In 2005, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare pronounced that roughly one middle-aged person in two was at risk for so-called "metabolic syndrome" -- caused by smoking, drinking, eating and other excesses combined with a sedentary lifestyle -- that raised the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and strokes. The ministry's policy now obliges people between the ages of 40 to 74 to take medical examinations to check for excessive internal fat, high blood pressure and high blood-sugar levels, and to receive health advisories when warranted. [...] The middle-aged spread, reports Asahi Geino (4/24), has given rise to a completely new type of sex business: the "Datsu-metabo fuuzoku" -- sex shops with services designed to help pudgy, middle-aged men bang their way back to health and enjoy themselves in the bargain.

"If she can get my fatty liver back in shape, she'll deserve a Nobel Prize," Asahi Geino's reporter remarks, tongue in cheek....

Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any potential risks. Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Associated Press reviewed grant documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and interviewed researchers. No one involved with the $446,231 grant for the two-year study would identify the participants, citing privacy concerns. There is no evidence there was any medical follow-up.

Comparable research was conducted by the Agriculture Department and Environmental Protection Agency in a similarly poor, black neighborhood in East St. Louis, Ill. Residents there also were not told of the potential risks.

The researchers said the sludge could help protect the children from brain or nerve damage from lead, a highly toxic element once widely used in gasoline and paint. Other studies have shown brain damage among children, often in poor neighborhoods, who ate lead-based paint that had flaked off their homes. The idea that sludge - the leftover semisolid wastes filtered from water pollution at 16,500 treatment plants - can be turned into something harmless, even if swallowed, has been a tenet of federal policy for three decades.

[...] The Baltimore study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the ability of soil to trap more harmful metals including lead, cadmium, and zinc, causing the combination to pass safely through a child's body if eaten. The results were published in Science of the Total Environment, a research journal, in 2005. However, there has been a paucity of research into the possible harmful effects of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, other chemicals, and disease-causing microorganisms often found in sludge....

The Associated Press
Tuesday April 1st, 2008

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Some Florida teens believe drinking Mountain Dew or smoking marijuana will prevent pregnancy and that swallowing a capful of bleach will prevent HIV/AIDS. One reason those dangerous myths have spread is the state's reliance on abstinence-only sex education, say advocates of a bill to require a more comprehensive approach in Florida's schools....

...The bill's chances, though, remain slim with the annual 60-day legislative session nearly half over. The bill would have to clear three more committees before getting a Senate floor vote. The House version has yet to get a committee hearing.

"Young people are getting too little information too late,'' said Jenna Cawley, director of education for Planned Parenthood of Greater Orlando. Cawley urged the bill's approval as she told the Senate Education Pre-kindergarten-12th Grade Committee about the Mountain Dew, marijuana and bleach myths.

Opponents, including anti-abortion activists, claimed the bill's requirements would result in more, not fewer teen pregnancies as supporters argue. "The only healthy, 100-percent effective way to prevent disease and pregnancy is abstinence,'' said Alison Lambrechts, a field coordinator for Project Reality, which provides sexual, alcohol and drug abstinence materials for schools.

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, said Florida's current approach isn't working because the state has the sixth-highest teen pregnancy rate nationally...

Bad (Bad!) Blood (Blood!)

"I be gud preznit!"

Thinking Ape Blues #356: The Nadir of Nader

AS they seek to document and demystify one of life's great thrills, scientists have run across some real head-scratchers.

How, for example, can they explain the fact that some men and women who are paralyzed and numb below the waist are able to have orgasms? How to explain the "orgasmic auras" that can descend at the onset of epileptic seizures -- sensations so pleasurable they prompt some patients to refuse antiseizure medication? And how on Earth to explain the case of the amputee who felt his orgasms centered in that missing foot?

No one -- no sexologist, no neuroscientist -- really knows. For a subject with so many armchair experts, the human orgasm is remarkably mysterious.

