David Souter is leaving the Supreme Court!

"Two friends of Justice Souter, 69, said Thursday night that he had often spoken privately of his intentions to be the court's first retirement if Mr. Obama won the election last fall. He has told friends that he looked forward to returning to his native New Hampshire while he was still able to enjoy climbing mountains and other outdoor activities."

Let the fun begin. I expect President Obama to put a strong liberal in the seat, and I think there should be a strong liberal on the Court.

Continuing the picnic table theme...

Look! It's Hillary and Barack:



Nice to see them enjoying the outdoors together.

Captions?

Lakeside, a young woman arranges her dolls.

Then photographs them.



Presumably, a design project. The light by Lake Mendota was excellent for photography. These photos of mine were done with my iPhone.

"Jude Law's First 100 Days As People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive."

"According to [Veronica Giulletti, associate editor of People], the Sexiest Man Alive receives the most media attention at the very beginning of his term. While some sexy men use the news coverage as an opportunity to introduce radical changes to their looks, Giulletti said that Law chose to stay the course. 'Jude came into office with a big, sexy plan in place, Giulletti said. 'He'd spent years tweaking and refining his dapper image, so it was wise that he chose to stick with it.'"

"In all my years of ghost hunting I have never been afraid. After all, a ghost is only a fellow human being in trouble."

Han Holzer, dead at 89 and, I'll bet, not currently in any sort of trouble.

"The aptly-named Harpactea sadistica."

Violent spider sex.

Beware of the pedipalps.

"Congress can impose this disparate treatment forever because of the history in the South?"

Chief Justice Roberts in argument in the Voting Rights Act case, which Dahlia Lithwick summarizes — with unusually labored breeziness — here.

[Justice Scalia] insists that the judgment of Congress is not to be trusted because when it came to reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, "they get elected under this system. Why should they take it away?" Oh. My. God. You mean legislators are self-interested!?! That must mean the court is free to substitute its judgment for that of Congress.

This is a too-cheap laugh for Lithwick. Obviously, this is not a typical case for deferring to Congress. The challenged law structures the election of members of Congress, and it applies to some states and not others.

Debo Adegbile is in the case representing the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. When he reminds the court that "Congress is permitted to use so much of its power as is necessary" to remedy racial discrimination, the Chief Justice clobbers him with: "Is it your position that today Southerners are more likely to discriminate than Northerners?" When Adegbile replies that the covered states tend to be repeat offenders in this area, Roberts comes back with, "So your answer is yes?"

Scalia asks Adegbile what the vote was when Congress reauthorized Section 5 in 2006.

Answer: 390-33 in the House, 98-0 in the Senate. Scalia retorts that "the Israeli Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, used to have a rule that if the death penalty was pronounced unanimously, it was invalid, because there must be something wrong there." (And before you liberals start crowing that Scalia is citing foreign law, let it be noted that he is citing religious law, which is totally cool and different than foreign law.) Today Scalia seems to have fashioned a new constitutional principle: The courts should always defer to Congress unless Congress is unanimous, in which case Congress is a sack of self-interested liars. Fascinating.

Well, think about it. They're all there — from all the states — and they all got elected under the existing system, a system that is not uniform among the states. Doesn't that mean something?

"During these first 100 days, what has ... enchanted you the most?

Jeff Zeleny (of the NYT) asks a question somewhat flakily:

During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office? Enchanted you the most from serving in this office? Humbled you the most? And troubled you the most?

And the President responds... as if... well, as if the 2 of them were engaging in pillow talk....

OBAMA: Now let me write this down.

OBAMA: I've got...

QUESTION: Surprised, troubled...

OBAMA: I've got -- what was the first one?

QUESTION: Surprised.

OBAMA: Surprised.

QUESTION: Troubled.

OBAMA: Troubled.

QUESTION: Enchanted.

OBAMA: Enchanted, nice.

QUESTION: And humbled.

OBAMA: And what was the last one, humbled?

QUESTION: Humbled. Thank you, sir.

OBAMA: All right. OK.

Enchanting... inane... and enchanting.

Now, if you want to be bored out of your skull, go to the link and read O's answer to the question.

"Prof. [Joel] Reidenberg's exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment."

"Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any."

Justice Scalia vs. the privacy lawprof.

"It’s peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cell phones and iPods in their ears..."

"... and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It’s a shame to see them so tuned out to real life. Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets."

Said Bob Dylan.

Is the loss of real life the loss of liberty? Are we not free... here?

***

A theme for the last day of school (which it is for me, the professor):

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now

We don't have crimson flames tied through our ears anymore. Just white buds stuck in them.

I'm the worst offender. When I walk around outside alone, not only do I have the earbuds in nearly all the time, but I am not even listening to music. I'm listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Do I really understand the cost?

"The central question for lawyers was a narrow one..."

"... locate, under the statutory definition, the thin line between harsh treatment of a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist that is not torture and harsh treatment that is. I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct."

Judge Jay S. Bybee defends himself.

"A Scary Thing Happened" — FEMA has a nice coloring book for you.

Come on, kids. Let the government help you cope with your fears:


Is there a coloring book for people who are afraid of bad drawings? Because I need some help with that, please, government.

ADDED: That drawing makes a good what's-wrong-with-this-picture exercise for kids. Outside the window, in real life, the second plane is about to hit the WTC, and that was carried live on TV, but it should not also appear in the magazine the woman is holding.

IN THE COMMENTS: Chip Ahoy points us to the government coloring book he made:



(Read the whole thing.)

"Those insects weren’t even poisonous," Cheney growled.

"Facial slaps? Abdominal slaps? Throwing a naked man into a wall? Kid stuff. Those methods worked. They kept us safe for seven years. Safer than with that delicate Hawaiian orchid in the White House. America is coming across as weak and indecisive. Just when Rummy and I had stomped out that 'Blame America First' flower-child culture, Obama has dragged it back, apologizing profusely all over the world for the country he’s running, canoodling with greasy dictators, kissing up to those weasels in Europe, which is only free today because of our military. Friends and foes alike will be quick to take advantage if they think they’re dealing with a Creamsicle."

Breastfeeding while drunk.

The crime!

The GDP drops 6.1 percent.

"Economists had predicted a drop of 4.7 percent, and the steep dip could dampen expectations that the pace of economic declines had begun to ebb. The decline was almost as sharp as in the previous quarter, when the economy shrank at a pace of 6.3 percent, its worst drop in a generation."

But it was stimulated!

When robots attack.

Good luck suing in Sweden.

In 2007, a muscular robot programmed to lift heavy stones malfunctioned in a factory near Stockholm, Sweden, and some poor devil—who thought he'd turned off the power—nearly got himself killed when the robot grabbed his head and shook him around. He ended up with four broken ribs, but managed to "defend himself" and live. The judge awarded the guy 25,000 Swedish kronor, which sounds nice except that it's only about $3,000. The judge also reprimanded the guy for being at least partially at fault, if I'm reading the Swedish translation correctly.

Get robot insurance:

"Do women earn less money than men for equal work?"

"It's nice to link to multiple studies and invoke the principle of controlling for variables. But if you ultimately cherry-pick the gloomiest-sounding figures you can find, and -- whoops! -- by the way, forget about those pesky variables, context, and alternate explanations based on factors other than sexism ... then you've given up any pretense to empirical validity."

What to do about flu?

Change the name!

ADDED: Pork producers are awfully antsy, aren't they? It's not as though anyone says "We're having swine for dinner."

Swine, the other white meat.

Bad news for Obama!

"He’ll be responsible for everything."

