June 2004

There were 45 posts published in June 2004 (this is page 2 of 8).

War on Civil Liberties

Details are still emerging, but it appears the just-released U.S. Supreme Court decision does allow those held in concentration camps some access to challange their charges in U.S. courts.
UPDATE: In Rumsfeld v. Padilla, the court did not reach the constitutional issue. It merely ruled that Padilla had pursued his legal claim in the wrong court.
UPDATE: In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the court ruled that due process demands that a combatant be given an opportunity to challange the government in front of a “neutral decisionmaker.
These rulings aren’t a complete victory for individual rights–Congress can authorize the president to hold a narrow class of combatents. But they are, by and large, a blow to the Bush administration’s claim of authority to hold prisoners indefinitely without the right for them to be heard.
UPDATE: Lawrence Solum has a more complete rundown on the detention cases.

Frog-March Countdown

The grand jury inches closer.
Our media is really on top of this, sporadically reporting developments after the fact. I guess they can’t be expected to stay on top of the Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant trials and this investigation. First things first.

Music Lists

I found a couple unrelated music lists.
MSNBC has a list of “cool” songs for summer. I like a few of them alright but not nearly as much as other people do. If you go over to the list, perhaps you’ll luck out and get one of the annoying ones stuck in your head.
A more interesting list is the American Film Institute’s list of top 100 songs From U.S. movies (scroll down). By my count, 16 of the songs are from the 1950s, but we’ve only had 14 in the past 20 years.
Either the AFI has some nostalgic voters, or they don’t make movie music like they used to.

T.V. News Priorities

Three news stories have come out in the past day. Guess which one of these gets more play on the news channels:
(a) A juror juror gets removed from the Peterson murder trial.
(b) One of the Olsen twins goes to a clinic for an eating disorder.
(c) The 9/11 commission is investigating whether or not Attorney General John Ashcroft lied under oath when he testified he did not brush-off terror warnings in the summer of 2001.
If you guessed the story which is related to the death of nearly 3,000 Americans, you guessed wrong.
Don’t you love our media?

Half-Baked Moon Rising

Three months after the fact, and several weeks after it went around the blogosphere, the Washington Post finally picked up with a prominent story on Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. In front of more than a dozen lawmakers:

The Korean-born businessman and religious leader then delivered a long speech saying he was “sent to Earth . . . to save the world’s six billion people. . . . Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”

Jeff Gorenfeld has offered in depth coverage and footage of the event.
Of course many of the legislators are now claiming they didn’t know what was going to transpire at the ceremony. I suppose that’s possible, but event organizer Archbishop George A. Stallings Jr. responds thusly:

“You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not know that any event that is sponsored by the Washington Times . . . could involve the influence, or the potential presence, of the Reverend Moon,” he said.

And accounts of the event don’t offer much about attendees walking out in protest.
I don’t know about you, but I’d like to know in a more timely manner when our representatives are involved in this type of weirdness.