The New Hampshire Formula
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Print
Email
PDF I know some liberals will object, but the inclusion in a same-sex marriage bill of an explicit exception for religious organizations seems to me to be a powerful combination, which both assures civil equality and religious freedom, which seems to be the main fear of those who oppose equality. I notice too that a poll just taken in California comes to the same conclusion:
When asked, 'Do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhatoppose, or strongly oppose allowing same-sex couples to be legally
married,' 47% say favor and 48% say oppose. Support for any given
ballot measure will depend on the specific language of that measure.
For example, results show that support increases if the language
specifically includes a provision that says no clergy will be required
to perform a service that goes against their faith.
I propose that any initiative wording in a future California ballot specifically include a religious exemption. It shows we are serious about religious freedom and a church-state divide.
The New Hampshire Formula
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
The New Hampshire Formula
[Source: Cnn News]
posted by 77767 @ 10:38 PM,
,
A Liberal Defense of Clarence Thomas
PrintEmailPDF Slate's Dahlia Lithwick had a very interesting column this weekend cautioning her fellow liberals against smearing Justice Clarence Thomas as they mount their defense of Judge Sonia Sotomayor:
The temptation to smack back and argue that we deserve to seat Sotomayor because Thomas was a lousy affirmative-action pick who turned into a third-rate justice is hard to resist. But it's flat wrong. Liberals achieve nothing by suggesting that Thomas' elevation to the high court was preposterous on its face or that his tenure there has been a disgrace....
Claims that Thomas is too stupid to ask questions and in constant peril of embarrassing himself at the court are just not that different than claims that Sotomayor is mediocre. Nobody who has followed Thomas' 18-year career at the Supreme Court believes him to be a dunce or a Scalia clone. Whether you accept Jan Crawford Greenburg's claim that Thomas' constitutional theories are so forceful that they have shaped Scalia's or you believe the more common view that Thomas has a deeply reasoned and consistent judicial philosophy that differs dramatically from those of the court's other conservatives, accusations that he's been a dim bulb are just false. They also reveal that the name-calling that originates now, during the confirmation process, engenders a mythology that can never be erased.
It's nice to see Lithwick make this point (even if she has done a little name-calling of her own). Whether you agree with his opinions or not, Thomas has quite obviously proven himself on the Court. Yet the ridiculous idea that he's less capable than his fellow justices still persists, even among people that ought to know better.
A Liberal Defense of Clarence Thomas
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
A Liberal Defense of Clarence Thomas
[Source: Newspaper]
A Liberal Defense of Clarence Thomas
[Source: Palin News]
A Liberal Defense of Clarence Thomas
[Source: Sun News]
posted by 77767 @ 9:14 PM,
,
The other Susan Boyle
PrintEmailPDF The global success of the Britain's Got Talent star has had an unlikely impact on one unassuming Texas artist. Stuart Jeffries hears how
There is, you might think, room in the world for only one Susan Boyle. But you would be wrong. The American artist, Susan K Boyle, was living her quiet, unassuming life in the pretty hill country of Kerrville, Texas, when a friend sent her an email.
"It was a link to Susan Boyle's YouTube performance a few days after her audition," recalls Susan K. "I thought she was wonderful - what a beautiful voice and what a compelling story. But I thought it was just an interesting coincidence, nothing more."
Except that back in 2002, Susan K Boyle had set up a website, susanboyle.com, to display her artworks. That site had been rusting in cyberspace for a couple of years - until the Britain's Got Talent finalist sudenly came to the global consciousness last month, and something rather strange happened. "A journalist called me and said, 'Do you know your site is getting 1,800 hits per hour?' I had no idea - I hadn't upgraded the site for a couple of years." Yesterday, she calculated the cumulative total of hits to be more than 172,000.
Susan K's website shows her figurative line drawings and head studies in oil. Like her namesake, she has got talent, though not the sort to irrigate Simon Cowell or Amanda Holden's tear ducts.
And then the madness, as it does in such cases, began in earnest. "A couple of Susan Boyle fans emailed me to say they thought I sang beautifully. Another thought I sang beautifully and liked my artwork! Among the emails were inquiries for price quotes on a couple of my art pieces. However, I have had no sales as a result of this. Yet."
So is Susan K expecting a surge of sales as a result of the sudden celebrity of an unglamorous though sweet-voiced woman who lives on the other side of the Atlantic? "That would be too weird, wouldn't it?"
