The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court...

If I hear one more bloviating talking head say that the function of the judiciary is to "interpret" the law rather than to "make" law, I am going to scream.

You will notice that no such language is found in Article III. The constitution refers to the judicial power. While it does not define the term, the framers were conversant with and quite reasonably established a COMMON LAW country. In a common law system, judges make law EVERY DAY. Period.

Because we can't see this picture enough

Because abortion is always simple

During the 2004 Presidential Debates, the giggling murderer replied to a question about abortion by saying that it was a simple issue, and that it was always wrong. In 2008, John McCain made a joke out of people who consider the health of the mother to be a serious consideration during pregnancy. The murder of Dr. Tiller and the right-wing cabal of crazy that instigated it seem to cling to this childish worldview, and it's impossible for anyone with a brain to see the world in that simplistic a way.

I'd imagine there are a lot of stories out there from real people who've dealt with this real issue. Last summer, when my wife was pregnant with our son, we were apprehensive. We'd already been through a miscarriage, and I'm a worrier by nature. More than 6 weeks before the due date, she became concerned about a very high blood pressure reading, and we ended up in the hospital at midnight one evening. That night, she was diagnosed as being preeclampsic, and the only cure for preeclampsia is delivering the fetus. The situation was pretty clear to me - the pregnancy had to end or my wife would likely die. I can't imagine a world in which I would be forced to write off my wife's health as an irrelevant part of that discussion. We were fortunate in that our son was developing well within his womb, and that the hospital we were at had a fantastic NICU. He's doing great (you wouldn't know he was premature), and it all worked out in the end, but the fear remains for possible future pregnancies.

I bring this up because of a NY Times article where patients recall their experiences with Dr. Tiller. These are oft-times heart-wrenching stories of women and families making extremely hard decisions regarding pregnancies that had gone wrong for any number of reasons. This isn't cold-blooded murder, or casual disposal of complications from unprotected sex. This is hard stuff, people, and anyone who's gone through anything remotely like what these women went through couldn't pretend that abortion is simple or trivial. There are stories here that will hit home for lots of people, whether they happened to you, happened to someone you know, or just live in your fears. There are entirely too many people on both sides of the "debate" who have made caricatures of themselves and of humanity, and this time it lead to murder. Congratulations, idiots.

Twenty Years

We were watching TV
In Tiananmen Square
Lost my baby there
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She was a short order pastry chef
In a Dim Sum dive on the Yangtze tideway
She had a shiny hair
She was a daughter of an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
She had a perfect breasts
She had high hopes
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was a student of philosophy
Won't you grieve with me
For my yellow rose
Shed a tear
For her bloodstained clothes
She had shiny hair
She had perfect breasts
She had almond eyes
She had yellow thighs
She was a daughter of an engineer
So get out your pistols
Get out your stones
Get out your knives
Cut them to the bone
They are the lackeys of the grocer's machine
They built the dark satanic mills
That manufacture hell on earth
They bought the front row seats on Calvary
They are irrelevant to me
And I grieve for my sister
People of China
Do not forget do not forget
The children who died for you
Long live the Republic
Did we do anything after this
I've feeling we did
We were watching TV
Watching TV
We were watching TV
Watching TV
She wore a white bandanna that said
Freedom now
She thought the Great Wall of China
Would come tumbling down
She was a student
Her father was an engineer
Won't you shed a tear
For my yellow rose
My yellow rose
In her bloodstained clothes
Her grandpa fought old Chiang Kai-shek
That no-good low-down dirty rat
Who used to order his troops
To fire on women and children
Imagine that imagine that
And in the spring of'48
Mao Tse-tung got quite irate
And he kicked that old dictator Chiang
Out of the state of China
Chiang Kai-shek came down in Formosa
And they armed the island of Quemoy
And the shells were flying across the China Sea
And they turned Formosa into a shoe factory
Called Taiwan
And she is different from Cro-Magnon man
She's different from Anne Boleyn
She is different from the Rosenbergs
And from the unknown Jew
She is different from the unknown Nicaraguan
Half superstar half victim
She's a victor star conceptually new
And she is different from the Dodo
And from the Kankabono
She is different from the Aztec
And from the Cherokee
She's everybody's sister
She's a symbolic of our failure
She's the one in fifty million
Who can help us to be free
Because she died on TV
And I grieve for my sister

- Roger Waters

Was Air France Flight 447 Brought Down by Turbulence?

From the Christian Science Monitor comes a fascinating report on meteorological analysis of the stricken airliner's flight path. The link to Tim Vasquez's blog, below, with his analysis of the weather conditions that may have caused the accident is technical but worthwhile reading.

