Happy Halloween everyone

Happy Halloween!

May the tricks be limited and the treats be plenty.

And the Nomination For Next Supreme Court Justice Is...

Samuel A. Alito.

"President Bush, stung be the rejection of his first choice, nominated veteran judge Samuel Alito on Monday in a bid to reshape the Supreme Court and mollify his conservative allies. Ready-to-rumble Democrats warned that Alito may be an extremist who would curb abortion rights." (From Yahoo!)

Of course the democrats are upset. This person didn't earn the nickname "Scalito" for nothing. He's a hardcore conservative who will appease the Republican base. The argument that he would curb abortion rights is problematic for me. There are so many issues going on in this country and so many millions of lawsuits filed each year that to base your opinion on a nominee simply on one position short shrifts all the other issues in the country. As far as extremist goes, one could argue (perhaps rightly so) that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an extremist.

For whoever out there actually cares, here's my criteria for a justice on the Supreme Court:
That he or she faithfully obey the Constitution of the United States and the concept of Stare Decisis.

That being said, I think a Justice should be politically neuter, or at least as much as is possible. I know it's pretty much impossible to be completely impartial on any setting, but I do believe it's possible to rule arbitrarily despite one's partiality. I've commented before on how I believe strict constructionism is too inefficient for the country to work properly, and as such, I think Justices need some liberty in interpreting the Constitution and the laws enacted pursuant to it. However much rope they get, however, they need to ensure they work for the better of the American People, and I hope that Mr. Alito understands that should be be confirmed.

More on North Korea

North Korea is making promises again. This time, it swears that it "adheres to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and to the peaceful solution of the nuclear issue through dialogue."

The statements were made to Chinese ambassadors amid preparations for yet another round of 6-party talks aimed at stabilizing the Korean peninsula. Isn't it funny how whenever we're in the planning stages for any kind of talks, the DPRK is willing to participate and obey the agreements we've come up with, but somehow, when the time to pony up happens, we find out that they've been lying to us? Kim Chong-il is not a fool; he knows exactly what he's doing with his politics. I'm sure he knows that his government is hardly holding on, and it needs the people to firmly believe that all Americans are baby eaters who hate freedom and that every other country in the world is as hungry as they. He also knows that he must rely on foreign food aid to feed his country while he uses land to grow tobacco for counterfeit cigarettes and poppies for opium, etc. As such, he knows that the only TRUE bargaining chip he has to continue his and his country's existence is the Nuclear issue. Because he knows this, he will never stop the nuclear program. He needs the bomb so that he can strengthen his grip on a tenuous situation, and continue to exist as the demigod the people believe him to be. He will never strike first because then China will not support him, which means if there's to be a war, he needs to provoke a strike from us first (which is probably why we don't attack there, and why China does nothing other than talk about Taiwan).

Talks won't work. Promises have been broken by him and his so many times in the past that it's laughable that people would choose to believe him.

If we truly want stability in the far east, North Korea must reunite with South Korea under South Korea's terms. The weapons that North Korea has that are obsolete must be destroyed so that China doesn't view a unified Korea as a threat, thus provoking a response by them. Peace is possible, but it is much stickier than anyone who has paid more than a gram of attention to knows.

Sunday

The Lions play today. The First Place Detroit Lions, that is. Granted, they're in first place because Green Bay is playing primarily backups and Minnesota decided it was more fun to go fishing than play football, but still, first place is first place.

The First Place Detroit Red Wings played their second game against that team from Chicago last night. The Wings won both of the games, and have one more in the series before they move on to another team. 11-1-0 is the best record in the NHL, and Detroit has been working hard to earn it.

The Wolverines and the Spartans both won yesterday, and the NBA Runners-up Detroit Pistons start the regular season on Tuesday.

This is the exciting part of the sports year for Detroit fans, the magic of the Tigers has mostly faded (though we still stick by the mantra of NEXT YEAR!), and we have winners and high expectations for pretty much everyone else.

In other news, it's Roll the Clock Back day, which means my kids were up at 4:45 this morning. That's just wrong.

