7/19 - James Maguire

• Mideast Crisis. Israel currently is involved in military action on two fronts: it has sent forces into Gaza after members of the terrorist organization Hamas captured an Israeli soldier on June 25, and it has sent forces into Lebanon, fired missiles at the airport in Beirut, and imposed a naval blockade on Lebanon’s ports after members of the terrorist organization Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12. The United States and other G-8 countries have supported Israel’s right to self-defense but have said that Israel should refrain from acts that destabilize Lebanon’s government (statement on-line here).

• Us and Stem. President George W. Bush vetoed a bill (H.R. 810) that would have changed Bush’s federal policy and would have allowed for federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells that are taken from embryos that would otherwise be destroyed. The Senate passed the bill by a 63-37 vote on July 18, Bush vetoed the bill on July 19 (veto message on-line here and press conference on-line here), and the House, which had passed the bill in 2005, failed to get the 2/3 majority necessary to override the veto.
  Embryonic stem cells have been controversial in recent years, first because of their derivation from aborted fetuses, and then because of their connection with a particular kind of human, non-reproductive cloning. Stem cells in general are unspecialized cells that can self-renew indefinitely and that can develop into more mature cells with specialized functions, and embryonic stem (ES) cells are derived from an early-stage embryo. Whether the federal government should fund the development of such cells grew into a major policy question in recent years, culminating with Bush's decision on August 9, 2001 to allow federal funding for research on then-existing stem cell lines as long as the lines were derived from embryos that were already destroyed and that had not been created specifically for research (on-line here).

• Net Neutrality. Proponents of “net neutrality” support measures that would, among other things, prevent broadband Internet providers from allowing different levels of access to certain websites (a campaign called Save the Internet is on-line here and Google has information on net neutrality on-line here).
  The House voted 269-152 on June 8 against a net neutrality amendment that was sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and that would have prevented broadband network providers from interfering with a person’s ability to use a broadband connection to access information over the Internet and from prioritizing or offering better service for some kinds of a type of data and not for others of that type. The amendment is on-line here.
  A similar measure for net neutrality has been proposed in the Senate by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.). The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which is chaired by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), voted 11-11 in late June not to include this amendment, which said in part: “To encourage broadband deployment, and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the Internet, a broadband service provider shall not discriminate Internet traffic based on source, ownership, or destination of such traffic as part of any publicly available Internet offering” (see release on-line here).

• Spelling Bee. The 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee is on-line here.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 7/20/2006 07:36:00 AM