"From everyday people to fashion insiders, everyone wants to know which designer Michelle Obama is wearing."

From the headline to that slideshow to every sentence of the Robin Givhan narrative, everything seemed not quite honest.

What's the point of writing about fashion if you can't say cutting, critical things? WaPo moved Givhan from New York to Washington where she was assigned to write about Michelle and Barack. Sad!

Eurotard.

Eurotard! LOL.

knox said...

"Eurotard": officially my new favorite slur.

IN THE COMMENTS: Some inapt ravings from link nonclickers. To them, I say, if you were born in July, you are a Leotard.

At the Guys Work Alone Cafe...

... I'm here by myself too.

"'Unbending squirrel' blocks nuclear train delivery."

Headline of the day, from Germany.

In case you're having trouble picturing the newsworthy event, it looked like this:



And as long as we're over here in the news from Germany (in English): "Eastern German women considered 'less ditzy."

Suddenly, Arlen Specter is a Democrat.

Sources say.

"So, Mr. Minister, welcome so much here."

That's the way Hillary Clinton talks. And she dresses like this:



And there you can also see Libyan National Security Adviser Dr. Mutassim Qadhafi. He has a very shiny brown suit.

They both like to wear their hair tucked behind their ears.

(Via Jeffrey Goldberg.)

The Supreme Court decides the "fleeting expletives" case.

SCOTUSblog reports:

Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court upheld the government’s power under existing law to ban the use on radio and TV of even a single four-letter word that is considered indecent — but left open the question of whether the ban might violate the First Amendment, at least in some situations. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the Federal Communications Commission’s switch in policy to ban even a fleeting use of such a word was “entirely rational” under the law that governs federal administrative powers....

His written opinion, in a case dealing with uses of those four-letter words during performance awards broadcasts involving celebrities, took a swipe at “foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood.”

Glitteratae... female glitterati? Cher was involved. And Nicole Ritchie.

Basically, the ruling simply means that the FCC provided a sufficient explanation of why it switched from a more relaxed policy on “dirty words” to a near-total ban on “fleeting expletives.”

So the constitutional free-speech question remains.

... Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate concurring opinion, said he would be open to reconsidering two of the Court’s major precedents that allow the government the constitutional authority to treat broadcasting differently from the rest of the press for First Amendment purposes. Those two precedents — Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC in 1969 and FCC v. Pacifica Foundation in 1978 — brought a “deep intrusion into the First Amendment rights of broadcasters”....

Bring it on.

"She shows women that it's OK to have dark skin and to not have a son. She's quite real to us."

The women of India look to Michelle Obama for inspiration, it says right here.

Does the iPhone erroneously amplify background noise to ear-splitting levels?

I have noticed this problem with and without using earbuds. I've been on the receiving and the giving end of it. Some relatively innocuous background noise — like mild wind, food frying, or water running — will become the dominant sound, drowning out the human being who is trying to be heard. The noise is excruciating, and the only option seems to be to end the call.

I'm guessing there is something wrong at the software level right now. The iPhone is sometimes especially smart about adjusting to the sound it hears. For example, if you stop talking, it switches to dead silence. I often find myself saying "Are you still there?" when I'm talking to someone who's using an iPhone, because it sounds the same as a dead line. Or sometimes the line — "line" isn't the right word anymore — has gone dead and I keep talking because I think it's that iPhone feature.

It seems as though the phone's software is sometimes fooled and interprets a background noise as the voice and, trying to help, it makes a correction. The result is horrendous. If I'm right about this, Apple needs to solve this problem quickly. After a wind-noise conversation 5 days ago, my ears are still not right. This is the stuff class actions are made of.

Why did Obama's people buzz lower Manhattan with a jumbo jet and an F-16 fighter?

"The planes appeared on the horizon around 10 a.m. and sent a chill through the city. Flying in as low as 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet above New York City, they circled the Statue of Liberty before flying over Manhattan, Staten Island and New Jersey. Before they vanished, hundreds of frightened people had jammed emergency phone lines, and thousands of terrified people evacuated from buildings in the city and across the river in New Jersey. 'I was crying and praying to God to forgive me my sins because I thought I was going to get killed,' said Kathleen Filandro, who fled from 1New York Plaza when she spotted the planes."

Quiz:

Why'd did they do it?
	To get pics for propaganda, like they said.
	To distract you from the flu.
	To distract you from the economy.
	Because the torture memos weren't exciting you enough.
	So Obama could just eat his waffle, in a golf cart, and wear shorts.
pollcode.com free polls

"For men, it's very stimulating."

Out of context quote.

***

Now, that was an article that needed a photograph or 2. Here's the missing link.

Looks like a set from "The Shining."

"Jesus had no career until Madonna arrived, and even if people are coming to see him because of her, he’s still going to take it."

Out of context quote.

"Cool it, Fellas! When I'm done let's all get high on the ammonia fumes!!!"

I love the comments thread over at YouTube — the source of the post title.

Cripes! Like they've never seen a white funnel cloud come out of a hot blonde's house!

looks like a 70's porn movie, lol.

:-D Just love that tornado music.

Heh, that one surfer kinda looks like Nicolas Cage! I can remember that tornado (& trippy musical accompaniment) somewhat freaking me out as a child.

I never knew there was a time where a strong ammonia smell was a good thing...

Ha ha. I never knew there would be a time when the stupid things I tried to avoid would be things I would go out of my way to make everyone look at. Or — for insiders only — the things I eschewed would be things I espewed.

***

This post is inspired by the poem wonderful Bissage wrote about the sink rainbow.

"I'm sending you a rainbow from the edge of my sink."

AND: Have you been half asleep, have you heard voices?

AND: Once, this was the rainbow in the kitchen:



"I've heard it too many times to ignore it. It's something that I'm supposed to be..."

"In Poland, kids are adored to death, but they are compliant."

"They know that they are small pegs on the planet. They know that parents rule. Moms whisper sweet, tender pet names, dads issue directives and little ones toddle along, waiting for that kind word, the kiss, the pat of praise."

What if Dick Cheney had been the GOP nominee for President in '08?

He'd have lost, but wouldn't the loss have been better for the GOP? It's Ross Douthat's first NYT column:

As a candidate, Cheney would have doubtless been as disciplined and ideologically consistent as McCain was feckless. In debates with Barack Obama, he would have been as cuttingly effective as he was in his encounters with Joe Lieberman and John Edwards in 2000 and 2004 respectively. And when he went down to a landslide loss, the conservative movement might – might! – have been jolted into the kind of rethinking that’s necessary if it hopes to regain power....

And — the Douthat theory goes — we wouldn't be stuck listening to Dick Cheney now.

"Sleeping apart has in no way ruined our sex life — if anything, it has made it better."

"First, we are less tired and have more time for each other, and there's something quite erotic in 'visiting' your partner in her bed, then going back to your own room. Sleeping apart makes us calmer, nicer people. We have been very honest with each other and it takes a lot of reassurance to say: 'It isn't you, I just have to get a full night's sleep.'"

Yes, why not sleep apart? Why connect sex and sleeping at all? I think a lot of married couples have a bad sex life because they assume that sex is the last thing to do before falling asleep.

Here's nice tidbit:

Married couple Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton live in separate homes in London, linked by a single corridor.

That's a pretty cool arrangement.

Or maybe something like the Beatles' house:

"Defense invokes 'Crash,' blaming chance encounter for man's death."

You have to read through a half page of sympathetic verbiage before you get to the description of the actual crime:

A passenger in a nearby vehicle said [David] Jassy's SUV rolled so far into the crosswalk that it almost struck [John] Osnes. The pedestrian reacted by bringing his hands down on the hood of the SUV and shouting something, witnesses said.

