it's not a question of who is rght or wrong but what is right or wrong that counts.
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  		today

today

Friday July 4th, 2008

 
World & National News

Looking for Liberty

ACCORDING to the film “National Treasure,” the Declaration of Independence is a document of such far-seeing sagacity that it has secret codes and treasure maps hidden in the parchment. You just have to know how to look for them. But that poses the question: which document, precisely, is the Declaration of Independence?

Most of us would answer that it’s the manuscript written on vellum, dated July 4, 1776, now displayed in a baroque case at the National Archives, where it is protected by bulletproof glass, argon gas and the 55-ton underground vault it is lowered into every night. But like everything connected to the Declaration, the situation is complicated, for that document was not written on July 4; it was a handwritten copy that Congress ordered later that summer and post-dated. The version that was in the room as the vote was taken has never been seen since then.


Obama 'Do Over'

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama waded into controversy on Thursday over his plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq, first saying he might "refine" his views but later declaring his stance had remained unchanged for more than a year.

Obama was forced to call reporters back for a second news conference in Fargo, North Dakota, after he initially left open the possibility of revising his 16-month timetable for pulling U.S. combat forces from Iraq.


Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Records

A federal judge in New York has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom a database linking users of YouTube, the Web’s largest video site by far, with every clip they have watched there.

The order raised concerns among users and privacy advocates that the online video viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. But Google and Viacom said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of YouTube viewers.

Fire officials in California worry

California fire officials have something else to worry about this week: fireworks for the July 4th holiday.

More than a thousand wildfires were burning early Monday in Northern California and there was no relief in sight for weary firefighters.

A "red flag warning" — meaning the most extreme fire danger — was in effect for Northern California until 5 a.m. PT Monday. And the weather in the coming days and months isn't expected to help efforts.

Rice Says She's 'Proud' of Decision to Invade Iraq

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she's ``proud'' of the U.S. decision to wage the Iraq war and insisted that the world is not more dangerous than it was when George W. Bush took office.

``We're now beginning to see that perhaps it's not so popular to be a suicide bomber. We're beginning to see that perhaps people are questioning whether Osama Bin Laden ought to really be the face of Islam,'' Rice, 53, said in an interview to be broadcast this weekend on Bloomberg Television's ``Conversations with Judy Woodruff.''


Is campaign dishonest or disorganized?
Obama's flip-flopping June

There's nothing wrong with a politician changing his mind. They all do it, and constancy in the face of error can be as harmful as flip-flopping.

Yet the month of June saw Barack Obama abandoning positions at a clip so brisk it should give even his most stalwart supporters pause.

In the wake of last week's Supreme Court ruling overturning Washington's handgun ban, for instance, the Obama campaign disavowed a 2007 statement it had made about the constitutionality of gun laws as "inartful."

After claiming in May that he would debate John McCain "anytime, any place," Obama declined to participate in a series of 10 town hall-style meetings, which the McCain campaign proposed.


Obama: Mental distress can't justify late abortion

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says "mental distress" should not qualify as a health exception for late term-abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.

In an interview this week with "Relevant," a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain "a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother."

Obama then added: "Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term."

Last year, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on late-term abortions, Obama said he "strongly disagreed" with the ruling because it "dramatically departs form previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women."

    NOTE: www.exposeobama.com

Colombia Rescue Built on Rebels' Disarray

At 5 a.m. on Wednesday, the sun had yet to peek through the jungle canopy in this country’s Guaviare Department when the guerrillas told their captives to gather their belongings. A call had come in from a top adviser to Alfonso Cano, their new supreme commander. He said to move. Immediately.

Or so the guerrillas thought. In fact, the gravelly voice that sounded so full of authority belonged not to a grizzled leader of Latin America’s most feared insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but rather to a government officer.

China's First Regular Commomerical Flights to Taiwan

The first non-stop flights from mainland China to Taiwan, since the two sides split in civil war, left for the island Friday. The regular weekend flights could bring as many as 3,000 mainland tourists per day to Taiwan. Daniel Schearf reports from Beijing.

The morning flights took off from several major Chinese cities for Taiwan. China's official Xinhua news agency said 760 mainland tourists were on board and would stay in Taiwan for ten days of sight-seeing.

White House deabtes Gitmo

The Bush administration is locked in an internal debate over whether to present Congress with proposed legislation that would allow suspected terrorists to be held in the United States -- a possible first step toward closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- according to current and former officials.

The officials said the administration was not on the verge of shutting down Guantanamo. But the legislation under debate could make it easier to move some suspects to the United States by lessening the risk that federal courts would set them free in Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., or Charleston, S.C.

 

Fragile economy hurts jobs
U.S. employment contracts by 62,000 in June, but rate holds steady as 'discouraged' workers stop searching, economists say.

The nation shed 62,000 more jobs in June, bringing total losses for the year to 438,000 and rekindling concerns that the United States is in recession.

What's more, the Labor Department's unemployment report, released Thursday, showed job losses in April and May were significantly deeper than initially thought. That contraction, combined with higher gas prices, suggests weakness ahead in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of economic activity.

China warns of Olumpics unrest

A senior Chinese security official said the Olympics are threatened by sabotage and unrest, state media said on Friday, as authorities sacked officials after a riot in which a police headquarters was torched.

The trouble in Guizhou province in the southwest on Saturday came as China seeks to quell any signs of unrest ahead of the Beijing Games in August.

