Saturday, February 11, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Oral Arguments Heard For First Time In Federal Court Arguing Constitution's 13th Amendment Applies To Sea World Killer Whales
“This case is on the next frontier of civil rights,” said PETA’s attorney Jeffrey Kerr, representing the five orcas (aka killer whales) in a 13th Amendment challenge where for the first time oral arguments were made before a federal district court claiming the Constitution prohibits Shamu from being enslaved. Ah, the wondrous absurdities of a truly "living, breathing, and evolving" Constitution. To read the article reporting on this gibberish actually being argued in a federal courthouse visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/san-diego-judge-hears-both-sides-in-petas-killer-whale-slavery-case-sea-world-asks-dismissal/2012/02/06/gIQAxxXauQ_story.html
The PETA lawyers are arguing that the 13th Amendment states "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist in the United States," making no mention of human beings (unlike, for example, the 14th Amendment stating that "no person shall..."). They argue that catching wild killer whales and domesticating them is a form of slavery that shall not exist. If one views historical context and original meaning irrelevant to applying the Constitution today, I don't see why this cannot be seen as a perfectly credible and legitimate Constitutional argument, despite it being patently absurd on its face. There is nothing substantively less legitimate about this reasoning than the sort that has led to all sorts of ridiculous decisions that ignore historical context and original meaning and currently serve as binding precedent.
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Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Ninth Circuit Rules That California's Proposition 8 Is Unconstitutional For Not Allowing State "Domestic Partnerships" To Be Called "Marriage"
Taking a narrow approach in deciding the blockbuster challenge to California's ban on gay marriage, a split panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday found Proposition 8 unconstitutional.
Writing for the majority, Judge Stephen Reinhardt said the ban runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause, serving no purpose other than "to lessen the status and human dignity" of gays in California who could legally marry for a few months before the 2008 vote on Prop 8. The Constitution, Reinhardt wrote, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's Romer v. Evans, does not allow for "laws of this sort."
Judge Smith dissenting from today's Ninth Circuit ruling overturning California's Proposition 8 wrote the following:
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"The United State Supreme Court has not recognized that the fundamental right to marry includes a fundamental right to gay marriage... [P]roposition 8 is subject to rational basis review rather than to any heightened scrutiny... Here, the majority backs into its inference of animus...[but o]ur task is to determine whether Proposition 8 serves any independent legitimate government interest... Proponents argue that Proposition 8...preserves the fundamental and historical purposes of marriage...[and that if struck down it] would fundamentally redefine the term from its original and historical procreative purpose. This shift in purpose would weaken society's perception of the importance of entering into marriage to have children... Proponents also argue...that Proposition 8 promotes the optimal setting for the responsible raising and care of children - by their biological parents in a stable marriage relationship... [T]he people of California might have believed that withdrawing from same-sex couples the right to access the designation of marriage would, arguably, further the interests in promoting responsible procreation and optimal parenting... Given the presumption of validity accorded Proposition 8 for rational basis review, I am not convinced that Proposition 8 lacks a relationship to legitimate state interests."
Monday, February 6, 2012
Leading Intelligent Design Think Tank Discovery Institute Condemns Passage Of Creationism Bill By Indiana Senate
The Discovery Institute reports:
A bill approved today by the Indiana Senate to allow the teaching of creationism in public schools is being criticized as bad science education by Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading intelligent design think tank.Tweet
If made law, Indiana Senate Bill 89 (SB89) would allow creationism, a religious view on the origin of species, into the Hoosier state’s biology classrooms. In 1987, the Supreme Court struck down similar legislation as an unconstitutional establishment of religion. Instead of scrapping SB89 in deference to legal precedent, the Indiana Senate has amended the bill to allow more religious views on origins, as if more religion could cure the original problem.
“Instead of injecting religion into biology classes, legislators should be working to promote the inclusion of more science,” said Joshua Youngkin, a law and policy analyst at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. “There are plenty of scientific criticisms of Darwin’s theory today, and science students should be able to hear about them, not about religion.”
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Iran's Supreme Ayatollah: Kill all Jews, Annihilate Israel
The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.Tweet
The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.
Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”
The article, written by Alireza Forghani, a conservative analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned conservative sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.
