WASHINGTON (AP) - Reversing decades of Justice Department (news - web sites) policy, the Bush administration has told the Supreme Court for the first time that it believes the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess firearms.
The administration's view represents a reversal of government interpretations of the Second Amendment gong back some 40 years.
"The current position of the United States ... is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms," Solicitor General Theodore Olson wrote in two court filings this week.
That right, however, is "subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."
"While some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a `collective' right of the states to maintain militias, I believe the amendment's plain meaning and original intent prove otherwise," Ashcroft wrote.
"In my view, the Emerson opinion, and the balance it strikes, generally reflect the correct understanding of the Second Amendment," Ashcroft told prosecutors.
The Supreme Court last ruled on the scope of the Second Amendment in 1939.
The amendment protects only those rights that have "some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well-regulated militia," the high court said then.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A high school administrator who allegedly lifted the skirts of teen girls at a dance to make sure they were not wearing skimpy thong panties was put on leave, but furious parents said they would not be satisfied until she was fired.
"She needs to be fired," mother Alane Garvik said. "And if they don't fire her I'm willing to file a lawsuit. My daughter has already told me she doesn't want to go back to Rancho Bernardo if (Wilson) is still there." "She feels violated," Garvik said. "She feels like somebody was messing with her private parts. All those boys there seeing her butt and her thong."
Other parents said girls were made to partially disrobe if Wilson or another teacher suspected they weren't wearing bras.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Angry parents demanded the resignation of a California high school vice principal after she lifted the skirts of teenage girls at a dance to make sure they were wearing "appropriate" underwear.
Parents at Rancho Bernardo High School in suburban San Diego say the vice principal, Rita Wilson, made the girls prove that they were not wearing skimpy thong panties before they were allowed into the dance on Friday.
In some cases, said Rancho Bernardo parent Kim Teal, girls also were made to partially undress if Wilson or another teacher suspected that they weren't wearing bras.
"One girl just cried after having to tell her father this story, she was hiding her head in a sweatshirt," Teal said, adding that the girls had their skirts lifted in front of men and their male classmates.
Teal, a 43-year-old attorney, said she learned about the skirt-lifting from her daughter, whose friends were forced to show their panties in front of boys, teachers and police officers standing at the door.
"I just got a call from one mom who said her daughter was wearing a poodle skirt and an off-the-shoulder top and a teacher reached right out and grabbed the front of it and pulled it down to check," Teal said.
European court rejects British woman's assisted suicide appeal
BRUSSELS, Belgium - In a blow to proponents of assisted suicide, Europe's leading human rights court Monday threw out an appeal by a terminally ill and paralyzed British woman who wants her husband to help her end her own life.
A panel of seven judges of the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously that Britain had not violated Europe's human rights convention by refusing to grant Brian Pretty immunity from prosecution if he helps his wife Diane commit suicide.
"The law has taken all my rights away," said Diane Pretty, speaking in London with the aid of a keyboard and a computer voice synthesizer.
Pretty's supporters said they will continue efforts to change Britain's suicide laws, despite the ruling by the court in Strasbourg, France.
In their ruling, the judges said they "could not but be sympathetic" to Mrs. Pretty's effort to avoid "a distressing death."
Diane Pretty, 43, is paralyzed from the neck down by motor neuron disease and is confined to a wheelchair. Her husband said doctors had told them Diane's life expectancy was "limited to months."
Suicide is legal in Britain, but helping someone else commit suicide is a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Pretty turned to the European court after Britain's highest appeals court ruled in November that her husband could not be guaranteed immunity if he helped her die.
I particularly enjoyed the part where the court "could not but be sympathetic" to avoiding "a distressing death." I'm sure the judges at the Salem Witch trials were no more sympathetic to those distressing deaths.
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a setback for disabled workers, the Supreme Court ruled Monday those employees are not always entitled to premium assignments intended for more senior workers.
The Supreme Court threw out a lower court's finding that Barnett's back injury gave him first choice of jobs at US Airways over his more senior co-workers. The justices sent the case back for further review.
The 5-4 decision continues the court trend of narrowing the reach of the ADA. The court recently ruled against an assembly line worker with carpal tunnel syndrome, finding that medical conditions that only prevent someone from doing some workplace tasks do not qualify as a disability under the law.
