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god help us if this isn't replicated elsewhere ... O_o[JURIST] AP is reporting that a federal judge has ruled that "intelligent design" cannot be taught in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district. US District Judge John E. Jones III ruled Tuesday that the Dover Area School District violated the Constitution when it decided that biology curriculum must include anti-evolutionary intelligent design theory [Natural History backgrounder].
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Read the full opinion [PDF text; opinion is also available from the ACLU here]. The US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania has a case website, including pleadings and orders in the case, and the ACLU of PA, which represented the plaintiffs, also provides case documents
Democrats say they never approved NSA domestic spying program
word has it, mentioning something isn't the same as asking for consent ... talking about a topic isn't making a decision ... and disclosing the good bits without mentioning the rest isn't full disclosure nor acting in good faith.[JURIST] Top Senate Democrats have said that they never approved or were fully briefed on the National Security Agency's post-September 11th domestic surveillance program [JURIST report].
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Both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday called for an immediate joint investigation [press release] with the Senate Judiciary Committee into whether the NSA and government officials acted "without appropriate legal authority." Reuters has more.
colour me surprised.
FBI reports rise in US murder rate, decline in other crimes
i wonder what might explain this trend?[JURIST] The Federal Bureau of Investigation [official website] reported Monday that the US murder rate rose 2.1 percent [press release] during the first six months of 2005, though rates for other significant offenses, such as rape and arson, are on the decline.
busy
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pity our respective peoples have already elected these guys back into the driving seat for the next few years.
2006 will see the most radical transformation of australian culture ever.
our industrial relations framework, universities, police powers, military-civil relations, taxation, you name it, it's all getting "overhauled" ... methinks the dopy bastards have confused the usual meaning of that word with the old practice of "keelhauling" ...
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Or am I way off the beam, here?
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we're closing on you rapidly ... damn it.
'our' cronulla debarcle might be a sign of things to come ...
actually, i don't think we'll have much violence here. far too much apathy and inertia. and our guns were taken away a few years ago ...
nevertheless, i think our politics is more interesting than yours - our minor parties are more viable - some have held the balance fo power from time to time.
i'm thinking seriously about whether i want to get politically active, and if so - how.
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Take crime statistics with a grain of salt, though. The most recent trend among law-enforcement agencies in the US is to "cook the books" by playing slight-of-hand with crime classifications. Apparently the trend started with New York City, and is spreading across the country. Many crimes traditionally classified as "violent" now aren't. The deck gets shuffled, and the odd new category broken-out, and: Voila! Vastly lower crime statistics.
But still: Yes. Occasionally once sees a glimmer of sanity, stateside.
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this did have me wondering if the drop in nasty stuff and rise in bang-bang might not be related to the deployment of peoples to a certain place ...
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