More Brains!

[elfs]

South Carolina tries to find a way to ban Gay/Student Alliances

GSA's are clubs usually found in high schools to promote awareness of gay students and their issues. South Carolina is desperate to figure out how to kill them without banning all clubs from campus.

Americans face a declining standard of living over the next 20 years

If this doesn't scare you, nothing shall. Soaring costs for everything are leading to a bunker mentality for most households, and consumerism is dropping to an all-time low. But the irreversibility of it is the really scary part. Dammit, where's my fusion-powered future? (via solarbird)

What the frack is John McCain on?

I've seen this quote in a thousand different places, so I'm just going discuss the original quote from John McCain:

We're now going to have the courts flooded with so-called "habeas corpus suits" against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that.

Let me be the first to applaud the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling stating that wherever the United States exerts sole authority over people, the rule of US law is intact and not to be overridden by the rule of men.

But what the hell is McCain on? If "the courts are flooded," so the frack what? Isn't it his duty as someone seeking the office of president to see to it that the courts are funded, maintained, and operated in a manner consistent with the constitution? You know, that whole Amendment 6 thing, "Right to a speedy trial, confrontation of witnesses" thing.

So far, McCain has dissed the First Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, and Article I section 8. Can this man really swear to uphold the Constitution?

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I don't follow Cain's legal reasoning. Habeas Corpus is not about food or reading material or any other specific of treatment. What we're violating in *those* respects is the Hague Convention, which shares its initials and which has the status of law in the U.S. what with our congress having ratified it.

All Habeas Corpus does is allows a person who has been imprisoned to to ask a court for a trial. That's all. And the court gets to say either "sure, have a trial" or "nah, go free". It would be difficult to flood the courts with that sort thing, I hope. Unless, that is, the government intends to hold lots more people detained indefinitely without trial. If it does then yeah, the courts might be flooded. As well they should be.

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

Maybe there's a silver lining on the economic side. Since the article describes "a new paradigm of consumerism that some experts believe will live long after this economic crisis is resolved." one might hope that maybe, just maybe, people will wake up and stop spending quite so much on frivolous, useless, disposable crap.

Now i realize that frivolous, useless, disposable crap is a mainstay of our economy, but if even a little of that *very* disposable (in every sense of the word) income got invested elsewhere, it might do some real good. All that's required is to cut out enough crap to get ahead of rising prices. The difficult part isn't doing so, it's *deciding* to do so, and sticking with it. Current trends are just forcing people to face up to this sooner.

If folks are eating more at home instead of going out, it'll probably mean healthier meals, more family interaction, perhaps even fewer medical emergencies in the long run.

It may well be damned ugly short-term, but as a nation, we've got some nasty, nasty consumer habits that need breaking. Like it or not, more folks are waking up to this. I'd been wondering since Katrina came along, and gas prices got as silly as they've been since the 70's oil crisis... just how expensive does gas hafta get before the SUV's start getting retired. Now i know, it's an average of a little over ~$4/gal. I was pretty sure that it wouldn't come until a large latte from starbux cost less than a gallon of regular unleaded, and i was only off by a few pennies.

(My pricepoint of reference is the peppermint mocha i admittedly indulge in, and probably too often)

[qtplatypus.livejournal.com]

Its interesting to compare Obama's response to Habeas Corpus.

"that principle of habeas corpus, that a state can't just hold you for any reason without charging you and without giving you any kind of due process -- that’s the essence of who we are."

[qtplatypus.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the double post but when hunting for the quote above I found this from world net daily.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67192

Every American citizen should be pleased by this, since it
was their constitutional right to habeas corpus that was the
original target of the administration's attempted theft. It's
much better to risk non-citizens receiving fair trials in a
timely manner than risk American citizens being kidnapped
from their homes and disappeared, as if the United States of
America was a South American banana republic circa 1972.
Indeed, the fact that John McCain recently described this
decision as "one of the worst decisions in the history of
this country" is reason enough for the most staunch
Republican to seriously consider voting for the lightweight
socialist mama's boy that is Barack Obama. The Magic Negro
would make for a horrendously bad president, provide the U.S.
economy with a lethal injection of counterproductive economic
policies and get American forces disastrously involved in
African tribal politics, but at least he has shown no signs
of wishing to create an American Gestapo.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Goodness, the first two sentences are... uh... I agree with snot-nosed, Godwin-violating Vox Day? Pigs have flown.

The rest is his typical snot-nosedness, but that's just wrong.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Let me be the first to applaud the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling stating that wherever the United States exerts sole authority over people, the rule of US law is intact and not to be overridden by the rule of men.

Indeed. And let us hang our heads in shame for our conduct in every other war we fought, in which we captured enemy troops and put them in prison camps without any legal challenges. Our shame is only slightly mitigated by the fact that every other country on Earth did, and does, the same or WORSE.

By the way, the long-term effect of this ruling is that attempting to surrender to US forces will become more dangerous. Many would-be prisoners will wind up dead because of this.

[kengr]

Habeus corpus *specifically* doesn't apply to POW camps.
Check a copy of the US Constitution. War and incasion atre specifically listed as times when that right may be suspended.

And your last paragraph shows that you don't understand what's going on at Gitmo (and elsewhere).

The folks held there are *not* people who were fighting US troops and then surrendered or were captured.

They are people who were *seized* by US trops *or intelligence agencies*. Not in combat but essentially because someone said something that made someone decide that they had info or might be a threat.

Rules for folk captured during combat or who surrender on the battlefield are (as I noted above) covered by things like the Geneva Conventions and related accords or are subject to what amount to criminal charges.

The folks this decision covered are not under those rules. They have been detained without charges and with no explanations of why they are being held or no chance to argue that the reasons are bogus.

Gitmo is *not* a POW camp.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Re: Declining standard of living...

Does anyone else remember that line at the beginning of The Road Warrior: "They had built a house of cards"?

This should come as a surprise to noone.