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Earthquakes & Miniskirts;
Sophistry & Guns
Rich Galen
Wednesday April 21, 2010
Click here for an Easy Print Version
This is why Iran will never take over the world. Well, it's another reason why Iran won't take over the world. The London Daily Mail is reporting that a cleric in Iran has figured out why we are having all these earthquakes, volcanoes, and close games in the NCAA men's basketball tournament last month.
It's the fault of women. And not just any women. It is women who dress and act in a provocative manner. According to the article, a cleric named Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi said:
"Many women who do not dress modestly... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes."
Perhaps the Iranian clergy should so some work with those young men whose chastity is so easily corrupted and who are effortlessly led to adultery that it causes the earth to tremble and volcanoes to bellow their displeasure.
Or � maybe we'll just move onto something else.
The residents of the District of Columbia will not have a voting Member of Congress as a bill which would have provided for that was killed by Democratic leadership in the House over a provision which would have eased the District's very tough gun laws.
According to the Associated Press,
"The bill would have increased full House membership from 435 to 437, giving District residents a vote while adding a temporary at-large seat for Republican-leaning Utah, which narrowly missed out on getting an extra seat after the 2000 census."
But Democrats were not willing to trade a more flexible gun law for a voting Member of the House so they withdrew the bill.
The District has long had the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. It was illegal to have a firearm in your home, much less in your car or on your person. In 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court struck that law down in the "Heller" decision in which it was decided that the language of the Second Amendment made owning a firearm an individual right:
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.
The District continued to make it difficult to "keep and bear Arms" but not impossible as it had been.
Interestingly, there were 186 murders committed in 2008 in the District of Columbia. After the Heller decision, there were 143 murders in 2009, a decrease of 23 percent. So far in 2010 there have been 29 murders compared to 36 at this point last year - a further decrease of just under 20 percent.
I know there is absolutely no cause-and-effect in the number of people killing each other in Washington, DC and the availability of hand guns. But, the argument posed by Liberals in the House that any easing of the hand gun laws in the District would lead to wholesale gunfights at the I'm-OK-You're-OK Corral is equal sophistry.
Another minor problem with what the Congress was trying to do was: It was probably Unconstitutional. The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress wrote in a 2007 issue brief:
"It is difficult to identify either constitutional text or existing case law that would directly support the allocation by statute of the power to vote in the full House to the District of Columbia Delegate."
Furthermore, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch didn't think that adding a temporary At-Large Member from his state (who would likely be a Republican to balance what is assumed to be a Democrat elected from DC) was Constitutional, either.
Utah has three Congressional Districts. Everyone gets to vote for someone in their District to be their Member of Congress. Under the plan which was just withdrawn, everyone in Utah would still have been able to vote for someone in their District plus they would have been able to cast a vote the At-Large candidate - two votes for one person.
Outside of certain sections of Illinois this has never been legal.
The Congress being able to create additional Congressional seats - however temporarily - to suit a current whim is a really dangerous idea.
In any event, the 600,000 people who are residents of the District of Columbia still pay their taxes, but still don't have a voting Member of the House or Senate.
Maybe they're the ones who should have been out demonstrating on April 15th.
On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Lots o' Links. That Iranian cleric, a Time Magazine summary of DC Voting rights as well as the AP story from this week. Also the issue brief from the Library of Congress and � the definition of sophistry.
The Mullfoto today is a pretty good shot from Downtown DC, and the Catch Caption of the Day which will make you weep for the hardships wealthy New Yorkers are about to endure.
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