Friday, June 22, 2007
Peace activists say the same thing. The President said this while issuing
his second-annual summer-solstice-veto of legislation to lift his ban on
embryonic stem cell research. He said that the United States is "founded
on the principle that all human life is sacred" – unless you're in Iraq,
where 80 American lives have been sacrificed so far this month. I
couldn't find such a principle in the Constitution; instead I found the
First Amendment. By imposing his bizarre religious belief that embryonic
stem cells are people on the rest of us, the President has violated the
constitutional rights of every living, breathing American.
Before you applaud, it faces a veto, and there are not enough votes for an
override. The ban is a key element of Bush foreign policy, though why the
U.S. opposes birth control in other countries is beyond comprehension.
Uncontrolled population growth will, in time, overtake every advance in
human condition.
With Detroit howling, the Senate yesterday passed the first substantial
increase in fuel mileage requirements in more than two decades. It would
raise the combined average mileage of cars and light trucks from 25 mpg to
35 mpg. If we already had that kind of mileage we wouldn't need oil from
the Middle East.
In its present form, the appropriations bill eliminates RRW funding and
calls for development of a nuclear weapons strategy before any new
warheads can be considered. Thomas D'Agostino, the White House choice to
head the National Nuclear Security Administration, admits there are no
known problems with the W-76 or other warheads in the stockpile, but
something might come up so we should develop the RRW. But there might be
an unexpected problem with the RRW, so we should develop the More Reliable
Replacement Warhead, MRRW, and then the Even More Reli...
The bestowing of a knighthood on the novelist led to a second fatwa
against him. An apostate Muslim, his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, was
called blasphemous, earning him a death sentence from Ayatollah Khomeini.
It forced Rushdie to live in hiding for nine years. To be apostate is
unforgivable to Muslims. Only religion can inspire such irrational
hatred.
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