First, the court has ruled that the Netherlands is within its rights under European law to ban foreigners from coffee shops that sell pot. On the one hand, this is a ruling that will certainly damage the Dutch tourism trade. On the other hand, I think that the Dutch would probably prefer to deal with foreign tourists that want to look at windmills and tulips rather than pot and hookers.
Second and more significantly, the court has ruled that Ireland's ban on abortions is a violation of human rights. Currently, abortions are only permitted if the woman's life is in danger. The court ruled that Ireland's policy of determining this is insufficient: a doctor performs a simple consultation. This places both the doctor and the woman at risk of criminal charges if another doctor happens to disagree with the prognosis. Given that Ireland is having a teensy bit of a problem right now handling issues their economy, it's unclear as to when they'll get around to dealing with this. Still, I think it's a step forward for human rights. So yay.
Speaking of human rights! How the hell did I fall asleep and miss this? The House of Representatives voted 250-175 to repeal DADT!!!! This is extraordinary...simply extraordinary news. I'm astounded that congress managed to put something together so quickly during the lame duck session. It still has to go through the Senate but I actually feel pretty good about this!
To sum up, it'd be really nice if 17 years from now, we didn't have to admit to pointlessly shedding 13,000 soldiers from our military.
Pretty interesting piece up at the New York Times: Death of a Bully. The town they speak of sounds like Twin Peaks.
Pretty slow news day all around outside of the DADT repeal. You know things are boring when you find the time to sign a non-binding UN resolution. That's sort of like formally committing yourself to "maybe".
Um...What was I saying about a slow news day? German doctors have announced a cure for HIV. It's something that's still very much in the beginning stages and involves a bone marrow transplant, certainly a ghastly procedure. But still...That's pretty good news to say the least!
This is interesting: A woman who suffered from a rare genetic disease, Urbach-Wiethe, is apparently incapable of feeling fear. I like the fact that the study involved scientists spending their time doing their best to terrify someone.
Environmental disaster in America = News. Environmental Disaster in the Third World = Silence.
Evidently, evil bankers are doing all they can to destroy Christmas.
Happy Birthday Beethoven!
And that seems like an appropriately upbeat way to end this edition of the Morning Blog!
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