Next, she started getting calls and emails from people wanting to buy her website's domain name. "One guy, within a minute, had increased his offer from $100 to $500,000. I'm not sure how serious he was, but that sort of thing is very strange to happen to someone like me." She consulted a company called Sedo that sells domain names and, following their advice, has now put her web address up for sale for a cool $25,000. She hasn't sold it. Yet. (She has moved her artwork display, though, to sboyleart.com).
Surely she'll be rooting for her namesake to win tomorrow night's final? "I haven't heard the other finalists, so I can't say." Admirably diplomatic - but Susan K now has a pecuniary interest in the other Susan's success. According to Sedo's director of business development, Nora Nanayakkara: "The value of the domain name really depends on the sustainability of Susan Boyle's popularity."
I ask if Susan K's life story is as heart-rending as her namesake's. "I don't know much about her biography," she replies. I'm thinking of the fact that the 46-year-old singer from West Lothian claimed - apparently as a joke - never to have been kissed, at least until Piers Morgan made her life story even more harrowing by kissing her backstage last week. "Oh, I've been kissed," Susan K replies finally.
The 64-year-old from Kerrville is an art major who has drawn and painted throughout her life, while working mostly in the airline industry. "I was a stewardess, as they were called in the 60s, for PanAm. I left just before Lockerbie [the PanAm crash in 1988]."
In addition to Susan K's new website, her work can be seen in a show called Turning Point at the Hill Country Arts Foundation in Ingram, Texas, from 6 June. She is understandably eager for the media circus (ie me calling her at the prearranged time of 7.30am from London) to move on, so she can walk her "lovely old dog" and then get back to her art.
After the interview, she sends me a disarming email: "Please be kind to me in your article. Another outfit in the UK wrote about me yesterday and made me sound stupid AND greedy - and they hadn't even spoken with me!! Egads!"
For the record, Susan K Boyle is neither of those things (and I'm always a sucker for a woman who exclaims "egads"). She is, like her namesake, a breath of fresh air. The last thing the "other" Susan Boyle says sounds sweet coming down the line to this celeb-crazy nation. "I am an artist and am happiest in my studio working on my art. I don't deserve, or want, fame".
guardian.co.uk ? Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: International News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: Sun News]
The other Susan Boyle
[Source: 11 Alive News]
posted by 77767 @ 8:34 PM,
,
ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris
PrintEmailPDF John Nance, the former FAA administrator, and now an aviation consultant to ABC News, says that there's a 50-50 chance that the missing Air France jet went down in an explosion. The story was just on ABC. They tended to downplay Nance's comments, but I have to admit, i was wondering about the possibility of terrorism as well. Obviously, it's too soon - and it's suspicious that no terrorist group is claiming credit, since they're usually not very shy about such things.
ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris
[Source: International News]
ABC News analyst: 50-50 chance that explosion brought down Air France jet from Rio to Paris
[Source: Cbs News]
posted by 77767 @ 6:42 PM,
,
Quote For The Day
PrintEmailPDF
"What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard...
I don't think we should be afraid of our values we're fighting for, what we stand for. And so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're doing on the battlefield and everywhere else...
So one has to have some faith, I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.
When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those," - general David Petraeus, conceding that the US violated the Geneva Conventions under president Bush, and pledging to remain within the laws of war in the future, as the best way to win the war on terror.
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty.)
Quote For The Day
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
Quote For The Day
[Source: Market News]
Quote For The Day
[Source: China News]
posted by 77767 @ 6:36 PM,
,
U.S. Violent Crime Rate Down
PrintEmailPDF 
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released its preliminary analysis of crime trends in the U.S. for 2008 and there's plenty of good news:
... the nation experienced a 2.5 percent decrease in the number of violent crimes and a 1.6 percent decline in the number of property crimes for 2008 compared with data from 2007. The report is based on information that the FBI gathered from 12,750 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to 12 comparable months of data to the FBI for both 2007 and 2008.
... In 2008, all four of the violent crime offense categories declined nationwide compared with data from 2007. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter declined 4.4 percent, aggravated assault was down 3.2 percent, forcible rape decreased 2.2 percent, and robbery decreased 1.1 percent.
See FBI press release detailing crime trends here.
U.S. Violent Crime Rate Down
[Source: Good Times Society - by The American Illuminati]
U.S. Violent Crime Rate Down
[Source: Stock News]
U.S. Violent Crime Rate Down
[Source: Rome News]
posted by 77767 @ 2:21 PM,
,
Multimedia
Top Stories
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links