Friday's Odd News Post

Here's a little tip for all you embellishers out there. If you want to impress someone in whom you are interested, don't tell them you're an undercover cop and then tell her you left your badge at home after showing ID. Unfortunately, this bit of information is a little too late for this man. He actually had the jacket with the badge at home, too, which is more disconcerting.

Quick run down of what happened:
Showed her his tattoos
told her he was a cop
showed her his ID (for classmates: His surname is Terrell)
asked her for a date

I can't imagine a more romantic method of gaining one's fancy...

This Just In

I walked into the schoolhouse this morning and one of the cable news stations was on.

"Breaking News!
"Bush: Virginia Has a Lot of History."

Man. That Ivy League education is really paying off in spades, huh?

Random Trivia

According to lizard experts, iguanas can feel joy.

Family Law

I'm taking a break from studying family law right now. As much as I want to be engrossed in the topic, my mind has been drifting. It's not just family law, mind you - it's the same with all my classes. I'll read, and it's gone as soon as my eyes see the next word. I sometimes think I should stop with the charade and yield to my brain, which wants to spend time thinking about anything else.

But I can't. I have to learn about SAPCRs, and when a child can be interviewed in the judge's chambers without the parents there. I need to learn about JMC, SMC, Temporary Orders, Limited spousal support, caps on child support, protective orders, marriage requirements, common law marriage (fortunately, there's no such thing as common law divorce), annulments, majority, emancipation, etc. etc. etc.

This has been a long semester so far. And it's coming to an end far too quickly.

Deoxiribonucleicacidrefluxdisease

Once upon a time, the inimitable robber baron Andrew Dale Carnegie took it upon himself to create a new method of spelling. He thought that the current English language was too confusing for people to have to learn to spell - the rules are arbitrary. To that end, he created the Simplified Spelling Society, an organization designed to simplify the spelling of the English language so that it could be more easily learned. You can read about the movement here. Needless to say, the movement ultimately failed, although, it did help result in the dropping of the unnecessary u in words like color and humor, and it changed the order of the "er" in theater, et al.

Why do I bring this up? Well, we found out that there is a similar teaching style at work where we live. Our school district, and one of the adjacent districts don't teach phonics the way we learned them once upon a time. Rather than teaching sounds, and letter combinations, and then teaching exceptions as we go along, the schools now encourage children to write words the way they sound. So, instead of learning how to spell, they're learning how to spell incorrectly, and the theory is that they'll learn the proper spelling as they go through school. Ex. - I likd etng is crem satrday = I liked eating ice cream Saturday.

When I was in first grade, I was told that Christopher Columbus discovered America. So pervasive was this, that even today people refuse to believe that the Vikings got here long before, and that the Vikings, unlike Columbus, actually landed on the American continent. Think about that. There are grown ups out there who don't know the right answer, even after 12 - 20 years of extra education. Yet, this method is going to work to teach children how to spell properly? Teach them the wrong information and then parse it out? "We're sorry, but the way you've been spelling for the last XX years was completely wrong, and you have to start over again." It seems to me that this is going to have a detrimental effect, in that once you learn something one way, you have to train yourself not to do it that way before you can do it another way.

I enkuraj ol ov u to rit yor skoolbord and tel them u dont lik it.
Spell check should be a tool, not a necessity.

Wednesday is Haiku Day!

Can God make boulders
Too heavy for Him to lift?
Does anyone care?

As always, I look forward to your contributions.

Dec. 1, 1955

A man in Montgomery Alabama gets on a bus. He sees no seats are open. He does, however, notice a middle-aged black woman sitting near the front. The law is that blacks must abdicate their seats on a bus if a white person wants it. The man knows this, but he decides to let decency and chivalry rule the day, and he elects to stand, and let this diminutive looking woman keep her seat.

Ever wonder what would have happened had that been the story? Nobody would have ever heard of Rosa Parks, who died in her home yesterday in Detroit at the age of 92. The bus boycott may have never happened (I say may because Ms. Parks wasn't the first woman to refuse to get up, and certainly wouldn't have been the last), the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King may not have risen into prominence, and the Civil Rights Act as we know it might have taken quite a bit longer to pass.

