In the ruling allowing a white cross to stay on a stretch of Mojave Desert to honor the dead of World War I, Justice Kennedy made the point I was trying to get across in a recent post, and he said it much better:
The bottom line, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote, is that "the Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society."
If government demands for "green energy" keep clashing with government demands for "historic preservation," somebody's head's gonna explode. In Lunenburg, Novia Scotia, Charlie Farquharson wants to add solar panels when he replaces the roof of the 116-year-old house he bought six months ago. But the town won't let him because the house in an area known as Old Town, a heritage conservation district where a bylaw restricts the changes a homeowner can make.
This isn't going to be pretty or end well:
When reporting on a press release from the federal government (or anything else, for that mattter), should journalists focus on the good news or the bad news? Here's an example of each approach as two newspapers examine the same Centers for Disease Control report on smoking. Each paper includes the same basic information, but the emphasis is decidedly different.
From the Lafayette Journal Courier, here is the "good news" approach:
Is Arizona's new immigration law an overreach that will invite abuse, if not take the state to apartheid-like actions or even a Nazi Germany atmosphere? Or does reaction to the law amount to hysterical ravings about a perfectly reasonable measure?
Many of us will be watching the 3rd District representative race and the U.S. Senate race in the Republican primary to see how strong the anti-incumbent mood is and how much influence the tea party movement will have.
Oh, sure, this is a much better solution than letting law-abiding citizens arm themselves:
Guess this will be a setback for the crusade for a motorcycle helmet law:
Motorcycle traffic fatalities in Indiana declined more than 14 percentage points last year, reflecting a nationwide trend, according to a new study.
Sylvia Smith had an interesting column in Sunday's JG about how many kids are unfit for military service, and I found myself agreeing with much of it.
As a veteran nearing the age when getting medical care will likely be a regular activity, I'm very interested in the back and forth between 3rd District congressional candidates Bob Thomas and Mark Souder over VA hospitals. As Thomas tells it, Souder didn't care all that much about the local hospital until a veterans' group put pressure on him. The way Souder sees it, Thomas wants to close all the hospitals and callously put veterans in a "Medicaid-like system."
