Monthly Archives: March 2006

QOTD

Constitutional Stop Sign

ABQjournal: Automated Traffic Fines Run Constitutional Stop Sign By William H. White, Edgewood Municipal Judge

We would all like to think that, if freedom fails, it will be in a grand struggle with some titanic and obvious evil. The sad truth is, however, that freedom is lost one tiny piece at a time to the expediency of the small-minded functionary or the arrogance of the public servant who thinks that John Locke must be a device for securing the bathroom door.

It is our job as citizens to demand better.

NADA - New American Dark Ages

Even Perfect Storms Pass

If you’re like me, you may wince or roll your eyes at references to all Republicans as being a part of a “Culture of Corruption.” Most of the Republicans I know personally are fairly decent. Only one would like to see me arrested.

However, there is NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that the elections in 2000 and 2004 constituted a perfect storm for two powerful influences in our society: the sleaziest Capitalists and the most repressive Puritans — keep reading if you have any doubts. Even if we don’t slide into fascism, the worst corporations will cut our throats while the scolds burn our corpses.

I don’t remember what Democratic corruption or incompetence looks like (yeah, yeah — “Santa Fe” — OK, fine), but I’d take it any day over what’s happening now. mjh

NADA - New American Dark Ages

God Rules This Town

Welcome to NADA, the New American Dark Ages, where feudalism is new again. Next year, the founders of Ave Maria are going to build a big wall and moat around the town and begin raising an army to defend themselves from the heathens. After that, they’ll begin marching on Miami in a campaign called “Freedom to Kill for Christ”. mjh

New Florida town would restrict abortion CNN.com

If Domino’s Pizza founder Thomas S. Monaghan has his way, a new town being built in Florida will be governed according to strict Roman Catholic principles, with no place to get an abortion, pornography or birth control.

The pizza magnate is bankrolling the project with at least $250 million and calls it “God’s will.” …

The town of Ave Maria is being constructed around Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in about 40 years. Both are set to open next year about 25 miles east of Naples in southwestern Florida.

The town and the university, developed in partnership with the Barron Collier Co., an agricultural and real estate business, will be set on 5,000 acres with a European-inspired town center, a massive church and what planners call the largest crucifix in the nation, at nearly 65 feet tall. Monaghan envisions 11,000 homes and 20,000 residents.

During a speech last year at a Catholic men’s gathering in Boston, Monaghan said that in his community, stores will not sell pornographic magazines, pharmacies will not carry condoms or birth control pills, and cable television will have no X-rated channels. …

Gov. Jeb Bush, at the site’s groundbreaking earlier this month, lauded the development as a new kind of town where faith and freedom will merge to create a community of like-minded citizens. Bush, a convert to Catholicism, did not speak specifically to the proposed restrictions. …

Frances Kissling, president of the liberal Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice, likened Monaghan’s concept to Islamic fundamentalism.

“This is un-American,” Kissling said. “I don’t think in a democratic society you can have a legally organized township that will seek to have any kind of public service whatsoever and try to restrict the constitutional rights of citizens.”

‘Pizza pope’ builds a Catholic heaven – Sunday Times – Times Online by Tony Allen-Mills, New York

A FORMER marine who was raised by nuns and made a fortune selling pizza has embarked on a £230m plan to build the first town in America to be run according to strict Catholic principles.

Abortions, pornography and contraceptives will be banned in the new Florida town of Ave Maria, which has begun to take shape on former vegetable farms 90 miles northwest of Miami. …

Ave Maria’s pharmacies will not be allowed to sell condoms or birth control pills. …

The land on the western edge of the Everglades swamp will eventually house up to 30,000 people, with 5,000 students living on the university campus. …

The Florida developers managing the project claim more than 7,000 people have already expressed interest in buying homes in the town. Retailers and other businesses are reportedly close to leasing 60% of the intended commercial space. …

Sources close to the project said Monaghan was particularly disturbed by what he regards as the failure of western civilisation to resist Islamic fundamentalism. In a speech to students last year Healy warned that Islam “no longer faces a religiously dynamic West”. …

Monaghan believes he has more than the law on his side. “I think it’s God’s will to do this,” he said.

Ave Maria : Naples, Florida
a new community of uncompromising quality and boundless opportunity.
Ave Maria University

NADA - New American Dark Ages

In South Dakota, at least the pretense is finally over

Keep in mind that after abortion is illegal, the next step is outlawing birth control. After that? Re-read The Handmaid’s Tale” or take a good look at Sharia. mjh

In South Dakota, at least the pretense is finally over By Ellen Goodman

The ban passed with the clear, stated intention of overturning Roe in a changed Supreme Court. This is a ban so extreme that it outflanks the prolife president. It’s a confrontation so direct that even many in the antiabortion leadership are uneasy with the strategy and the timing. Though not, you will note, with the goal. …

Even this week, with superb irony, Governor Rounds promised tender care for the women he would force to continue their pregnancies. Representative Hunt explained that women themselves would not be prosecuted under the law because any woman choosing abortion was ”not thinking clearly.” …

This is what it looks like in front of the curtain. South Dakota’s law would make felons out of doctors who perform nearly any abortion. The government would replace women as moral decision-makers. And it would trump doctors as medical decision-makers. …

The ban, slated to go into effect July 1, will be challenged in court and possibly by a statewide vote. But hopes of prolife purists are clearly pinned on the belief in a Supreme Court majority ready to reverse Roe. The hopes of the rest of us are pinned on seeing, really seeing, extremists in the spotlights.

