Undernews For Feb 24

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Morning Line: God and gay marriage

Sam Smith - I have never understood why the issue of gay marriage has not been treated as one of the separation of church and state. Certainly, the bulk of the arguments against gay marriage are based on religious theory.

If I were a lawyer and asked to take the case, I would argue that any anti-gay marriage law was anti-constitutional discrimination against one bunch of religions and the acceptance of others as the defacto state religion in the matter. As the Constitution puts it: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

For example, here are some the religious that support gay marrigage:

The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, Ecumenical Catholic Church, Church of God Anonymous, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Reconstructionist Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Unitarian Universalist Association

Here are religions that leave it up to clergy, congregations or local governing bodies.

The United Church of Christ and Society of Friends

The Presbyterians allow it if you use the right terminology.

You can not ban gay marriage without restricting the free exercise of these faiths' religion.

Sam Smith, 2006 - Some questions for the Senate:

1. The Ten Commandments outlaw killing and adultery but that doesn't seem to bother your colleagues as much as gay marriage. Why do you think the Ten Commandments are less important to them than gay marriage?

2. Would you accept a compromise in which we outlawed not only gay marriages but support of deadly wars or cheating on your wife? If not, why not?

3. The Ten Commandants say "You can work during the six weekdays and do all your tasks. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God your Lord. Do not do anything that constitutes work. [This includes] you, your son, your daughter, your slave, your maid, your animal, and the foreigner in your gates." You have not yet formalized this into a constitutional amendment and so your maids, slaves, animals and proximate foreigners are running around hog wild on Sundays. Isn't this more dangerous than a few gays getting married and shouldn't you tackle it first?

4. Exodus tells us to kill those who work on Sunday. This seems to conflict with the federal code, not to mention the Ten Commandments. Shouldn't we worry more about the need for increased Seventh Day slaughter than about gay marriage?

5. Since Republicans believe so firmly in the sanctity of marriage, how do you explain the following from the New York Daily News in August 2004: "With thousands of Republicans set to invade the city this summer, high-priced escorts and strippers are preparing for one grand old party. Agencies are flying in extra call girls from around the globe to meet the expected demand during the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 gathering at Madison Square Garden."

6. Explain the moral difference between a Republican politician opposing gay marriage and one participating in gay sex which, according to police and news reports, happens from time to time. Do we need an amendment preserving the sanctity of illicit sex?

7. If this were 1956 instead of 2006, would you have supported a ban on inter-racial marriages, which most states had? How does the current amendment differ in spirit - rather than merely the target - from the one proposed in 1911: "Intermarriage between negroes or persons of color and Caucasians . . . within the United States . . . is forever prohibited."

8. Have you ever had contact with a woman during her period of menstrual uncleanliness, something outlawed by the Bible? Should we have a constitutional amendment to prevent this sort of thing from happening again?

9. How would you deal with the issue raised by Professor Emeritus James Kaufman of the University of Virginia: "Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations." Do you think this biblical right should be also codified in a constitutional amendment? How will this affect our plans for construction of a border wall?

10. Leviticus reminds us of other sins far more prevalent than gay marriage. For example, "These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you. . . ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination." Do we need a constitutional amendment to ban the eating of shrimp, crab, lobster, clams & mussels?

11. Homosexuality has been found by scientists in 450 other species. Isn't it a bit late to be trying to suppress it in ours?

12. If gay marriages produce some gay children, why do heterosexual marriages do the same?

13. Since we're going back to first principles, would you mind adding a section that makes wives the husband's property?

14. Which of these other steps - all Biblically endorsed - should be taken to preserve the sanctity of marriage: allowing men to take on concubines in addition to their wives, stoning to death any new wife found not to be a virgin, requiring women to marry the man who raped them, banning interfaith marriages, and banning divorce?

15. Given the foregoing, is it fair to describe those pushing the marriage amendment as heretical, hypocritical and blasphemous Christians? History shows that such people are far more dangerous, on average, than gays. Shouldn't we do something about them before we worry about those gay weddings?
US Army wants rubber bullets to fire at citizen protesters
New Scientist - The US army is planning to field "rubber bullets" for machine guns. Military officials claim the ammunition will allow them to more effectively quell violent protests without loss of life, but human rights campaigners are alarmed by the new weapon.