Vice Minister of Public Security Yang Huanning told police officials that the Games would be a target for forces hostile to China's ruling Communist Party.

Britain to use Sharia law?
Explosive: The Lord Chief Justice's endorsement of Sharia law has already created huge controversy

The most senior judge in England yesterday gave his blessing to the use of sharia law to resolve disputes among Muslims.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said that Islamic legal principles could be employed to deal with family and marital arguments and to regulate finance.

He declared: 'Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.'

Iran Offers Surprise Nuke Deal

In what may be considered a breakthrough in Iran's standoff with the White House and the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program, it is reported that Tehran will suspend its controversial uranium enrichment if the U.N. suspends the economic sanctions it has imposed.

The report, from Channel 2 News in Tel Aviv, does not identify the sources other than as "Western diplomats."

Iran has allegedly proposed a six-week time frame for the acceptance or rejection of its new proposal.


Surprise Good News
Metcalf Still on Amazon Shorts 'Best Seller List'

Back in January I had my third book posted to Amazon Shorts.  'Will in Acquinistere' it is a novel about a young boy with cerebral palsey who goes on a Tolkein like adventure to a far away place to save the world.

Amazon Shorts is a new Amazon feature for published authors to showcase unpublished work. I posted 'Will' primarily as a marketing tool to shop for an agent or publisher for the new work. Then I got busy and neglected the project as I continue to broadcast morning drive on WPTF in Raleigh-Durham, NC.

I was delighted to learn the story made it onto Amazon's 'Best Seller' list on Amazon Shorts. They update it every hour so I could be in #2 or #14 position depending on when you check.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/334884011

I encourage you to please check out the story which I feel is much more than just a 'childrens book'. It is serialized into five downloads and is very inexpensive.  Please sample at least the first part and let me know what you think.
Will in Acquinistere - Part 1


Words have Meaning
    By Geoff Metcalf
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”.

Gosh-Oh-Gee-Golly, despite the itching and moaning, whining and crying over parsing symantics, the Supreme Court of the United States has FINALLY ruled that the Second Amendment actually DOES mean what it says, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

This is not the end of debate but rather the beginning of ‘an’ end. Specifically, the Supremes ruled 5-4 June 26th (a day that will live in infamy for rabid left wing synchophants) that the District of Columbia’s 32-year-old ban on handguns is incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment.  ‘Limited’ regulation is allowed (and that is what will be litigated ad nauseum) but an outright ban is unconstitutional.

This is a huge honking deal. The Supremes had never categorically and conclusively interpreted the 2nd amendment since it was first ratified in 1791. In fact since 1939 they have scrupulously avoided (run, hide from, eschewed) numerous attempts to get them to address the issue.

The core issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia. And they finally officially confirmed what most reasonable people have known for decades…gun ownership is an INDIVIDUAL right of ‘the people’.

The day prior to the ruling both Dr. Erwin Chemerinsky and I agreed the majority opinion would probably be written by Justice Antonin Scalia, and it was.  Justice Scalia noted an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the amendment was adopted. The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Scalia said. Furthermore, the court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled. Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

The four dissenters said the majority had unwisely opened the door to legal attacks on popular and effective gun-control measures. "I fear that the District's policy choice may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off the table," Stevens wrote in his dissenting opinion.

Scalia stressed that the decision, though historic, was narrow and its practical effects limited. However, caveats notwithstanding, the one big empirical reality is the central issue of the “individual right” which has now been confirmed, codified, and carved in stone.

Efforts to undermine, abrogate and destroy the second amendment have been ubiquitous since before the Brady Bill. Gun rights advocates have made it clear that they will pursue more legal challenges, implying the high court will get to revisit the issue.

Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama were supportive of the court's ruling…mostly.

McCain said it did not "mark the end of our struggle against those who seek to limit the rights of law-abiding citizens." He also took a thinly veiled shot at a controversial statement Obama made adding: "Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly."

Obama said it endorsed both gun rights and 'reasonable regulation'.

"I know what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun-show loophole and improving our background-check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals." Bullfeathers and political prattle! Terrorists and criminals have no difficulty getting guns. Laws have impeded the law abiding citizens access to the tools to protect themselves from terrorists and criminals.

Scalia wrote,"There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms."

In his dissent, Stevens accused Scalia of misreading the words of the 2nd Amendment and spinning its history to ignore its focus on organized militias. However, it is Stevens who has misread the intent. The individual right to own guns was/is intended to provide the citizenry with the tools to rise up against an oppressive government (and government military)…as our founders did in Lexington, and Breeds Hill. The first three battles of our War for Independence were fought ‘over gun control’ not taxation without representation or the long list of enumerated grievenances.

Frankly, most Americans do not embrace the Stevens’ spin. Polls indicate that people commonly think the 2nd Amendment protects an individual's right to have a gun.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty whined about the dismantling of the 32-year-old law, saying that "more handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence." However, Fenty too is way wrong.

Dr. John Lott  has clearly demonstrated with an epic statistical analysis that more guns inevitabley results in LESS crime.

Meanwhile, a day after the Supreme Court issued the landmark ruling, the National Rifle Association filed suit in five jurisdictions to overturn their bans as well. One of the suits is against San Francisco over its ban on handguns in public housing. 
 
When I spoke with Clark Neily, co-counsel for Heller he said,  "Today's ruling is a tremendous victory for freedom and the rule of law in America. The Court has affirmed that the people's right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, regardless of whether the government's efforts are well-meaning or, as in this case, utterly misguided."



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