On the Supreme Court?
I'm not a lawyer, I don't even play one on television. But Eugene Volokh has to be one of the sharpest legal minds (sorry, Sis) I have ever read. He cuts right to the point like a laser. I posted earlier about the 9th Circuit and it's overturning of the Constitution (Which linked Volokh). Here's his latest piece on the subject.
Reinhardt better hope Volokh never gets to sing with the Supremes. It would be a bitch to have every single decision you ever made slapped back at you……
Christopher Hitchens on Mary McCarthy, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, the media and things coming home to roost.
You make your bed…..
If you didn't see this coming - you're not paying attention.
Well, at least one firm convert. And a long, long history. With more than a few bits of photographic evidence.
But hey, what does actual history have to do with truthiness?
John Hawkins has a disturbing post up about a woman named Andrea Clarke, the sister of someone who apparently post fairly regularly at Democratic Underground. Now for the most part, I tend to stay away from that site, it's 'waaay to far over the edge for me. But this case is about humanity, not politics. Boiling down John's lengthy, and well researched, post: A hospital has decided to terminate treatment for a very sick woman who is struggling to recover after contracting an infection after surgery to correct a heart problem. She is not brain dead and does not want to die.
Left or right, this is something that is worth getting behind. Could we please not let a hospital decide to keep it's costs down by killing people?
To Ms. Melanie Childers, I wish you and your sister the best and lend whatever poor amount of support I can to you.
Please go to John's site for a much better take than my short post.
This isn't politics, folks. This is humanity. Please pet's keep it that way.
UPDATE: Chez Diva is also onboard this. Pile on, folks. Please.
UPDATE: Texas Rainmaker with some VERY helpful contact info. Pile on, folks. Please.
UPDATE: Local coverage at KHOU. Also blogging, Euphoric Reality.
UPDATE: Bamapachyderm has an update.
In yet another act of terrorism, bombs were set off in an Egyptian resort town. Three separate blasts claimed at least 23 people so far. Another 62 are reported injured.
Most were Muslims.
Since it's highly doubtful these acts were committed by Presbyterian extremists, maybe it's time for the much talked about "Muslim Street" to rise up. And maybe go after the jerks who are killing them in the name of Jihad.
Instead of trying to excuse these people as "Minute Men, a la Jaba the Moore, everyone should be blaming the murderers and condemning them for what they are.
Just a thought.
UPDATE: BBC Ccoverage.
Well, the spin is going like crazy on the whole Mary McCarthy/CIA leaks story. Predictable result. The more right wing is condemning the leaks to the press and the leaker herself. The left is defending leak and leaker with the "this was a good leak done with good intentions".
I'm just going to point out the obvious, yet again: This kind of behavior by a trusted CIA officer damages the country and the intelligence gathering capabilities of our agencies. Period.
Left or right, we'll all pay eventually for this behavior. Every damned one of us. There are reports now that McCarthy actually indulging in a pattern of leaks and did not try to use the correct channels. Even the left should not be happy about this. Sorry folks, I do not see how you can defend a person damaging your own government. If you think about this, if this becomes standard procedure you can absolutely bet that at some point it will be done to bring down one of your friends.
Bet on it.
And we all pay the price for this kind of political activity.
Yet another "Bush at lowest poll number ever" story. We here at the Boulevard have long pointed out that the 'approve/disapprove' wording of these kinds of polls capture both those who don't like the president for what he IS doing as well as those who don't like what he is NOT doing. In other words, people who think he should be more lenient in his stance on illegal aliens and those who think he should be a lot tougher are both going to answer the same way. (Also, we point out that a 1% drop is meaningless since it is well within the margin of error for the poll.)
If Bush wants a surge in the polls, build a fence. That simple. Huge jump in poll numbers, guaranteed.
A man from Huntington, New York, his Son and a neighbor were all swallowed in raw sewage when what is being described as a cesspool caved in during heavy rain.
Andrew Palladino said the soggy ground, soaked by two days of rain, gave way outside his Long Island home: "I walked across the lawn, and all of a sudden I disappeared."
He yelled to his wife for help, and she threw a rope and called their son, Dan, who lives with them. The son said the scene "was like a horror picture."
A neighbor who heard the commotion ran over to help — but the ground gave way again, swallowing him and the son. The neighbor crawled out and passers-by tried to hold onto the others until the Huntington Fire Department arrived.
Firefighters lassoed the two men and hauled them out. What's really disturbing about this story is that this is not the first incident where a cesspool gave way in Huntington. A man died in one in 2001 and another was rescued from one in 1998. I'm not at all familiar with requirements on Long Island regarding sewage, but I wonder if these are "cesspools" or really septic tanks. A cesspool is a very, very old method of collecting waste while the more modern septic system has been in use for many years. If anyone is familiar with the codes in Long Island, I'd be interested in hearing which systems are in service in that area.
Good things would come of it, to be sure. Marriages would be saved, fun would be had. But sexual Utopia? PT-141 seems just as likely to usher in the age of McNookie: quick, easy couplings low on emotional nutrition. Sex lives tailored to the demands of a jealous office or an impatient spouse. A dark age of erotic self-ignorance tarted up in the bright-coloured packaging of a Happy Meal.
So writes Julian Dibble in the Guardian on a new medication under development that appears to be able to treat both men and women suffering from a lack of desire for or ability to perform sex. PT-141 is on track to be on the market in only a few years. It works in a fundamentally different way than Viagra, directly on the brain rather than on the circulatory system.
Among men who have been tested with the drug more extensively, the data set is richer: 'With PT-141, you feel good,' reported anonymous patient 007: 'not only sexually aroused, you feel younger and more energetic.' According to another patient, 'It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire…' Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don't typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire. Or, as patient 128 put it: 'My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141.'