. . Firing rapidly at long range is likely to be dangerously inaccurate, says Angela Wright of Amnesty International. "Such a weapon system would allow for a burst of non-accurate fire at a crowd, with high risk of hitting bystanders, ricochets and of hitting vulnerable areas of the body," she says.
Labor update

Gov.’s Real Goal Is Gutting Political Strength of Middle Class

Public Opposes Taking Away Freedom to Bargain

A reader notes: On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here is article #23:

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Use of the phrase 'labor union' in books 1800 to the present. It peaked around 1940.
One Wisconsin Now, October 2010 - Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has violated the state of Wisconsin's campaign finance laws 1,115 times since 2009 by failing to disclose information about contributors who donated more than $100. Walker's serial offenses include 456 contributions filed in the last 72 hours totaling nearly $284,000. The total contributions in violation of Wisconsin statute 11.60(1) total $518,096.

Matt Amaral, Teach4Real - Remember how this whole catastrophe began? Didn’t it have something to do with banks, and lenders, and mortgages, and deregulation? My memory isn’t what it once was, but I don’t remember George W. Bush looking into the camera begging the taxpayers to bail-out unions. I could have sworn we average Americans paid hundreds of billions of dollars out of our thin pockets because one big sector of the working world was falling apart. I just don’t remember that money going to help unions, do you? I could have sworn it went to companies who turned around and gave out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses (who needs a pension when your bonus for being bad at your job is a million bucks?). I also don’t remember asking those responsible to pay more taxes, or pay more into social security, or stop giving out bonuses worth more than a school of teachers will make in all their careers combined, or do much of anything

. . These last couple days have been hard for me to take as a teacher. Teachers have mobilized, but even more amazing to see were the other middle-class Americans being bussed in to mobilize against the teachers. While these outraged Americans never marched against those who caused our pains, I have watched in denial as actual American citizens marched against other American citizens. And it isn’t even because the teachers won’t agree to reform or regulate the way they do things. They’ve already agreed to everything. No, they are marching against middle-class American citizens simply to take away their right to have a voice.

. . Teachers aren’t asking for respect. Teachers aren’t even asking for higher wages or better health insurance. Teachers just agreed to help the rest of their state by taking home less. They have agreed to less money for their families. What they are asking for is simple: A voice.

Chris Kromm, Facing South - In 1959, the state of Wisconsin, a hotbed of labor activism and progressive politics, became the first state in the nation to give public workers the right to bargain collectively.

That same year, 1,000 miles away in North Carolina, state lawmakers -- stoked by Cold War anti-unionism and Jim Crow-era fears of interracial cooperation -- took a step in the opposite direction, passing one of a few laws in the nation that still ban public employees from having bargaining rights.

. . This week, 100 labor, faith and civil rights leaders rallied at the North Carolina legislature, using the events in Wisconsin to make the case for why public workers need more clout. As Angaza Laughinghouse of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Local 150, which represents public employees, said: "This is a major economic crisis. This is also a time when they're chiseling away at our pensions, our health plans, basic health and safety rights, privatizing jobs. We know this is the best time to be raising this question of why North Carolina is denying public sector workers the right to collectively bargain.

When asked about the events in Wisconsin, one North Carolina state employee said, "Welcome to our world!"

Wisconsin Kochsuckers send state troopers to find Democratic legislatiors

Republican lawmakers in Indiana yesterday withdrew a “right to work” for less bill that drew thousands of Indiana workers to the Capitol in protest this week. Indiana’s Democratic lawmakers boycotted state Senate proceedings to prevent a vote on the anti-worker bill. Workers at the Capitol are now protesting other anti-worker bills.
Boycott Wisconsin?
Progressive Review - One of the most effective activist tools - yet least used these days - is the boycott. Especially in an increasingly repressive country, not buying something is one of the few freedoms that is hard to suppress.

While there has been some talk of a Wisconsin boycott, it hasn't gotten as much attention as standard protests and deserves far more consideration.

Consider this from the state's tourism federation:

"Studies show that tourism is a $12 billion a year industry in Wisconsin, creating nearly 300,000 full-time jobs and generating $2 billion dollars in annual tax revenue. . . If Wisconsin is looking for a growth industry, tourism is it."

