Cemetery Desecration

Weird:

A 19-year-old man from Salisbury was supposed to be cleaning up a cemetery last week as part of court-ordered community work after he broke into an apartment building last fall.
Instead, officials said, Neil J. Goodwin Jr. invaded the tomb of a Civil War veteran, pulled apart the 142-year-old skeleton, and then played with the bones, balancing the skull on his shoulder and posing for pictures.

Apparently this type of thing isn’t an isolated incident:

David L. Smith, president of the Civil War Round Table of Greater Boston, said crypt vandalism is becoming more common. The historical society is lobbying the state to strengthen laws involving vandalism of gravesites.
”It’s a terrible thing, whether it is a Civil War soldier or not,” Smith said. ”In effect, what this is is hurting someone who is already dead. . . . And if it is a soldier, then this shows a tremendous amount of disrespect for the people who have gone off to war and died for this country.”

It’s pretty bad when you can’t trust people to behave in a graveyard.

Bush And The Light Bulb

Truth in humor:

How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?
1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;
4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs;
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change Accomplished;
7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally in the dark;
8. One to viciously smear #7;
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;
10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

Yep.

American Fattness On The Rise

According to a new report:

Adult obesity rates have risen significantly, from 15 percent in 19804 to 19.4 percent in 1997 to 24.5 percent in 2004. It should be noted that the federal government slightly lowered the threshold for what should be considered “overweight” and “obese” in 1998 to make it more reflective of maintaining good health, however, the trend of quickly rising levels of obesity are still very clear.

and

According to projections, 73 percent of American adults could be overweight (34 percent) or obese (39 percent) by 2008.

Tennessee is doing its part, ranking 5th with 25.6 percent of adults being obese. Interestingly, seven of the top ten fattest states are in the Southeast. Looks like it’s a Southern thing.

High School Sex Education Needed

An Ohio mystery (emphasis added):

There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton Repository.
The article reported that some would say that movies, TV, videogames, lazy parents and lax discipline may all be to blame.
School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies, but in response to them, the school is launching a three-prong educational program to address pregnancy, prevention and parenting.

I believe the “school officials” should themselves enroll in the educational program if they believe TV or video games have caused the pregnancies.

Lost In Translation

The supposed Iraqi constitution is being written in English, then translated to Arabic? What in the world? No wonder no one seems to know where it stands. Even the First Vacationer seems a bit lost:

Q Sorry about that. Does the administration’s goal — I’ll ask you about the Iraqi constitution. You said you’re confident that it will honor the rights of women.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q If it’s rooted in Islam, as it seems it will be, is that still — is there still the possibility of honoring the rights of women?
THE PRESIDENT: I talked to Condi, and there is not — as I understand it, the way the constitution is written is that women have got rights, inherent rights recognized in the constitution, and that the constitution talks about not “the religion,” but “a religion.” Twenty-five percent of the assembly is going to be women, which is a — is embedded in the constitution.

At least Condi knows what’s in it; perhaps she’s doing the translating.
An alleged draft has been fed to the press. One doesn’t have to read far before the questions begin to pile up:

Article Two
The political system is republican, parliamentary, democratic and federal.
1. Islam is a main source for legislation.
– a. No law may contradict Islamic standards.
– b. No law may contradict democratic standards.
– c. No law may contradict the essential rights and freedoms mentioned in this constitution.
2. This constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the Iraqi people and guarantees all religious rights; all persons are free within their ideology and the practice of their ideological practices.

I don’t know much about Islam, but I’d be very surprised if 1 (a) and (b) square with each other. First off, what are “democratic standards”? Even in this country, where we presumably have a tradition of striving toward such standards, is there a strong consensus that those would match “Christian standards”? You’d get a vastly different view on this depending on who you ask. Who decides? Are there clerics on the courts?
For now such questions will apparently wait, as the news media seems fixed on the federalism issue.