Because Israel is going to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran is justified in launching a pre-emptive, cataclysmic attack against the Jewish state, the doctrine argues.
On Friday, in a major speech at prayers, Khamenei announced that Iran will support any nation or group that attacks the “cancerous tumor” of Israel. Though his statement was seen by some in the West as fluff, there is substance behind it.
Iran’s Defense Ministry announced this weekend that it test-fired an advanced two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile and boasted about successfully putting a new satellite into orbit, reminding the West that its engineers have mastered the technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles even as the Islamic state pushes its nuclear weapons program.
The commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Seyyed Mehdi Farahi, stated in August that the Safir missile, which is capable of transporting a satellite into space, can easily be launched parallel to the earth’s orbit, which will transform it into an intercontinental ballistic missile. Western analysts didn’t believe this would happen until 2015. Historically, orbiting a satellite is the criterion for crediting a nation with ICBM capability.
Forghani details the Islamic duty of jihad as laid out in the Quran for the sake of Allah and states that “primary jihad,” according to some Shiite jurists, can only occur when the Hidden Imam, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, returns. Shiites believe Mahdi’’s return will usher in Armageddon.
In the absence of the hidden Imam, Forghani says, “defensive jihad” could certainly take place when Islam is threatened, and Muslims must defend Islam and kill their enemies. To justify such action, Alef quotes the Shiites’ first imam, Ali, who stated “Waging war against the enemies with whom war is inevitable and there is a strong possibility that in near future they will attack Muslims is a must and the duty of Muslims.”
The article then quotes the Quran (Albaghara 2:191-193): “And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution [of Muslims] is worse than slaughter [of non-believers] … and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah.”
It is the duty for all Muslims to participate in this defensive jihad, Forghani says. A fatwa by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made it clear that any political domination by infidels over Muslims authorizes Muslims to defend Islam by all means. Iran now has the ICBM means to deliver destruction on Israel and soon will have nuclear warheads for those missiles.
In order to attack Iran, the article says, Israel needs the approval and assistance of America, and under the current passive climate in the United States, the opportunity must not be lost to wipe out Israel before it attacks Iran.
Under this pre-emptive defensive doctrine, several Ground Zero points of Israel must be destroyed and its people annihilated. Forghani cites the last census by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics that shows Israel has a population of 7.5 million citizens of which a majority of 5.7 million are Jewish. Then it breaks down the districts with the highest concentration of Jewish people, indicating that three cities, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, contain over 60 percent of the Jewish population that Iran could target with its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, killing all its inhabitants.
Forghani suggests that Iran’s Sejil missile, which is a two-stage rocket with a trajectory and speed that make it impossible to intercept, should target such Israeli facilities as: the Rafael nuclear plant, which is the main nuclear engineering center of Israel; the Eilun nuclear plant; another Israeli reactor in Nebrin; and the Dimona reactor in the nuclear research center in Neqeb, the most critical nuclear reactor in Israel because it produces 90 percent enriched uranium for Israel’s nuclear weapons.
Other targets, according to the article, include airports and air force bases such as the Sedot Mikha Air Base, which contains Jericho ballistic missiles and is located southwest of the Tel Nof Air Base, where aircraft equipped with nuclear weapons are based. Secondary targets include power plants, sewage treatment facilities, energy resources, and transportation and communication infrastructures.
Finally, Forghani says, Shahab 3 and Ghadr missiles can target urban settlements until the Israelis are wiped out.
Forghani claims that Israel could be destroyed in less than nine minutes and that Khamenei, as utmost authority, the Velayete Faghih (Islamic Jurist), also believes that Israel and America not only must be defeated but annihilated.
The radicals ruling Iran today not only posses over 1,000 ballistic missiles but are on the verge of ICBM delivery and have sufficient enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs even as they continue to highly enrich uranium despite four sets of U.N. sanctions.
The Iranian secret documentary “The Coming Is Upon Us” clearly indicates that these radicals believe the destruction of Israel will trigger the coming of the last Islamic Messiah and that even Jesus Christ, who will convert to Islam, will act as Mahdi’s deputy, praying to Allah as he stands behind the 12th Imam.
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