But today, a few scientists are making real progress -- in part because they're changing their focus. To uncover the orgasm's secrets, researchers are looking beyond the clitoris, vagina, penis and prostate, to the place behind the scenes where the true magic happens. They're examining the central nervous system: the network of electrical impulses that zip to and fro through the brain and spinal cord.

In an orgasm orchestra, the genitalia may be the instruments, but the central nervous system is the conductor.

Armed with new lab tools and fearless volunteers, scientists are getting first-ever glimpses of how the brain lights up (and, in places, shuts down) when the orgasmic fireworks go off. They're tracing nerves and finding new pathways for pleasure that help explain how people with shattered spinal cords can defy sexual expectations....

Benefits 'O'-verall"
By Regina Nuzzo, Special to The Times
February 11, 2008

Sure, orgasms can put a bounce in one's step, but some studies hint they might also be good for one's health.

* Heart: Lots of studies have looked at whether DHEA, a hormone released into the bloodstream during arousal and orgasm, helps keeps arteries clear and hearts strong. A 2001 study of 1,700 middle-age Massachusetts men found that those with the lowest levels of DHEA were about 60% more likely to develop heart disease than those with the highest. Orgasms aren't the only way to get this hormone, though; your body produces some even without sexual stimulation.

* Breast: Oxytocin -- a hormone released during sexual arousal, orgasm and breast-feeding -- has been linked to reduced risk of breast cancer. And not just for women: A small, 2000 study of 23 Greek men found that those with breast cancer tended to have a history of fewer orgasms than did healthy men in the control group. One 1995 study speculated that the hormone helps flush out carcinogens from breast fluid.

* Prostate: Two large studies, reported in 2003 and 2004, found that middle-aged men who had (or at least remember having) at least four orgasms a week throughout their 20s, 30s and 40s had a reduced risk of prostate cancer by as much as one-third. Some researchers speculate that ejaculations may clear the prostate of carcinogens....

More than a year after then-pastor Ted Haggard resigned from his position at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Haggard has severed his official relationship with the New Life Church Restoration Team. Haggard was the church's senior founding pastor. In November 2006, he resigned from his church leadership position and from his position as head of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations he had an affair with a male prostitute. In January 2007, Haggard voluntarily agreed to enter a process of spiritual restoration.

Late Monday, Brady Boyd, the pastor at New Life Church, sent a letter to parishioners updating them on Haggard. That letter was also sent to 7NEWS. Here is the letter in its entirety.

Dear New Life Church family and friends,

Because spiritual restoration is a necessarily confidential process, the church does not anticipate that it, or its overseers or restorers will make further comment about it.

Saggin' — young men wearing their pants with the waistband closer to their knees than their hips — has been around for years. But a growing number of adults are deciding they've had enough. In Dallas, an interesting mix of politicians, hip-hop artists and white businessmen are announcing a citywide campaign with a simple message: Pull Your Pants Up.

Deputy Mayor Dwaine Caraway's work life usually involves economic development, crime, housing-code enforcement and stray dogs. But the drumbeat of anger from South Dallas, the predominately black part of town, got so loud that Caraway decided to take a little detour into law enforcement work — fashion police. "This is not just a teenage problem," Caraway says. "There are people sagging ... in their 30s. You know, where's your mind? You're not a teenager."

Caraway says that at first, saggin' was about showing your boxers. Then it was about showing more of your boxers. Then dirty boxers were cutting edge. And now there are guys walking around with no boxers on at all. "You have some folks that don't even have on underwear, period," he says. "And who's to say what the generation that's looking at this generation will do after these guys?" [...]

a message to the gay community...

I have recieved numourous messages that I am promoting homophobia in the community...

I respect your view, but could you tell me how I'm promoting homophobia?

If you are referring the statement "looks to me your on the downlow," here is an explaination

In the prison system, when a man wears his pants around his thighs it is a signal that he is available, many of these guys do not understand the meaning and history of sagging, I am not saying anything to slander the gay community, only enlightening these guys on what it really means, what you do is your business, but if a streight man is doing something that in prison signifies homosexuality, should he not have the right to know?

