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The only thing I will say about Scalia is that I hope he retires soon. Maybe if we can get a real liberal on the Court in the mold of Brennan we can have a justice that will charm some of the conservatives into joining in liberal opinions. Wouldn’t that tick ole Scalia off? LOL

“At 72, Justice Scalia is still a maverick, championing a philosophy known as “orginalism,” which means interpreting the Constitution based on what it originally meant to the people who ratified it over 200 years ago.”

Then consider 8 years ago “so old?”

“Gee, I really don’t wanna get into – I mean this is – get over it. It’s so old by now.”

Can’t have it both ways, Tony.

It’s not the sexual antics of the leadership back home, the David Vitters, the Foleys, the Craigs. It’s not the political and financial profiteers. Not that our troops are on their third, fourth or fifth tours. Not the demand that they kill, or that they torture prisoners, whose crime was often no more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It’s not that their pay puts their family on food stamps by the twenty-third of each month while US-employed mercenaries get five or ten times the pay with no liability for screwing up. Not that their mates have been killed or wounded, their minds or bodies left to fester at the hands of a bureaucratic, under-funded VA.

It’s not that there was no strategy for going to war and none to get out. Not that the Prez or Condi keep saying, “Bring it on” when that means a cocktail for them and another rocket attack for you. Not that mercenaries rape their mates and their own government turns a blind eye.

Nope. No sireebob. None of those things is harming our brave men and women in combat or their families back home. It’s that they are sexual beings, stressed to the max, high on testosterone and in harm’s way even when going to chow or having a shower. And they have the gall to need a little distraction and release.

Get the smelling salts, Gertrude. Grandma’s fainted. We gotta write to Congressman. No, dear, don’t let her have the brandy.

What must underlie petitioners’ entire federal assault on the Florida election procedures is an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed. Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today’s decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

I respectfully dissent.

Eat this, Nino.

I like the way you think, BooRadley.

From your keyboard to the talking heads’ ears.

It’s a classic example of “begging the question.” Per the Wikipedia:

In logic, begging the question has traditionally described a type of logical fallacy (also called petitio principii) in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises.[1][2][3][4][5] Begging the question is related to the fallacy known as circular argument, circulus in probando, vicious circle or circular reasoning. The first known definition in the West is by the Greek philosopher Aristotle around 350 B.C., in his book Prior Analytics.

To argue that the Court had to hand the election to Bush because otherwise there’d be a cloud over his presidency is exactly a paradigm case of “begging the question.”