BAGHDAD (Feb. 1) - Remote-controlled explosives strapped to two mentally retarded women detonated in a coordinated attack on Baghdad pet bazaars Friday, Iraqi officials said, killing at least 73 people in the deadliest day since the U.S. sent 30,000 extra troops to the capital last spring.
Photo Gallery
Khalid Mohammed, AP
Deadly Attacks Rock Baghdad
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Iraqis clean up the site of a suicide bombing Friday at a popular pet market in central Baghdad. The attack and another that followed at a bird market in the city killed dozens and wounded even more. Mentally retarded women with remote-controlled bombs strapped to them carried out both attacks, police said.
The chief Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, claimed the female bombers had Down syndrome and that the explosives were detonated by remote control, indicating they may not having been willing attackers in what could be a new method by suspected Sunni insurgents to subvert stepped up security measures.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said the bombings showed that a resilient al-Qaida has "found a different, deadly way" to try to destabilize Iraq.
"There is nothing they won't do if they think it will work in creating carnage and the political fallout that comes from that," he told The Associated Press in an interview at the State Department.
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 16 (OneWorld) - A federal court in San Francisco has cleared the way for a major national class action lawsuit on behalf of veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The federal Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had sought to dismiss the lawsuit claiming that the groups bringing the suit, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, were simply "advocacy organizations" and did not have standing to sue on behalf of the estimated 320,000 to 800,000 service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with cases of PTSD.
"We won this round against VA. Veterans will have our day in court," the director of Veterans for Common Sense Paul Sullivan said in a statement. "The VA must now release documents under discovery about their deliberate attempts to deny and delay medical care and disability benefits for all veterans, especially our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans."
"The decision is vitally important," added Melissa Kasnitz, an attorney with the Berkeley, California based non-profit Disability Rights Advocates, which along with the law firm Morrison and Forrester is representing the veterans groups. "It allows the case to move forward toward trial."
"We want the government to ensure that veterans get prompt care and that the VA disability claims process is fair and run in a timely fashion," she added.
The complaint, filed in federal court in July, sought a Judge's order finding that VA's system of handling disability claims and appeals is so dysfunctional that it violates veterans' constitutional and statutory rights. The suit also calls for court orders requiring VA to provide immediate medical and psychological help to returning troops and to screen them for risk of suicide.
The VA now has a backlog of over 600,000 applications for claims, and a decision on a claim can take up to 12 years to be processed through appeals. According to data obtained in November by McClatchy Newspapers, veterans must wait an average of 183 days for a claim to be decided.
A CBS news investigation released last November found that 120 veterans kill themselves every week; or over 6,000 per year.
CBS asked all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records for veterans and non-veterans, and found that veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide.
In 2005, CBS found a total of at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. The Veterans groups suing the VA contend the long wait for health care and disability care through the government system contribute to the large number of suicides.
In his 42-page ruling allowing the class action suit to go forward, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti wrote that the federal system for weighing individual veterans' claims "does not provide an adequate alternative remedy for Plaintiffs' claims," but stopped short of ruling on the merits of the claims themselves.
The VA declined comment on the Conti decision, but issued a statement saying it is "dedicated to meeting the mental health care needs of all veterans." It noted an increase in its mental health care staff and creation of new programs to treat returning soldiers.
But veterans groups aren't convinced and will be back in court February 22.
"We are seeking an immediate order from the court to force the government to stop turning away veterans who are suicidal," attorney Kasnitz said. "Also, Congress has appropriated money to the VA to help Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans but the money hasn't been spent. We are asking the court to force the VA to stop impounding the money."
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer Thu Jan 10, 9:49 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.
A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.
In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal and intelligence investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.
"We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.
More than half of 990 bills to pay for telecommunication surveillance in five unidentified FBI field offices were not paid on time, the report shows.
Assistant FBI Director John Miller said wiretaps were dropped only a few times because of the backed-up billing, which he said didn't significantly set back the investigations under way. He said the FBI "will not tolerate financial mismanagement, or worse," and is working to fix the problems.
"While in a few instances, late-payment of telephone bills resulted in interruptions of the timely delivery of surveillance results, these interruptions were temporary and in our assessment, none of those cases were significantly affected," Miller said in a statement Thursday evening.
The report released Thursday was a highly edited version of Fine's 87-page audit that the FBI deemed too sensitive to be viewed publicly. It focused on what the bureau admitted was an "antiquated" system to track money sent to its 56 field offices nationwide for undercover work. Generally, the money pays for rental cars, leases and surveillance, the audit noted.
The American Civil Liberties Union called on the FBI to release the entire, unedited audit. The group, which has been critical of some of the government's wiretapping programs, also took a swipe at telecommunication companies that allowed the eavesdropping — as long as they are getting paid.
"It seems the telecoms, who are claiming they were just being 'good patriots' when they allowed the government to spy on us without warrants, are more than willing to pull the plug on national security investigations when the government falls behind on its bills," said former FBI agent Michael German, the ACLU's national security policy counsel. "To put it bluntly, it sounds as though the telecoms believe it when the FBI says the warrant is in the mail but not when they say the check is in the mail."
The audit also found that some field offices paid for expenses on undercover cases that should have been financed by FBI headquarters. Out of 130 undercover payments examined, auditors found 14 cases of at least $6,000 each where field offices dipped into their own budgets to pay for work that should have been picked up by headquarters.
The faulty bookkeeping was blamed, in large part, for an FBI employee who pleaded guilty in June 2006 to stealing $25,000 for her own use, the audit noted.
"As demonstrated by the FBI employee who stole funds intended to support undercover activities, procedural controls by themselves have not ensured proper tracking and use of confidential case funds," it concluded.
Fine's report offered 16 recommendations to improve the FBI's tracking and management of the funding system, including its telecommunication costs. The FBI has agreed to follow 11 of the suggestions and one additional recommendation was found unnecessary. But it said that four "would be either unfeasible or too cost prohibitive." The recommendations were not specifically outlined in the edited version of the report.