In a 4-3 decision issued today, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld a ban on same-sex marriage and ruled that a statute declaring that marriage must be between a man and a woman does not violate constitutional rights. The ruling essentially kicked the issue of same-sex marriage back to the state legislature.

Attorneys for 19 gay and lesbian plaintiffs had argued before the Court of Appeals in December that Maryland's 33-year-old statute defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman infringes upon their clients' constitutional rights. Assistant Attorney General Robert A. Zarnoch defended the state's 1973 marriage statute and said any change in the law should be a question for the legislature. The case came to the court after court clerks around the state refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004, citing the state's family laws, which restrict marriage to a man and a woman. A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge, however, ruled that the law violated an equal rights provision of the state constitution.

In its 240-page opinion, the Court of Appeals also said that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting opposite-sex marriage. "In declaring that the State's legitimate interests in fostering procreation and encouraging the traditional family structure ... our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.

The decision included several dissenting opinions, including one authored by Chief Judge Robert M. Bell. Bell said sex-based classifications are analogous to race-based classifications. "It, therefore, is clear that an equal application approach cannot render constitutional a discriminatory sex-based classification," Bell wrote. Bell, who is black, said: "To be sure, there are important differences between the African American experience and that of gay men and lesbians in this country, yet many of the arguments made in support of the anti-miscegenation laws were identical to those made today in opposition to same-sex marriage."

In rejecting the argument that the state's Equal Rights Amendment protected the rights of same-sex couples to marry, the court scoured the legislative and media record of the debate during the 1970s and concluded it does not apply. The measure, which was passed by the General Assembly and ratified by voters, was not intended to address sexual orientation, the majority decided. "We conclude that the legislature's and electorate's ultimate goal in putting in place the Maryland ERA was to put men and women on equal ground, and to subject to closer scrutiny any governmental action which singled out for disparate treatment men or women as discrete classes," the majority wrote in its opinion....

...Mind, it does seem to be a case of both a small sample biasing the data, and having enough people clumped at the very young end to seriously depress the average age. Granted, 10 percent of a sample is a notably higher mortality rate than the general population in a given age group. And I think the accident issue may confuse things a bit; how many of the accidents are directly attributable to the rock-n-rollness of it all?

(Though, looking at it, what I wonder is how many of the rock'n'rollers wind up taking other people with them. Does associating with these musicians shorten the lives of hangers-on and other people?

And, given that the mortality rate of younger popsters is dropping, apparently the whole Just Say No thing is sorta kinda taking hold -- Lindsay Lohan aside. Apparently, younger popsters are indulging at ever lower rates.

And for those who don't say no, there's always Celebrity Rehab!...

MIAMI, Aug. 16 -- A federal jury convicted former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla on Thursday of terrorism conspiracy charges, handing a courthouse victory to the Bush administration, which had originally sought to imprison him without a criminal trial.

Padilla was arrested in 2002 for allegedly plotting a radiological "dirty bomb" attack, but prosecutors chose not to pursue those allegations in court here. But after a three-month trial, they had convinced the jury that Padilla, 36, participated in a South Florida-based al-Qaeda support cell that in the '90s began to send money and people to wage holy war in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and Somalia.

Padilla and co-defendants Adham Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, and Kifah Jayyousi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Jordan, were found guilty of one count of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim overseas, an offense with a maximum penalty of life in prison. They also were convicted of one count of conspiracy to provide material support for terrorists and one count of material support for terrorists. Sentencing is set for Dec. 5.

"The conviction of Jose Padilla -- an American who provided material support to terrorists and trained for violent jihad -- is a significant victory in our efforts to fight the threat posed by terrorists and their supporters," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said.