Jassy immediately got out of the SUV and punched Osnes, witnesses testified. The blow knocked Osnes off balance and as he stooped -- either to regain his footing or to pick up his glasses -- Jassy kicked him in the face, the witnesses said.

"Like somebody punting a football," motorist Rinn testified. "He stepped into it."

The kick from the 6-foot, 200-pound Jassy lifted Osnes, who was 6-foot-3 and weighed about 160 pounds, off his feet, said R.J. Young, an off-duty Anaheim police officer who was in a car stopped at the intersection.

Another witness told police that Jassy shouted, "Stupid, why did you touch my car?"

Young said he thought he had witnessed "a possible homicide if not a felony assault" and ran toward Jassy, who was getting back into his SUV. The officer said he grabbed at the passenger door and slammed his badge against the window, shouting, "Police officer! Stop!"

He said Jassy looked at him, then put the vehicle into drive and turned its wheels in the direction of Osnes' body. The officer testified that he was still holding on to the door when the SUV rolled over Osnes....

In court papers, [Jassy's] lawyer wrote that Osnes' death fit the thesis of the film "Crash" -- "that random interactions of diverse people in a city as frenetic as Los Angeles can lead to disastrous consequences." He said the case begged a series of "what ifs," starting with, "What would have happened if Mr. Jassy and Mr. Osnes had not arrived on the same corner at the same time?"

For the love of God, what bullshit! It's one thing for lawyers to be shameless, quite another to make an argument so insanely self-serving that everyone recoils in disgust.

The prosecutor, Sarika Kapoor, shot back: "The only 'what if' we are left with is: What if the defendant valued human life?"

"Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo-op right around the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe defies imagination."

Mayor Bloomberg raged, after a needless, stupid White House mission caused a panic in NYC:

“People came pouring out of the buildings, the American Express Building, all the buildings in the financial district by the water,” said Edward Acker, a photographer who was at the building, 3 World Financial Center. “And even the construction guys over by 100 North End Avenue area, they all got out of their buildings. Nobody knew about it. Finally some guy showed up with a little megaphone to tell everyone it was a test, but the people were not happy. The people who were here 9/11 were not happy.”

Mr. Acker added: “New York City police were standing right there and they had no knowledge of it. The evacuations were spontaneous. Guys from the floor came out, and one guy I talked to was just shaking.”...

In Jersey City, construction workers were evacuated from a condominium tower under construction at 77 Hudson Street.

The workers, who were on the 32nd floor of the construction site, said the plane circled three times past the Goldman Sachs tower, the tallest building in New Jersey. On the second pass, they said, the jet appeared to be only a few dozen feet from the building — close enough to clip the side of the skyscraper. A fighter followed right behind, mirroring its moves....

Sidney Bordley, a floor director in an office building at 1 Battery Park Place, said, “People were running out of the office, claiming they saw a commercial flight being pursued by F-16’s.” He added, “There was some confusion and a little excitement.”

A group of financial services workers, who were gathered outside the same building but declined to give their names, described their reactions. “I saw the landing gear and I was out of here,” one said. Another said: “There were people in my elevator, sweating and shaking. There were women crying. It was not an experience to be taken lightly.”

"Obama's Golf Shorts: Should Grown Men Wear Shorts? (PHOTOS, POLL)."

HuffPo gets in on what has long been a big topic here at Althouse. (Click the "men in shorts" tag below. And read what I said in the comments here about the guy seated next to me on the airplane yesterday.)

Here you see our President dressed for golf the way PGA Tour members are forbidden to dress. (Can you even picture Tiger Woods in shorts? No. And you're not supposed to.)



Come on! You're not a little kid! In fact, you are the President of the United States. Presidents golf in long pants!



IN THE COMMENTS: John Stodder says:

The reason I disagree with Ann on shorts on men is that I don't think it is a man's job to look attractive all the time, especially when engaged in leisure pursuits. Women do need to try harder in this area than men, and that might be unfair, but it won't do to try to apply the same attractiveness-at-all-times standard to both sexes.

The president, however, is never engaged in leisure pursuits, even when he is taking a break, so long as there is a camera anywhere nearby. So he does have a higher standard to reach. Higher yet because he's an avowed metrosexual.

But above all, if you wear shorts, you should not be nervously pulling at the seam to enclose it around the thigh as Obama seems to be doing. If there is any danger of your shorts exposing your beet salad to the world, they're either too short or too loose.

"With Rivals Ahead, Doubts for CNN’s Middle Road."

New York Times headline.

Did it make you laugh?

"Choose Life" — the license plate... the Supreme Court case.

The way Adam Liptak puts it:

Had the states not decided to make license plates a forum for a sometimes comical array of messages, the “Choose Life” cases would easy. But many states have turned their motor vehicle departments into a kind of souvenir shop. They may also have given up the right to decide what gets sold in them.

Mm... yes... it's called "free speech," and much of it is foolish and/or opinionated. Religion is one more category of expression. Deal with it.

"GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness."

The Democrats begin the week with an absolutely perfect issue.

"Now that we don't march lockstep into marriage anymore and now that women don't require men for economic support, the reasons for marrying..."

"— for a lot of people — are never going to mount up to the point where they justify giving up the status quo of singlehood."

The last sentence of a post of mine from August 2006, which I read today as a consequence of monitoring comments newly added to old posts.

The new comment was a bit of grammar comedy (from Invisible Rope):

Men don't marry because women can't properly use the reflexive tense in their writing.

See the post title to get the joke.

Rereading the old post was an eerie experience, given my recent history. Am I piling up the reasons for marrying and for maintaining "the status quo of singlehood" to see which pile "mounts up" the highest? No, no, it doesn't feel like that at all. That sentence was obviously written by someone who was solidly single and justifying it. Faced with a choice, how rational are we?

A message to women in their long billowy summer skirts.

If you go through airport security, you will receive a pat-down search.

***

How do I know? It's happened to me 3 times. And yesterday, when I made a point of wearing pants to the airport, I saw 2 women in long skirts — there are some really pretty sundresses out there — and both of them got pulled aside for a pat down.

ADDED: I'm guess the government has decided to pat-down all wearers of flowing skirts as a general rule as a way to search all females in traditional Islamic dress. Any complaints about profiling will be easily met.

Spider silk, infiltrated with atoms of metal.

Strong!

Perez Hilton thanks Miss California for giving him the chance to make gay marriage a big news topic all last week.

Oh, and of course, he lets President Barack Obama off the hook for having exactly the same "hateful" opinion that infects the feeble mind of the pathetic Miss U.S.A. contestant. This is all a big media performance. Don't you understand that, Howard Kurtz? Don't you get Perez Hilton? I don't know if you've read his website before....



(Via Newsbusters, via The Rhetorican, via Instapundit.)



And I love that new word "espew," which I take to be a portmanteau of "spew" and "eschew." I'm not going to espew it. I mean, I'm going to espew it everywhere. Use it in a sentence today.

"Take your hand off my hand."

"Take your hand off my hand."

Thanks to Palladian for syncing the audio and video on this clip I wanted to post yesterday — over here.

I'm will bet this is the funniest 3 minutes of comic acting that you've never seen by an actress you've never heard of or seen before:



The movie is "Husbands," and the actress — assuming the role is "The Countess" — is Dolores Delmar. This Wikipedia entry makes me suspect that "Dolores Delmar" is a pseudonym. So who is that lady, about whom Palladian wrote:

What a face that actress has, like it's made of latex, and that gaping mouth. Watch her lip movements. Very, very odd, and compelling.