Barnett sought a transfer after hurting his back loading baggage at San Francisco International Airport in 1990. He was given a job in the mailroom, but employees with more seniority later requested the same position. Under seniority rules, they could bump him to a less desirable job.
Barnett sued in 1994 under the ADA and won in lower courts. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) said employers cannot use a seniority system to avoid seeking solutions for disabled employees.
The Supreme Court and the ADA ... I don't like the trend on this one!
Colorado
moved
closer
Monday
to
drastically
changing
its
gun
laws
to
allow
more
concealed
weapons
permits.
Some
people fear the measure also would allow hidden
weapons to be carried in many public places.
The House of Representatives erupted into raucous
"yeas" and "nays" as lawmakers on both sides of
the issue tried to outshout one another. A later tally
showed the vote was 42-22.
"This is a guarantee for citizens who want to
protect themselves and defend themselves," said
Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins, a bill supporter.
What the bill would do
If House Bill 1410 is approved by the Senate and
signed by the governor, Colorado would become a
"shall issue" state. That means any resident who is
at least 21 years old, passes a criminal background
check and takes a gun proficiency class must be
issued a concealed-weapons permit if he or she
requests one.
Now, Colorado is a "may issue state," meaning
sheriffs and police chiefs have the discretion to deny
concealed weapons permits to anyone.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Police in a Vancouver suburb are searching for Osama bin Laden -- or at least a man who last week used the name of the Saudi-born militant to steal some gasoline.
The suspect drove up in a luxury Jaguar car and used a credit card on a gasoline pump in Port Moody, British Columbia, but the station attendant became suspicious after the man had left.
The suspect was described as a Middle Eastern male in his mid-30s and 5'7" tall.
The incident occurred on April 12, but Soles said witnesses have reported seeing the man's car in Port Moody since then. "It looks like he's still in the area," he said.
U.S. Children Getting Majority of Anitbiotics From McDonald's Meat
WASHINGTON, DC�According to a Department of Health and Human Services report released Monday, McDonald's meat from antibiotics-injected livestock is now the primary source of antibiotics for U.S. children, particularly for uninsured youths from low-income households.
In HHS tests, 82 percent of children who had not been properly inoculated were still found to have significant levels of antibiotics in their bloodstreams. The antibiotics, the tests concluded, were the result of sustained intake of McDonald's meat.
Large-scale meat producers, Thompson noted, routinely add antibiotics to the feed of healthy animals to prevent cross-infection in the crowded, cramped quarters where livestock are typically raised. In the U.S., the average beef steer receives eight times more antibiotics than its human counterpart.
"If your child has a sinus infection, he or she can drop by before and after school for a Double Cheeseburger 50cc Meal or a delicious Chicken Tetracycline," Burger King spokeswoman Linda Jacobs said. "As we're fond of saying here at Burger King, 'This won't hurt a bite!'"
PARIS (Reuters) - French driving students may soon have to wait 24 hours before finding out test results because too many candidates are attacking examiners who fail them on the spot.
Some learner drivers who fail their driving test are venting their frustration by threatening examiners with death or rape, often at gunpoint, and attacking their cars, a transport ministry official in charge of driving tests said.
"Threats at gunpoint are not rare".
France fails more than two-thirds of the 3.5 million learners who take their test each year.
Are France's driving tests difficult or are French people stupid?
CINCINNATI - An appeals court in Ohio upheld a lower court's ruling that the state's ban on carrying concealed weapons violates the state constitution.
The 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the decades-old ban, which bars both carrying a concealed weapon and having a loaded weapon in a vehicle, infringes on the right to self-defense.
Forty-three states allow concealed weapons in some form.
I fail to understand why it is so difficult for the anti-concealed weapon folks to realize that law abiding citizens, who have completed a gun safety course, are not the ones that society needs to worry about. Criminals, regardless of the law, are the one's that carry guns (with the intent to harm others). It has been repeatedly demonstrated, in the states that have enacted concealed hand gun licenses, that violent crime is reduced. By instilling some degree of doubt in the mind of a criminal as to whether or not someone may now have the ability to defend themselves, is by far the best crime deterant possible.
I do believe that is what the founding fathers had in mind!
ROME (Reuters) - In a ruling that has sent a shiver down many parents' spines, Italy's highest appeals court has decreed that fathers must carry on supporting adult children until they find a job to their liking.
