Thursday March 2, 2006
Prominent Senators fought vigorously for months trying to protect US residents making calls to Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan from government intrusion into their privacy, in what President Bush characterized as a partisan effort to derail renewal of the Patriot Act. Their efforts failed and according to AP, “The Senate on Thursday gave its blessing to the renewal of the USA Patriot Act after adding new privacy protections designed to strike a better balance between civil liberties and the government's power to root out terrorists”
On a related story, “ In a contest between Americans' knowledge of "The Simpsons" and what they know about the First Amendment, Bart and Homer win hands down.
About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family, according to a survey.
The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22% of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms”
Might this study have been conducted using a large population of Coto de Caza residents? This might explain why members of the Coto landscaping and architectural committees as opposed to the recently fired safety committee – readily agree to give up their free speech rights, so they can “play” with the current board of directors?
And of course, Coto de Caza board of director’s Jerry’s Mezger reasoning for denying spouses their right to membership in association committees is that (in a slippery slope fallacy), they will then be able to hold two seats on the board, unduly concentrating power – very different from the current concentration of power by having members of the board of directors ALSO being district delegates.
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