The conviction essentially accomplishes through the criminal-court system what the administration had tried to do five years ago by executive fiat. For 3 years after he was arrested upon reentering the country, Padilla was held without charges at a Navy brig in South Carolina, where he was housed in solitary confinement. The tactic drew fierce criticism from civil liberties advocates. Padilla's lawyers charged that during his confinement, he was deprived of sleep, kept in a 9-foot-by-7-foot cell, chained in painful positions and injected with mind-altering drugs. Those conditions left him unable to participate in his own defense, the lawyers said. Padilla, like his co-defendants, did not take the stand.

Prosecutors and federal law enforcement officials called the conviction a reflection of their agencies' hard work. However, legal critics said the verdicts show that terrorism suspects can be tried in criminal courts and that there was no reason for the Bush administration to have declared Padilla an "enemy combatant" and to hold him for years without formal charges. "This trial clearly undermines the Bush administration's unfounded fear that terrorists cannot -- in their view -- be tried in our criminal courts," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida. The verdict proves, he said, "that the Bush administration should close Guantanamo and pursue terrorists in the criminal justice system, not outside the confines of the rule of law."

Entering the courtroom before the verdicts were read, Padilla smiled at his mother in the audience and seemed to crack a joke with one of his lawyers. Padilla was stone-faced as a clerk announced the guilty findings. One of his relatives began to sob loudly. "No evidence, and they found him guilty," his mother, Estela Lebron, said, seeming stunned....

Is American justice colorblind? A new study finds that blacks on death row convicted of killing whites are more likely to be executed than whites who kill minorities. It also concludes that blacks who kill other minorities are less likely to be executed than blacks who kill whites. The authors of the report say their findings raise serious doubts about claims that the U.S. criminal justice system is colorblind. Appearing in the August issue of American Sociological Review, the report claims to be the first of its kind to study whether the race of murder victims affects the probability that a convicted killer gets the ultimate punishment. The study examined outcomes of 1,560 people sentenced to death in 16 states between 1972 and 2002...

[...]Eve Conant, Newsweek: So why do you think that blacks are twice as likely to get the death penalty for killing a white than a white for killing a nonwhite?
[David Jacobs, coauthor of the study and a professor of sociology and political science at Ohio State University]: There are two plausible explanations. Prosecutors often win higher office if they win well-publicized cases. When a black kills a white such killings gets more publicity and we have evidence for that. Secondly—and perhaps even more plausible—appellate court justices at the state level are often subject to elections, called retention elections. That means they run unopposed without a party label. It's hard to blow an election like that. But some appellate justices in California and a few other states supposedly granted relief in too many death penalty appeals and got unelected in these retention elections. That's also why some states that are reluctant to execute just stall. California has something like 650 people who've been on death row, and since 1976 but this state has only executed about 15 people. They are dragging it out because they see the pressure and don't want to lose their seats. My fundamental point is that the death penalty is intrinsically political.

CONANT: But also about race; that's what your study found.
JACOBS: Yes, it's both. The findings, in short, show that we clearly value white lives more than those of blacks or Hispanics....

1930-1967
From 1930, the first year for which statistics are readily available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, to 1967, 3,859 persons were executed under civil (that is, nonmilitary) jurisdiction in the United States. During this period of nearly half a century, over half (54%) of those executed were black, 45 percent were white, and the remaning one percent were members of other racial groups -- American Indians (a total of 19 executed from 1930-1967), Filipino (13), Chinese (8), and Japanese (2). The vast majority of those executed were men; 32 women were executed from 1930 to 1967.

Three out of five executions during that period took place in the southern U.S. The state of Georgia had the highest number of executions during the period, totaling 366 -- more than nine percent of the national total. Texas followed with 297 executions; New York with 329; California with 292; and North Caroline with 263. Most executions -- 3,334 of 3,859 -- were for the crime of murder; 455 prisoners (12%) -- ninety percent of them black -- were executed for rape; 70 prisoners were executed for other offenses.