Anyway, I haven't watched this movie in years, but I loved it when it came out in 1970 and enjoyed parts of it, despite the rambling length, when I watched it a couple decades later. If I was putting together a film series called "Studies of the Male Human Animal," I'd include "Husbands." (And what else?)

Look at the very cool poster:

"OK. I didn't hear the age. I don't want to know the age. It could be reported as rape. And that's child abuse."

A 20-year-old college student, Lila Rose, uses YouTube to expose Planned Parenthood.

"Terrible! Unreal! No passion!"

Let's watch a little of "Husbands":



"You're terrible because you want to be terrible."

That's Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetes, and Peter Falk.

Do you like these John Cassavetes movies? Now, or just back in the 70s?

At the Front Porch Café....

... you can talk about all the things you did yesterday.

"Journalists are still hot in Hollywood."

Writes Maureen Dowd (who's hoping newspapers won't die):

Russell Crowe, playing a messy and morally ambiguous Washington investigative journalist, teaches the self-regarding blogger, Rachel McAdams, a thing or three, including why a pen is necessary.....

Oh, there's a blogger in that movie? A "self-regarding blogger," eh?

Meanwhile, Patrick Goldstein writes:

When I was in film school, we were bombarded with all sorts of rakish visions of newspaper life, including "Nothing Sacred," "His Girl Friday," "Sweet Smell of Success" and "All the President's Men." Even in the darker, more cynical renditions of the world, like Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole," you knew being a reporter was where the action was.

But we now live in an era of diminished expectations, especially when it comes to newspaper dramas. In "State of Play," Crowe's investigative reporter manipulates everyone to get to the bottom of the story, which involves some good old government conspiracy. The film makes a halting attempt to introduce a contemporary story line -- his paper has an annoying young blogger on the same story -- but instead of pursuing the tension in that relationship, the film simply turns the character (played by Rachel McAdams) into a perky gofer for Crowe's big-shot journalist.

Annoying young blogger....

Well, at least there's a blogger in a movie, or are bloggers stock villains in a lot of movies these days?

Swine flu in New York City.

It's not just for Mexico anymore. Look out.

But don't worry, "Obama's health fine after trip to Mexico."

***

I've made a "flu" tag. I hope I won't need to use it too much.

Here's an excellent book: "Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic."

"It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease combined." Between 20 million and 100 million people worldwide died in the 1918 flu pandemic, but for years afterward this deadliest plague in history was almost completely forgotten. Histories and even medical texts rarely mentioned it. This disconnect between the flu's devastation and its obscurity is the starting point for [Gine] Kolata's incisive history. She explains how the plague spread, covers the various speculations about its causes and origins and gives an account of the search to retrieve a specimen of the virus strain once genetic science had advanced enough to unravel the virus's mysteries. Tissue samples from an obese woman buried in the permafrost of Alaska and from two soldiers who died in army camps preserved by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in thumb-sized bits of paraffin prove to be the last remaining sources of the 1918 strain... Could such a deadly flu appear again?

Hey, Titus came back.

Somehow, the death of Bea Arthur brought back our long lost commenter. Did her ghost nudge him over here?

"Okay, so maybe the Baby Shaker iPhone app was a bad idea."

Uh, yeah.

"I was already 50 years old. I had done so much off-Broadway, on Broadway, but they said, 'Who is that girl? Let's give her her own series.'"

The "girl" was Bea Arthur. The show was "Maude."

Bea Arthur, dead at 86.

This is probably the most famous clip from the show: Maude thinking about getting an abortion.



Added personal note: I saw Bea Arthur on Broadway in the 1960s in "Mame." I remember her sitting on a big crescent moon singing "The Man in the Moon Is a Miss." Here she is reminiscing about that scene and performing the song. [CORRECTION: Bea was singing the song, and Angela Lansbury was sitting on the moon. Sorry. It was 40 years ago. I really did see it though.]

And more generally, "everybody today is turning on":



TV in the 70s. Bizarre. That's Rock Hudson with the mustache.

Former CIA director Porter Goss cannot believe the way members of Congress are pretending they don't remember briefings on enhanced interrogation.

It's blatant political posturing — and it has hurt our national security:

They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately... and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

... The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed-out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat -- or God forbid, another successful attack -- captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.

At the Cherry Café.

Talk about anything.

MeinSpace.

Bruno.

ALSO: The poster.

"What would you say are the elements of personal charm? What resources would you recommend for someone seeking to be charming?"

An earnest question.

"I've heard him express regret at the contents of the memo."

"I've heard him express regret that the memo was misused. I've heard him express regret at the lack of context -- of the enormous pressure and the enormous time pressure that he was under. And anyone would have regrets simply because of the notoriety."

Jay S. Bybee regrets.

"On the side streets, I come across the occasional small hut selling the basics that I knew from childhood: sorrel for soup, flowers, pickles..."

"... and sauerkraut with grated carrot. And young beet leaves for spring borstch."

Nina travels 20 hours to weekend in Warsaw — attending a wedding — and has lots of pictures and inside insights.

"She tried to be chipper, and when they asked her age, she did this little shimmy" — because she was on TV.

"We could see that Susan Boyle thought "you’re supposed to be kind of sexy and personable, and she got it wrong... Nothing sort of triggers our contempt more than something trying to be acceptable and then failing."

Consider the brain and its stereotypes:

On a very basic level, judging people by appearance means putting them quickly into impersonal categories, much like deciding whether an animal is a dog or a cat. “Stereotypes are seen as a necessary mechanism for making sense of information,” said David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University....

Eons ago, this capability was of life-and-death importance, and humans developed the ability to gauge other people within seconds....

One reason our brains persist in using stereotypes, experts say, is that often they give us broadly accurate information, even if all the details don’t line up. Ms. Boyle’s looks, for example, accurately telegraphed much about her biography, including her socioeconomic level and lack of worldly experience.

Her behavior on stage reinforced an outsider image. David Berreby, author of “Us and Them,” about why people categorize one another, said the TV audience may have also judged her harshly because, in banter with the judges before singing, she appeared to be trying, awkwardly, to fit in....

[John F. Dovidio, a psychology professor at Yale] said that encountering discrepancies to stereotypes probably “creates a sort of autonomic arousal” in our peripheral nervous system, triggering spikes of cortisol and other indicators of stress. “That autonomic arousal is going to motivate us to do something in that situation,” he said, especially if the situation is dangerous.

But we're not out on the savannah in evolutionary times. We're sitting at home on our comfy sofas, experiencing the thrill that was once danger.

Life in southern Ohio.

The cherry trees are blooming:



The robin eggs are cracking:



And the blogger finds a place beside a window overlooking the meadow:

"Founding Bloggers' incorporation of the CNN footage was clearly for the purpose of criticizing and commenting on Roesgen's reporting..."

"... which has come under heavy fire in the conservative blogosphere (and even from a former CNN reporter) for her hostile interactions with tea-partiers."

Ah! A perfect copyright vs. fair use fight. Go to the link for a crisp, clear explanation of the law and the DMCA procedures.

And let's all enjoy the CNN-embarrassing video one more time:



(Via Instapundit.)

An essay about how when you're reading a Kindle in public, people don't see what book you're reading.

The idea is: you won't like a Kindle if you're one of those people who read books in public with the cover up in a position for strangers to admire.

Are there really still people like that? Are you one of them? Were you ever? Have you ever approached a stranger and initiated a conversation because you noticed the book he (or she) was reading?