Hitting Wisconsin's nationally known brands would be a harder matter. For example, a seemingly obvious target - Miller Beer - is UAW territory. So is Wigwam socks. There are, however, a number of businesses under the aegis of the notorious Koch brothers such as

Quilted Northern
Angel Soft
Brawny
Soft 'n Gentle
Mardi Gras
Vanity Fair
Dixie

A boycott against tourism to Wisconsin as well as the easy to spot and easy to replace Brawny products could be a starter. Add Wisconsin cheeses and a few of those companies whose execs and PACs gave Walker $5 thousand or more - like Wal-Mart, Eli Lilly and Burlington Northern Santa Fe and you might have something going.

The effort will have to come from outside the labor unions but anyone can start a boycott and, as the civil rights movement demonstrated, sometime they can be quite successful

Boycott Wisconsin Facebook page
More than 4,400 dams rated unfsafe
Rural Blog - More than 4,400 of the nation's 85,000 dams are susceptible to failure, says the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. However, "repairing all those dams would cost billions of dollars, and it is far from clear who would provide all the money in a recessionary era," Henry Fountain of The New York Times reports.

In Lake Isabella, Calif., the Army Corps of Engineers learned several years ago the man-made dam has a trio of serious issues. . .A catastrophic collapse would result in as much as 180 billion gallons of water, along with mud, boulders, trees and other debris, rushing over the 4,000 residents of Lake Isabella down the Kern River Canyon and into Bakersfield, which has about 34,000 people and is 40 miles southwest of Lake Isabella. "The potential is for a 21st-century version of the Johnstown Flood, a calamitous dam failure that killed more than 2,200 people in western Pennsylvania in 1889," Fountain writes. "But corps and local government officials say that the odds of such a disaster are extremely small, and that they have taken interim steps to reduce the risk, like preparing evacuation plans and limiting how much water can be stored behind the dam to less than two-thirds of the maximum."
Affidavits Say Fox News Chief Told Employee to Lie
NY Times - After the publishing powerhouse Judith Regan was fired by Harper Collins in 2006, she claimed that a senior executive at its parent company, News Corporation, had encouraged her to lie to federal investigators two years before. The investigators had been vetting Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who had been nominated to become secretary of Homeland Security and who had had an affair with Ms. Regan.

The goal of the News Corporation executive, according to Ms. Regan, was to keep the affair quiet and protect the then-nascent presidential aspirations of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor and supporter. But Ms. Regan never revealed the identity of the executive, even as her allegation made headlines and she brought a wrongful termination suit against HarperCollins and News Corporation. But now, affidavits filed in a separate lawsuit reveal the identity of the previously unnamed executive: Roger E. Ailes, chairman of Fox News. What is more, the documents say that Ms. Regan taped the telephone call from Mr. Ailes in which Mr. Ailes discusses her relationship with Mr. Kerik.
Mid East update
CNN - In the first indication the crisis with Libya could take on a military dimension, the Pentagon is looking at "all options" it can offer President Barack Obama in dealing with the Libyan crisis a senior U.S. military official tells CNN. The official declined to be identified because of the extremely sensitive nature of the situation but he has direct knowledge of the current military planning effort.

Libyan Capital Deserted; Opposition Seizes Major City

Libya's interior minister resigns to join the opposition

Bahrain King Orders Release of Political Prisoners

20% of Bahrain's Population Out in Protests
Politico - Several consulting, law and lobbying firms have moved in to advise the Libyan government and energy interests since U.S. sanctions were lifted on Libya in 2004, some of which have since canceled their contracts, according to Justice Department records. . . One of the more unlikely figures to have advised a firm which has worked to burnish Libya's image and grow its economy is not registered with the Justice Department. Prominent neoconservative Richard Perle, the former Reagan-era Defense Department official and George W. Bush-era chairman of the Defense Policy Board, traveled to Libya twice in 2006 to meet with Qadhafi, and afterward briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on his visits, according to documents released by a Libyan opposition group in 2009. Perle traveled to Libya as a paid adviser to the Monitor Group, a prestigious Boston-based consulting firm with close ties to leading professors at the Harvard Business School. The firm named Perle a senior adviser in 2006.
Army use psy ops on US officials visiting Afghanistan
MSNBC - The U.S. army reportedly deployed a specialized "psychological operations" team to help convince American legislators to boost funding and troop numbers for the war in Afghanistan.

Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops, ordered the operation, Rolling Stone Magazine reported in a story published late on Wednesday.

An officer in charge of the unit objected when he was ordered to pressure the visiting senators and was harshly reprimanded by superiors, according to the magazine.