The case revolves around a wealthy family in the southern city of Naples, where the father is still paying some $680 a month in maintenance to a son who is in his 30s and has a university law degree.
"The parents have to pay for their upkeep," said the court in a verdict handed down earlier this week.
A Michigan court has overturned the conviction of a man dubbed the "cussing canoeist".
Prosecutors said Boomer yelled the "f-word" as many as 75 times after he fell out of his canoe on the remote Rifle River, within earshot of a 5-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl.
Boomer was found guilty after a district court judge refused to dismiss the case, arguing there was a compelling community interest in "protecting the morality of our children."
But the Michigan Court of Appeals on Monday said "Allowing a prosecution where one utters 'insulting' language could possibly subject a vast percentage of the populace to a misdemeanor conviction," the three judges wrote in their unanimous opinion.
Well, at least the Appeals Court exhibited some degree of common sense. Perhaps the law needs a category that's less than a Misdemeanor ... perhaps a "public, ruler on the knuckles" punishment. Seemed to work for the penguins when I was a kid.
View the entire article:
In what was supposed to be the culmination of years of preparation and devotion by dedicated athletes ... Thursday�s Gold Medal round between the US and Canada�s women�s hockey teams will forever be tarnished by the unforgivable and horrendous officiating of Stacey Livingston. This was, without question, the worst officiated game in the history of Olympic Hockey!!! What was should have been the �Gun Fight At the OK Coral� of Women�s Olympic Hockey turned out to be the most embarrassing demonstration of incompetence ever displayed by an official. Stacey Livingston ruined, by her continuous, anal and nitpicking calls, what should have been a spectacular event. This, in my view, is the most embarrassing moment for US Olympics. That body which oversees officiating must ensure that this never happens again. Stacey Livingston should be prohibited from ever stepping foot on a surface of ice bigger than an ice cube!!!!!
Did I mention she was from New York.
Her shameless pro-US officiating drove me to cheer for the Canadiens!!!
Major KUDOS to the Canadiens for overcoming such a despicable display from Stacey Livingston.
02/19/2002
Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad Tue Feb 19, 9:00 AM ET
By JAMES DAO and ERIC SCHMITT The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries, military officials said.
Here�s another indication of the dissatisfaction with the US's continuing war on terror: an article by Terry Jones from The Observer 02/17/2002 (link below).
In his article he correlates the efforts taken by the US to what the Brits should have done with the IRA.
"It is well known that the best way of picking out terrorists is to fly 30,000ft above the capital city of any state that harbours them and drop bombs - preferably cluster bombs."
I think Mr. Jones misses the point here. If the IRA had posed a nuclear, chemical or biological threat to the British I'm certain they would have taken similar precautions.
It's easy to write this kind of drivel when your country isn't facing potential death/destruction on such an unprecedented scale.
With the US's specific threat of military action against the so-called "axis of evil" - Iraq, Iran and North Korea and the use of pre-emptive strikes aimed "at prevention, not merely punishment". There's a growing feeling that "We are threatened today by a new simplism which consists in reducing everything to the war on terrorism" in which "global unilateralism" against "military pygmies" is carried out by an over-fed military giant.
We do need to protect our homeland ... but it is making the world nervous
The Supreme Court recently decided on a case where a woman who, due to repetitive stress injury at work and had developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, was not eligible for disability.
The court found that, even though she could no longer perform the functions of her job, she was not disabled enough to warrant disability benefits since she could still perform some functions in her personal life.
According to the court, as long as you can wipe your own butt you're not eligible for disability benefits.
02/06/2002
The FDA is cracking down on food products that contain hemp. The FDA is enforcing a zero tolerance edict to protect Americans.
The EPA, on the other hand, has set guidelines for the levels of various chemicals (i.e. Arsenic, Asbestos, Barium, Beryllium, Cadmium, Copper etc.) that can be allowed in America's drinking water.
I submit that the FDA should be in charge of our water quality and the EPA should control our hemp problem.
While I do not advocate the use of illegal substances, I do question government policy that allows measureable amounts of poison in our drinking water while waging war on miniscule amounts of hemp.
Seems to me that a zero tolerance edict, for poisonous contaminants in our drinking water, makes more sense to me.
