Mike Argento, a York native and graduate of York Suburban Area High School and Penn State, first came to the York Daily Record in 1983. He even had gray hair back then. After stints covering everything from cops to city hall to state government to the environment, he began writing a column for the paper, three times a week, in 1989. His column can be about anything and so is his blog, which encompasses life in York County and beyond. And, for the record, as he told his wife the other night, he wishes people would stop asking him, 'What's wrong with you?' He really doesn't know. The New York Times reports that the soil on Mars could support plant life. The story leads with this paragraph:
"Stick an asparagus plant in a pot full of Martian soil, and the asparagus might grow happily, scientists announced Thursday."
Mmmmmmm...Martian asparagus...
Read the whole story here.
So there are signs of life on Mars. Here's hoping it's intelligent life and not the kind that wants to come here and blow stuff up, like in the movies.
By definition, an activist judge is one who issues a decision that you disagree with.
While I may not disagree with some aspects of the landmark decision in the Supreme Court case of District of Columbia vs. Heller -- I think it was proper to strike down the ban, but went too far in saying the Second Amendment guarantees nearly unrestricted gun ownership -- it was work of activist judges.
In this case, activist judges who disregarded precedent, went beyond the scope of the issue they'd been asked to examine and relied on ideology rather than evidence to reach their decision.
Interesting, the coverage of the ruling seems to be kind of misleading. Much of it reports that this is the first time the Supremes have examined the Second Amendment.
Not true.
The 1939 case of U.S. vs. Miller, about a law banning sawed-off shotguns, set a pretty clear precedent.
The unanimous ruling, written by Justice James Clark McReynolds, said, in part, "In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."
The current court -- Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the five-justice majority -- apparently interpreted that to mean that certain kinds of weapons may be banned by the government and that the courts may pick and choose. In this case, handguns are OK. In Miller, sawed-off shotguns weren't.
Anyway, it's an fascinating ruling, even if you have to wade through the thousands of words Scalia uses to define what "arms" entail.
And you citizens of D.C.? Keep you heads down.
Ira Tucker, the lead singer with the gospel group, the Dixie Hummingbirds, has passed away at his home in Philadelphia. He was 83.
The Hummingbirds were best known to a generation of music fans as the group that backed up Paul Simon on "Loves Me Like a Rock. But Tucker and the rest of the group has huge success with its emotive gospel, recorded at their peak in the '40s and 50s, with songs like "Thank You for One More Day," "Trouble in My Way" and "Bedside of a Neighbor."
Tucker's style influenced a generation of soul singers, from Jackie Wilson to the Temptations to Stevie Wonder.
Read the New York Times obit here.
This is from McClatchy Newspapers:
"Mohammed Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst."
"But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. But they had the wrong guy. Local anti-government insurgents had fed false information to U.S. troops."
The newspaper chain's Washington Bureau has conducted an extensive investigation into the prisoners detained in the war of terrorism and concluded that in many cases, our government is detaining the wrong people.
Here's more:
"An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men -- and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds -- whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.
"McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials -- primarily in Afghanistan -- and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
"This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
"The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners."
Read the whole series here.
You know, the more we do this kind of stuff, the less safe we are. Besides, we're Americans. We don't do this kind of thing.
Bo Diddley has died.
The rock'n'roll legend was 79.
Here's one of my favorite tunes of his, Road Runner, from a live performance in 1972.