”I think the South Dakota issue reflects the divisiveness that Americans are tired of,” says NARAL’s Keenan. Much political chatter this year has urged prochoice advocates and politicians to move to the right. How many more times are they required to recite the pledge — ”We want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare” — while prolife purists fight to make it unsafe and illegal?

On Tuesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America launched a Prevention First Day of Action. The press release of the day read optimistically: ”Birth Control, Something We Can All Agree On.” But the subject of the day was the ban and the battle.

Common ground, anyone? South Dakota just put another torch to it.

Poll: U.S. inconsistent on abortion – MSNBC.com

AP Ipsos Poll on AbortionIn 2005, states enacted 52 measures to restrict access to abortion, according to the private Guttmacher Institute, and more are pending. …

52 percent of those surveyed thought abortion should be legal in most or all cases; 43 percent said it should be illegal most or all of the time.

The survey, taken Feb. 28-March 2, found that men’s and women’s views were similar, although men were a little more likely to be undecided.

With slight shifts one way or another, this is about where Americans have been for decades.

loco

Growing Up With Restraint

ABQjournal: Growth in One-Story Nob Hill Seems Tied to Taller Buildings – but Not Too Tall By Richard Metcalf, Journal Staff Writer

A citizens advisory committee has come up with a two-tiered approach to limit building height in the Central Avenue corridor:

# Up to 39 feet in Nob Hill’s “historic core” bounded by Girard on the west and Carlisle on the east, which is the shopping and entertainment district.

# Up to 54 feet in what is being called “emerging” or eastern Nob Hill, bounded by Carlisle on the west and Washington on the east.

As a rule of thumb in a mixed-used building, first-floor commercial space will have about 14- or 15-foot ceilings. The upper residential floors will each take up about 10 feet. Thus 54 feet would likely be five stories.

“The idea was to start with the lowest height in the historic core and gradually increase the height as you go east,” said Signe Rich, chair of the commercial and transition character committee.

Factors in determining a new commercial building’s height would include topography and proximity to houses. “It really needs to be a block-by-block analysis,” Rich said.

Heinrich agreed.

“Height is a tricky thing,” he said. “What’s appropriate in one place is not appropriate in another.” …

The current Nob Hill Sector Development Plan, adopted in 1987, has a general height restriction of 26 feet that applies to both commercial and residential buildings.

The current plan, however, has a provision to allow taller commercial buildings by using a pyramid concept.

From the property lines and the middle of adjacent streets, “angle planes” are tilted toward the middle of a proposed commercial building’s lot, thus forming an invisible pyramid. The tip of the pyramid is the allowable height. …

As the new sector plan is developed, Nob Hill is being combined with the Highland area, whose Central Avenue corridor extends from Washington east to San Mateo. …

The committee recommended two limits on the height of new commercial buildings in Highland: 54 feet in the area closer to Washington; and 67 feet in the area closer to San Mateo.

loco

Wilson doesn’t buck the president quite as much as she and her campaign handlers might like us to believe

ABQjournal: Wilson Record a Maverick Streak, Not GOP Buckin’ By Michael Coleman, Of the Journal

[Congressional Quarterly]’s study shows that [Rep. Heather Wilson,] the Albuquerque Republican, who frequently describes herself as independent, has voted with House Republican leadership the vast majority of the time over the past five years.

Wilson’s also a pretty reliable vote for President Bush, the magazine found.

In 2001, Wilson voted with House Republican leadership 94 percent of the time, according to CQ. The following year, in 2002, that number dropped to 90 percent. In 2003, the number edged up to 91 percent, then dropped to 79 percent in 2004 and then 82 percent last year, in 2005.

CQ also found that Wilson doesn’t buck the president quite as much as she and her campaign handlers might like us to believe. Starting in 2001, CQ found that Wilson voted in support of Bush’s stated positions on issues 88 percent of the time. In 2002, she supported the president 90 percent of the time, in 2003 her support level was 89 percent, in 2004 it was 88 percent. Only in the last year, 2005, did Wilson put some serious distance between herself and Bush, voting on his side of issues just 70 percent of the time. …

The mostly moderate [mjh: and mostly Democratic] 1st Congressional District voters will be the ultimate judges of whether Wilson reflects their views this fall, when she squares off against her Democratic challenger, New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid.

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

Wilson a Rebel With GOP’s OK

I FOUND IT quite amusing that you depict Rep. Heather Wilson as a moderate, both in an editorial and in the editorial cartoon. … I don’t think you can find a single instance of where one of her votes against the party line was a vote in the majority. Wilson is allowed to show her independence only when it won’t affect the outcome of the partisan charged vote. It’s time for a change and some honest and representative government.
HENRY ROSOFF
Albuquerque

Rep. a Liberal in GOP Clothing

I HAVE BEEN a Republican in good standing since World War II. I am 81 years old and have been a contributor to the Republican Party. Rep. Heather Wilson’s voting record has troubled me, and I accepted it as what she felt was right. After seeing the article in the Journal, I understand why Wilson is a moderate— good name for a liberal— and not a Republican.

In the upcoming election, I will not vote for Wilson nor will I vote against her. I just hope she is able to gather some left-leaning liberals to fill in the gap. I am disappointed with her and the fact she claims to be a Republican when she is actually a liberal.
GENO A. TERAMO
Albuquerque

[mjh: WTF and LOL!]