What with one thing and another, I had been completely unaware that there are plans to build another canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to compete with the existing Panama Canal. This canal will be built by the Chinese and will go through Nicaragua. The graphic from McClatchy gives a good idea of the huge scale of the project. The engineering challenges are massive. [Read more…]
In the 1983 precedent-setting case of Marsh v. Chambers that found ceremonial prayer at the opening of legislative sessions in Nebraska to be constitutional, one of the three dissenting voices was Justice William J. Brennan, himself a practicing Catholic. He argued strongly against the kind of ad hoc reasoning being advanced by chief justice Warren Burger in speaking for the majority, saying that it was clear that the court was trying to make legislative prayer into a special case purely because it did not want to overturn a long-standing practice. [Read more…]
In the US, advertising is everywhere. You can’t go anywhere without being urged to buy stuff. You see them when you are driving, they are there at the gas pump when pumping gas, they are there on the ATM screen when you are getting cash, you hear them when you are put on hold. You simply cannot avoid them. [Read more…]
Virginia may become the first southern state to legalize same-sex marriage if a court there decides to overrule a current ban. If so, it would join Utah and Oklahoma in that situation and it illustrates once again how states and individuals have changed their views over time. It is expected that the plaintiffs will likely use the same arguments that were successful in the other two cases, using the US Supreme Court’s reasoning (including justice Scalia’s dissent against the decision) in last year’s Windsor case that the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment required the state to treat all marriages equally, irrespective of gender. [Read more…]
In an interview with Jane Meyer of the New Yorker, Edward Snowden ridicules the idea allegations by leading members of Congress like Mike Rogers and Diane Feinstein and wonders why and how it is that the media simply allow these people to make such wild allegations without any supporting evidence. [Read more…]
I will be part of a panel that will discuss the Greece v. Galloway case at an event that is free and open to the public. The actual title of the session is (for some obscure reason) Religion and the Constitution in Modern Life. It is interesting that although the topic is one involving constitutional law and is being held in the Law School under the auspices of American Constitutional Society, they have seen fit to invite a non-lawyer like me to participate. [Read more…]
Reader JS has sent along a link to a long article in the New Republic by Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz ominously titled Would You Feel Differently About Snowden, Greenwald, and Assange If You Knew What They Really Thought?. Wilentz seems to imply that the three of them have some secret agenda that Wilentz has somehow managed to unearth that enables him to read their minds and bring to light their true intent. [Read more…]
The Greece v. Galloway case of the constitutionality of opening town meetings with prayer is framed by the 1983 precedent of Marsh v. Chambers. Briefly, the facts of the Marsh case are as follows. [Read more…]
The Daily Show had a good summary and analysis of president Obama’s speech last Friday on his proposed NSA reforms. Jon Stewart was not impressed. [Read more…]
If there is one thing about religion that really drives me crazy it is when religious people act out their beliefs in ways that harm children. If adults want to handle snakes and otherwise kill themselves out of faith, that’s one thing. But leave children out of it. [Read more…]