Life in a Northern Town.

One of these things is not like the others...

Imho, Sarah Palin is the best thing that ever happened to Tina Fey. Over -- rated. Ms. Fey is not my comedic cup o' tea.

Still, I've been reluctant to point out -- absent her Palin parody -- Ms. Fey is ... forgettable. A sign of her times, a political darlin'. People might wrongly interpret that as envy on my part. Trust me, it's not.

Let time do the telling; let people judge for themselves the longevity of her talents, is my thought. Still today, there's no denying this:

David Shenk:

[T]he decision just announced by the Kennedy Center to give Fey this year's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is silly. Here are the past award winners:

· 1998 - Richard Pryor
· 1999 - Jonathan Winters
· 2000 - Carl Reiner
· 2001 - Whoopi Goldberg
· 2002 - Bob Newhart
· 2003 - Lily Tomlin
· 2004 - Lorne Michaels
· 2005 - Steve Martin
· 2006 - Neil Simon
· 2007 - Billy Crystal
· 2008 - George Carlin
· 2009 - Bill Cosby

Of course this has, up to now, been a nearly-lifetime achievement award. Of course they are pivoting toward the now. Which is fine. But don't pretend otherwise.

56 degrees at 5:18.

So sayeth the bank clock in town. Pictures today, promise. "Life in a Northern Town." I've been planting -- found a greenhouse w/$12.99 vegetable flats -- you pick 'em. Hopefully I will be rolling in cantelope this year, between the two garden plots.

Btw, Boycott BP. No protests, nothing big. Just roll into a different gas station, across the corner, if you've got a choice. (Here in Wisconsin, our stations tend to price the same, so that's a fixed option.) You might feel better, and their recent "green" campaign? So much for leading with the marketing...

Belated kudos to the president, btw, for getting passed last week better mileage standards. I'm no libertarian, more an isolationist -- but if the products are better, go further on less, we all win. Holding out for the 2011 Ford Fiesta myself... coming later this summer.

People should have vehicle choice, and not be penalized for mobility at the pump. Speaking of penalties, if everyone quietly stopped filling their tanks at BP's -- nothing personal, just demonstrating displeasure ...

OK, off to plant. We had rain -- glorious rain! -- last evening, and this spring day looks promising too. Happy hump day.

Got a prayer?

James 5:15

Celebrate good times, c'mon!

Saturday, May 24, 1997:
Mal and I called off our wedding a week or so (a few days only?) before... (Mutual decision; thanks for asking.)

I must say, we're both individually stronger for it. More alive, living for ourselves, still pursuing our goals -- together and apart. We're pretty youthful and happy still, day to day, never much got stuck in a rut or locked into something with no exit or escape plan.

I used to think marriage was like a groomed path: it was ok for each to diverge -- go off trail pursuing something -- so long as you ended up back on the main path together. Except, you're still stuck to one path when you'd be covering more ground scouting ahead alone... and joining up occasionally just to cover common ground.

I also noticed over the years, though Mal's got a few inches on me (heightwise), my Dad's genetics blessed me with long, tapering legs (to balance out the low melanin skin) so we're exactly even in that department. And yes, we definitely can keep up a good pace, if we were to tie our legs together.

Nobody has an employer's day picnic much anymore, nevermind relay races where you're tied to your partner and racing, but if we were? We'd be fast. Legwise and covering ground, we're evenly matched like that.

Sometimes getting out of a canoe for two that isn't much fun to steer, and into separate kayaks... It's made all the difference. Have a blessed day, y'all.

Glenn's Back !

Back, not Beck...
As in, the Reynolds' vacation is a wrap.

Can you feel the love tonight?

Blackhawks clinch the Western Conference, at home:

"Feels likes we've been together a long time, a handful of guys that have been here since the dark days," center Patrick Sharp said after Chicago scored four unanswered goals in a 4-2 win.

"A group of kids that were drafted together, played in Norfolk and Rockford together. It's fun to be a part of this team on and off the ice. Guys get along so well. I think that really carries over into our play."
...
"This year," Patrick Kane said, "it's almost like we feel we shouldn't lose a game, to be honest with you."
...
The Blackhawks began climbing back toward the top coming out of the lockout in 2005, when former player and then-general manager Dale Tallon quit pursuing draft picks and free agents with wide bodies and narrow skill sets, instead choosing future All-Stars and Olympians Jonathan Toews in 2006 and Kane in 2007.