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 4 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said Wednesday.
The move represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the U.S. was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Instead, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed NATO allies to contribute the extra forces.
Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion — together totaling more than 3,000 forces — to southern Afghanistan for a "one-time, seven-month deployment."
Gates, he said, will want to review the request, and is not likely to make a final decision on Friday.
"He will take it and consider it thoroughly before approving it," said Morrell. "I just want to get people away from the idea that this is going to be imminently approved by the secretary."
He said Gates "has some more thinking to do on this matter because it's a serious allocation of forces."
Morrell added that Gates' thinking on the issue has "progressed a bit" over time as it became clear that it was politically untenable for many of the NATO nations to contribute more combat troops to the fight.
"The commanders need more forces there. Our allies are not in the position to provide them. So we are now looking at perhaps carrying a bit of that additional load," the spokesman said.
Morrell said the move, first reported Wednesday by ABC News, was aimed at beating back "another Taliban offensive" that is expected this spring — as has occurred in previous years.
When Gates was in Afghanistan last month, commanders made it clear they needed the additional forces.
Last year was the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The number of attacks has surged, including roadside bombings and suicide assaults.
Currently there are about 27,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including 14,000 with the NATO-led coalition. The other 13,000 U.S. troops are training the Afghan forces and hunting al-Qaida terrorists.
Morrell said that while the Marine ground and air contingent would be put in place to prevent a spring Taliban offensive, the Marine battalion likely would be used to train Afghan forces.
The shift in U.S. thinking on sending more combat forces to Afghanistan has appeared inevitable in recent weeks, based on the political realities in many of the NATO nations.
In meeting after meeting during his Afghanistan visit in early December, Gates heard pleas from both Afghan and U.S. military leaders for up to 7,500 more forces, with about half needed for training.
About a week later, Gates was asked by a reporter after a NATO meeting in Scotland whether the Bush administration was considering sending more troops to Afghanistan, in the event that the shortfalls are not bridged by NATO allies. Gates replied, "Not in the short term."
But by Dec. 21, Gates acknowledged during a press briefing that the Pentagon would "be looking at the requirement ourselves."
Bush administration officials pressed NATO allies for months to fill gaps in troops levels in Afghanistan, but many allied governments face public opposition to deeper involvement there.
Gates said at the Scotland meeting that the administration had decided to tone down its appeals to allies, taking into account "political realities" faced by some European governments whose citizens may see less reason to intervene in Afghanistan.
The Bush administration has launched a wide-ranging review of its policy in Afghanistan to ensure that gains made since the radical Islamist Taliban regime was ousted in 2001 are not lost and to bolster Afghan President Hamid Karzai's nascent government.
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AP Military Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 3 (OneWorld) - Sixteen U.S. states have joined a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging its decision to stop California from implementing a landmark law limiting global warming pollution from new automobiles.
Five nonprofit groups -- the Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense, the International Center for Technology Assessment, Natural Resources Defense Counsel, and the Sierra Club -- also filed suit in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, the same court in which California filed its legal challenge.
Fifteen other states that had adopted California�s standard as their own filed a motion to intervene in support of California.
"While global warming marches onward, EPA continues to drag its feet," said Jim Tripp, general counsel for Environmental Defense. "The agency's decision defies the law, the science, and the will of states representing nearly half of the U.S. population."
At stake are historic California standards to lower global warming pollution from passenger cars and trucks. The California standards are scheduled to take effect in model year 2009 and secure a 30-percent fleet-wide reduction by 2016. The state program would be the first binding program in the nation to strictly limit global warming pollution.
According to scientists working with Environmental Defense, cars and light trucks are one of the United States' largest sources of global warming pollution -- accounting for 16 percent of the U.S. total -- and the fastest growing.
When he blocked California's program last month, EPA Administration Stephen Johnson said energy legislation signed by President Bush will raise fuel economy standards nationwide to an average of 35 mpg by 2020. He said that was a far more effective approach to reducing greenhouse gases than a patchwork of state regulations.
But environmentalists and California officials argue the state's greenhouse gas regulations will be much more effective than the energy bill signed into law by President Bush. The California law would require auto companies to begin cutting their emissions in 2009.
"Between 2009 and 2016 the California standards will prevent a cumulative total of 58 million tons of carbon dioxide, which is about three times the amount we will prevent if we only adopt the new federal standards," California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols told reporters Wednesday.
The Bush Administration's rejection of California's global warming standards marked the first time in decades the federal government had blocked the state's efforts to set tough pollution regulations.
Since the passage of the Clean Air Act 40 years ago, the EPA has granted more than 50 waivers allowing the state to pursue its own policies. That's because the federal law broadly guarantees California's right to adopt its own motor vehicle emission standards as long as they are more protective than the federal emission standards.
The 15 states and 5 nonprofit groups suing the EPA argue there are no federal greenhouse gas emission standards in place for any pollution source.
Environmentalists believe they will eventually prevail in court but that the delays brought on by the legal fight and the Bush Administration's denial could make global warming worse in the meantime.
Jim Tripp of Environmental Defense notes even if the federal courts ultimately rule in California's favor it will not automatically mean the state�s regulations will go into effect.
"In the normal course of events if the Court of Appeals found the EPA's decision arbitrary or capricious, they would then remand the state's waiver request back to the agency for further consideration," Tripp said. "So ultimately it will still be the EPA's decision."
Environmentalists believe change will most likely come 13 months from now when a new president replaces George W. Bush and appoints a new EPA Administrator. Until then, they say, global warming will continue to accelerate, in part because California's tough new standards are not being enforced.
The other states that have adopted or committed to adopt the California standards include: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.
Collectively, California and the other states account for nearly one half of the U.S. population and about 45 percent of all new vehicle sales nationwide.
More Devils than we have suitors for the Savior role, for which none of whom is remotely qualitifed....