What book titles would most rouse you to talk to a stranger? And if people don't go up and talk to strangers because of the book they are reading in public, with the cover up where you can see it, then what do we have? Lonely readers forever nursing the hope that someone will appreciate their intelligence, sensitivity, and taste! What are the lonely readers reading that reinforces such unlikely patterns of hope?

Ironically, if you are out in public with a Kindle, lots of people will come over and talk to you about it —

Hey, is that a Kindle 2? What do you read on that thing? Are you some kind of voracious reader or something?

Just keeping up with the blogs. Have to read the blogs...

Romance ensues.

Carcass disposal in Europe. Feed the starving vultures.

"Environmentalists describe the birds as 'nature's cleaners.' But many vultures have been starving to death since European rules aimed at tackling mad cow disease forced all dead livestock to [be] cleared away. This forced the birds to embark on some rather long-haul trips - one was even spotted recently perched on top of a bus shelter in Brussels."

Oh! A vulture on a bus shelter in Brussels! Well, then, screw the human beings and their fussy worries about the spongiform degeneration of their brains.

I reorient myself with respect to the dog.

I'm pretty low-energy today, but I do shift position from time to time.

"In the third stage, acclaim soars right up to the Cat Calendar Tolerance Level...."

A graph of our feelings about Susan Boyle.

(Via Throwing Things.)

Picnic with dog and iPhone.

Jane Hamsher, get out your pitchfork.

He's done what she said would drive her to extremes.

President Obama rebuffed calls for a commission to investigate alleged abuses under the Bush administration in fighting terrorism, telling congressional leaders at a White House meeting yesterday that he wants to look forward instead of litigating the past.

That's what I told Jane he should do.

When Obama decided to release the CIA interrogation memos.

WaPo reports:

Seated in Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's West Wing office with about a dozen of his political, legal and security appointees, Obama requested a mini-debate in which one official was chosen to argue for releasing the memos and another was assigned to argue against doing so. When it ended, Obama dictated on the spot a draft of his announcement that the documents would be released, while most of the officials watched, according to an official who was present. The disclosure happened the next day.

Watched calmly? Watched with dismay? Surely the source characterized the mood. I'd like to know.

Obama's aides have told political allies that the last-minute conversation, which ended around 9:30 p.m., demonstrated the president's commitment to airing both sides of a debate that was particularly contentious. But it also reflected widespread angst inside the White House that a public airing and repudiation of the harsh interrogation techniques that the last administration sought to keep secret would spark a national security debate with conservatives that could undermine Obama's broader agenda....

This suggests that the argument for withholding the memos was political, but wasn't the argument for releasing them also political?

Several Obama aides said the president's decision was in line with his frequent criticism during the campaign of President George W. Bush's policies on interrogations at secret prisons. On his second day in office, Obama banned the prisons and the tactics in an executive order.

The aides also said they hope the memos' release will focus public attention on the coldness and sterility of the legal justifications for abusive techniques, with Obama telling reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that the documents demonstrate that the nation lost its "moral bearings" in the Bush years.

Legal analysis tends to look cool and analytical. Yes, you can say that's cold and sterile. Would the people be less roused by memos that were contaminated with nonlegal considerations and overflowing with passion. It's a lawyer's argument — and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and White House counsel Gregory B. Craig were in favor of releasing the memos — to say that some legal analysis they don't like is cold and sterile. Don't ordinary people expect legal analysis to look legal?

A visit to the Supreme Court, etc.

In pictures.

U.S. News thoughtfully ranks the law schools for your edification and convenience.

Thanks, U.S. News!

"It seems to me that if I say a whole system must be upset for me to win..."

"... I am saying that I cannot sit in the game, and that safer rules must be made to give me a chance. I repudiate that. If others are in there, deal me a hand and let me see what I can make of it."

John McWorter quotes Zora Neale Hurston and W.E.B. Du Bois — "I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not" — to side with the plaintiffs in Ricci v. DeStefano:

[T]he International Association of Professional Black Firefighters tells us, "Cognitive examinations have an adverse effect upon blacks and other minorities." Du Bois crowed, "Fifty years ago the ability of Negro students in any appreciable numbers to master a modern college course would have been difficult to prove," and proudly documents 2,500 black college graduates. Imagine Du Bois listening to a rep from the black firefighters' association now sneering that the promotion test merely measures "the ability to read and retain"--i.e. engage in higher-level thinking processes! O tempora, o mores.

This will not do: People like Du Bois did not dedicate their lives to paving the way for black people to be exempt from tests. Sure, the tests may not correlate perfectly with firefighters' duties. But which falls more into the spirit of black uplift that you could explain to a foreigner in less than three minutes: teaching black candidates how to show what they are made of despite obstacles, or banning a test of mental agility as inappropriate to impose on black candidates?

"Hey, Matt. Sure is a gorgeous day to get drunk and throw beanbags back and forth on the front sidewalk for 11 hours!"

Matt thinks: "Someday, I’ll eat pancakes on your grave."

Challenging the line between art and commerce is cute until it's not cute.

"The point of installing a boutique inside the 'Copyright Murakami' exhibition at MOCA's Geffen Contemporary building was to highlight the Japanese pop artist's trademark blurring of the lines between art and commerce, MOCA officials said at the time of the 2007-08 show. But [Clint] Arthur contends that selling repurposed handbag material as 500 collectible art prints priced at $6,000 and $10,000 crossed the line from commerce to fraud because Louis Vuitton allegedly hid the fact that the prints were made from the same fabric sheets as the Murakami-designed bags and accessories selling nearby for almost $1,000."

Now, try keeping the line between art and law. It's very hard!

Was the city required to take race into account and not to take race into account?

Adam Liptak summarizes yesterday's Supreme Court argument in Ricci v. DeStefano, an important affirmative action case:

The case, brought by white firefighters in New Haven who were denied promotions after an examination yielded no black firefighters eligible for advancement, featured claims of race discrimination on both sides. It was, Justice David H. Souter said, a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.”

Had the city allowed the promotional exam to stand, Justice Souter said, it would have faced a lawsuit from black firefighters. When it threw out the test, promoting no one, it was sued by 18 white firefighters, one of them Hispanic, who claimed race discrimination.

The city said that throwing out a flawed test was a racially neutral act. Because no one was promoted, the city said, no one was singled out on the basis of race. But Justice Antonin Scalia was having none of that.

“It’s neutral because you throw it out for the losers as well as for the winners?” he asked. “That’s neutrality?”...

The city “looked at the results, and it classified the successful and unsuccessful applicants by race,” Justice Kennedy said to Edwin S. Kneedler, who represented the federal government. “And then you want us to say this isn’t race? I have trouble with this argument.”...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. [asked] the lawyer for New Haven, Christopher J. Meade. “Why is this not intentional discrimination?” Chief Justice Roberts asked. “There are particular individuals here,” he continued, “and they say they didn’t get their jobs because of intentional racial action by the city.”

Mr. Meade said the city should be afforded protection because it was trying to comply with a federal law.

Read the whole thing. This is genuinely a complicated problem, as the Breyer hypotheticals at the end of the article demonstrate.

"Gum may be good for body, mind."

"Chewing gum is an easy tool students can use for a potential academic edge."

Potential, kids. It's all about potential. I hope you've chewed enough gum to notice that "potential," in that construction, refers to how it's only just a possibility that gum might make you a bigger, better, stronger, sharper person.

Research funded by the Wrigley Science Institute.

"Hold Tight" — a flashback.

How many of you, when you read the expression "hold tight" in the last post, flashed back immediately to Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich?



Ha ha. I'm so stuck in the 60s!

