Bits and Pieces

Insisting that God "certainly needs to be involved" in the Supreme Court confirmation process of Judge Samuel Alito, earlier this week - three Christian ministers blessed the doors of the judicial hearing room, secretly touched holy oil to the seats where Judge Alito, the senators, witnesses, Senate staffers and the press will sit, and prayed for each of the 13 committee members by name. Insisting they weren't taking sides in the debate, they stated "God…is interested in what goes on."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an interview published days before her first visit to the United States, said Washington should close its Guantanamo Bay prison camp and find other ways of dealing with terror suspects. "An institution like Guantanamo can and should not exist in the longer term," Merkel said, "Different ways and means must be found for dealing with these prisoners." Asked about her comments at a news conference later in the day, she said: "That's my opinion and my view and I'll say it elsewhere just as I have expressed it here."

A British law firm is at the center of the investigation into America's biggest influence-buying scandal in decades. The London-based solicitors, James & Sarch, directed $1 million into a conservative United States pressure group linked to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist. The firm made the payment by a single check in June 1998 to the US Family Network, a now-defunct organization that had close ties to Congressman Tom DeLay, and was largely funded by groups associated with Abramoff. The money is thought to have originated from Russian oil and gas executives seeking to shape US legislation.

Americans bought an estimated $125 billion worth of consumer electronics — computers, monitors, cell phones, televisions — this past year. With hundreds of millions of them becoming obsolete every year in this country, what happens to all the stuff we don't want any more? "Eighty percent of all the scrap electronics in the United States end up offshore and usually in Third World countries," said Bob Glavin, who runs one of the biggest recycling plants in the US. In China, "there was no environmental regulations. There's no safety regulations. There's no data security. It's being dumped over there." The Basel Action Network, which monitors exports of hazardous waste, studied what happens in Nigeria "Everywhere there's space — empty lots, swampy areas — they'll throw the cathode-ray tubes, the computer carcasses, the plastic housings and routinely set them ablaze....about 75 percent of what they were receiving was not repairable, not usable and was simply dumped and burned in the landfills of Africa." That's what's happening to many old computers, we're simply exporting a huge environmental problem.

The U.S. Army Thursday honorably discharged a gay soldier who was punched by another soldier because of his sexual orientation. The soldier who attacked 19-year old Pvt. Kyle Lawson remains on active duty. A Fort Huachuca, Ariz., spokeswoman would not say what punishment Pvt. Zacharias Pierre received by the military, but confirmed it fell short of court martial. Pierre said Lawson made 'unwanted comments' which he considered 'of a homosexual nature.' He also thought Lawson was going 'to touch his groin area' so he punched him as a 'reflex.'

Posted on The Human Stain