Cory Maye update

The only handwritten letters I get these days are from people in jail, it seems. The letter I just got from Cory Maye was a surprise; I hadn't written to him in well over a year. He mentions that his direct appeal is due September 25 and hopes his attorneys will have everything completed on time. The Mississippi Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, giving it over to the Courts of Appeals; he's asked the Supreme Court to reconsider. He's also trying to get a transfer to another prison so that his family won't have so far to travel.

"Libertarian" Barr tries to force his way into church

"Libertarian" presidential candidate Bob Barr attempted to get a court order forcing Saddleback Church to include him in its forum with McCain and Obama. The judge properly ruled against Barr, though the article implies that he did so for the wrong reasons, not because the church had the right to decide whom to invite.

Barr is a conservative in libertarian clothing, with no respect for private property rights.

See also: Cry-baby Barr threatnes to sue church

Obama and McCain on rights

People who expect Barack Obama to be a firm defender of abortion rights may be disappointed. In a joint appearance by him and John McCain at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, he said he doesn't have the competency to answer a question on when a human first has rights:

"I am pro-choice. I believe in Roe v. Wade. ... not because I am pro-abortion ... but because, ultimately, I don't think women make these decisions casually," he said.
 
But Obama- in an answer that Republican partisans immediately pounced upon - sidestepped a question from the pastor who asked him to define at what point a human being gets human rights.
 
"Whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade," he said.
 
McCain, by contrast, did not hesitate on the question, saying to loud applause that human rights begin "at the moment of conception."

A more complete transcription is available here.

The implication in Obama's statement is that the theory of rights isn't the concern of statesmen (does anyone even use that word any more?), but of theologians and scientists. But a free society cannot base its theory of rights on theological decrees, and moral issues simply aren't the province of science. Obama's response wasn't just an evasion; it was an abdication.

This left McCain free to advocate fertilized-ovum rights without being contradicted.