Some Miscellaneous Thoughts

The Supreme Court ruled that even in States where laws were passed permitting the medicinal use of marijuana, persons using marijuana for medical reasons can still be prosecuted under Federal drug laws. Such laws are a blatant violation of State's rights, but still the Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Federal government. Now the Republican party has been very fond of late of accusing judges of being "activist" judges (usually for no other reason than that the Republican party hasn't liked the rulings) often in cases where the judges are doing nothing other than upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States. This on the other hand is pretty much the definition of an "activist" ruling - the majority of the court voted in favor of the ruling for apparently no better reason than that they thought the Federal laws were a good idea. In a strange twist of events, it was Sandra Day O'Connor who wrote the dissenting opinion who made it clear, that while she was in favor of the Federal statutes personally, she was aware that they violated the State's Rights principle of the Constitution, and thus should have been struck down as unconstitutional. I wonder if the Republican party will come out railing against the majority ruling and praise O'Connor for her integrity. Oh yeah, that's gonna happen.

Please, please, please could this whole Michael Jackson thing please just go away? I can't believe how much time and energy is being wasted on this crap. Is the man guilty? Of course he is. When did this nation know that he was a pedophile? Oh, at least 15 years ago. And we've had to hear about it ever since. Why isn't everyone screaming, "enough is enough!"

Hey, NASA freed the Mars rover Opportunity from the sand dune it had been stuck in for like close to 5 weeks. YAHOO! I know, I know, I'm a pop-science geek, but I love this stuff. The Mars rovers are like the energizer bunny - they just keep going, and going, and going, and I think that is cool as hell. I think that is a new story with way more National significance that the disappearance of Natalee what's her name.

This week the Senate will vote on (and therefore approve) the nomination of Judge William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Pryor was the former Attorney General of Alabama, and about the most hateful man Bush could have nominated. The vote will occur along strict party lines, which means that the so called "Centrist Republicans" like Olympia Snowe and John McCain and the Senator from my own State of Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, will vote for this ultra-right wing, hate mongering, bigoted fundamentalist christian conservative to receive a life-time appointment to court. Oh yeah, the "Centrist Democrats" let this happen because as we all know democratic filibusters are wrong....bad, bad democrats, and aren't we all glad those 7 Democratic Senators struck that deal to stop filibusters against Judicial nominees. I think I'm going to throw up.