Strict Constitutional Constructs

I have been thinking about Republicans and their belief that Judges who uphold a strict constitutional interpretation of the law is their Ideal. In truth, this would be the antithesis of the current Republican or rather Neo-Con perspective. Their current belief that ‘Activist’ Judges are the cause of all social Ills in the U.S. are misplaced. Mostly due to the sad truth that most Congressmen and Senators, not to mention the current President, Vice-President and most of their staff’s have never read the constitution, or the Bill-of-Rights.

If the current nominee to the Supreme court, Samuel Alito, was telling the truth. That he is of a strict constitutional mindset, the first thing to be struck down, wouldn’t be Roe-vs-Wade, but the Patriot-Act, Illegal Wiretaps, and any other attack on the foundations of the Separation of Church and State, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of assembly and Due Process.

This can be illustrated by the results of the Dover case and the ruling made by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III. Judge Jones is a Strict Constructionist, and the reading of his ruling demonstrates that not only is this not the results of and ‘Activist’ judge, but a truly strict interpretation of U.S. Constitution. And contrary to the current Republican agenda being pushed by the current administration.

So I am really wonders if this is not just another Republican spin on the english language. When the Republicans ask for Strict Constructionist in the courts. Their true meaning is Neo-Con ‘Activists’.

So here’s hoping for a real Strict Constructionist nominee to the Supreme Court. A defeat for the Neo-Con’s and truly Merry Christmas for the rest of us.

There were these two fishing buddies…

And every year they would fish together and catch each other up on events.
One was a Catholic Priest and the other was a Jewish Rabbi.

One year the Priest tells his buddy the Rabbi;

“There was a young fellow from my parish who just became a Priest.”

And the Rabbi replied;

“Sure, sure, that’s nice. No big deal.”

Years later the Priest is telling his fishing partner;

“You know that young priest from my parish, well, you know he just became a Bishop.”

And the Rabbi replied;

“Sure, sure, that’s nice. No big deal.”

Several years later and the Priest continues;

“You know that Priest from my parish that became the Bishop? Well now he’s become a Cardinal. Can you believe that?”

And the Rabbi replied again;

“Sure, sure, that’s nice. No big deal.”

Many years later and the Priest begins again;

“You know that Priest from my parish who became a Bishop, then became a Cardinal. He’s now the Pope, isn’t that fantastic?”

And the Rabbi replied again;

“Sure, sure, that’s nice. No big deal.”

At this point the priest can make no more, and explodes;

“Why do say that this, is it not a grand thing, this priest went from being a priest in my village to being the Pope, leader of the Christian faith. And you tell me this is not a big deal. What do you want him to be, Jesus Christ?”

And the Rabbi replies;

“Why not? One of our guys made it!”

Merry Christmas to all.

They came for the internet pornography

I read this article today Keeping kids from nasties on the net and remembered the old recant of They came for the Communist (read Pornographers here)

But then the article about politicians in Australia, continues. “…and other inappropriate material …. This vague and broad inclusion can only mean, well just about everything that they don’t like. The word is Censorship.

This is again going back to the what the right wing of every country is trying to push. No freedom from the ‘Majority’ view, ‘The righteous view’ . It’s ‘Democracy’ at it’s worst, a right wing republican ‘Taliban’ point of view.

If you can’t control the message, control the messenger.

And this leads back to articles I have posted here before, when ICANN halted the ‘xxx’ domain, this would have made filtration of the porn domains easy. But if it was made this easy, it would mean that more sophisticated filters would NOT have to filter all the content on the internet, only the ‘xxx’ domains. If it were that easy, you would not have the ability to block “…other inappropriate material … as deemed by the right wing conservative morally correct politicians.

Read more about internet filters here

ID and a weak God

I am constantly amazed at the so called Intelligent Design (ID) arguments and all the religious organizations trying to get ID introduced into Science classes as an alternative theory.

I don’t even think that they realize that doing so, shows how weak and human their god is. That ID represents god’s so called OmniPresent, OmniPotent powers in the same vein as a satellite orbit that has to be corrected from time to time.

ID isn’t an assault on Science, it an assault on religion. If you weaken God to the point that you can attribute human behavior to him/her/it then you can make such a god mean anything, represent anything, do anything without reason, or motivation. That kind of god can me corrupted in just the same way as any politician. And that is very easy. It justifies every corruption we see in politics today. God did it, or God told me to do it! It’s Gods way.