By then the Hawks already had surrendered the NHL's longest consecutive playoff streak -- making 28 appearances in a row, until 1997 -- and failed to make the postseason in nine of the 10 previous campaigns. But Toews and Kane gave the Hawks more than energy. Teaming up with a few of the smart choices Tallon made in the draft earlier in the decade -- notably their rugged linemate, Dustin Byfuglien, and attacking defensemen Keith and Brent Seabrook, both also Olympians -- they gave Chicago one of the most potent offenses in the league.
...
The last two pieces of the puzzle fell into place when Joel Quenneville, who was hired as a scout, took over from Denis Savard four games into last season and led the Hawks to the conference final; then when goalie Antti Niemi came into his own.

Niemi signed as a free agent in 2008 and was viewed as insurance for frontliner Cristobal Huet. But he won the job in March and it's been tough to get a pillow mint past him since, let alone a puck. San Jose outshot the Blackhawks in every game of the series but the last one, yet managed just seven goals and only three when the teams were at full strength.

"He's a very relaxed guy, very comfortable, confident ... he just moves ahead to the next shot," Quenneville said. "I think that attitude helps the focus of what the goaltenders bring at this time of year. He just goes about it like, 'Hey, I'm just trying to stop the next puck and do my job.'"

Fresh from the Word.

Every-body!

Elvis is too alive.

He came back as Tim Tebow.

Saturday night interlude...

For your listening pleasure.

15 minute miles.

1:32 was my finishing time, as in one hour thirty-two minutes of straight paddling -- I disregarded the seconds.

It felt like 45 minutes, max. More to come, as it was an instructive day. Did I mention it was the first annual? I'll be back.

Flat lake to start, with the wind picking up at our backs for the finish. They couldn't have timed it better...

Top of the World, Ma !

or, Getting High on Life:

BEIJING (AP) -- A 13-year-old American boy became the youngest climber to reach the top of Mount Everest on Saturday, breaking the former record as part of his quest to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents.
...
''Every step I take is finally toward the biggest goal of my life, to stand on top of the world,'' Romero said in an earlier post on his blog.

The record for the youngest climber to scale Everest had been held by Temba Tsheri of Nepal, who reached the peak at age 16.

''I'm just very proud of him,'' Romero's mother told The Associated Press by telephone just before he reached the peak, as she watched his progress online on a live GPS tracker.

When asked what she would say to him once he reached the summit, she started crying: ''I can't really say that. It's just emotional.''

Romero, from Big Bear, Calif., was climbing Everest with his father, his father's girlfriend and three Sherpa guides. He left for the peak from the base camp on the Chinese side.

Everest was Jordan Romero's first challenge above 26,240 feet.

Unlike neighboring Nepal, the other approach to Everest, China has no age limit for climbers. Romero registered with Chinese officials in April, said Zhang Mingxing, secretary general of China Tibet Mountaineering Association.

Photo: Gopal Chitrakar/Reuters.

ADDED: The kids in boots upstairs were still tromping around at 4:30am, woke me up. They must be nodding off now...

Me? I'm up early, heading up to Douglas Co. -- Gordon/St. Croix Flowage -- to compete in this race. The short course is 1-4, 6-8 and back in, 6 miles. Wish me luck.

Up, up, up.

Jason Bourne on Puck Daddy:

David Bolland is going to be hailed as one of the Blackhawks game heroes (along with Jonathan Toews, he of a dynamite two-assist performance) for two reasons -- he had just finished upping his profile in the media by getting under the skin of Daniel Sedin and Joe Thornton; and two, because he scored the Hawks' crucial second goal before setting up the OT winner.

My hunch is that it's probably a good thing for him that he chipped in to help create those two big moments. Early in the first, he failed to capitalize on a couple quality chances, and throughout the game, he took three suspect minor penalties that gave the ever-dangerous Sharks enough power-play chances to take control of the game.

