Wednesday, February 25, 2004
I'm frankly surprised that the issue of gay marriages inspires so much fervor as to provoke talk of an amendment to the constitution. Time will tell how much of this talk is bluster but I expect this will be on people's lips for some time.
As to what it would take to amend the charter for our nation, Salon.com offers this article, "How the Constitution could be amended" to keep people appraised.
Essentially;
- a proposal of an amendment to the constitution needs to be agreed upon by two-thirds majority of both houses of congress to go to the states for ratification
- then the three-fourths of the states must ratifiy it to go into effect
I'm surprised by some of the statistics cited by the news item. I had no idea that the latest amendment (the 27th) was ratified as recently as 1992.
</Aurelius> <!--12:46 PM-->Tuesday, February 24, 2004
An interesting article by Seth Ackerman in Mother Jones, A Legacy of Lies. Ackerman details how one of the more obsequeous rationales for believing that Iraq had WMDs -- defector Hussein Kamel's reports -- was actually doctored by two presidential administrations for the purposes of maintaining political policy. Ackerman cites numerous sources in making his case and paints a disturbing picture of how the government has essentially mislead the public in its (mis)use of Kamel's reports. With the Bush administration coming under fire for intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war, this example is an interesting anecdote illustrating that misinformation is not inherent in one administration's or one party's policy. It seems to be part and parcel of our government's foreign policy strategies. It makes me wary of any information that is fed through the news media and reinforces the need to understand the underlying forces at work in government.
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