Hold tight, count to three,
Gotta stay close by me
And hold tight, sing and shout
Just ride my round-about
And hold tight, shut your eyes, girl,
You suit me for size.
Forget the other guys.
You'll never fall each time you call.
Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight.

7 a.m., Madison.

Yes. Yes. Where is the blogging... the substance of the day... the news? Hold tight. It's coming.

6 a.m., Madison.

"Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. questioned Meade skeptically..."

A line from a news article made me laugh.

But now, really, I must get serious and read the whole transcript of today's argument in Ricci v. DeStefano. Here's the PDF. I'll have something more soon.

Noon, 50°, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Why so few sun baskers? And why are they male? I think the ground is soggy from yesterday's rain. That's all.

"Madison gun owner Auric Gold said he often carries a handgun in a holster while walking in his east side neighborhood..."

"... a right that attorney general J.B. Van Hollen affirmed in a memorandum to prosecutors on Monday. Van Hollen said it's legal to openly carry a gun on the street in Wisconsin and advised prosecutors that merely having a gun doesn't, by itself, warrant a disorderly conduct charge."

It's like a Western movie up here. Can you really just swagger around the sidewalks of Madison and Milwaukee with a gun in a holster? In your hand?

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said he'll continue to tell officers they can't assume people are carrying guns legally in a city that has seen nearly 200 homicides in the past two years.

"My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we'll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it," Flynn said. "Maybe I'll end up with a protest of cowboys. In the meantime, I've got serious offenders with access to handguns. It's irresponsible to send a message to them that if they just carry it openly no one can bother them."

Today, tea parties. Tomorrow, a protest of cowboys.

AND: Glenn Reynolds says:

So if you see Police Chief Ed Flynn, put him on the ground, take his wallet away, and then decide whether he’s accepted any bribes that day. If, after doing that, you think the money’s his, give his wallet back. Who cares what the law says? It’s the Milwaukee Way!

Also, in the comments, Sigivald says:

A gun in your hand is likely to be brandishing.

"Earthquake Warning Has Oregon on Its Toes."

Headline.

I didn't even know Earthquake Warning had toes. But that's got to hurt. Oregon is heavy.

"When [Randy] Jackson (who’s been married since 1995) learned [Condoleezza] Rice wanted to meet him..."

"... 'he was sort of mystified ... but he went.'"

Jeffrey Rosen on the two important race cases that will be argued in the Supreme Court in the next few days.

Northwest Austin Utility District v. Holder and Ricci v. DeStefano:

[Northwest Austin Utility District v. Holder] challenges Congress's reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006... But... Congress didn't engage in a serious empirical comparison of voting patterns in the areas of the country that are and aren't covered by the Voting Rights Act. The civil rights establishment was intent on preserving the status quo, which has led to the election of some African Americans in the South at the expense of the Democratic party as a whole; and ... neither Republicans nor Democrats were willing to acknowledge the evidence suggesting that discriminatory barriers to ballot access today, unlike the '60s, seem to be very rare....

[Ricci v. DeStefano is] the most controversial affirmative action case of the term, involving the promotion of firefighters in New Haven. In 2003, the city administered a promotion test. The test was validated by independent experts, as federal law requires, to ensure that it focused on job-related skills rather than purely cognitive ones. But, after the test was administered, none of the top-scoring candidates for 15 positions turned out to be African American. (Fourteen were white, and one was Hispanic.) ... [T]he city refused to certify the exam and promoted no one. The city was then sued by 19 white firefighters (and one Hispanic) led by Frank Ricci, a sympathetic 34-year-old white man. Ricci, who is dyslexic, spent more than $1,000 buying the study guides recommended by the city and paying an acquaintance to record them as audiotapes, which he listened to as he drove to and from work.

The Ricci case is a nightmare for moderate liberal supporters of affirmative action, because it presents the least sympathetic facts imaginable. The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that affirmative action is most troubling when its burdens are concentrated on a few innocent white people rather than being widely dispersed among a large group of white and black applicants....

If the Supreme Court strikes down part of the Voting Rights Act and the New Haven affirmative action program, [it] would force Obama to articulate a moderate, middle-of-the-road position on race that is rooted in empirical evidence rather than ideology....

With all the other problems facing the country--from the economy to the war on terrorism--Obama has no incentive to take on liberal racialists who believe we've made little progress on race since the 1960s or conservative color-blind partisans who insist that anti-discrimination laws are no longer necessary. But everything in Obama's background suggests that he has the inclination and ability to help the country transcend the extremes that have defined our racial politics for too long.

I added the boldface.

"Job Anxiety Grips Graduating Law School Students."

Harrowing.

"And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear... Or not my underwear."

"Whatever. Whatever. I was the one who did it? I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's beyond human experience, not beyond human experience."

Yesterday, Justice Breyer talked about his underpants.

(PDF.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Daryl says:

The crazy fact is, about 40% of the Supreme Court's civil rights cases turn on the personal experiences of the judges.

"I never did that. So why does anyone else need the right to do that?"

Or, in this case, "they'd better strip search those kids. I smuggled Ibuprofen into school twice a week in my Superman underoos."

"This guy is the embittered Dr Bronner of the west coast soft-drink trade."

Cory Doctorow encounters a lemonade label.

Of the war... it lies red....

Origins of the state names, nicely charted here. The post title refers to Delaware and Wisconsin, my original and current home states.

There are some great state names and some not-so-great ones. I plan to list the state names from best to worst. I'm not quite ready. I seek your input. But I have developed some principles:

1. I strongly approve of the use of words from Indian languages. I suspect all the best names will fit this category: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas...

2. The names of Spanish derivation are all good: California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, and Nevada. Except for California, it's pretty easy to see what they refer to. Vermont works the same way with French. (It means green mountain.) This is an okay approach to naming.

3. I celebrate the 4-letter names: Iowa, Utah, and Ohio. All 3 are also from the Indian language and therefore belong at or near the top of the list. There are also 2 great 5-letter names: Idaho and Texas. And then there's Maine.

4. Anything with "New" that looks back to the old country is pathetic.

5. Points off for including a compass point. "Dakota" is a great name, but one of the Dakotas should have consulted the Sioux dictionary for another suitable — siouxtable — word. Don't the both of you be grabbing at the same word.

6. Naming the state after an American President, done exactly once, was not a very good idea, because it's unAmerican to adulate Presidents and because we already had the national capital named after that President, so it created unnecessary confusion and required us to say "D.C." all the time, which isn't amusing at all.

7. I deplore references to English or French royalty, even when these are processed away from the original name — like Virginia and Carolina — and not embarrassingly plain — like Louisiana, Maryland, and Georgia.

8. References to other English celebrities is stupid but that stupidity may be canceled out by the contribution the character actually made in America or by the coolness of the resulting word. There are only 2 names in this category, and I think I've just given both of them a pass.

"Good morning. I forget whether I'm supposed to wish you a 'Happy Earth Day' or a 'Happy Lenin's Birthday.' Oh, wait. It's both."

A Corner classic.

"Drudge fears the media, which for some reason want to know things about the man who basically decides what will be on cable television every night."

Where's Drudge?

There's the theory that he's hiding a private life that some people disapprove of. Some say Rush Limbaugh — of all people — told him to lie low. Right wingers supposedly protecting other right wingers from getting caught doing things that right wingers supposedly loathe.

Lefties love to think the righties they can't tolerate are intolerant.

ADDED: Here's the Gabriel Sherman article in TNR:

What is driving Drudge to seclusion? Those who know him say that part of the reason he has disappeared from public view is that he is so bothered by the media's prurient interest in his personal life...