To the jerk who insisted a women get up so that he could sit, I say "Thank you." You helped make this country what it is today. And to Mrs. Parks, I say thank you. You handled the stage better than I ever could have, and your continued work will be remembered forever.

Here, let me tug that heartstring just a little more

One of the reasons I'm a fan of hockey is that hockey players seem to be a little more connected to their fans. I think they realize that their game isn't as popular as the other major sports, and so they appreciate those fans who stick with them year in and year out.
Like the other sports, they also reach out to those less fortunate. The Montreal Canadiens invited a group of children with disabilities to a recent game, and put them up in one of the luxury boxes that Jose Theodore keeps for such occasions. They also invited one of the boys, Jeremy Gabriel, who had been deaf since birth to sing the Canadian National Anthem before the game.
After receiving a standing ovation for his rendition, Jeremy spoke to Saku Koivu, one of the Canadiens, and asked him to score a goal for him. Koivu obliged, scoring the first goal of the game 8:26 after the puck drop. "It was very emotional and very touching," Koivu said. "He did a great job on the national anthem and he asked me before the game if I could score a goal for him, and I was lucky enough to get that one tonight. We'll find him and get him that puck."

That is the essence of the purity of sports, something magical that has been lost on an entire generation of football and basketball players, who participate because they have to, but stop at doing that extra step. Although, I must say Priest Holmes does well in Kansas City, where plays chess with kids regularly, something else I advocate. Good job, Mr. Holmes.

Politics is wearing me out

I'm tired about hearing about what new scandal the president and his staff are facing. I'm tired of reading yet another scholarly type argue that Harriet Miers is unqualified, or a crony, or whatever. I'm tired of the war in Iraq, of people so unclear as to the party line rationale behind our going in the first place, of people utterly clueless about why it's utterly inconceivable that we would leave now (think about it in terms of raising a child. We're parenting a democracy there. we can't push it out of the nest until its ready to fly on its own). I'm tired of reading about Judith Miller, and Valerie Plame, and whoever else is involved. I'm embarrassed that Kay Bailey Hutchinson would announce that she hopes that "If there's an indictment, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on teh crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation wasn't a waste of time and taxpayer dollars," on Meet The Press.
I'm tired about hearing democrats complain about tax cuts only going to the rich and I'm tired of Republicans crying for tort reform (because they oftentimes don't know what they're saying). I'm tired of hearing about gay marriage and amendments defining marriage as between a man and a woman. I'm tired of hearing about it.

Monday History Question

Whose final moments were recorded by an eyewitness as follows: "He behaved with great composure and resolution, saying he thought it the duty of every good Officer, to obey any orders given him by his Commander-in-Chief; and desired the Spectators to be at all times prepared to meet death in whatever shape it might appear?"

Hint - he is often remembered for reportedly making a much more eloquent statement as his final words.

Make your guess, then check here to see if you were right.

It's just a game, isn't it?

Then why is there such an outcry over the occultism of the Ouija board? It and similar talking boards have long been considered evil, probably because of their "ability" to communicate with spirits, ghosts, and whatever else your mind can come up with. Now, Parker Brothers bought the Ouija (from the French "Oui" and the German "Ja," both meaning "yes") board rights from the Fuld family, who had, during WWI tried to market the board as a scientific instrument to avoid paying a tax on shipping games, but the Government disagreed, stating that it was, indeed a game.

If the government says it's a game, then why would religious folk fear it as a tool of the occult? Is it any more dangerous than, say, Monopoly (another Parker Brothers game)? I don't think so.

I confess, my friends and I had our Ouija phase, as did my mom, my sister, and many of my other friends. As far as I know, none of us are in the occult, and most of us have gone on to have very wholesome, good lives, except for one of my friends, who's doing 72 years for murder. Oh well, let the complain.

No Stopping, Standing, Parking, or Dying

For those of you interested in strange news stories, check this article from Reuters: Dead Man Gets Parking Ticket.

As you can guess, the topic of the article is a dead man who gets a parking ticket. Apparently, the man had had health problems for quite a while, and had gone missing. He had been missing for nine days befor ehe was found in his car at a shopping mall car park in Melbourne. The odd part of the story is that the car had a parking ticket on the windshield from the day before it was found.

