, and Democrats, betting he won't veto one paying for the war, see a way to aid a number of constituencies seeking federal aid.
Has it not occurred to the Democrats that playing politics with troop funding is not a mature and responsible way to legislate?
If they want to stop this war, they need to be doing it in a straightforward manner, not through back-handed hurdles like this.
Start by dismantling the teachers' unions says Steve Jobs. Yeah, Steve is not a politician or educator, but maybe an outsider's voice is exactly what we should be considering.
The problems are 2-fold. First, we need more competition between American schools. The level of education in U.S. colleges is widely viewed as some of the best in the world. But why have our high schools and elementary schools suffered? Poorly-performing schools are allowed to keep on chugging despite their poor performance.
Secondly, because of extensive unionization, many bad teachers cannot be fired absent an extremely lengthy and detailed process. Consequently, many bad teachers keep on teaching, or at least are isolated somewhat but still receive their tax-payer funded salaries.
Unfortunately reform is difficult to achieve. Most Democrats are too blind (or more accurately: blinded by the power of the teachers' unions) to realize the problem with education. All they see is a need for more money, even though America spends more money per child than almost any other nation already. Republicans, on the other hand, are too wimpy to push any real conservative position anymore.
Apologies for the relative lull in posting over the last 5 days. I've been semi-responsible in law school lately and that is the reason for the paucity of posts ;-) Another reason--one that may slow me down for a few more days--is that I have the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam on Saturday. The MPRE is a fancy name for the lawyer's ethics exam. It's not rocket science, but there are enough nuances to demand some study.
Okay, there is a critical matter floating around out there, that I have yet to really address. I cannot shirk my duties any further... I'm speaking of course of the phenomenon known simply as... Sanjaya.
But is Sanjaya's singing so bad that it deserves this sort of attention--that a girl on myspace is doing a hunger strike in protest!? I'd say no, it's definitely not. I voted for Chris Sligh the couple times that I cared enough to vote, because I thought he had the strongest vocals, but I don't think Sanjaya was the worst in the top 8 or 10 guys. Also, I think his last 2 songs have been his strongest in the competition.