Perhaps Limbaugh... was trying to protect a fellow conservative from attack by the left. Or maybe he simply grasped something that now appears very obvious: Matt Drudge owes his power in part to the air of mystery that surrounds him.

Obsessively following Twitter.

Elsewhere in the NYT, there's a whole big story about a woman who tweets other people's recipes. It's a challenge translating the directions into 140 characters. It's also a challenge translating them out of 140 characters if you actually want to use them.

***

Remember when you borrowed the notes of a classmate who had a penchant for compression? Or were you the one who always went to class and then did you deliberately compress, compress like mad — with lots of idiosyncratic abbreviations — so you could say I don't think these notes are comprehensible to anyone but me? Did they insist on borrowing your notes anyway? (Remember how nerve-wracking that was back in the days when it meant handing over your precious spiral notebook?)

***

Questions:

1. Tightly compressed writing. Good or bad?

2. New York Times constantly writing about Twitter. Good or bad? If bad: bad because they need to keep being obsessed with blogging?

3. Class notes. Were you the one who wanted to borrow or the one pressed to share? Did you?

4. Blogging: Compress more or go ahead and expand? (No one stopping you.)

5. Blogging: One topic per post or mix it up?

6. Bloggers: Annoying or cool? Cooler/more annoying than Twitterers?

"Is there any thought that doesn’t need to be published?"/"The one I’m thinking right now."

Maureen Dowd interviews the Twitter founders, Biz Stone and Evan Williams.

ME: I heard about a woman who tweeted her father’s funeral. Whatever happened to private pain?

EVAN: I have private pain every day.

And he's thinking what a private pain Dowd is and not publishing that thought.

ME: If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle, would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on?

BIZ (dryly): In the middle of what?

ME: Do you ever think “I don’t care that my friend is having a hamburger?”

BIZ: If I said I was eating a hamburger, Evan would be surprised because I’m a vegan.

See how good he is at keeping it short?

How insanely wrong is Mark Penn about all the money there is to be made in blogging?

If he's not wrong, I feel like a fool.

"I'm going to stop this car right now and leave you here!''

What happens when a mother really follows through on that? And she's a NYC law firm partner...

The nightmarish embarrassment of Madlyn Primoff.

When school officials strip search a 13-year-old girl who they think might have some extra-strength ibuprofen...

The Supreme Court heard argument today in Safford School District vs. Redding, and the Justices seemed pretty sympathetic to the school:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the school officials should be shielded from being sued since the law governing school searches had not been clear...

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy... objected when Adam Wolf, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer for Redding, argued that the strip search was unreasonable because there was no evidence she was hiding anything in her underwear.

"Is the nature of drug irrelevant?" he asked. "What if it was meth to be consumed at noon?"...

It is "a logical thing" for adolescents to hide things, [Justice Breyer] said. A student might stick something "in their underwear," he added, provoking laughter when he said that this had happened to him at school. "It's not beyond human experience."...

"Better embarrassment [of one student] than the risk of violent sickness and death," Souter said.

The pirate smiles the fabulous smile of celebrity.

Enlarge.

Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse, thinking I'm a big star in America now.

UPDATE: The pirate cries.

The high-tech long-distance relationship.

"While lying on their beds miles away from each other, the couples wear touch-activated rings visible to a camera mounted above them. A computer vision system tracks the movement of the ring as one of the device's users passes it across their own body, or bed. At the same time these strokes are transmitted to and projected in beams of light on the body of their partner. The lines change colour if they cross."

Susan Boyle needs a makeover, not "an 'Extreme Makeover,' but rather the Tim Gunn or What Not to Wear' version."

Says Robin Givhan:

Those are the kind of transformations in which the recipients spend a little time figuring out precisely why they've been squeamish about trying to achieve their personal best. Just before her triumphant performance on "Britain's Got Talent," Boyle said she wanted to be a professional singer, but no one had ever given her the chance. It was a reasonable comment, but it also had the ring of passivity to it. What held Boyle back for so long?...

The tale of Susan Boyle will not be complete until the shy spinster blossoms. Those who have been entranced by her story so far should let Boyle's fairy godmother finish her work.

Yeah. The idea of keeping her in her original state is sentimental and selfish. Is she supposed to bolster your self esteem? One of her attributes is that she's never been kissed. (She's 47.) Should she retain her virginity along with her bushy eyebrows so that TV viewers can feel warm and squishy?

***

Here's an article about Stacy London of "What Not to Wear." She's Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar with degrees in 20th-century philosophy and German literature, and she's been skinny (90 pounds) and fat (180) — so presumably she's knows what she's talking about when she tells less-than-perfect women to cast aside their slovenly comfy clothes and show off their curves.

The point of the show, she says, is to help people "find perfection in their imperfection." That means helping them really see the image they're projecting to the world -- which can be painful. "You have to see it clearly," London argues, "so you know what you're working with, what to emphasize, what to camouflage." Helping makeover subjects see themselves that clearly sometimes requires tough talk. "People think we're being mean," she says. "But we're helping take down barriers."

"As was the case with Chavez's tendentious present, Ortega's speech was intended as a slap."

"Obama was correct not to walk out on the speech. But... [w]hen Obama spoke later, he should have prefaced his promising call for an 'equal partnership' with other countries in the hemisphere with some strong pushback against those who would rather relive the insults of the past than move forward."

Says Eugene Robinson (who just won a Pulitzer Prize).

Yes. As in his campaign, Obama is very bland. For some reason — possibly vaguely racist — American liked the bland. But at some point, bland is not what you want.

"The thrifty measures Obama ordered for federal agencies are the equivalent of asking a family that spends $60,000 in a year to save $6."

Ouch.

"Judge rules former President Bush can be deposed."

A headline that seemed odd but wasn't meant to be odd.

The Succulent Café.

Say something juicy. Something tender.

U.S. News leakage.

The new law school rankings. Weep, celebrate... whatever.

"Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, 'We don't serve your type.'"

Hating the font.

"You can hold back from the suffering of the world. You have free permission to do so and it is in accordance with your nature."

"But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided."

Hey, RLC is blogging again.

Beginning — after 2 years of holding back — with that Kafka quote.

Is there a free speech right to sell and to own graphic videos of dogs fighting?

Congress made it a crime, and the Third Circuit said it violated the First Amendment. Today, the Supreme Court took cert.

In nullifying the law, the Circuit Court refused to create a new exception to the First Amendment to apply to portrayals of animal cruelty. It noted that the Supreme Court “last declared an entire category of speech unprotected” by the Amendment in 1982 (in New York v. Ferber, involving child pornography). The Circuit Court rejected a government argument that the depiction of animal cruelty was analogous to the depiction of child pornography.

[T]he Justice Department argued that the 1999 law is narrow in scope, applying only to a “particularly harmful class of speech,” only when that is done for commercial gain, and only when the particular depiction has “no serious societal value.”

Protected speech?

WaPo commenters lame, thinks Dana Milbank.

"On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack. On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama's butt. I am a bleeding-heart liberal who wants nothing more than for the right to fall on its face. I am part of the ObamaMedia. I am pimping for the left. I am carrying water for Obama. Lord, am I an idiot."

"1970s lifestyle 'protects planet.'"

A headline.

Obama: "Well I think it was a nice gesture [for Hugo Chavez] to give me a book. I'm a reader."

What was the book? "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent."

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian said:

I wonder if Hugo gave Obama a copy of his other favorite book?

Good thing some bloggers read the memo.

The NYT reports under the headline "Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects":

A footnote to another 2005 Justice Department memo released Thursday said waterboarding was used both more frequently and with a greater volume of water than the C.I.A. rules permitted.

