After months of rumors, speculation and debate, it appears as if House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, will be unable to simply brush away claims that he violated ethical standards in office. Various charges have been levied against DeLay, ranging from questions about his overseas travel to campaign payments to family members and connections to political lobbyists under federal investigation. In addition to questions about those matters, DeLay has also been admonished multiple times by the House of Representatives Ethics Committee.
The buildup of these problems seems to signal DeLay's downfall, and the correct -and only -thing for the Republican Party to do is to distance its members from DeLay and let the House Ethics Committee investigate the claims of impropriety. Also, if the committee would find significant wrongdoings on DeLay's part, the House Republican leadership must remove DeLay from his leadership role and discipline him accordingly.
The situation at hand is of DeLay's own making. Although he has blamed his woes on Democrats, liberal interest groups and the media, the fault rests solely on his shoulders, and his attempts to divert potential blame are merely a political play. Further, DeLay has spent more time whining about the specific accusations against him than he has denying the charges. In the wake of the Terri Schiavo case, DeLay has shown himself to be too radical and too much of a liability for the Republican Party after making comments about the prospect of impeaching an out-of-control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president.
The Republican Party can ill-afford to align itself with the controversial DeLay any longer. With the war in Iraq and the state of the national economy still providing a source for heated debate, the Republican leadership must close ranks and purge the likes of DeLay from its power structure. President Bush has already declined to endorse DeLay's comments about the judicial system and should take further action to break ties with his fellow Texan. And as the president does that, so should the rest of the Republican Party.
Hed: Brave new world It seems like the premise of Hollywood's next big blockbuster. A major corporation develops state of the art technology that could have great social benefits, but instead the technology is manipulated into a means for brainwashing, establishing a totalitarian state and simply ending the world. Don't go buying tickets to the premiere yet -instead pay attention to the possible new technological advancement of the Sony Corporation.
Sony -makers of Playstation 2 -has recently received a U.S. patent for the development of technology that could beam ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce sensory experiences
like smell, taste and touch. As amazing as the technology sounds, it is important for the public not to blindly embrace its development, but also to not immediately fear it as a potentially dangerous case of technology run amuck. The patented technique has been credited as having the potential to take video gaming to unprecedented levels -fully engrossing the player in the smells, sounds and images of their favorite games -and also having the ability to one day help individuals handicapped by blindness and deafness. To what noble pursuit the technology will be applied is merely speculation at this point, but it is important for the average citizen to be skeptical about the benefits of the advancement.
It is impossible -and downright na*ve -to try to stop the train of technological process. For better or worse, new technology will always present society with any uneasy balance between the abuse of it for selfish gains and true altruistic pursuits. Consider life without other once-feared inventions like the horseless buggy or nuclear power. Both have benefited modern society greatly but can also be misused. The technique being researched by the Sony Corp. will probably not result in a catastrophic end of days, but like many Hollywood depictions, even the most out there premise can seem plausible. For now the debate will remain unresolved, so be warned -but also intrigued. 17
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