In Iowa, U.S. foreign policy means security
By Ed Stoddard Sat Dec 29, 3:28 AM ET
OTTUMWA, Iowa (Reuters) - In the snowswept American heartland, discussion of foreign policy often boils down to one word: security.
As the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates vie for support in Iowa, which on Thursday kicks off the nominating races, the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has thrust foreign policy into the campaign.
"We have to have good diplomatic relations with other countries to keep ours safe and sound," said Constance Cavanaugh, 43, an evangelical Christian who home-schools her children and supports Republican candidate Mike Huckabee.
"There's a relationship between how we interact with others and how they react to us," she said Friday while waiting for Huckabee to deliver a speech before a packed auditorium in the south Iowa town of Ottumwa.
Democrats also expressed concern, with some audience members quizzing Sen. Barack Obama about his views how to best handle the upheaval in Pakistan, while others wanted to discuss trade with China and diplomacy in the Middle East.
Herb Harmison, a retired professor from Ames, said the United States needs a leader capable of improving America's image abroad. "The impact on the world of having a guy like Obama elected would be immeasurable," he said.
All the candidates sweeping through Iowa this week seized on Bhutto's assassination to emphasize what they presented as their particular strengths.
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist preacher and former Arkansas governor, said America must be vigilant about Pakistanis illegally entering the country, including through the porous border with Mexico.
Such comments resonate with Iowans who fear that a lack of strict border controls leaves the United States vulnerable.
"The No. 1 foreign policy issue is the border," said 36-year-old John Spaulding of Muscatine, Iowa.
Beth Stelle Jones, 53, a pre-school Iowa teacher who supports Republican candidate John McCain, said she was impressed with the Arizona Senator's grasp of the political situation in Pakistan, which he discussed on Thursday at a campaign rally in Des Moines shortly after Bhutto's slaying.
"In this environment of international uncertainty his experience is overwhelming ... We're scared by what happened in Pakistan," she said.
Concern about the Iraq war is another foreign policy issue that worries many in this heavily rural state.
Ardyce O'Neill, 65, a cattle breeder from Beebeetown, Iowa, said Iraq was a huge concern to her.
"I'm not opposed to the war, but I've got a granddaughter that's a brand new United States marine, and the war has just come closer. It would be my choice not to have her go over there, but I am proud of her and she's ready to go," she said.
But for David Benson who supports former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Republican contest, diplomacy is a foreign concept.
"I'm voting for Mike Huckabee because I think he's the most godly of the candidates. I know foreign policy is important but I know little about it," he said when asked for his views on the subject.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda is the chief suspect in the murder of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, standing to gain by preserving its remote stronghold, undermining President Pervez Musharraf and destabilizing the country, U.S. government and private analysts said.
The militant group, which has rebuilt its command structure on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was blamed for a previous attempt on Bhutto and it has denounced her as an instrument of U.S. policy in Pakistan.
Bush administration officials said it was too early to identify a clear suspect in Thursday's assassination.
But one U.S. official said: "There are a number of extremist groups within Pakistan that could have carried out the attack ... Al Qaeda has got to be one of the groups at the top of this list."
Al Qaeda's Taliban ally, which has publicly threatened Bhutto, was another potential suspect, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
One analyst said al Qaeda supporters in Pakistan's security services may have also played a role, but it was unlikely Musharraf himself was involved.
Killing Bhutto undermines Musharraf, viewed by the United States as an essential ally against terrorism, by eliminating the prospect of a power-sharing agreement between the two that could shore up his deteriorating political standing and stabilize the country, the analysts said.
That in turn reduces chances that Musharraf can revive efforts to drive al Qaeda and the Taliban out of the remote Waziristan tribal areas. It also fans popular suspicions against Musharraf and sows general confusion.
"Their (al Qaeda's) motivation for doing this is entirely clear," said David Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "They have the most to gain."
Bhutto was assassinated by a suicide bomber after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, a two weeks before national elections meant to return Pakistan to a civilian-led democracy.
Her death follows a failed assassination attempt in October as she returned from exile to Pakistan. She blamed that attempt on four groups including al Qaeda and the Taliban.
AL QAEDA DENOUNCES
Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, this month denounced Bhutto's return as a U.S.-orchestrated maneuver.
"Everything that is going on in Pakistan, from the arrangement for the return of Benazir to the declaration of the state of emergency ... to repressive measures, is a desperate American attempt to remedy the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Zawahri said in an interview with al Qaeda's media arm.
Shortly before Bhutto's return in October, Taliban commander Haji Omar had pledged to attack her.
Pakistan's investigation of the killing will be a major test of Musharraf's credibility, said P.J. Crowley, a former National Security Council official.
In particular, he said, the probe must make a thorough effort to identify any elements in the government who may be complicit in the attack.
The United States offered FBI assistance in investigating Bhutto's assassination, but Pakistan has not yet made a request, FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak said.
Bhutto, in an October letter to an acquaintance read on CNN on Wednesday, said she would hold Musharraf responsible if she were killed, for a failure to authorize adequate security.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said: "We don't know who is responsible for this attack. ... But it is clear that whoever is responsible is someone who opposes peaceful, democratic development and change in Pakistan." (Additional reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Doina Chiacu)
FRESNO, Calif. (Dec. 8) - The Diocese of San Joaquin voted on Saturday to cut ties with the Episcopal Church, the first time in the church's history a diocese has done so over theological issues and the biggest leap so far by dissident Episcopalians hoping to form a rival national church in the United States.
Fissures have moved through the Episcopal Church, the American arm of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members, and through the Communion itself since the church ordained V. Gene Robinson, a gay man in a long-term relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.
Photo Gallery: A Rift Splits the Church
Adrian Mendoza, Modesto Bee / AP
Bishop John-David Schofield, who leads the conservative San Joaquin diocese in California, tells church members in November that the diocese must leave the Episcopal Church or risk moral decay.