I really wouldn't want to be the guy that ticketed a cadaver.

Equal Protection revisited

The Kansas Supreme Court recently held that the state cannot hold a person who commited underage sex longer simply because the act was homosexual. In the case, an 18 year old man was convicted of engaging in sexual acts with a 14 year old boy. (Apparently, they both lived in a group home for the mentally disabled, but that seems to be an answer to how as opposed to any real pertinent issue in the holding.) He was then convicted to a 17 year sentence. Had one of the parties in the act been a female, the Kansas "Romeo and Juliet" law would have capped the sentence at 15 months.

Now, let it be known that the man did partake in sex with a minor, and that crime deserves to be punished. That's a strict liability issue, and one that doesn't merit debate, not to mention, it's rather creepy, in my opinion. However, I think the Kansas Supreme Court made the right decision with regards to how to treat the act. The crime should stop at "sex with a minor;" it shouldn't include "homosexual = worse."

There ought to be a law

Picture this scenario. You are an illegal immigrant. You have no papers. You are arrested for illegally re-entering the U.S. You are then deemed incompetent to stand trial, so you sit in jail for two years. Now, in order to speed up the trial, the government seeks to medicate you so that you are lucid enough to stand trial. However, the regimen that the government seeks to employ includes such side effects as nausea, diabetes, irreversable facial tic syndrome, and could even result in rival psychoses. Your attorney is not given the list of medications before the hearing, and therefore can't forward an expert opinion for your position.

Apparently, this was allowed, until recently in the 9th Court of Appeals, where the unanimous decision served as another in a long line of judicial criticism over the process. The decision that Judge Reinhardt (Not to be confused with Judge Reinhold of Fast Times at Ridgemont High fame) issued an admonition against such medication: "The administration of involuntary medication ordinarily consittutes a serious and substantial violation of a defendant's liberty interest."

The case at issue is a strict issue regarding a continuance, the article notes, and therefore is unlikely to be picked up by the Supreme Court for review, which lends itself to be more viable a vehicle for judicial activism of this nature. Those that argue for a strict constructionist view would say that such work, even if they were to concede it is "right," undermines the legislative role and makes judges lawmakers. They would say that if such an act were so offensive, then the People would shout from the rafters for an overhaul of the law by the legislators. No word on how many registered voters were aware of such a law, so that they could clamor for change.

Forgotten Lyrics

When I was a child, we sang songs in school, as children often do. As a child, I always had trouble understanding the lyrics to "God Bless America." I sang: "From the mountains, to the praries, 'cross the oceans white with snow," and could never understand why the oceans were white with snow.

I know I'm not the only one who's made mistakes like this. Take a moment to share your embarrassing song moment.

A bit more on Harriet Miers

Let me start by reiterating that I don't object to Harriet Miers' nomination for the Supreme Court. I don't think it's a bad thing for a Justice to not have been a judge before, nor do I think it necessary that a Supreme Court Justice have an Ivy League pedigree - SMU is a fine school.

Now, I don't understand who President Bush was trying to impress with the nomination, given the backlash on almost all fronts. Even Mr. Robert Bork is speaking out against her, noting her support of Affirmative Action and admonishing her lack of support for Constitutional Originalism. I've read on more than one conservative site that Mr. Bork is the nominee that "should have" been selected to the Court over Justice Kennedy in the late 80's. If the Ghost of Supreme Court Nominations Past can't endorse Ms. Miers, how can those who pine for a redo of 1987 do any different? And if the hardcore conservatives can't support her nomination, and the liberals won't support her nomination, and the moderates want to know far more and aren't reassured by constant reassurances that she is qualified and her religion is a matter of her qualification and she'll strictly interpret the Constitution despite the Constitution's apparent condemnation of weighing religion in selection for public office (I stand by my assertion that President Bush's tacit acknowledgment that he considered her religion as a part of her qualification as a de facto religious test and thus prohibited by a strict constructionist interpretation of article VI, Section III), then who is left for the President to have intended to appease?