Was Air France flight 447 brought down by a 100 m.p.h. updraft?

Or were its two jet engines snuffed out by hail or heavy rains?
In the absence of a black box, the leading theory now is that the Airbus 330-200 was brought down by a 300-mile-wide band of tropical thunderstorms that it could fly neither around nor over.

Brazil’s defense minister confirmed Tuesday afternoon that military planes found a three-mile path of wreckage in the Atlantic, hundreds of miles from Fernando de Noronha, a Brazilian archipelago.

Professional pilots and meteorologists are digging through the available data – flight routes, satellite images, aircraft specifications, and weather reports – and spinning out several likely causes.

One of the most detailed and cogent pieces of analysis of Flight 447’s last minutes – winning the praise of pilots around the world – is a blog by Tim Vasquez.

Here's one of Mr. Vasquez's more intriguing speculations:

Due to the high cloud tops and freezing level at 16,000 ft, there was extensive precipitation by cold rain process and it is likely the MCS was electrified. Lightning of course being considered with good reason since the A330 is one of the most computerized and automated airliners in service.

From my neophyte's perch observing weather patterns, it seems they've become more severe and unpredictable partly as a result of global warming. Are modern airliners like the Airbus A330 at a disadvantage under such conditions because the advanced computerized and automated avionics might be susceptible to lightning?

Perhaps we should bring the reliable old DC-3's back into commercial service.

Operation Rescue Connection Found to Dr. Tiller Assassin

Kansas City, MO KKMBC reports that Dr. Tiller's murder suspect Scott Roeder had a handwritten phone number on his dashboard to Operation Rescue senior policy advisor Cheryl Sullenger, who was convicted of conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in 1988. Sullenger contends Roeder is "you know, somebody who's been around" and that he hasn't called her "recently."

More here via Daily Kos.

Tea (and death) for the Tiller-man

I'm sure you have all heard about the shocking murder of Dr. Tiller IN CHURCH.

The silence from the right is deafening.

There is little that I can add to the philosophical, ethical and moral debate on this question. Shall we first of all observe, however, that Dr. Tiller was practicing medicine in accordance with the law? And that he was IN CHURCH?

I had a conversation about this case with a friend of mine, a tenured history professor at a local college (I.e., no knuckle-dragging neanderthal here), and his response was stunning. He found the murder in church to be reprehensible (thank heaven for small favors) but said without a second thought that if the killer had broken into the clinic operating room and killed the doctor during a procedure, his conduct should be lauded and celebrated, not prosecuted.

THAT is what happens when people buy into the assumption that a zygote/embryo/fetus is a "human being." You cannot discuss things with these people because they are walking definitions of the "begging the question" logical fallacy (when a given argument depends on what it is trying to support) buts rotsa ruck there.

HELLO: Shout-Out to the 44% of Women Who Didn't Vote Obama

Have you heard what the white males in your party/paranoiac ideology of choice have been saying about Sonia Sotomayor, the distinguished judge nominated by President Obama to the Supreme Court? Parenthetically, she’s a woman and happens to be a Latina -– should that matter? Anyway, these troglodytes opposed Judge Sotomayor on no issues of substance. Instead, they’ve resorted to juvenile name-calling:

- racist

- reverse racist (presumably flashier, sort of like a reverse layup)

- bigot (projection, projection)

- lacks intellectual heft (never mind that she graduated with honors from Princeton, SECOND in her class!)

- name is too hard to pronounce (excuse me??)

- choice of food may influence her decisions (EXCUSE ME?!?)

- is temperamental (would that be once a month?)

- is Obama’s Harriet Miers (yeah, right … )

- activist judge (Ooo, look out white hoodsters, here comes the wild-eyed “activist” Latina judge!)

- has empathy (OMG!! Um, “Poppy” Bush sold Thomas as someone with “empathy”…)

No shit. This is all true, it’s been said by wingers gone wild in the last few days about Judge Sotomayor since her nomination to the Supreme Court. Precious little has been said about her actual record, mostly by progressives (trans: adults) somewhat concerned about her position on Roe.

It’s worth repeating here, that one of the benefits Barack Obama’s election has had is to expose the true colors, the dark, depraved, decadent underbelly of right wing opposition arrayed against him and us. These people don’t represent America any more than Hitler represents Germany or the Ku Klux Klan is a social club.

Remember, ladies, all 44% of you misguided souls who did not vote for President Obama: Judge Sotomayor has done all of you a HUGE favor; she’s become a foil for conservative white male frustrations boiling over ... and boil over, they have!

PssT … if you have an independent mind, this is what your first dudes, your SOs, really. Think. About. YOU.

