Drink Rum

I suppose this could wait until tomorrow and go up as a FART for the week, but I already have other ideas for that. Keep a "middle eastern" eye on that one for tomorrow.

So Dumb-Bumb vetoed the Stem Cell research bill essentially blocking federal dollars for the research projects. That, in and of itself, doesn't make him an idiot... it was his rationale for the veto. Here are a few examples of ligitimate reasons for not using Federal dollars on the project.

1-The science is very dubious and it could be a cash sink hole.
2-Federal dollars shouldn't be in the medical research field, leave it to the pharms to figure it out.
3-The budget is still a mess and we need all the money we've got on pre-spent projects, not new ones.

But alas... we got, "American taxpayers for the first time in our history would be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos."

So what.

American taxpayers are compelled to fund all kinds of things that they may disagree with ethically, morally or religiously.

The Supreme Court has heard (what out, flash of college coming at you) 3 major cases regarding this sort of thing. ( if you want to look at the court records goole for Flast, Frothingham, and Mellon)

The courts essentially established that Joe American can't sue the US government for spending money that goes against Joe's moral character. The original case was a 1st Amendment case basically saying freedom of religion was impared by the federal govt taxing a citizen who opposed a specific govt action based on religious grounds. A good example would be a US muslim who sues the govt for using his tax dollars for a holy war against his brothers in Allah. The Supreme Court basically said that all tax revenue is lumped together in the treasury with no ties to an individual. Spending programs draw from the treasury, not from an individual. So, yeah... basically after the money goes to IRS, it's not yours. Your money goes to pay for an M-16 or a tank, or a bridge, or who knows.

The second case basically set limits on the first one. It basically said that Federal tax dollars couldn't be used to oppress or thwart a religion. It granted standing to a person if a federal tax based program prohibited or inhibited their ability to practice their religion.

Anyway... Bush is using a double standard saying that the ethical issue of taxes for a questionable project is bad, because those same court rulings are what support his Office of Faith-based Initiates and permit tax handouts to large numbers of organizations with dubious agendas or have questionable practices (like the Boy Scouts).

You can argue that unused fetices for sciences is a bad trade, but aside from bad science, it's bad law to.

Now, lawyer on the other half of my brain will say this. Bush can veto anything for any reason. He doesn't have to have a creditible explaination based on law.

A clear majority of people in this country are in support of this measure, but instead the decision is made not scientifically, not legally (meaning based on precendent), or popularly (respecting the will of the people). It was based religiously to support a narrow-minded group of people who still prefer mysticism to reality.