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Traditionalists at home and abroad assert that the Bible describes homosexuality as an abomination, and they consider the Episcopal Church's ordination of Bishop Robinson as the latest and most galling proof of its rejection of biblical authority.
In the last four years, the Anglican Communion, the world's third largest Christian body, has edged closer to fracture over the issue. In the United States, several dozen individual congregations out of nearly 7,700 have split with the Episcopal Church. But Saturday's vote was the first time an entire diocese chose to secede.
"The church will inevitably leave the Bible behind at point after point," said Bishop John David Schofield of San Joaquin to the diocesan convention on Friday, "but since on this view the Bible is the word of fallible men rather than of the infallible God, leaving it behind is no great loss."
No one is certain now what will follow, though few expect changes to occur immediately. But over the coming months, tensions could rise in the greater Communion because the San Joaquin Diocese also voted to align itself with a foreign Anglican province, or regional church. Other dioceses may feel emboldened to also cut ties with the Episcopal Church. And on the local level, the church would probably file suit against the diocese over property, lay people and clergy on various sides said.
"It will be a huge, huge legal battle," said the Rev. Ephraim Radner, a leading Episcopal conservative and professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto. "The costs involved will bleed the Diocese of San Joaquin and the Episcopal Church, and it will lead only to bad press. You have to wonder why people are wasting money doing this and yet claiming to be Christians."
San Joaquin's delegates voted overwhelmingly last year to change the diocesan constitution to erase mention of accession to the Episcopal Church, but such amendments require a second vote, which occurred Saturday. Two-thirds of the laity and clergy needed to accept the changes, and the approximately 200 delegates passed the measures again by huge margins.
Two other dioceses, Pittsburgh and Fort Worth, out of 110 in the Episcopal Church held their first votes this fall. Bishop Schofield estimated that another six or seven might follow suit, though he declined to name them, and that together they would form a new Anglican province of North America, marginalizing the Episcopal Church.
In response to such moves, presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the chief pastor of the Episcopal Church, has written to bishops warning them to stop and to be aware of "potential consequences."
The Episcopal Church has said that people can depart, but they must leave their property, which, it contends, is held in trust for the church. The church and loyalist dioceses are already involved in several lawsuits against breakaway congregations that have insisted on keeping their property.
The Diocese of San Joaquin, with 47 parishes and 8,800 members, has long been different from the rest of the Episcopal Church. It is one of three dioceses that does not ordain women priests. It stopped sending money to the Episcopal Church budget after the consecration of Bishop Robinson. Its cathedral runs a ministry for those struggling "with sexual brokenness," Bishop Schofield said, which includes homosexuality.
The drive to leave the church began just after Bishop Robinson's consecration. About three to eight parishes are likely to remain in the church, said the Rev. Van McCalister, spokesman for the diocese, and among them will be Church of the Saviour in Hanford, a small town amid the vast farmlands south of Fresno.
"They say that this is all about belief in Scriptural authority, but that is their buzzword for fundamentalism, and Episcopalians aren't fundamentalists," said Lana Butler, a lay leader at the Hanford church. "We are a Bible church, but we don't interpret Scripture the way a fundamentalist would."
The move to leave the Episcopal Church risks roiling people's lives in the diocese, beyond the expense and strain of potential lawsuits. Secessionist priests could be defrocked and might lose their pensions. Loyalist congregations, if they owe any debt to the diocese, may themselves lose their buildings. People might leave parishes whose views they disagree with, and if a legal fight between the diocese and the Episcopal Church grows ugly enough, parishioners might leave the Anglican faith entirely.
The split also threatens to draw in the rest of the Communion and the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the Communion's spiritual leader. The diocese accepted an invitation from the archbishop of the Anglican province of the Southern Cone in South America to join his region temporarily. Bishop Frank Lyons of the diocese of Bolivia, part of the Southern Cone, said that Archbishop Williams had told his archbishop the arrangement "was a sensible way forward."
But Mr. Radner said the Southern Cone's invitation showed the willingness of some provinces in Africa, Asia and Latin America to create an alternative Communion structure that would bypass the Episcopal Church and even the archbishop of Canterbury himself. That could eventually create a new church.
The fraying of ties weighs on the Rev. Keith Axberg, rector of Holy Family in Fresno, which will stay in the church.
"You have two different world views in the diocese: There are those with a real concern for purity and orthodoxy, which are very important, and I admire that they stand up for bedrock values, like the fact that Jesus is Lord," Mr. Axberg said. "The Episcopal Church has stood up a great deal for social justice. You really need both sides to hold each other to the fire. But they have blinders on to one another."
If a lot is good, then more must be better. At least that's the conclusion I've drawn for the impetus behind Carroll Shelby's latest project, the Super Snake, a 605-bhp after-title conversion of the Mustang Shelby GT500.
Boasting 50 more horses than the limited-run GT500 KR (King of the Road), which launches early next year, the Super Snake allows owners of GT500s (yes, the same car that continues to sell over the dealer sticker of $41,930 more than a year after its release) to claim their own share of road kingdom for an additional $28,000.
The aftermarket changes to take the GT500 to Super Snake status include a long list of Ford Racing parts, as well as proprietary Shelby bits to build a unique-looking, fully warranted alternative to the 600-bhp Dodge Viper, albeit with some extra weight, a back seat and a live rear axle. If you're not averse to risk-taking, you can go with an even more powerful non-Ford-specified blower with no warranty that will push the Super Snake's 5.4-liter V-8 to 725-plus bhp.