"My job in psyops is to play with people's heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," the officer, Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, told Rolling Stone. "I'm prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you're crossing a line," he added.
Washngton Post takes ciruclation hit
DCRTV - The Post's daily circulation fell 7.5 percent in 2010, averaging 550,900 newspapers a day, with Sunday circulation down 8.2 percent. While print advertising revenue fell 12 percent during the year. The WaPoCo's TV station division was a bright spot for the DC-based company, reporting a revenue spike from 2010's political advertising. But the company's usually buoyant Kaplan education division suffered from declining enrollment due to its questionable marketing tactics. . . .
Better stop quoting Reagan, Walker
By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights - the right to belong to a free trade union. - Ronald Reagan, 1982
Where police abuse people the most

A blog on police injustice
After fiddling, Internet kill bill still bad
CNET - A Senate proposal that has become known as the Internet "kill switch" bill was reintroduced this week, with a tweak its backers say eliminates the possibility of an Egypt-style disconnection happening in the United States. As CNET reported last month, the 221-page bill hands Homeland Security the power to issue decrees to certain privately owned computer systems after the president declares a "national cyber emergency." A section in the new bill notes that does not include "the authority to shut down the Internet," and the name of the bill has been changed to include the phrase "Internet freedom."

"The emergency measures in our bill apply in a precise and targeted way only to our most critical infrastructure," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said yesterday about the legislation she is sponsoring with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn). "We cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before our government finally realizes the importance of protecting our digital resources." But the revised wording continues to alarm civil liberties groups and other critics of the bill, who say the language would allow the government to shut down portions of the Internet or restrict access to certain Web sites or types of content. Even former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak didn't actually "shut down" the Internet: at least at first, a trickle of connections continued.

"It still gives the president incredible authority to interfere with Internet communications," ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson said today. If the Department of Homeland Security wants to pull the plug on Web sites or networks, she said, "the government needs to go to court and get a court order."
Local Heroes: Restaurant refuses to serve TSA agents
Mediate - A restaurant in the Seattle area is fighting back by refusing to serve people who work for the TSA. Interesting idea but I think, if they really want to get them, they should just only serve them three ounces of their drink order.

KC McLawson, a woman who works for the restaurant, explained the policy to consumer advocate Christopher Elliott: “My boss flies quite a bit and he has an amazing ability to remember faces. If he sees a TSA agent come in we turn our backs and completely ignore them, and tell them to leave.

"A large majority of our customers ¬ over 90 percent ¬ agree with our stance and stand by our decision.

"We even have the police on our side and they have helped us escort TSA agents out of our cafe. Until TSA agents start treating us with the respect and dignity that we deserve, then things will change for them in the private sector.”
Supreme Court rules pharmas can poison your kids and you can't sue them
Washington Post - Federal law protects pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits by parents who claim that vaccines harmed their children, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The court ruled 6 to 2 that going before a special tribunal set up by Congress is the only way parents can be compensated for the negative side effects that in rare instances accompany vaccinations.

The majority said that Congress found such a system necessary to ensure that vaccines remain readily available, and that federal regulators are in the best position to decide whether vaccines are safe and properly designed.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, saying the threat of lawsuits provides an incentive for vaccine manufacturers to constantly monitor and improve their products.

The decision "leaves a regulatory vacuum in which no one - neither the FDA nor any other federal agency, nor state and federal juries - ensures that vaccine manufacturers adequately take account of scientific and technological advancements," Sotomayor wrote.
NY cops broke Constitution over a half million times last year
NY Police did some 600,000 unconstitutional frisk and stops last year, a record. The stops overwhelmingly are aimed at minorities.
U.S. and Canada agree to share military against civil unrest
Canada.com - Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal. Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.

The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.

The new agreement has been greeted with suspicion by the left wing in Canada and the right wing in the U.S.

“Co-operative militaries on Home Soil!” notes one website. “The next time your town has a ‘national emergency,’ don’t be surprised if Canadian soldiers respond. And remember ¬ Canadian military aren’t bound by posse comitatus.”
Morning Line: Mock trial arguments in a real world
Sam Smith

Now that another judge has upheld the individual mandate clause of Obamacare - making it three in favor and two against - it would be hard for the Supreme Court to ignore the matter.

