Archive for July, 2007
On 25 June, the Supreme Court gave a small victory to the First Amendment. In FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, the justices struck down one of the unconstitutional applications of the McCain-Feingold “Campaign Finance Reform Act.”
This a only a victory against one small outrage of McCain-Feingold, and depressingly this decision came down with only a 5-4 margin. However, this is at least one positive move towards restoring the strength of the First Amendment.
This decision should never have been necessary in the first place, as the Congress should never have passed such an abominable piece of legislation in the first place — and the President should never have signed it.
I am reminded of the words of the late great Barry Goldwater, who said “I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible.”
If our current generation of politicians evinced the same moral courage as Barry Goldwater, our great nation would be served by the kind of government which it deserves.
The Capital Times recently published a very understated article titled Is Warming Our Fault? in whichUW-Madison professor emeritus Reid Bryon, known as the father of scientific climatology, expressed his controversial thoughts on the scientific validity of currently “popular” theories on global warming.
There is no question the Earth has been warming; it is coming out of the “Little Ice Age.” However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide.
We’ve been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It’s been warming up for a long time. The Little Ice Age was driven by volcanic activity. That settled down, so it is getting warmer.
Humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny. It’s like there is an elephant charging in and you worry about the fact that there is a fly sitting on its head. It’s just a total misplacement of emphasis. It really isn’t science because there’s no really good scientific evidence.
Professor Bryson was the founding chairman of the Institute for Environmental Studies, now known as the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. What does Professor Bryson say about the “scientists” pushing the current global warming scare?
There is a lot of money to be made in this. If you want to be an eminent scientist you have to have a lot of grad students and a lot of grants. You can’t get grants unless you say, ‘Oh global warming, yes, yes, carbon dioxide … ” There is very little truth to what is being said and an awful lot of religion. It’s almost a religion. Where you have to believe in anthropogenic (or man-made) global warming or else you are nuts.
Bryson reserved his harshest criticism for Al Gore’s recent eco-farce, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Don’t make me throw up. It is not science. It is not true.
You can’t get much more clear than that.
Stupid immigration stories like this one are showing up in the news with amazing regularity. This one, Michigan Family Looks to Congress to Fight Deportation Order After Being in U.S. For 18 Years, is about a family who came to the U.S. to flee from Communist aggression in Laos. While in Laos, the family were our allies. Now, the U.S. government is turning their back on their old allies.
The Vang family has been in the U.S., legally, working with the incompetent bureaucrats in the federal government, trying to become legal citizens — for eighteen years. During that time, they have raised a family, started a successful business, and been upstanding members of the community. These folks epitomize the American dream. They should be on a recruiting poster for America, not in a bureaucratic courtroom being threatened with deportation.
The Vangs are exactly the type of immigrants this county needs to attract in order for America to remain the greatest country on Earth. We need to get our bureaucratic government regulations more in line with our traditional American values.
It’s probably too late for the Vangs. Their family is about to be torn apart by a bunch of mindless bureacrats following the letter of their senseless regulations while completely failing to grasp the spirit that is America.
Last Friday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a frivilous lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the NSA for it’s domestic terrorist surveillance program.
Is that a good or a bad thing?
It’s a good thing, because the lawsuit had no legal grounds. The plaintiffs had no grounds to bring the suit, as they were not subjects of NSA surveillance.
It’s a bad thing, because the actions of the NSA probably did violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
It’s a good thing, because this is an issue which should be resolved by the legislative process — not the judicial process.
It’s a bad thing, because the decision was made purely on party grounds. The two Republican judges found for the NSA and the one Democratic judge found for the ACLU.
It’s a good thing, because this decision may make it easier for our government to protect us against terrorist attacks.
It’s a bad thing, because this decision may make it easier for our government to invade our privacy.
Like many political issues, this one is far from black and white. We may never know with any reasonable degree of certainty if this decision had, overall, a positive or negative impact on personal freedom.
Read the entire decision in American Civil Liberties Union et al. v. National Security Agency et al.