[...] The first execution under the new death penalty laws took place on January 17, 1977, when convicted murdered Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah. Gilmore's was the first execution in the United States since 1967. Two prisoners were executed in 1979; one in 1981; two in 1982; and five in 1983. Executions increased dramatically in 1984, with 21 in that year, and there have been at least 10 executions in the U.S. every year since. There were 74 executions in 1997. From 1977 to 1997, a total of 432 executions took place. Of the executed prisoners during this period, 266 were white, 161 were black, and five were of other races. By the end of 1997, 38 states and the federal government had capital punishment law; 12 states (including Alaska) have no death penalty. (Bureau of Justice Statistics annual bulletins on capital punishment provide current information on U.S. jurisdictions which authorize the death penalty.) By the end of 1996, 3,219 prisoners were under sentence of death, including 3,208 in 34 states and 11 under federal jurisdiction. All were convicted of murder....

Capital Punishment Statistics
U.S. Department of Justice · Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Statistics

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review whether race played a role in the selection of an all-white jury that imposed a death sentence on a black man in Louisiana. Allen Snyder was convicted in 1996 of stabbing his estranged wife 15 times and killing a man with whom she was talking.

The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that race had no part in the prosecutor's decisions involving black potential jurors. Dissenting justices said the prosecutor's prejudice was shown by two comparisons he made between Snyder's case and that of O.J. Simpson, who had been acquitted in 1995 of killing his ex-wife and a friend of hers. The U.S. high court had previously ordered the state court to take another look at the case, following a decision overturned a black Texas man's murder conviction and death sentence because prosecutors struck nearly all African-Americans from the jury. The Louisiana court reached the same decision.

The case, which will be argued in the fall, is Snyder v. Louisiana, 06-10119.....

SCOTUSblog: Batson and the "O.J. factor"
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Posted by Lyle Denniston at 04:10 PM

For the second time in two years, the Supreme Court is pondering what to do about this scenario:

A black man is convicted of murder. His trial is before an all-white jury, composed that way in part because prosecutors struck all potential black jurors. In the penalty phase of the trial, the defense counsel seeks to head off a death sentence by discussing "mitigating circumstances." When police arrived at the home of the convicted man some 12 hours after the murder, counsel said, the man "was curled up in a fetal position. He was suicidal. He kept saying 'They're coming to get me. They're coming to get me.'...Doors were being barricaded. The furniture was being used as a barricade...I'll ask you if that is not suggestive of some sort of disturbance" (apparently, meaning mental disturbance).

The prosecutor's rebuttal then includes the following: "...it was 12 hours later when he called [police], huddled up, claiming that he was suicidal, barricaded himself in his house. That made me think of something. Made me think of another case, the most famous murder case in the last, in probably recorded history, that all of you all are aware of..."

At that point, the defense counsel objected. After a bench conference, the prosecutor continued: "The most famous murder case...happened in California very, very, very similar to this case. The perpetrator in that case claimed that he was going to kill himself as he drove in a Ford Bronco and kept the police off of him, and you know what, he got away with it. Ladies and gentlemen, is it outside the realm of possibility that that's not what that man [in this case] was thinking about when he called in and claimed that he was going to kill himself?"

That is what the defense lawyer for Allen Snyder, on death row in Louisiana, has called "the O.J. card," suggesting that it was a calculated maneuver by the prosecutor to use O.J. Simpson's controversial acquittal for murder to get an all-white jury in Louisiana to give Snyder the death penalty.

Now, the Snyder case is back before the Supreme Court, with the prospect that the Court may act on his appeal as early as Monday. The case, Snyder v. Louisiana (06-10119), was considered by the Justices at their Conference on Thursday. It reached the Court in the context of a claim that the jury that convicted Snyder of the stabbing murder of his estranged wife's boyfriend was all-white because prosecutors intended it to be that way, and used their automatic ("peremptory") challenges to achieve that end. Once having such a jury assembled, the appeal argues, a prosecutor -- who had referred before trial to the case as his "O.J. Simpson case" -- knew the jury was open to a racial plea for death.