If you assume that there is such an OmniPotent God, then there is no reason to believe that everything that is observed in science, by the reasoning that God has granted us, is not as Darwin has predicted. Evolution is as close to fact as we weak humans can determine at this time. We have no other observable ‘facts’ available that can refine this more, yet! That is science, discover more, find more, refine more. Our satellites need constant correction, because is don’t know every thing yet. But we get better at it, every time we work at it. Every time we refine our theories of, well anything we theorize about. Science is probing, and seeking, without prejudice.

And ID is prejudice, and any religion that supports ID is expecting science to be prejudiced in just that same way. Always leaning in one direction, always needing course corrections. Always wrong.

Internet Censorship

It has come to me just now why the U.S. has tried to block the adoption of the ‘.xxx’ domain. It came to me when reading this article on the BBC Internet child porn block calls.

If there is the xxx domain, and the porn sites moved to this domain. Parental blocking of these sites would be easy.

And hence the real reason. Content could be blocked by domain address, rather than via filtering content. Utilizing filtering, any kind of censorship can me undertaken. You could block anything that is deemed ‘Obscene’. And that is a very soft definition. Any religious, or political subject could be considered obscene, and therefore block-able.

Child porn is only the trojan horse to begin this paradigm shift in thinking.

Now I’m sure this is not a surprise to some, but I just had to state this out-loud.

Interesting how the spellchecker brought up BlackBall along with Block-able. The new McCarthyism?

More meaning from the homeland.

The ongoing discussion of politics I’ve been having with my brother in Kansas has lead to a disturbing rebuke, I’ll quote:

I have only one real question for this guy……What personal freedoms does he not have today, that he had 20 years ago. Has his personal income been affected, or has his personal life been affected in anyway. He quite apparently is not a very good father, and husband, if he has this much time on his hands to spew stuff all over the internet. He ought to spend some time with his family, and enjoy the freedom that he has, because of the actions of the American Government, past and present.

How have you personally been affected by Bush,……did he shit in your coffee one day or something…..He has not affected you personally in any way. And in a few years he will be gone, and if a Republican is elected, then you will have someone else to blame for your problems.

Nothing has changed around her for me ….I am making more money, my wife is making more money than me, now. Gas has gone up, but that is probably for the good. Maybe everyone will be more aware of what they drive. The cost of housing is about the same. Stocks are a little unsettled, but that is the trend, just before they become bullish again.

The air is still clean, and the so called global warming hoax is over. Life is what you make of it……Unless your thing is being totally negative, and running around thinking that the sky is falling. And like many people, blaming other people for your problems, because after all, it couldn’t be my fault. WHO ME, I CAN’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY ACTIONS. That would intrude on my civil liberties. BULL SHIT.

This is disturbing on so many levels I can not count them all. It’s a complete head-in-sand (hate that phrase) attitude. And I only hope that the ‘global warming hoax’ jab, was only a joke. But it’s a frightful thing to see anyone shirk their civic duties, especially your own brother. But I guess this is what a lot of folks are doing, Foxhole Politics: Keep your head down, and hope that you don’t get your head blown off, wait for events to pass.

Very sad.

ID and the “Miracle Occurs” Funny

With regards to the current ID or Intelligent Design arguments, I have often remembered this funny graphic.

And it completely represents why ID should not be allowed to pass as Science, because it’s not. And politicians who promote this are only demonstrating their own ignorance, or they are counting on some bogus religious support for the next election. Think about it, becoming the leader of people of such ignorance. What a high goal politicians are striving for these days.

Another Cloudy day

Do you ever get a feeling of impending doom?

Maybe it’s just another gloomy day, and not Rita.

But there may be more at work than the weather. Change is in the wind. And I’m not speaking about the weather. Even if there is Global Warming. Or that the Politics are heating up. Or war, or maybe it’s just a combination of these things. Somethings not right with the world today.

More later….

Maybe I need another Coffee.

Republican Politics, The ‘Sin’ of Greed.

There is an artical about the Music Companies getting Greedy and it brings up thoughts about other forms of Republican Greed And it all makes sense, “Greed is good!” Greed is the new Republican version of the American Way!

The Republicans are now trying to cover their ass over Katrina, by making it nearly impossible to dislodge them from Congress.

Republicans are now saying, if you can’t win on the facts buy your way back into Congress. Prevent Freedom of choice.

