September 2004 – sunsetchaser

HR 2028 – Pledge Protection Act of 2004

Got around to finding the complete text of the bill I mentioned in my last post. Here it is, in its entirety. The complete text of the debate on the bill is posted on house.gov. Long, but the bits I read were pretty interesting.

AN ACT

To amend title 28, United States Code, with respect to the jurisdiction of Federal courts over certain cases and controversies involving the Pledge of Allegiance.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Pledge Protection Act of 2004′.

SEC. 2. LIMITATION ON JURISDICTION.

(a) In General- Chapter 99 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

`Sec. 1632. Limitation on jurisdiction

`No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, the Pledge of Allegiance, as defined in section 4 of title 4, or its recitation.’. The limitation in this section shall not apply to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia or the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 99 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item:

`1632. Limitation on jurisdiction.’.

Passed the House of Representatives September 23, 2004.

Attest:

Clerk.

END

Even though it’s very unlikely that this will become law, it’s scary that the House would pass it as all.

Congress: Chipping Away at Your Rights

The New York Times > Washington > House Passes Court Limits on Pledge

“The Republican-led House of Representatives approved a measure on Thursday that would bar federal courts from ruling on the text of the Pledge of Allegiance.”

WHAT?

This is essentially Congress saying, “We know what we’re trying to do is unconstitutional but that’s okay — we’ll just pass a law saying no one can call us on it!”

On the plus side, one representative did propose an amendment (which was not passed) allowing some schools to opt out, citing Circle School v. Pappert. It’s not every day one’s alma mater is mentioned on the floor of the House.

Answers from Badnarik

Slashdot readers recently had the opportunity to ask Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for president, questions about a number of issues.

Here’s the link to some of the most popular responses:

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/20/1423219&tid=11&tid=219

Here’s one relevant to an issue I’ve been thinking about a lot:

When somebody you strongly dislike is running, it’s very tempting to vote for the person who is more likely to win against them rather than the person whose views you agree with more.

What is your response to the people who say that a vote given to a third-party candidate is wasted and should have gone to one of the main two parties, if only to make sure that the “bad candidate” doesn’t win?

If the “wasted vote” argument ever held any water, it doesn’t any more. The two major parties have moved toward a weird, non-existent “center” for the last 50 years, to the point where it’s difficult to tell them apart.

We could argue all day about whether Bush or Kerry is the “lesser evil.” The fact is that they both support the war in Iraq. They both oppose gun rights. They both supported the PATRIOT Act. They both support the war on drugs. They both support confiscatory taxation. They both support ruinously high levels of spending, huge deficits and increasing debt.

It’s hard to tell them apart on the real issues. They spend their time scrapping over “swing votes” in the gray area of the “center” — which means, in practice, “how do I not make too many people too angry to vote for me?” That’s no way to do politics. Politics, in my view, should be as unimportant as possible — but where it’s important, it has to value freedom, remain rooted in principle and be forward-looking.

All I can tell the “lesser of two evils” folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they’ll keep getting evil. If you don’t like the way things are, how do you change it by voting for more of the same?

Amen.

Peace Train

Ex-Pop Star Cat Stevens Deported from U.S.

Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, was denied entry to the US on the basis that he has ties to terrorism.

Of course I don’t have all the intelligence the FBI does, but this strikes me as ludicrous. Maybe they’re right, but my understanding is that most true terrorists believe that they are engaged in a justified jihad. They are most likely not writing articles like this.

On a mostly unrelated note, googling ‘jihad’ brings up some sad and scary results on both sides of the spectrum.

Culture

Last night Kevin, Ben, Johanna, Jon, & I set out to get ourselves some culture, Harrisburg-style.

We began the evening at The Design Museum @ Fathom where they currently have a Chindogu exhibit. I like the idea of Chindogu. I enjoyed the exhibit at Fathom. The humor quotient was good. The art quotient was low. But if you need a bit of a chuckle and happen to be downtown on a Friday or Saturday evening, it’s worth the price of admission (which happens to be $0) and the few minutes it’ll take to peruse the items on display.

After checking out some of the crazy things the Japanese create, we headed across the street Miyako (nee Tokyo Express) to consume some of the wonderful things the Japanese create. While no sushi around here is of the blow-your-mind-delicious variety, Miyako is nearly as good as Sapporo East (my local favorite). They even gain a few points by being the only area sushi place I know of to also hold a liquor license. Despite the sluggish speed of the service we managed to dispose of an inordinate amount of fish and rice and left the restaurant ready to explode with culture.