The jury process, the appeal contends, violated the Supreme Court's 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky, barring the use of race-based peremptory challenges in jury selection. It also asserts that the Louisiana Supreme Court did not follow the Supreme Court's post-Batson decision, Miller-El v. Dretke in 2005, mandating a full analysis of the circumstances of jury selection to detect Batson violations.

But the case also raises, implicitly, the larger question of whether prosecutors' references to the O.J. Simpson case, in trials involving charges against blacks, are a form of jury contamination that puts a vivid emphasis on race in jury selection and in other phases of the trial and sentencing....

...I suppose I'm terribly old-school about advertising. It always seemed to me that advertising wasn't just about making the ad memorable; it was also about making the product appeal, in some way, shape or form. Now, I don't know about you, but I do not wish to give milk, nor do I wish to have my body hair begin to move about in strange and interesting ways.

Cheney's moves on secrecy stir storm over office's dual role
The vice president argues his office is exempt from executive branch classified-data protocol.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Washington
from the June 26, 2007 edition

Is Vice President Dick Cheney's office an executive branch agency? Or is it a Washington hybrid that works for both the executive and legislative branches of the US government? That's the underlying issue in a new controversy over Mr. Cheney's lack of cooperation with a government office charged with safeguarding national security information.

The whole matter sounds arcane, and in many ways it is. After all, it involves paperwork, classified information, and the filing of reports. But Democratic lawmakers say it is a serious matter that reflects on the vice president's penchant for secrecy – and that they might even hold up the funding for his office as a result. "That might not be a bad idea," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California about cutting Cheney's budget during a broadcast interview on June 24.

At issue is the work of the Information Security Oversight Office – a small part of the National Archives whose job it is to oversee the government-wide security classification system. As part of that work, the office collects data on how much US material is classified and declassified. Per a signed presidential executive order, agencies of the executive branch are required to hand this information over. Cheney's office provided this information in 2001 and 2002. Then it stopped. Prodded by an outsider's complaint, last spring the National Archives sent letters to Cheney's office requesting the classification data. It received no response.

Administration officials say Cheney's office is exempt from the executive order, since it has both executive branch and legislative functions. Per the US Constitution, the vice president serves as president of the Senate, and may vote to break ties in that chamber.

On June 22, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the executive order didn't intend Cheney's office to be treated as an administration agency. "He's not exempt from following the laws of the United States," said Ms. Perino. "He's exempt just from this reporting requirement in this particular executive order."

Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California rejected this assertion as absurd. Representative Waxman is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is investigating the classification matter. In general, Waxman has been a thorn in the side of the White House since the Democrats gained control of Congress. "The vice president can't unilaterally decide he is his own branch of government and exempt himself from important, commonsense safeguards for protecting classified information," said Waxman on June 22....

Bush claims oversight exemption too
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 23, 2007

The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney's office, President Bush's office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information.

An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said.

The issue flared Thursday when Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) criticized Cheney for refusing to file annual reports with the federal National Archives and Records Administration, for refusing to spell out how his office handles classified documents, and for refusing to submit to an inspection by the archives' Information Security Oversight Office. The archives administration has been pressing the vice president's office to cooperate with oversight for the last several years, contending that by not doing so, Cheney and his staff have created a potential national security risk. Bush amended the oversight directive in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to help ensure that national secrets would not be mishandled, made public or improperly declassified.

The order aimed to create a uniform system for classifying, declassifying and otherwise safeguarding national security information. It gave the archives' oversight unit responsibility for evaluating the effectiveness of each agency's classification programs. It applied to the executive branch of government, mostly agencies led by Bush administration appointees — not to legislative offices such as Congress or to judicial offices such as the courts. "Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government," the executive order said.

But from the start, Bush considered his office and Cheney's exempt from the reporting requirements, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in an interview Friday. Cheney's office filed the reports in 2001 and 2002 but stopped in 2003. As a result, the National Archives has been unable to review how much information the president's and vice president's offices are classifying and declassifying. And the security oversight office cannot inspect the president and vice president's executive offices to determine whether safeguards are in place to protect the classified information they handle and to properly declassify information when required....

A proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was defeated today by a joint session of the Legislature by a vote of 45 to 151, eliminating any chance of getting it on the ballot in November 2008. At least 50 votes were needed to advance the measure. The vote came after House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray, and Governor Deval Patrick conferred this morning and concluded that they have the votes to kill the proposal. "In Massachusetts today, the freedom to marry is secure," Patrick told reporters after the vote. The three leaders - along with gay rights activists - spent the last several days intensely lobbying a dozen or more state representatives and state senators who had previously supported the amendment but signaled that they were open to changing their positions.

Because fewer than 50 of the state's 200 lawmakers supported the amendment, it will not appear on the 2008 ballot, giving gay marriage advocates a major victory in their battle with social conservatives to keep same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts. Opponents of gay marriage face an increasingly tough battle to win legislative approval of any future petitions to appear on a statewide ballot. The next election available to them is 2012....

Alone among the top-tier candidates for president, Rudolph Giuliani is refusing to discuss whether and how often he goes to church - a stance that could complicate his efforts to win over religious conservatives at the heart of the Republican base, political analysts said. In a survey of presidential candidates in both parties, Giuliani, a Catholic, was the only one to refuse to say how often he attended services, and he also declined to name a church of which he is a member. "The mayor's personal relationship with God is private and between him and God," the campaign wrote in reply to the survey, according to The Associated Press, which polled the candidates.

But in a year when candidates are being asked to discuss their faith as never before, Giuliani's position could cause him trouble among churchgoing voters who want to know that their candidate is a spiritual person as well, analysts say. [...] [James Guth of Furman University], who studies evangelical Christian voting patterns, said polls show roughly two-thirds of Americans, and a higher percentage of Republicans, believe their president should have strong religious beliefs....

Clinton, Edwards and Obama Discuss Their Faith at Forum
By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 5, 2007; A03

In an unprecedented forum, the three leading Democratic presidential candidates described how faith influences both their politics and their personal lives, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton responding to a question about her husband's infidelity by saying, "I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith."

"I've had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton (N.Y.) told a crowd of more than 1,000 in an auditorium at George Washington University.

At the forum, organized by Sojourners, a liberal evangelical group based in Washington, Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) each stood on stage separately for 15 minutes to answer questions from moderator Soledad O'Brien of CNN and a group of ministers and religious leaders. The questions were wide-ranging, from the role of evil in the world to perhaps the most pointed of the night, when Edwards was asked to name the biggest sin he had committed. "If I had a day in my 54 years where I haven't sinned I would be surprised," he said, declining to specify. "I sin every day; we are all sinners." [...]

There's one thing the US presidential contenders all have in common: God
Timothy Garton Ash in New York
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian (UK)

We all know Christmas begins earlier every year, but imagine if it were to begin in May. And that's May the year before. This is what's happening with the presidential elections in the US. There are another 17 months until the actual vote next November, but the campaign is well under way. [...] What remains fundamentally different from the old continent is the way American politicians not merely have religion but wear it on their sleeve. An extreme example is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Answering a question about evolution versus so-called intelligent design, Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister before he became a politician, said simply: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." He didn't know when or how exactly God did the business, but do it He certainly did. To say you didn't believe that, he added, was in effect to say that you didn't believe in God. Then he quoted Martin Luther: Here I stand, I can do no other. And he earned, from the audience at St Anselm College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Manchester, New Hampshire, a fair round of applause. In answer to a follow-up question, he said: "If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are welcome to do it."

[...] But don't think this religiosity is confined to Republican candidates. In an earlier debate, organised by a left-liberal Evangelical group called Sojourners, the three leading Democrat contenders, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barrack Obama, vied with each other in testifying to the importance of their faith. Edwards did say firmly "I believe in evolution", but he quickly added that "the hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet". Asked a painful question about how she coped with Bill's infidelity, Hillary Clinton said she was sustained by "my faith and the support of my extended faith family, people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me"....

All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. (emphasis added)