Impeach Bush and the corrupt Republican party which supports him. Vote for ANY NON Incumbentant running for a Republican seat in Congress.

Update: Looks like another Greedy Senator Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist under investigation. Are there NO honest Republicans?

Update, Again! And another fallen Greedy Politican DeLay Is Indicted

Who’s next? Rove?

Civil War

The current talk about Iraq appears to be civil war, and how to prevent it. In reality you cannot prevent of a Civil war, you can only provide a when it will happen. Every democracy has had to have a Civil war. It is almost a requirement, whenever a passionate desire to control one’s own fate using the tool of government overcomes the ability to argue the points coherently is breached, then civil war will result. The flash point is subject matter. In many of the western democracies the passion is over an Ideal, a principal formed in the popular thoughts of the population. In iraq the subject is religion, a subject swimming in passion. There will be a civil war, can’t be stopped, therefore the goal goal will have to be, when it will be allowed to happen.

The most probable course of action will have to be providing an accommodating framework for all current parties to form a point of intersection. A meeting place where a basic common grown can be formed. In Iraq, this common ground will be a very small place. And it will not look western, in any, way, shape, or function. The attempt to ‘push’ western shaped organizations into a islamic world will not work. Unless a common foundation, comfortable to all participants, can be built, democratic organizations can not be built.

This has been the misguided adventure of the Neo-Cons. Their belief that the western foundations, the western common ground, is the same as an Islamic one, and can be easily overlaid onto a Islamic one. It is misguided, build a foundation, then let the organizations build on solid ground. The Muslin community must be allowed to build it for themselves. In some perceptions, the ‘terrorist’ in Iraq are no different than the Minutemen of the American Revolution. The British at that time called them ‘terrorist’ also.

And NO, it will not look like, nor act like a western democracy. And shouldn’t, It’s their country. Not, the one that the Neo-Cons would have and control. After all, the Neo-cons are only attempting to provide the illusion of democracy, hence the support of the Egyptian ‘Democracy’ which was fundamentally the same one that existed under Hussein in Iraq. The only difference was Hussein did not take direction from the Neo-cons. At least not recently, after all they put him into power in the first place. Put like Mary Shelly’s monster, it got out of control.

It’s about the Oil! and the power that oil provides, Energy, Economic and Political.

Impeach Bush and his Neo-Con masters.

(Funny didn’t he seem like a puppet on a string accepting responsibility during his speech)

Looks like this will be happening sooner than later. Undeclared Civil War In Iraq

Katrina as an Act of God

The additude I hear from most politicians of the religious right is one of Katrina being an Act of God. Something to run from, nothing you can do about. This colors everything they do or think. It’s coming, RUN! not let’s prepare, check food supplies, call out the guard, inspect the dikes. Katrina was already ranked as the largest storm in 30 years. Did no one think about the dikes? The Bush said personally, that no one expected the dikes to break. But his was a storm greater than any before, and no one could think out of the box?

The ‘Act of God’ thing colors everything, from Katrina, to Global Warming, of which Katrina is a result. Global warming is an Act of God, not of man, we can do nothing. Katrina is an Act of God we can do nothing.

Time to change tack, time to change attitude, time to change governments.

ID and Science, Religion and politics

In Ireland, as much as I can see, the Irish are viewing the ID (Intelligent design) arguments with aghast. And I personally am ashamed to have been born and raised in Kansas. Here the question isn’t that God exists, ask any Catholic here, it’s not even a question. Watch a funeral procession, everyone crosses themselves. Their devotion is not subject to questioning.

However, from their perspective, and mine, any argument about ID is not that there was one, but that what science reveals is how complex and how truly Omniscient and omnipresent God is. If someone pointed to a piece of the puzzle and said, I see God putting these two things together, and see, a mousetrap. Their response would be, why have you made God so small, and weak. Or better yet, why do you make yourself as great as God as to assume you can detect his/her/it’s hand.

All these so called christian ID folk are the hight of arrogance as to assume they know all the ways of God, and in the same breath, diminish him at the same time. They make God, human, and therefor subject to their own designs.

As an IT person, more or less a Computer scientist, I can appreciate complexity, but I don’t have to invoke Deus Ex Machina to explain the universe around me. I marvel at it, and I seek to understand it in all of it’s complexity.

This scares me that the President of the United States is of this ID belief. If he thinks that Deus Ex Machina will get him out of the mess in Iraq, he has another thing coming.