Is she pro-choice? Is she not?

Already this is circulating because Judge Sotomayor has not written an abortion opinion. Guess what? In a Roe v. Wade world, there aren't many questions on this that come up! The proper question is not how would you rule on an abortion case but how do you view stare decisis, i.e., court precedent? It takes a fundamental sea change a la Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but "equal") for a sitting court to overturn long-settled precedent.

The Supremes

I have read many of Sonia Sotomayor's opinions. While she is not a "knock your socks off, wow that is brilliant" jurist, she is more than competent and capable. Her opinions, at least in my area (securities) have been well-reasoned and consistent. She is clearly qualified with an admirable record of public service.

Take her on, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. I dare you.

On the lighter and stupider side...

I saw this headline on the MSN page:

'Jon & Kate' spouses say they're angry at media

Oh really. Now I would have never heard of these buffoons if they didn't show up on magazine covers I see in the store, etc. Reality TV is not my thing. But here's a little tip if you don't like media attention--

DON'T GO ON TV!!!

President Obama Makes Historic SCOTUS Nomination

Judge Sonia Sotomayor represents the changing face of America.

Her life story is compelling and mirrors the President's in many ways: She grew up in the projects, raised by a widowed mom who had to work two jobs to support her. She graduated with honors from Princeton and Yale Law School, was a DA, a corporate attorney, and judge. She has more than the requisite experience and qualifications to serve on the nation's highest court.

She has TWICE passed Senate confirmation, appointed first as a district judge by "Poppy" Bush and then as an appelate court judge by President Clinton.

A word to the (un)wise Repugnants: Try blocking her confirmation based on your RWWM views of her "judicial philosophy" at your own very great peril, lest you become a permanent regional minority party. Be very, very careful with your oppositional schemes. Latinos do not forgive or forget so easily.

Hélio Castroneves of Brasil (Natch): 3-time Indy 500 Champion!

I'd gone out when the race was halfway over and Hélio was sitting in 5th, only to come back and see him in front of the pack by 1.1 seconds, with 10 laps to go!

WOOHOO!!! WHAT A COUNTDOWN: 10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... I was just counting down every lap as Hélio zoomed around the track at 200+ mph, keeping a perfect line, with no one gaining behind him ... and with ONE LAP TO GO, his team leader radios him evenly: "One to go. Bring it HOME!" WOOT!


This was an emotional win for Hélio and his family, after a full acquittal on tax evasion charges in which he had faced 35 years in prison. It was the greatest win of his career, capping a storybook finish as he broke down and thanked team owner Roger Penske for "giving me my life back." Hélio Castroneves is a pure racer in the very best tradition of the great Brasilian champions of the past -- Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, and the greatest of them all, Ayrton Senna.

It's no accident that Hélio is now poised to possibly become the only 4-time Indy 500 champion. He's a finisher. He knows the race goes not only to the swift, but also to the best strategist and most skillful driver, to the one who makes the least mistakes and relies on his team, because after all, it's a total team effort. He's smooth and consistent. Focusing on the marathon, not the sprint, he will get the most out of his car and his tires so that, in the end, he's all alone in front, literally and figuratively with something left in the tank.

And to cap off his many racetrack talents, in 2007 Hélio was crowned Dancing With the Stars Champion beating back none other than MARIE OSMOND! What a guy! What a Champion! : D



Congratulations, Hélio!

Right Wing Radio's Waterloo: "ABSOLUTELY TORTURE"

This is the Chicago shock jock, Mancow Muller, who once called President Obama a Muslim, and who has incessantly shouted the right wing (radio) mantra that waterboarding is not torture. Well, the tables were turned on the shock jock when he was subjected to an all too brief shock of his own: TORTURE.




At least Mancow was honest enough (I was going to say man enough, but he's not so big or manly, hell he's a winger) to admit the truth, having experienced it. He lasted less than SIX seconds; I counted FOUR. Too bad. In the back of my mind I wanted the winger's torture to last longer than their average premature ejaculations. Oh well.

Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture

"It is way worse than I thought it would be"

By RYAN POLLYEA


And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show.

Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining.

"I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

"It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture."

"I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "

Last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment -- and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward.

"Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture," Hitchens concluded in the article.

POSTCRIPT: Keith Olbermann who had offered to donate $1,000 for every second Sean Hannity endured waterboarding withdrew his offer after Mancow had the "guts" to go through with it. Mancow's program contacted KO as to whether the offer was still on the table, and the answer was YES. Olbermann has donated $10,000 to a charity for military families in the radio shock jock's name (the winger with a smidgeon of guts). GOOD MAN, Keith.