The last stop of the evening was Shady McGrady’s where we took it upon ourselves to create some culture of our own. Meet Cigarette Man and his pet camel:

As you may or may not be able to see, he comes complete with argyle socks and curly chest hair. We’re artists, I tell you. Full of culture.

Statistical Tie

Bush Post-Convention Lead Slips to Tie With Kerry

This article was interesting. Then it got a lot more interesting with this paragraph:

“Bush futures on the Dublin-based Intrade Internet betting site fell 0.3 points today to 66.5, meaning that bettors guess Bush has a 66.5 percent chance of winning the election. The futures traded at a low of 49 on Aug. 13, when crude oil prices hit a 21-year high. “

They’re referring to Intrade.com, “a trading exchange for Politics, Current Events, Financial Indicators, Weather & other Unique Contracts.”

Very cool.

I should be asleep

The subject line pretty much says it all. I should be. But I’ve been neglecting my ever-faithful blog and I feel like rambling for a few minutes. Who cares if I have a Statistics test tomorrow.

I haven’t been updating lately both because I’ve been busy and because I just haven’t felt like I’ve got much of interest to say. So don’t expect this post to be interesting.

My busy-ness has a lot to do with my current enrollment at HACC (Harrisburg Area Community College for those of you not in the Harrisburg area), but not as much as it should. I was expecting that I’d at least have a little bit of trouble juggling 12 credits and my normal life, and while I have been neglecting some aspects of my normal life, I’m also rather underwhelmed by my classes. Of course no community college is really going to be a bastion of education, and I hate to sound like a snob, but I’m pretty appalled at the caliber of the courses I’m taking. The professors are not top notch, to say the least, but the bigger problem is the complete apathy of most of the students. I hear a lot of jokes about HACC being the 13th grade, but I was unprepared for how true it is. Two of my professors are pretty clear that they know better than to ask us to do any work and the other two seem to expect that we won’t but ask us to anyway. I have, at least once in every class, felt pressure to be stupid in a way I haven’t experienced since I left Red Land seven years ago. Meanwhile, the students all have that glazed over look that makes me wonder if anyone in the class is alive or if HACC has brought in a number of cadavers to make their enrollment numbers look better.

I hear a lot of good things about HACC. I am not questioning the integrity of the people who have related them to me. I guess the key is taking classes online or in the evenings when it’s a more adult crowd. Somewhere along the line I must have accidentally become an adult — I don’t know how I’m going to survive another semester of high school.

Anyway…The rest of my time recently has been spent hanging out with Kevin or working on a new site for The Circle School. Both are infinitely more fun than being at HACC, and I’m really excited about the CSS stuff I’m learning from Kevin for application on TCS’s site. I hope to eventually implement some of it here, too.

On a completely unrelated note, my mom keeps talking about this John Kerry quote that she loves, and while I’m nearly as underwhelmed by him as I am by HACC, I do like the quote.

“… not pray that God is on our side, … pray that we are on God’s side.”

Good night.

Wrath of God?

Florida’s Desperation Growing After Storm (washingtonpost.com)

Things like this make me understand the South a little bit better.

In Amarillo, TX, I saw a storm that came on so suddenly and with such fury that I thought I’d probably believe in a vengeful God if I lived there, too — there was nothing to do but pray as hail pelted the car and the water level in the streets rose to six inches in five minutes.

If I were in Florida now, as it gets slammed over and over, to the point that Dunkin’ Donuts trucks are being commandeered, I’d probably feel a need to believe there was a reason for that, too.

It’s all well and good to explain the scientific reasons storms develop, but science doesn’t do any good while it’s happening. Even if praying doesn’t actually do any physical good, well, you know what they say — any shelter in a storm.

Fireworks & Gmail

I’ve been such a slacker. Excuses: burn out after the trip, home very infrequently so internet access is scarce, taking classes full time stifles my brain, etc., etc. Two quick things:

1. Went to see the fireworks last night in Harrisburg. Pyrotechnic display itself was pretty good, even worthy of our quest to be considered a real city. The music accompanying the fireworks, though, seemed to be of a “Places I’d Rather Be” theme. Each song highlighted a different US city or region. IE, “New York State of Mind,” “Country Roads,” “Viva Las Vegas,” etc. I’m sure this was meant to be patriotic, creating a portrait of our entire beautiful and diverse country, but instead it just kind of felt like we didn’t have anything closer to home worth celebrating. It’s time to start acting like a big dog, even though that might, in some cases, seem even sillier.

2. I have 6 gmail invitations and can’t think of a single person to give one to. This makes me feel like I don’t have any friends. If you’d like one, or would even take one from me just to make me feel better, email me and I’ll hooketh you up.