The modifications are completed either at Shelby Automobiles' Las Vegas headquarters or the factory-approved modification center at Tasca Ford in Cranston, Rhode Island, and include a new fiberglass hood with functioning scoop, a revamped front fascia with additional brake cooling ducts, carbon-fiber front splitter and rocker panels, a choice of black-riveted C-pillar window closeouts or body-colored side scoops, matte-black striping and larger brakes with front 6-piston calipers developed in conjunction with Baer. The car also benefits from adjustable shocks, stiffer springs, larger-diameter anti-roll bars and a Borla exhaust. Alcoa 20-in. forged alloy wheels are fitted with Pirelli P Zero tires measuring P275/35ZR-20 in the rear and P255/35ZR-20 up front. Inside, there are auxiliary pressure gauges for supercharger boost, fuel and oil mounted atop the instrument panel, the requisite dash plaque with unique serial number and more Shelby and Super Snake emblazoned and embroidered bits than you can shake a stick at.
Overall, the quality of the workmanship is top-notch -- this isn't your ordinary dealer-installed dress-up kit. The look, especially in our test car's orange paint scheme with black striping, is strong, upping the macho quotient from the GT500 considerably. The 20-in. wheels fill the flared arches, and the chin spoiler and rocker panels add to the Super Snake's hunkered-down appearance.
Even though the Mustang, upon which the Super Snake is based, is a thoroughly modern automobile (okay, it does still have a live rear axle), the effect of Shelby's magic turns the GT500 cum Super Snake into a wayback machine that recalls the glory days of the early 1970s before the muscle car bubble burst.
Leave the stereo off, forget the cruise control and the automatic headlamps; the Super Snake is about gobs of power, smoky burnouts and enough steady-state gear whine from the 3.73 final drive (which resulted in an 80-dBA70-mph reading) to make normal cabin conversation nigh impossible.
Of course, that sort of stuff is not without its charm. It is an understatement to say that the Super Snake is a beast. The engine not only makes 605 bhp, but also 590 lb.-ft. of torque (the Shelby-provided dynamometer data put actual at-wheel output at 567 hp and torque at 533 lb.-ft.). That surfeit of motive force easily overwhelms the rear tires. During our acceleration runs, the best we could post was a 0-60-mph time of 4.4 seconds with massive wheelspin in the first two gears. Once underway, though, watch out. The Super Snake bit off the quarter mile in 12.5 sec. at 119.9 mph. By comparison, the stock GT500 ran a 0-60 mph of 4.6 sec. and a quarter-mile time of 12.8 sec.
While the Super Snake is difficult to hook up off the line, once in motion, it posted more than respectable numbers -- indicating that the Pirellis are better adapted to grabbing the pavement when cornering than for stoplight-to-stoplight drag races. The Super Snake flew through the 700-ft. slalom at 68.4 mph and posted 0.93g on the skidpad. Both the power and the grip afforded by the tires and the suspension changes are at work here. The turn-in is much crisper than on the stock GT500, and the tail-happy attitude that results from the wicked-up supercharger makes the Super Snake much easier to rotate in a corner. The best the stock GT500 could muster was 0.87g and 66.2 mph on the skidpad and through the slalom.
Braking is exceptional when you consider the car's 4095-lb. heft. The 6-piston calipers clamp the stock GT500's 14.0-in. rotors, hauling the car down from 60 and 80 mph in 118 and 204 ft., respectively.
At low speeds, the Super Snake is remarkably docile. Quarter-throttle inputs that keep boost to a minimum result in smooth, easy acceleration. The massive torque ensures that the engine will never bog down in 1st or 2nd when merely rolling along. The steering has a natural feel, thanks to sufficient weight and ample feedback. When kept within the limits of the rear tires, the Super Snake comes across as precise, fairly neutral (despite the preponderance of front weight bias) and just this side of tossable when driven on twisty roads with a modicum of pace and patience. Try to hurry things, or force the issue of the throttle, and you'll soon find the rear end hanging out. It's progressive and catchable at lower speeds, but closer to the limit the Super Snake must be driven with care -- much like a first-generation Dodge Viper. It's interesting to note that Shelby has left the standard traction-control system intact from the GT500, a system that has some slip programmed into its response. The tail-happiness of the Super Snake leads us to surmise that the torque comes on so quickly that the small amount of slip dialed into the stock system is amplified. Shelby says it is working on a stickier tire that will cure some of these tendencies.
The other area upon which work is promised is the shifter, which comes from the Ford parts catalog. While the short-throw shifter generally works as promised, the lever in gears 2-4-6 is almost upright. Drop your hand to the shift knob, and it feels like the shifter is in the top tier of 1-3-5. Also, the 5-6 upshift is difficult to execute smoothly; at times I found myself shifting from 5th to 4th. This is no big deal in that it hardly upset the car, unlike the legendary 3rd-to-2nd "upshift" on early Vipers.
This minor irritant aside, the Super Snake is a remarkably civil machine, except for the gear whine. The ride is supple for a car with taut suspension and massive tires, and the Super Snake offers all the comforts and diversions, such as air conditioning and a 500-watt sound system, that the stock GT500 offers.
The Super Snake is not a track car, nor is its handling on par with the likes of the Viper and Corvette Z06, although it boasts a drivetrain every bit as stout as theirs. What the Super Snake does offer is a trip down memory lane -- this is a modern-day muscle car. But unlike those days of yore, where muscle cars were fairly crude, uncomfortable and about the only thing they did well was rip off respectable quarter-mile times, the Super Snake is highly refined and much, much more sophisticated.
Performance and exotic car reviews, comparisons and galleries. Hop in here
This car fills a unique niche -- it offers greater performance in a straight line, in turns and in stopping than the original monster cars did (the fangs those memories lack), with unique styling and relative affordability. Sure, the Super Snake, all in, can run about $70,000-$80,000 depending on the cost of your GT500, but that's still less than the heady prices commanded by original muscle cars in a collector market gone mad.
And since Ford will be offering up only 1000 GT500 KR models, this is a chance to have that kind of exclusivity with a touch more power -- enough to allow a bit of trash talking with Viper owners. All in all, the Super Snake is good fun and more proof that these are the good old days.
Provide Shuttle service from and to far away parking lots!