Is Dick Cheney the Most Hideously Traitorous VEEP since Aaron Burr?

Worse, I'd say. At least Burr was a better shot.

Dick Cheney’s speech yesterday was filled with so many lies that it would be impossible to name them all in context in this limited space. But here’s a start.

My favorite reaction to Cheney's speech came from former CIA analyst, Jack White:

"He beat the CIA for year after year like a Piñata, and then all of a sudden he's going to become their champion?!?"

No we can't! No we can't!

Beer tax on tap for health care?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers in the United States may have to hand over nearly $2 more for a case of beer to help provide health insurance for all.

Details of the proposed beer tax are described in a Senate Finance Committee document that will be used to brief lawmakers Wednesday at a closed-door meeting.

Taxes on wine and hard liquor would also go up. And there might be a new tax on soda and other sugary drinks blamed for contributing to obesity. No taxes on diet drinks, however.

Beer taxes would go up by 48 cents a six-pack, wine taxes would rise by 49 cents per bottle, and the tax on hard liquor would increase by 40 cents per fifth. Proceeds from the new taxes would help cover an estimated 50 million uninsured Americans.

Science and Bad Movies

Tom Hanks was on The Daily Show last night to talk about Angels and Demons, and the discussion into the science of antimatter was, not to put too fine a point on it, excruciating. I now know not to ask Tom Hanks or Jon Stewart any physics questions.

I must correct the scientific record - I think it's in my contract or something.

What actually happens is that the amount of antimatter that is created is very small (it's a bunch of antiprotons, and they're smaller than 10^-15 meters across), and it needs to be held in a magnetic field to remain stable - it actually moves around a storage ring at very high speeds. The explosions that the antiprotons make when they collide with protons wouldn't really be visible at all, since none of the particles they create are large enough to see and they don't emit light in the visible range. The detectors that we use to see the products of the collision are huge, expensive, and very complicated. You couldn't walk around with a vial of antimatter, because you need something to generate the magnetic field to hold the antiprotons away from so-called normal matter.

A delightful Sean Hannity Ass-Kicking

Kudos Jesse Ventura!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeMuDN9Ewyc

And in this corner...

We have Randy Rossi of Grayslake, Illinois. This constitutional scholar demonstrated his brilliance to the world this morning in the local paper, lamenting how, with regard to poor little Miss California, that "[w]e didn't hear from the ACLU defending her rights to her personal opinion."

Randy, here's a tip for you. Don't wast any time waiting for the phone to ring with news of one of those "genius grants."

THE ACLU??? Why would they get involved? Where have her civil rights been violated? Was she arrested? No. Was her speech suppressed in any way by state action? Of course not. She has a right to be heard without government interference and we have the right to say that there is little difference between her bust size and her IQ. And Randy, before embarrassing yourself in public, turn off Fox News, brush up on some basic civics and

Nancy Pelosi the Target of Right Wing Sexism

It comes as no surprise that sexism is alive and well in the male-dominated worlds of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, right wing radio, and Fox-Lite wannabes like CNN. (Shame on MSNBC for joining this lineup.) What's really disgusting is the ferocity of the attacks. At least, President Obama's election has had the salutary effect of unmasking the true nature of the right wing mullahs. Sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant.



One wonders what those hard-edged, coiffed women working at Fox think about this, above and beyond the daily indignities they suffer, along with all working women. They're either sublimely hypocritical opportunists like Greta Van Susteren, who prefers the legal beat but toes the party line on politics, or the vacuous, vaguely ideological 'Stepford' blonde anchors favored by Murdoch and Ailes.

Beauty pageants are fertile launching pads for women seeking a right wing career path: Sarah Palin was a Miss Alaska runner-up, and just recently Miss California got her big shot on Fox and Friends, standing in for a former Miss America.

By the way, Carrie Prejean was not criticized for her views against gay marriage -- she has the right to free speech -- but rather for breaking pageant rules, lying about past indiscretions, and lending her name to a political activist group engaged in defeating gay marriage. So her Profile in Hypocrisy is a perfect match for Faux News, isn't it?

Whether or not Nancy Pelosi has had Botox injections or a facelift (hell, Joe Biden has very bad hair plugs) is irrelevant to her position. Nancy Pelosi is not a participant in a beauty contest seeking a political or media position; she earned her place as the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in our nation's history.

One gets the distinct impression that these wingers were just chomping at the bit for the first opportunity to launch sexist attacks on Pelosi. It's so hard for conservative white males to go against their nature. They're an endangered species (thanks be to the Goddess!), but they have served notice they will not go quietly into the night.