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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (100549)	2/15/2005 9:19:30 AM
From: aladin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793691

CB, In the meantime, nobody seems to care that the worst polluters are the Chinese And the Indians -- look at this: nasa.gov But both are exempt from Kyoto and not surprisingly do not keep any reliable stats on pollution. That way the Euro's and the greens can still say we are the biggest polluters. BTW Sat photos of North America look cleaner than Europe. Particulates from coal and diesel are exempt from Kyoto as well and Europe loves its Diesels. No on the issue of your lawn, WHAT IS YOUR PLAN FOR DEALING WITH ALL THE BUTTERFLY DUNG? John@justwondering.com

To: Ilaine who wrote (100549)	2/15/2005 9:24:24 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 793691

Federalist Society reporting on ABA midyear meeting:>>ABA MIDYEAR MEETING DAILY UPDATE Today we report on proceedings from Saturday's ABA Meetings. President Grey offers remarks at the ABA Plenary Session with State Bars ABA President Robert Grey briefed attendees at the ABA Plenary Session with State Bar Association leaders. Grey devoted a portion of his speech to ABA Activities "On Our Watch." According to Grey, "On our watch we have the ability to keep citizens safe and the government accountable. On our watch we can make a difference about how the legal profession is understood and appreciated. You and I will bring this organization to a point where others will say, 'If you want to know how it's done, look at the ABA.'" He briefly addressed rising medical insurance rates, stating that although lawyers could not entirely be blamed, they were a part of the problem. Grey maintained, "Caps aren't the answer. Twenty-two states in crisis have caps. We need to step back and have a dialogue to understand the facts." Time for a Dialogue Between Congress and the Judiciary A Saturday morning panel featured several judges discussing the judiciary branch's relationship with Congress. In his remarks, U.S. District Court Judge Berle Schiller of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania started out by quoting the Federalist Papers #78: the judiciary has neither force nor will, just judgment. Judge Schiller then discussed occasions where, in his view, Congress has threatened the independence of the judiciary. He cited the recent Feeney Amendment, suggesting it created an "atmosphere of intimidation" by instilling a fear that judges would be blacklisted and would have to defend their decisions in the political arena. (The Feeney Amendment sought to limit downward departures by judges from the standard sentencing guidelines. The amendment instructed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to revise its policies preventing judges from reducing sentences below the guidelines and required federal appellate courts to conduct reviews of all downward departures by district court judges. It also established a system for reporting to Congress how federal judges handled sentencing.) Concerning the use of international law in judicial decision-making, Judge Schiller accused Congressman Feeney of using the threat of impeachment to prevent the use of international law. Judge Schiller stated: "What's wrong with looking at good ideas? There's no principled reason to ignore them." He then went on to discuss attempts at jurisdiction-stripping, including the House of Representative's effort to deprive judges of the authority to hear contentious cases such as the one challenging the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Judge Schiller observed that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has said that the tension between the courts and Congress is the highest it has ever been. He suggested that politics is causing this atmosphere. Candidates from the Left and the Right have campaigned, using the courts as a point of attack or to instill public fear. The Left claims that right-wing judges are trying to take away a woman's right to choose, and the Right claims that activist judges are set on getting God out of our lives. Judge Schiller suggested that both political parties know that the judiciary has no natural constituent base, and, thus, it is an easy target. Senator Orrin Hatch responded. He admitted that there was a heightened sense of tension. He suggested, however, that the judiciary is using judicial review as an excessively powerful check on the legislature. He used the example of provisions of the recently enacted Child Pornography Act, which the Supreme Court invalidated, stating "Sometimes the judiciary goes past its Constitutional limits." The Senator rejected Judge Schiller's accusations of the threat of potential impeachment. Senator Hatch said that no articles of impeachment were ever introduced. He then went on to say that, criticism of the judiciary could be good. It incentivizes judges to be thoughtful in their decisions. 10th Circuit Court Judge Deanell Tacha detailed four broad themes in her remarks: the importance of public trust in the courts, the need to educate the public about the three branches of the Federal government, instilling the idea that government works better when there is tension between the branches, and the importance of attracting good people to government. U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Hinojosa discussed his experiences on the U.S. Sentencing Commission. University of Richmond School of Law Dean Rodney Smolla, the moderator, then asked the panelists to reflect further on the issue of criticism of the judiciary by the political branches. Senator Hatch responded by suggesting that most judges work within the Sentencing Guidelines. He then noted that it is the judges on the 9th Circuit who "don't care what the law is. They just care what they want it to be. This hurts how people view the judiciary." Judge Hinojosa believes that "we are seeing more activism because the public is bringing more suits to the courts. We are seeing more activity in the courts." One last question from Dean Smolla asked about personal and political attacks on judges launched from opponents, such as what happened with Judge Robert Bork's nomination. Senator Hatch responded, "It was a travesty what happened to Bork. It was a huge mistake by Senators."

To: Ilaine who wrote (100549)	2/15/2005 9:46:12 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793691

The scientists seem to be all over the place Not from what I have read. This from Science Magazine. *Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect* IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)]. Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8). The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9). The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point. This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect. The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it. Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.