Stonehenge road tunnel plan is dropped
By Peter Griffiths Thu Dec 6, 10:50 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Plans to build a road tunnel under Stonehenge have been scrapped, the government said on Thursday, raising fears that nearby traffic could damage the ancient World Heritage Site.
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After years of argument over how to ease congestion around the stone circle in Wiltshire, ministers said they had decided that a tunnel would cost too much.
Environmental campaigners, road groups, archaeologists and druids who worship at the site have argued for decades over how best to protect it from the thousands of cars that pass each day on two busy roads.
Built between 3,000 and 1,600 BC as a temple, burial ground, astronomical calendar or all three, the stone circle has been described as "Britain's pyramids."
Thousands of revelers and druids converge there on the summer solstice -- the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere -- to watch the sun rise.
Transport Minister Tom Harris said he could not justify spending 540 million pounds on a 1.3 mile tunnel, adding: "(It) would not represent best use of taxpayers' money."
The Liberal Democrats said the decision not to divert traffic was made after a "decade of dither and delay" by the government and could damage Stonehenge.
"It puts a UNESCO World Heritage site at risk of damage from the ever-increasing volume of traffic," said the party's Arts and Culture spokesman Dan Rogerson.
English Heritage, the public body which looks after the site, said the decision not to build a tunnel was a "huge disappointment."
David Holmes, chairman of the RAC Foundation, a motoring charity, said: "The government has condemned Stonehenge to further environmental damage and the A303 (road) to chronic congestion."
But campaign group Save Stonehenge, which opposes the tunnel, welcomed the decision, saying: "Christmas has come early."
"No one with any sense wanted a tunnel, a flyover, a dual-carriageway, and two whacking great interchanges here," its spokesman Chris Woodford said. "It's just not acceptable to build 1950s-style motorways in places like this any more."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The solar wind, which whips off the sun and blows past Earth and through the solar system, is unleashed by powerful magnetic waves in electrically charged gas around the sun, scientists said on Thursday.
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The mechanisms that cause the solar wind had baffled scientists for decades, but were revealed in observations by a Japanese satellite called Hinode orbiting Earth, the scientists said in research published in the journal Science.
"The magnificent thing about the success of Hinode is its unprecedented view of the dynamics of the sun," Jonathan Cirtain, a solar physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, who helped in the research, said in a telephone interview.
The research was conducted by Japanese, European and U.S. scientists.
The solar wind is a stream of electrically charged gas -- mostly hydrogen -- blown outward from the sun in all directions at a speed of about a million mph (1.6 million kph).
It buffets planetary atmospheres. On Earth, it can disrupt satellites, power grids and communications, under certain circumstances. Earth's magnetic field protects against the solar wind, creating a bubble around which the wind must flow.
Driving the solar wind are so-called Alfven waves -- strong magnetic waves -- that ripple through the plasma of the sun's atmosphere, or corona, transferring energy from the star's surface and into the solar wind, the researchers said.
The waves are named after Swedish physicist Hannes Alfven, whose prediction of their existence helped earn him a Nobel prize in physics 1970. He died in 1995.
Hinode (pronounced hin-OH-day and named for the Japanese word for "sunrise") showed that two mechanisms appear to power the solar wind, Cirtain said.
The first involves the way the sun's magnetic field undergoes rapid changes in its shape, the researchers said. As the magnetic field changes shape, it generates these Alfven waves along its length that accelerate the charged gas and blow it into space, they said.
'IMPOSSIBLE TO OBSERVE'
Another mechanism powering the solar wind involves the sun's chromosphere, the region sandwiched between the solar surface and its corona. Images from Hinode's Solar Optical Telescope found that the chromosphere is filled with Alfven waves, which when they leak into the corona are strong enough to trigger the solar wind.
"Until now, Alfven waves have been impossible to observe because of limited resolution of available instruments," Alexei Pevtsov, Hinode program scientist for NASA, said in a statement.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency leads the mission, with cooperation from NASA and the European Space Agency.
Hinode has three key pieces of equipment -- the largest optical telescope to observe the sun from orbit, an X-ray telescope and an ultraviolet imaging spectrograph, making continuous observations of the sun.
The existence of the solar wind was first theorized about a half century ago. It existence was confirmed in the 1970s.
(Dec. 6) - The formation of strange flying-saucer-shaped moons embedded in Saturn's rings have baffled scientists. New findings suggest they're born largely from clumps of icy particles in the rings themselves, an insight that could shed light on how Earth and other planets coalesced from the disk of matter that once surrounded our newborn sun.
Photo Gallery: Saturn's Mysterious Moons
CEA / ANIMEA
Scientists think they may have solved the mystery of the bizarre flying-saucer-shaped moons embedded in Saturn's planetary rings. Here, the Saturnian moon Atlas is seen in a computer rendering.
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Saturn's rings orbit the planet in a flat disk that corresponds to the planet's equator. Likewise, Earth and the other planets orbit the sun in a fairly flat plane that relates to the sun's equator. The planets, at least the rocky ones, are thought to have formed when bits of material orbiting the newborn sun stuck together, forming larger and larger objects that collided and coalesced.
Observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft revealed the Saturnian moons Atlas and Pan, each roughly 12 miles from pole to pole, have massive ridges bulging from their equators some 3.7 to 6.5 miles high, giving them the flying-saucer appearance.
In principle, fast rates of spin might have stretched Atlas and Pan out into such unusual shapes, just as tossing a disk of pizza d ough flattens it out. But neither moon whirls very quickly, each taking about 14 hours to complete a rotation. Earth, far bigger, rotates in 24 hours, of course.
Photo Gallery: Saturn Discoveries
AP
This image, taken with the sun poised behind Saturn, revealed previously unknown faint rings. Scientists discovered two new rings in this image and confirmed the presence of two others.
