Friday, 14 March, 2003The proposed smoking ban in Washington StateA local issue, for a change. Here in the fair state of Washington, the State Legislature is working on two bills—House Bill 1868 and Senate Bill 5791—which would ban smoking in all places of business in the state. This issue is being hotly "debated," for instance in the feature "Smoke Out" in last week's issue of The Stranger. But I feel there's one cardinal point not being addressed in the debate: why is this legislation thought to be necessary at all? posted 2228 Z-8 [more..] Thursday, 13 March, 2003The "unique legitimacy" conferred by the Security CouncilI was recently made aware of something Peggy Mason, "Ambassador to the UN for Disarmament" for Canada between 1989 and 1994, said in a CTV interview (source: "PM wraps up Mexico trip focused on Iraq crisis"): "I find it very interesting that the United States is leading the charge calling for Saddam Hussein to comply to the letter ... with resolution 1441 but the U.S. itself cares nothing for this resolution," Mason said.For starters, I should point out that I've never heard of something like an "Ambassador for Disarmament"; I suspect Ms. Mason is a member of the Canadian foreign service, who attained the rank of Ambassador within the service, and served as Canada's representative to the UN Conference on Disarmament. But I digress. While I think Ms. Mason has a point, speaking in a very narrow legalistic sense, I think her opinion is short-sighted. posted 0345 Z-8 [more..] |
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