The precise mechanisms by which PT-141 does its job remain unclear, but the rough idea is this: where Viagra acts on the circulatory system, helping blood flow into the penis, PT-141 goes to the brain itself. 'It's not merely allowing a sexual response to take place more easily,' explains Michael A Perelman, co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital and a sexual-medicine adviser on the PT-141 trials. 'It may be having an effect, literally, on how we think and feel.'
The story goes on to speculate about what social changes may be wrought by the introduction of such a drug. It also describes, in much greater detail than I ever wished to know, the sex lives of rats. I don't much like rats.
Rats aside, the drug sounds promising. I'm not really too worried about the social side-effects, either. I suspect there will be some misuse, there always is. But I don't think the potential problems are as great as the author seems to . If it helps couples reconnect, is that a bad thing?
A report from the Mystic Seaport museum details a search by paranormal investigators into reports of a ghost sighted on-board the Charles W. Morgan, the old whaler that is one of the prize possessions of the museum.
A five-member team from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research group visited Mystic Seaport on Friday night to spend time on the Charles W. Morgan, a wooden whaling ship where several visitors have reported seeing the apparition.
The 165-year-old craft made 37 ocean voyages in search of whales during the 60 years it was in use. About 1,000 men worked on the Morgan over those decades.
The paranormal investigators became interested after three separate tour groups reported seeing someone dressed in 19th century clothing below decks. The apparition did not speak to anyone but did nod in their direction. At the time, there was not supposed to be anyone in that area. Museum officials are cooperating, not because they believe in ghosts, but because they thought it would be a fun thing.
"The fact that we had three reports that were the same made everyone's eyebrows go up," Laird said.
He said that he also received about 40 other reports of possible paranormal activity before those groups related their experiences.
Museum officials gave the group permission to conduct the investigation.
"We're interested in what they find out," said museum publicist Mike O'Farrell, who attended Friday night's investigation. "It's not so much we believe in ghosts and spirits, but it's a chance to do something fun."
Laird and the other investigators said their few hours on the ship convinced them that there was enough evidence of paranormal activity in certain areas to warrant a return visit with more sophisticated equipment.
Well, while we hesitate to call the Rhode Island Paranormal Research people rank amateurs (because we don't want to get sued or anything) we do want the world to know that we here at Blue Crab Boulevard take a back seat to no one in the search for paranormality. Accordingly, we dispatched a crack team of investigators from the Professor Gaius Paranormality Research Academy and Coffee Shop to scoop the Rhode Island folks. And, of course, we succeeded. Because we're more paranormal than just about anyone. Behold! Photographic evidence of the haunted Charles W. Morgan!
Chez Diva came up with a logo to describe her reaction to excessive exposure to people suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. She's using the logo as a fundraiser for Operation AC/Adopt a Soldier. Stop by her blog and help out by buying a coffee mug with this logo:
Operation AC/Adopt a Soldier
Fundraiser
By Chez Diva
Are, unfortunately, forcing people to do the bidding of fanatics. A brothel in Germany, faced with threats of violence, has removed the flags of Iran and Saudi Arabia from an advertisement. The brothel had put up a large banner featuring a scantily clad woman and the flags of every nation competing in the World Cup.
Unidentified people showed up at the brothel and first asked, then demanded with threats that the flags of the two countries be removed.
Here's something about this story. It is reported by Reuters, but in their "Odd News" category.
Sadly, it's not odd at all these days, is it?
UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has the pictures to prove it.
Specifically National Lampoon's Vacation. A German woman has been cited and will be fined for driving her mother's dead body across the country. She was attempting to avoid paying mortuary transportation fees. Police cited her for "disturbing a dead person's peace". No word whether the police let her finish the trip.
In my mind's eye, I see Aunt Edna strapped to the roof……
Cynthia McKinney held a quiet little staff meeting over the weekend. Our photographer from Magic 8-Ball Photography and Window Washing was able to get a candid shot of the discussion.
The brutal murder of 17 year old Joe Van Holsbeeck in Brussels sparked a protest march of over 80,000 people over the weekend. Van Holsbeeck was murdered for refusing to turn over his MP3 player to two thugs of North African lineage. What's really encouraging is that many in the crowd were Muslims very much opposed to the violent racism some youths of North African descent espouse. What's encouraging is that it was a Muslim Member of Parliament who called for the march.
What's discouraging about the whole situation is that only the Muslim MP could have called for the march and make statements denouncing the racist Muslim street gangs. A native Belgian who did so would face immediate prosecution by the Belgian government.
Ahidar, a father of five, already called for a protest march on 15 April, saying that if the victims had been immigrants and not Belgians, “or even if an immigrant just gets a few kicks from police officers, half of Brussels would be on the streets in solidarity with the victim.” According to the Moroccan-born MP, anti-Belgian racism is rife among Muslim street gangs. “This murder stinks of racism,” he said. “There is a growing group of criminal Moroccan and Turkish youths who go after victims who look like infidels. We have to fight racism in all its varieties, whether by the immigrants or the native community.” What Ahidar says is common knowledge but only he may say so. If a native Belgian makes such comments he or she risks being taken to court for racism by the authorities’ racism watchdog CEOOR, an instrument used by the government parties to silence political opponents.
The situation illustrates exactly what attempts to declare certain speech as "hate speech" leads to; political oppression. Make no mistake, attempts to regulate free speech lead down this road. Belgium is further along, but there are many in the US trying to follow.
Blogosphere, Legal | Gaius Monday, 24 April , 2006 | 
Comments Off 