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Carolyn Porco, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., and her colleagues suspected these peculiar moons could be formed mostly from Saturn's rings, rather than just from fragments produced in collisions of larger moons, as some have suggested. The location of the ridges lined up precisely with the rings of icy particles in which they were embedded, findings which are detailed in the Dec. 6 issue of the journal Science.
After analyzing the shapes and densities of the moons from data captured by Cassini, Porco's team now finds Pan and Atlas appear to be mostly light, porous, icy bodies, just like the particles making up the rings. Computer simulations suggest one-half to two-thirds of these bizarre moons are made of ring material, piled up on massive, dense fragments of bigger moons that disintegrated billions of years ago after catastrophic collisions with one another.
These findings could shed light on the behavior of "accretion disks"—disks that build up as matter falls toward a gravitational pull.
"Accretion disks are found everywhere in the universe—around black holes, around stars, around Jupiter," said astrophysicist Sebastien Charnoz at University of Paris Diderot in France. He is the lead author of a related new study—also described in the Dec. 6 issue of Science—that shows how the Saturnian ice-clump moons elongated and bulged out into the flying-saucer shapes.
Understanding how the icy particles piled up to make these shapes could shed light on how matter in the protoplanetary disk that accreted around our newborn sun could have clumped together to make planets, Charnoz added.
Photo Gallery: Amazing Space Photos
Univ.of Ariz / JPL-Caltech / NASA
Feel like you are being watched? This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet notable for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye.
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Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 30, 2007; Page A01
Since the Virginia Tech shootings last spring, the FBI has more than doubled the number of people nationwide who are prohibited from buying guns because of mental health problems, the Justice Department said yesterday.
Justice officials said the FBI's "Mental Defective File" has ballooned from 175,000 names in June to nearly 400,000, primarily because of additions from California. The names are listed in a subset of a database that gun dealers are supposed to check before completing sales.
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, in Utah for a speech, urged states that do not submit mental health data for the FBI's gun sales checklist to do so. (By Steve C Wilson -- Associated Press)
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The surge in names underscores the size of the gap in FBI records that allowed Seung Hui Cho to purchase the handguns he used in April to kill 32 people and himself at the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg.
A Virginia state court found Cho to be dangerously mentally ill in 2005 and ordered him to receive outpatient treatment. But because Cho was not ordered into hospital treatment, the court's order was never provided to the FBI and incorporated in its database. Two gun dealers checked the list before selling Cho the 9mm Glock 19 and the Walther .22-caliber pistol he used in the shootings.
For nearly four decades, federal law has prohibited gun sales to people judged to be "mentally defective," but enforcement has been haphazard. A 1995 Supreme Court ruling barred the federal government from forcing states to provide the data, and 18 states -- including Delaware and West Virginia -- provide no mental health-related information to the FBI at all. Both Virginia and Maryland do provide the data.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group favoring tighter firearms controls, said the most optimistic estimates suggest that even the FBI's expanded list is missing 4 of 5 Americans who have been ruled mentally dangerous to themselves or others.
"If people realized how weak our system is in terms of background checks for people who are dangerously mentally ill, they would be shocked," Helmke said. "It's clear that there could be another Virginia Tech killer buying a gun today, and there's nothing that can be done about it."
The vast majority of the individuals who were added to the FBI's list were identified by California, which provided more than 200,000 names in October, the Justice Department said. Ohio provided more than 7,000 new names, and the number of states reporting mental health data to the FBI this year grew from 23 to 32, officials said.
"Instant background checks are essential to keeping guns out of the wrong hands, while still protecting the privacy of our citizens," Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said in a speech announcing the numbers in Park City, Utah. "But as we learned in the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the checks must be accurate and complete to be effective. We're making progress, and I hope that even more states will submit this information."
The Virginia Tech deaths, which resulted from the deadliest college campus shooting incident in U.S. history, have prompted a push by federal and state lawmakers to improve voluntary reporting by the states of those covered by the ban.
House Democrats reached an agreement earlier this year with the National Rifle Association on legislation meant to encourage states to submit timely background-check data to the FBI, by offering monetary awards and threatening penalties.
"Our position has always been that those who have been adjudicated as mentally defective or a danger to themselves or to others or suicidal should not have access to firearms" and should be added to the FBI's list, NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.
The measure passed easily in the House, but it has stalled in the Senate because of a hold by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). He has said he opposes the legislation because he thinks its implementation would cost too much and because it lacks a mechanism to challenge inclusion on the list. He was joined by some veterans' groups, which argued that former soldiers might be denied gun-owning rights without due process.
In Virginia, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) tightened state rules in May by ordering agencies to block gun sales to those involuntarily committed for inpatient or outpatient mental health treatment; previously only those committed to hospitals could not buy a gun. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) also issued a new gun-purchase regulation, which requires buyers to sign a waiver that releases mental health records to state police.
Mukasey highlighted the expanded FBI list during his first public speech after being narrowly confirmed by the Senate three weeks ago. He also told the National Association of Attorneys General that Washington will continue federal assistance for communities struggling against rising rates of violent crime.
Aides to the retired federal judge say his priority is to repair relations with Congress and to rebuild the department in the aftermath of controversies that beset his predecessor, Alberto R. Gonzales.
"I don't think you are going to see any big new initiatives, at least not right away," one Justice official said this week.
Controling dissent by locking up property undermines all hope of high ground, you idiots! Let it go!
Episcopal Church faces possible major defection
By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer Wed Dec 5, 1:35 PM ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Episcopal Church faces major tumult this week when an entire California diocese with more than 9,000 members decides whether to secede in an unprecedented protest over gay issues.
The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno and consisting of nearly 50 churches in 14 counties, would be the first diocese to bolt from the U.S. branch of the 77-million-member global Anglican Communion if Saturday's final vote passes.
The U.S. church and Anglicanism generally have been in upheaval since 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the first bishop known to be in an openly gay relationship in more than four centuries of church history.
Dissent over that as well as the blessing of same-sex unions practiced in some congregations has caused a number of defections by traditionalists in the U.S. church.
