The hallucinogenic tea case.

The U.S. is seeking Supreme Court review of a Tenth Circuit case that relied on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to bar the federal government from enforcing drug laws against Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal. The drug in question is "hoasca tea," a hallucinogenic.

"Compliance with the injunction would force the United States to go into violation of an international treaty designed to prevent drug trafficking worldwide, which could have both short- and long-term foreign relations costs and could impair the policing of transnational drug trafficking involving the most dangerous controlled substances," acting Solicitor General Paul Clement wrote in a court filing.

Here's Prof. Marci Hamilton's excellent analysis of the legal issues in the case, including why there is no claim under the constitutional Free Exercise clause and how the Court of Appeals could rely on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act after City of Boerne v. Flores (which held that Congress's Fourteenth Amendment power did not support the act). Hamilton, you should note, is a strong advocate for the government's side of the argument.



UPDATE: The United States has won a stay:

Justice Stephen Breyer, acting on behalf of the full court, granted a temporary stay to give both sides time to file more arguments with the court.

Property taxes in Madison.

So what kind of property taxes do you pay? Here in Madison, the tax on the average house, worth $205,359, is $4,458.

News about "Alexander."

1. Those Greeks who were suing to vindicate Alexander's sexual reputation are calling it off until they get a chance to see the film. Critics caution against it.



2. Angelina Jolie reflects on her performance as Alexander's mother:

"I connected to her as a mother. I don't think I could have played her if I wasn't a mother... As a mother, I truly understand that you will do anything to protect your child. Yes, she is a dark, wicked person, but as an actress, you have to make the audience believe that her motives were pure. She always put her son first."

Judging from this article, motherhood has totally undermined the once-great entertainment value of Jolie's private life. Oh, well.



3. Here's quite a sentence from Anthony Lane's review in The New Yorker:

Farrell comes across here as twitchy, straw-haired, and buzzing with sexual mystification, as if he had researched the life of Anne Heche by mistake, and he seems bewildered by the film’s demands, uncertain whether to opt for a stiff-backed action man—an unironic legend, the sort of role that nobody has been able to master since Charlton Heston retired—or a tortured, more modern spirit, his taste for love dulled by his addiction to fame

4. The bogus homophobia angle appears in the Philippines press:

Would a big sector of our society raise hell about the film if it did not present without doubt the sexual and love choices of Alexander, the man? Look at all the tirades, they all point to things like the shaved legs of Farrell, his blonde locks and how they are wrongly dyed. One smells here the ether of homophobia rather than the essence of good taste.

Is anyone raising hell? I'm sure Stone dearly wishes hell had been raised.



5. Colin Farrell raises some hopes about the DVD version:

“I have no problem showing my ****,” says Farrell. “In fact, I did go naked in A Home at the End of the World, but they cut it out. During test audience screenings, they were advised it was too distracting. I don't know. I see my **** every day and am not distracted. But, hey, who knows? Maybe you'll get to see it in the uncut DVD version.”

A deserted city.

Don't miss Michael Totten's great pictures from Libya (via Instapundit). I was entranced by the pictures of the deserted city of Ghadames, especially the beautiful traditional Ghadames house. Googling to find out something more about Ghadames, which I had never heard of, I learned that the name means "yesterday's lunch." I see that this is referred to as "cake and icing architecture." Here's another picture of the interior of a traditional house. Here's a collection of Ghadames pictures. Here's another. Fascinating!

For those who eat Haagen Dazs by the pint.

A great gift idea. This puts the idea of taking my lunch to work in a whole new light.

A drawing for today.

I would have gotten started blogging late today anyway, because I overslept, but not this late. I'm starting this late because Blogger has been down all morning. I wasn't going to go with this drawing today, because it was not my mood when I started trying to post today, but it's a good time to use this one, which is, I know, the kind of drawing that makes people say, I'm worried about Althouse. This drawing also seems to say something about Jeremy's dying weblog, which I talk about in the previous post.

Jeremy writes a Dear Blog letter.

Jeremy Freese says he's "just not that into" it, but I think there is more going on in this relationship than he's letting us know. Let me repeat here what I wrote over there in the comments section:

Jeremy is going to break up with his blog because not enough people have posted comments. But if all of you post a comment here to show that you do love Jeremy's relationship with his blog, maybe they won't break up. ... This isn't enough enough. You didn't comment hard enough. Jeremy's relationship with his blog is dead. [Audience weeps.]

Jeremy was the inspiration for all us Wisconsin profbloggers. He set the tone and invented a style, which we played off of. So please, people, clap if you believe in Jeremy Freese's Weblog.