Tuesday, April 3, 2007

News

PC run amok.

From the Daily Mail:

Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

More.

From Christian Science Monitor:

Supreme Court: EPA must address climate risk

The high court's 5-to-4 ruling Monday rejects the White House's view and hands environmentalists a major victory.

WASHINGTON AND ASHLAND, ORE. - The Environmental Protection Agency must take action to assess the environmental perils of global warming.

In a major victory for environmentalists, the US Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Bush administration's view that the EPA has discretion to decide when and how to best respond to international environmental threats. The vote was 5 to 4.

Instead, the high court said laws passed by Congress to protect the environment require the EPA to swing into action to assess environmental threats that jeopardize human health and safety.

"Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation," writes Justice John Paul Stevens for the majority. He says the agency had offered no reasonable explanation to avoid the clear instructions of the Clean Air Act.

"This is the congressional design," Justice Stevens writes. "EPA has refused to comply with this clear statutory command." Joining Stevens in the majority were Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito dissented. In his dissent, Chief Justice Roberts focused on the issue of standing. Redress of the grievances spelled out in the suit are the function of Congress and the chief executive, not the federal courts, he wrote, adding that his position "involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem."

More.

Little redress in US courts for detainees

The Supreme Court avoided a test of Bush's terror-fighting powers Monday, letting stand a ruling denying Guantánamo detainees access.

WASHINGTON - A sharply divided US Supreme Court has declined to take up one of the thorniest legal issues in the Bush administration's war on terror – whether detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are entitled to federal court hearings to challenge their open-ended detention.

Instead, in a significant victory for the White House, the nation's highest court on Monday let stand a Feb. 20 appeals court ruling that the detainees are not entitled to immediate access to US federal courts

.

Lawyers representing 45 of the 385 detainees at the terror detention camp at the US Naval base at Guantanamo had asked the justices to take up the case on an expedited basis. They wanted the high court to hear arguments during a special oral argument session in early May so a decision could be released by the term's end in late June.

But the court refused to wade into the controversy at all. Instead, the detainees must now exhaust the legal and other avenues established by Congress and the military at a federal appeals court in Washington before bringing their cases to the nation's highest court.

More.

From Fox News:

The GRRR! Guide to Fast Food PC

Political correctness jumped the shark many years ago in this country.

What started out as a noble endeavor has turned into a convenient excuse for frivolous lawsuits, created a cottage industry in workplace labor law and has created a majority out of the minority.

But none of that has anything to do with this column. No, I'm using PC absurdity for a little tongue-in-cheek fodder, and I've got my sights trained on the fast food industry.

Therefore, I'm offended by the following hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and tater tots.

More.

Colorado Congressman Tancredo Announces 2008 White House Campaign

DES MOINES, Iowa — Criticizing other GOP candidates as weak in their efforts to stop illegal immigration, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo announced Monday he would seek the Republican presidential nomination.

"The political elite in Washington have chosen to ignore this phenomenon," he said.

Tancredo, a congressman who has gained prominence in recent years for his staunch stance against illegal immigration, said immigration would be the primary focus of his campaign.

He said he would not enter the race if he thought one of the leading candidates was sufficiently conservative on the issue.

More.

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