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, [Justice Department] memo.

It seems to me that the mainstream press should have found everything significant in the memos within a few hours. Why is some blogger the one to discover something days later?

Want to switch careers...

... and become a teacher?

"The child is special now. This is NOT an ordinary child. This is an Oscar child!"

$300,000 to buy the young "Slumdog Millionaire" actress.

ADDED: "They tricked us into this fakery but we came out unscathed."

At the Double Image Café....

... you can take a different view of things.

IN THE COMMENTS: Jason and Andy reference this:

"'Put your hand on it, you can feel the heat they make. They're all in a big mound right now on top,' said Althouse."

"A sheet of newspaper separated Maya Althouse's hand from 3 pounds of bees — totaling somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 stingers.... In November, the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association named her the 2009 Pennsylvania State Honey Queen."

"Koh's writings—especially when exaggerated—will add to charges from the right that Obama is a closet socialist."

Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas examine Harold Hongju Koh, Obama's choice for the top legal adviser to the State Department.

Excerpt:

Koh argues that American law should reflect "transnational" legal values—and that in an interconnected world it inevitably does to some extent already. In his writings, Koh has campaigned to expand some rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution—and perhaps shrink some others, including the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech—to better conform to the laws of other nations. He has, for instance, pushed for a more expansive view of what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment. Koh's views are in tune with—if bolder than—those of a majority of the Supreme Court on some issues....

Were his writings to become policy, judges might have the power to use debatable interpretations of treaties and "customary international law" to override a wide array of federal and state laws affecting matters as disparate as the redistribution of wealth and prostitution. He has campaigned to write into U.S. law the United Nations "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women," signed by President Carter in 1980 but never ratified by Congress. A U.N. committee supervising the treaty's implementation has called for the "decriminalizing of prostitution" in China, the legalization of abortion in Colombia, and the abolition of Mother's Day in Belarus (for "encouraging woman's traditional roles"). In 2002 Senate testimony, Koh stressed that these reports are not binding law, and he dismissed as "preposterous" the notion that the treaty would "somehow require the United States to abolish Mother's Day." Still, the reports are very much part of the "transnational" legal process that Koh celebrates.

"Obama held his tongue when asked what he thought about Ortega's speech. 'It was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought.'"

"President Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe from socialist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and included a rambling denunciation of the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba's Communist government. Obama sat mostly unmoved during the speech but at times jotted notes" [writes Major Garrett at FOXNews.com.]

Notes, eh?

America responsible for evils of world.

Ortega angry.

I'm bored.

Communism... good for Cuba? Wd b much more successful if not for U.S. evil.

Racism

expansionist policy of U.S.

Look serious. Pretend these are real notes. Listen thoughtfully.

Sandinistas... Contras... check info

Look thoughtful

He can't blame me. I was 3.

When is this idiot going to shut up?

Boooorrrrringggg

ADDED: Actually, Obama said "I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old." That rhetoric sounded familiar. Remember this?



IN THE COMMENTS: Maguro said:

Not sure why he needed to take notes since he listened to the same sermon at Trinity Church for 20 years. You'd think he'd have it memorized by now.

"Someone's knocking at the door. Somebody's ringing the bell. Do me a favor. Open the door. Let 'em in.

That's the entirety of the lyrics to the cute little Paul McCartney song "Let 'Em In," from the 1976 album "Wings at the Speed of Sound."

Please familiarize yourself with the original recording.

Now, you are prepared to view the song and dance interpretation from the 1976 Miss America contest — with Bert Parks and 3 male dancers:

***

What long and winding road led me to that door? Back in last night's "rare opportunity" thread, I wrote:

Being tried for murder is a rare opportunity, as is ending your life in the electric chair.

Meade said:

I once had the rare opportunity to become King of England but I turned it down.

I chose romantic love instead.

Then Hollywood called and I said "no." At the time, keeping my private life private seemed like a rare opportunity I didn't want to give up.

Oh, I almost forgot - then I was asked to run for Vice President but I decided I wanted to spend more time with my family.

In hindsight, I'm glad I turned down that king gig. The pay wasn't all THAT great.

Then Lem said:

Good call Meade.

Greetings from Julio "If love calls on your door"

If love calls your door
let it find it always open
never close it, let'm in ...

Open up, don't get distracted
don't let'm go, dont miss it
you don't know when it will call again ...

If love calls your door
let it find it always open
tomorrow is another day, it's God's will ...

Let love be welcome
Today I will stay with you
For a Gifted night without end ...

I want to be more than your friend
it is all I ask
and that you give me a chance.

(painstaking translation by Lem)

"Gifted" — like "God" — is capitalized in Lem's view, and I accept that.

The open door... someone's knocking at the door...

If you'd left that door open somebody wouldn't have had to ring the bell. Maybe you just leave that door wide open — and let love walk in — but at least answer it. Maybe check the peephole first.

A word about opportunities.

You know, there are some rare opportunities. But do you take them because they are rare?

Being tried for murder is a rare opportunity, as is ending your life in the electric chair.

Have you ever had a rare opportunity that you were tempted to take because it is rare? Did you stop yourself or did you take it? How did that work out for you?

"Obama dismayed by Iran sentence."

"The US has expressed dismay after a court in Iran jailed an Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi, for eight years on spying charges. Ms Saberi, 31, was sentenced after a secret one-day trial in Tehran."

Can Obama rise to these tragic times?

The Next Morning Café.

Settle in. Drink some coffee and chat under this picture of last night while we head out at dawn to encounter Madison — on the first Farmers' Market Saturday of the year.

Obama, warmly clasping hands with Hugo Chavez.

"Como Esta?"

"I want my son's sperm to live."

"For sperm to be viable, it must be harvested within 36 hours of death. When Supreme Court Justice Howard Sherman ruled, they had just four hours left....The race against time really began at 3:30 a.m. Thursday when [Johnny] Quintana, a seemingly healthy, 31-year-old concierge and auto mechanic, collapsed and died while watching an episode of NBC's 'The Chopping Block" on a computer with his brother. Through her tears, [his girlfriend Gisela] Marrero remembered their last talk about the future and immediately asked Jacobi [Medical Center] if it would be possible to remove and preserve Quintana's sperm. Under law, it takes a court order. So while Quintana's body was placed in a cooling room and an ice bag was placed on his testicles to preserve his potential progeny, Marrero set about preparing a funeral - and building a legal argument. Much of Thursday was spent frantically calling sperm banks, lawyers and arranging for an emergency hearing before Sherman...."

"American taxpayers are funding a lavishly appointed hospital in which hundreds of child molesters and rapists can idle their days away."

Most of the individuals housed at Coalinga refuse treatment. They think that they committed a crime, served their sentence, and are entitled to freedom. Almost no one gets out via therapy anyway, so why try?

The men can vote, take tennis lessons, watch their porn videos, throw parties, have sex with other men at the hospital, play bass in a jazz combo. They just can't leave.

More states have signed up to the Coalinga model - including, recently, New York. If a lifelong country club-style internment is the price of keeping paedophiles off the streets, many appear to be willing to pay it.

We're paying $200,000 a year, per person.

The Democratic health care sales pitch: "Our plan will deny you unnecessary treatments!"

Really, is it that bad?

Well, I've certainly always assumed that. I've looked upon the prospect of health care reform and thought the truth was: Let the government let you die.

Human lungs, breathing.

For the assessment of transplantability.

Via Metafilter.

IN THE COMMENTS: kynefski said:

Is this with or without fir trees?