Foreign Policy: The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006

To Those Who Surf: Time Salutes You

NEW YORK — Congratulations! You are the Time magazine “Person of the Year.”

The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals — citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content online.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

James Madison … made the Bill of Rights a reality. Madison introduced the Bill of Rights into the first session of Congress in 1789, and he used Virginia’s Declaration of Rights as the model. Madison originally supported the adoption of 17 amendments, which was eventually trimmed to 12, of which 10 were adopted….

So, what were the 7 amendments that got cut or the two that almost made it? mjh

[updated 12-18-06]

Walking Raven sent me this link: A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 – 1875. Our beloved First Amendment was originally the third article, preceded by Article I, which specified the number of representatives, and Article II, which specified that pay raises for Representatives and Senators could only apply after an election. Those were the two amendments/articles that were dropped before the Bill of Rights was passed. (Still don’t know about the other 5 of the original 17.)

[updated 12-19-06]

[mjh: I should have just checked NewMexiKen first.]

NewMexiKen: The Bill of Rights

The draft first amendment concerned the numbers of constituents for each representative. It has never been ratified. The draft second amendment was ratified by the required number of states in 1992. It took effect as Amendment XXVII (”No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”)

I believe government should have nothing to do with marriage. Government should only issue “union licenses” as the contract between two individuals, regardless of gender. Marriage should be a church rite performed in addition to the civil union, if the couple so chooses.

N.J. Legislature Votes to Allow Same-Sex Unions By Robin Shulman, Washington Post Staff Writer

With a mandate from New Jersey’s highest court to offer gay couples the same rights as heterosexuals, the state legislature voted Thursday to create civil unions but stopped short of using the word “marriage.”

Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D) has said he will sign the bill into law, making New Jersey the third state, after Vermont and Connecticut, to offer civil unions, which extend to gay men and lesbians all the rights state law affords married people but give them a separate status. [Only Massachusetts has legalized marriage for gay couples.]

The problem is that “separate but equal” status we have rejected in matters of race. Equality requires equal status. Let all couples obtain identical “unions” and leave it to the churches to decide who they will marry. mjh

China and Darfur Washington Post editorial

Sudan has been subject to U.S. sanctions since the 1990s. It has been condemned in numerous United Nations resolutions, and Western firms that do business there risk alienating customers and investors. And yet a $4 billion complex of offices, parks and hotels is rising at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles, complete with the new sail-shaped headquarters of Petrodar, a Chinese-Malaysian-United Arab Emirates oil partnership. Thanks to these investors, along with Kuwaitis, Saudis, Indians and Pakistanis, Sudan’s petro-economy is flourishing. This year the economy is expected to grow 13 percent on the back of oil exports, most of which go to China.

So Sudan’s government feels it can ignore Western revulsion at genocide because it has no need of Western money. But the bigger question is why China, along with Sudan’s other Arab and Asian partners, feels free to trample on basic standards of decency. …

In recent weeks, fighting has intensified in the region and spilled into neighboring Chad; refugees are fleeing to the Central African Republic, which is embroiled in its own internal conflict. A regional catastrophe is brewing that could be worse even than the past three years of killing. …

Imagine the newspaper ads leading up to the Beijing Games in 2008: Human rights campaigners will call on the world to boycott the Genocide Olympics.

I don’t know about hell (yet), but Albuquerque, and all of New Mexico, froze over (why “over”?) last night. And with it, the bird bath in this photo.

Notice the the peak of ice near the peak of the brick. It almost looks like the water bubbled up just as it froze. I can’t believe the proximity of these peaks is coincidental. Did the brick conduct cold deeper into the water? Did it merely provide a surface to climb? (Though the ice peak is not exactly next to the brick.)

If I were a science writer and didn’t know the answer, I’d know someone who does. mjh