You will read a lot about this in the coming months, but there are a several things that probably won't be so clear:

- The mandate provision has already badly hurt the overall politics of the Democratic Party, the liberal cause and the effort for real universal healthcare, i.e. single payer. The popular resentment against the provision makes it one of the dumbest pieces of legislation passed buy Democrats in modern times.

- This is especially true since it has absolutely no morally arguable basis. The reason for the provision is - as even some Democrats have admitted - to give the private insurance companies enough of a guaranteed money flow so they wouldn't fight the whole bill. It is, in fact, one of the greatest non-military corporate earmarks in history.

- Its justification requires a dangerous and unsupportable twisting of the Constitution's commerce clause to suit the needs of the healthcare industry and the politicians they pay for. If it is approved by the Supreme Court, the number of things that the federal government can order you to do that have nothing to do with interstate commerce will explode.

The legal arguments for the mandate are a classic example of lawyers' distorted intellectual manipulation parading as moral logic. No one has previously thought the commerce clause gave the federal government the right to order someone to buy something, especially people who mostly weren't buying it because they couldn't afford it.

The early cases of the commerce clause included such obvious issues as the federal government's clear role in interstate waterways. But as late as fifty years ago, that same government's new boating safety act was crafted so as not to unduly infringe on states' options. In other words, on a matter of right that was infinitely clearer than the present case, the government acted with infinitely more responsibility.

Later, the commerce clause would be used by the New Deal and the civil rights movement to allow an equality of interstate commerce by American citizens, whether through a common minimum wage or the right to share a train station restroom with those of another color. An expansion of interpretation but a reasonable one.

The current twisting of the commerce clause is nothing of the sort and the sad thing is that, when the Obamites are all through with their arguments, they will lose no matter what happens at the Supreme Court because even they win the case, they will have angered a lot of people whose votes they need. They will have won the mock trial and lost some more elections.
Great moments in research
Improbable Research - Does the phase of the moon affect the Gross Domestic Product of a country? One of the few to have formally pursued this question is Dr. Stephen Keef, Teaching Fellow at the School of Economics and Finance of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His latest paper Are investors moonstruck? Further international evidence on lunar phases and stock returns (published in the Journal of Empirical Finance Volume 18, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 56-63) investigates the influences of the new moon and the full moon on the daily returns of 62 international stock indices for the period 1988 to 2008. After accounting for the so-called Monday Effect, the Turn-of-the-Month Effect and the Prior Day Effect it was determined that :

“The overall enhanced new moon effect is independent of GDP. An overall full moon effect is absent.”

Dr. Keef has also performed : A meta-analysis of the international evidence of cloud cover on stock returns
How to split the rent

Maine governor dismisses BPA danger as maybe giving women "little beards"
Bangor Daily News - The political debate over bisphenol A is heating up in Maine after Gov. Paul LePage’s recent comments questioning whether the controversial chemical is as dangerous as many scientists claim. In his comments last week, LePage said he has yet to see enough science to support a ban on BPA, a common additive to plastics that some research suggests may interfere with hormone levels and could cause long-term problems. LePage said until scientists can prove BPA is harmful, the state should not rush to restrict its use.

“Quite frankly, the science that I’m looking at says there is no [problem],” LePage said. “There hasn’t been any science that identifies that there is a problem.”

LePage then added: “The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.”

That last comment prompted a strong reaction from Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, a Maine-based advocacy group. “It displays shocking ignorance for the science and a callous disregard for children’s health,” Belliveau said. Other researchers bristled at the governor’s dismissal of what they insist are volumes of scientific studies indicating that BPA could pose serious risks to fetuses and developing children.

“BPA is one of the most well-studied chemicals, and it is just ludicrous to ignore the science,” said Susan Shaw, a toxicologist at the Maine Environmental Research Institute who has been studying the effects of toxics on humans and animals for more than three decades. “There is a large body of evidence about the hazards of BPA that is irrefutable.”
Foxes in the chicken coop
NY Post - Another black eye for the SEC: The agency’s top lawyer, David Becker, and his brothers inherited more than $1.5 million from their mother that she had earned in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The trustee overseeing the case, Irving Picard, has demanded Becker return the money. “This is about my parents' investments. I had nothing to do with my parents' investments," Becker tells the New York Post. He is leaving the SEC next week for a private-sector job.
Pay Pal freezes account of Private Manning's supporters
Stats: 37% of Texas is Latino
New Jersey public defender stands up to New Jersey public bully

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