The 2.4 million-member U.S. church says that out of 7,600 congregations 32 have left, meaning that a majority of members of those congregations have departed and the churches are now considered closed. Another 23 have voted to leave, meaning that significant number of members have said they want to leave.
None of the church's 110 dioceses, however, has taken the final step to depart so far. Dioceses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Fort Worth, Texas, have also taken preliminary votes to leave, but their final decisions are a year away.
Bishop John-David Schofield, head of the San Joaquin Diocese, says leaving the U.S. church is "a sensible way forward" and one that could later be reversed if "circumstances change and the Episcopal Church repents."
In the meantime his diocese has received what he calls a "welcome" invitation to realign itself, should the vote be affirmative, with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of South America headed by conservative Archbishop Gregory Venables of Argentina.
That, he said, will allow members to remain part of the global Anglican church.
'REMAIN EPISCOPAL'
A year ago the San Joaquin Diocese's preliminary vote to leave the Episcopal Church was overwhelming. The process requires two votes year apart.
But a secession would not be unanimous. An organization called "Remain Episcopal" is opposing it and says its members will remain in place as the duly recognized Episcopal Church even if the bishop, some clergy and other congregants leave.
Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, urged Schofield in a letter earlier this week not to pull his flock out, saying "the church will never change if dissenters withdraw from the table."
She also made it clear what would happen if he did: A process that could eventually allow her to "depose" the bishop, declare the diocese vacant and allow those who want to remain to form a new church leadership.
The Episcopal Church also says it has control over all property and once a congregation leaves it has to find another place to worship. That contention has been challenged in several court cases, including one in Virginia where property dating back to Colonial times and worth millions of dollars is in dispute.
A spokeswoman for the San Joaquin Diocese said the property issue had yet to be addressed. (Editing by Andrew Stern and Jackie Frank)
He obtained S.B. and M.D. degrees (1958; 1962) at the University of Chicago and obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry (1967) at Harvard University[2]. He then taught at St. John's College from 1972 to 1976 [3]. He currently retains a position as a member of the President's Council and is the Addie Clark Harding Professor in the College and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and is the author of several books, including Toward A More Natural Science: Biology and Human Affairs; The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of our Nature; Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics; and The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis.
Kass places "special value on the natural human cycle of birth, procreation and death", and views death as a "necessary and desirable end". As such, he has opposed most kinds of interference in the reproductive process—including birth control—as well as all deliberate efforts to increase human longevity.[4]
Kass makes a slippery slope argument with regards to the use of reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization, even though at least one of his grandchildren was conceived through that technique. He feels that these now well-accepted practices desensitize society, increasing the likelihood of acceptance of more advanced technologies such as reproductive cloning. Kass suggests that possible medical therapies and disease treatments should be restricted if the technology used in them could also be used in reproductive cloning.[5]
As stated, Kass finds wisdom in the Book of Genesis. For example, he has more than once given a lecture on the Tower of Babel story, in which he argues that the "sky-scraping tower" has to fall because it implies a secular form of society. Kass makes the claim that reason or science cannot provide "moral and political standards sufficient for governing civic life and of guiding the proper use of power and technique." See the related Argument from morality. Kass interprets the story as a metaphor, however. All of this informs his views on bioethics, according to the quoted version of the lecture. Elsewhere Kass expresses a strong faith that the potential of biological science is limited and will never provide answers to certain questions.
Kass begins his essay "The End of Courtship" by asserting that the left and right in America have started to produce a consensus on some issues of sexual morality, coming to view "the break-up of marriage as a leading cause of the neglect, indeed, of the psychic and moral maiming, of America's children." The rest of the essay concerns what he sees as obstacles to lasting marriage, including feminism. Kass treats modesty in women as a very important element of sexual morality. "The supreme virtue of the virtuous woman was modesty, a form of sexual self-control, manifested not only in chastity but in decorous dress and manner, speech and deed, and in reticence in the display of her well-banked affections." Kass argues that when women behave with modesty, they are better able to achieve their own "genuine longings and best interests," and that female modesty also helps men to control lustful desires in favor of love and "real intimacy."
In the same essay Kass attacks the use of birth control technology, and states that any woman's destiny is motherhood. The author expresses strong doubt that "courtship" can ever return, since this "would appear to require a revolution". He says that the social changes stem from the nature of modernity, and from the biological nature of men. But he bemoans the changes because he sees marriage and procreation as central to the good life for the vast majority -- perhaps for all of humanity. The essay contains one explicit reference to homosexuality, as one of the "sexual abominations of Leviticus—incest, homosexuality, and bestiality". A footnote also mentions aging bachelors and their "self-indulgent" ways.
When I agreed to give this lecture some two years ago, I had no idea that, when the time came, my life would have ceased to be my own, and that I would be utterly submerged in the struggles of public bioethics. All the more reason why I am grateful for this change of venue and mood and for the opportunity tonight to step back from the urgency of contemporary issues to reflect on their deeper and enduring roots: the meaning of our devotion to technology, and especially its relation to the universal humanistic dream.
– Leon Kass, Technology and the Humanist Dream: Babel Then and Now, [1]
The nature and meaning of living beings, and of life altogether, will forever lie out of reach. Modern biology will never be able to tell us what life is, what is responsible for it, or what it is for.
– Leon Kass, Quoted in "Conservatism's Third and Final Battle", William A. Rusher, Heritage Lecture #615, April 29, 1998, [2]
Thanks to technology, a woman could declare herself free from the teleological meaning of her sexuality—as free as a man appears to be from his. Her menstrual cycle, since puberty a regular reminder of her natural maternal destiny, is now anovulatory and directed instead by her will and her medications, serving goals only of pleasure and convenience, enjoyable without apparent risk to personal health and safety.
Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone—a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive.
– Leon Kass, The Hungry Soul, pp. 148-149. University of Chicago Press, 1994, 1999, [4]
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