Running out of time.

With little more than a hour to meet a deadline on a little piece I'm writing, the FedEx guy shows up with that Blue Snowball Microphone I've been waiting for. I can't resist screwing in the little tripod stand, plugging in the USB cord, and firing up Quicktime Pro to test it out. I justify the digression from my writing project by reading what I've written out loud to do my little sound test. I edit a bit as I go. Then -- atwitter with the hope that this is that device that can catapult my podcasting to a whole new level -- I play it back. Is it good? Well, I'll just do an extra little podcast tonight to demonstrate the power of the Snowball! But for now, I must get back to this writing.

Bonus revelation: I have yet to do any Christmas shopping! Me and deadlines -- we have a very close relationship.

Where police beat up couples for walking together in the park.

India!

Two policewomen have been suspended in the northern Indian city of Meerut for slapping and punching couples who were dating in a public park....

Police chief Rajiv Ranjan said ... the police action was part of a drive undertaken at periodic intervals - often at the behest of the parents of young women - to "cleanse" parks and other public places of people indulging in acts of public obscenity.

"Winter."

Nice photo, by Andy Goldsworthy: "Torn crack in leaves / Laid on a sheet of ice wedged between two trunks of a Hawthorn that had once been a single tree until struck by lightning.”

"A noticeably calmer Saddam Hussein sat quietly in his defendant's chair."

At the resumption of his trial, Saddam Hussein has adopted a new demeanor -- for whatever reason. Tranquilizers? Resignation? New legal strategy? Re-analysis of the political effect of acting obstreperous? The reason he's trying to project: Religion?

UPDATE: Ah, he's chosen to play the victim.

The powerful district court decision in the Intelligent Design case.

Here's the NYT report on yesterday's decision in the Intelligent Design case. An excerpt:

Judge [John E. Jones III], a Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that intelligent design was not science, and that in order to claim that it is, its proponents admit they must change the very definition of science to include supernatural explanations....

"To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect," Judge Jones wrote. "However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions."...

Judge Jones's decision is legally binding only for school districts in the middle district of Pennsylvania. It is unlikely to be appealed because the school board members who supported intelligent design were unseated in elections in November and replaced with a slate that opposes the intelligent design policy and said it would abide by the judge's decision.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said at a news conference in Harrisburg that the judge's decision should serve as a deterrent to other school boards and teachers considering teaching intelligent design....

Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, who helped to argue the case, said, "We sincerely hope that other school districts who may have been thinking about intelligent design will pause, they will read Judge Jones's erudite opinion and they will look at what happened in the Dover community in this battle, pitting neighbor against neighbor."

What a powerful district court opinion! It will remain unreviewed, the final word at the end of a cautionary tale for all school boards who contemplate adopting Intelligent Design in the future.

Eugenie Scott, executive director, National Center for Science Education, an advocacy group in Oakland, Calif., that promotes teaching evolution, said in an interview, "I predict that another school board down the line will try to bring intelligent design into the curriculum like the Dover group did, and they'll be a lot smarter about concealing their religious intent."

It's hard to see how they will ever hide this intent. If there is any controversy at all -- and could there not be? -- opponents will bring up the Dover case and make much of the fact that a federal judge has equated Intelligent Design with religion. It simply won't be possible to adopt Intelligent Design without talking a lot about religion now. The next school board may be "smarter" about what it needs to do to achieve its end, but if it's that smart, it should also perceive the world of trouble that lies ahead. If the judge's decision doesn't faze them, the political losses of the school board that voted yes certainly should. Proponents of teaching Intelligent Design in science classes will have a hard time admitting it, but this one district court opinion just killed their movement.

"Some of the judges say is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court."

A federal judge has resigned from his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court:

[U.S. District Judge James] Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants -- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've participated in a Potemkin court."

Robertson is considered a liberal judge who has often ruled against the Bush administration's assertions of broad powers in the terrorism fight, most notably in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . Robertson held in that case that the Pentagon's military commissions for prosecuting terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were illegal and stacked against the detainees.

Some FISA judges said they were saddened by the news of Robertson's resignation and want to hear more about the president's program.

"I guess that's a decision he's made and I respect him," said Judge George P. Kazen, another FISA judge. "But it's just too quick for me to say I've got it all figured out."

The resignation seems to speak loudly, but what does it say? The resignation letter itself gives no reason. An anonymous source offers some context. The judge may see the process that he participates in as tainted and feel that he can therefore no longer be part of it. The judge may simply object to the procedure and feel that the resignation is an effective way to express that objection. That objection may be political opposition to the President, purely legal opinion, or some mix of the two. To the extent that it is legal opinion, it may not be an opinion that most judges, handling a fully briefed and argued case, would agree with. The one judge we see making a statement to the press without asking for anonymity says that it's too soon to have figured out such a complicated legal question. That sounds about right to me.

Character development in the movie "Annie Hall."

John -- my son John Althouse Cohen -- opines:

Annie Hall likes to get high when they have sex and Woody Allen -- or Alvy Singer -- doesn't like that. That's the most character development there is in the movie.