The Sharks' inability to score had a lot to do with Antti Niemi, or "New Jaro Halak" ...whatever you want to call him. The Hawks keeper kicked out 44 of 46 shots and deserves every ounce of praise we can muster to send his way. Goaltending was supposed to be Chicago's weak spot, and instead, he's become their backbone.
...
It may not end in Game 4, but the Chicago Blackhawks haven't lost four games in a row all year.

And sadly, Sharks fans, it's not about to happen now.

Maya.

or, She could have been writing about Detroit.

Marguerite Johnson, aka Maya Angelou, born 4/4/1928 -- hell of a 40th... wrote this:

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Go Big.

Bob Herbert mourns the balance:

The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. We take our whippings in stride in this country. We behave as though there is nothing we can do about it.

The fact that 11 human beings were killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion (their bodies never found) has become, at best, an afterthought. BP counts its profits in the billions, and, therefore, it’s important. The 11 men working on the rig were no more important in the current American scheme of things than the oystermen losing their livelihoods along the gulf, or the wildlife doomed to die in an environment fouled by BP’s oil, or the waters that will be left unfit for ordinary families to swim and boat in.

This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter.

Weekend Plans.

That's one of the nice things about not being on retainer, or running for leadership office: you get your weekends free.

While others are called in to clean up after BP's growing messes... while the politicos and pundits are inside trying to figure in weeks to come how to spin this worsening economic data and environmental nightmare that seemingly won't end... my conscience is clean, my cares are few. Not my job, thankfully.

Fishing, planting, paddling. The body grows stronger, the books get read... Pen to paper, the work gets written.

Make it a great weekend, whatever you're working on, and we'll see you back here next week. Rested, and ready.

Inside the Academies.

Bruce Fleming, a professor of English at the United States Naval Academy, is the author of the forthcoming “Bridging the Military-Civilian Divide":

Instead of better officers, the academies produce burned-out midshipmen and cadets. They come to us thinking they’ve entered a military Camelot, and find a maze of petty rules with no visible future application. These rules are applied inconsistently by the administration, and tend to change when a new superintendent is appointed every few years. The students quickly see through assurances that “people die if you do X” (like, “leave mold on your shower curtain,” a favorite claim of one recent administrator). We’re a military Disneyland, beloved by tourists but disillusioning to the young people who came hoping to make a difference.

In my experience, the students who find this most demoralizing are those who have already served as Marines and sailors (usually more than 5 percent of each incoming class), who know how the fleet works and realize that what we do on the military-training side of things is largely make-work. Academics, too, are compromised by the huge time commitment these exercises require. Yes, we still produce some Rhodes, Marshall and Truman Scholars. But mediocrity is the norm.
...
It’s no surprise that recruited athletes have been at the center of recent scandals, including a linebacker who was convicted of indecent assault on a female midshipman in 2007 and a quarterback who was accused of rape and dismissed from the academy for sexual misconduct in 2006. Sports stars are flattered on campus, avoid many of the onerous duties other midshipmen must perform, and know they’re not going to be thrown out. Instead of zero tolerance, we now push for zero attrition: we “remediate” honor code offenses.

Another program that is placing strain on the academies is an unofficial affirmative-action preference in admissions. While we can debate the merits of universities making diversity a priority in deciding which students to admit, how can one defend the use of race as a factor at taxpayer-financed academies — especially those whose purpose is to defend the Constitution? Yet, as I can confirm from the years I spent on the admissions board in 2002 and ’03 and from my conversations with more recent board members, if an applicant identifies himself or herself as non-white, the bar for qualification immediately drops.
...
[M]y most promising students ... continue to tell me, “Sir, this place shows you what not to do.”

I'm sure the farce of DADT adds to the disillusioning atmosphere. The younger generation knows it: if you've got officer-qualified talent sitting on the sidelines, or outside the gates unable to get in, these students know they're not the best, haven't competed in a fair competition to get there.

The whole DADT policy thwarts fair competition, and instead of an undeniably honest crew who got there on the merits, you get those willing to compromise and play under discriminatory conditions. Principles out the window.

People might think it's only the victims of discrimination affected when we play favorites, whether it's skin color or something more mutable. Actually, the whole society suffers. "Mediocrity is the norm."

Over a Barrel.

32 Days and Counting...

"I think now we're beginning to understand that we cannot trust BP," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who pushed for the video release and the EPA directive on dispersants. "BP has lost all credibility."

Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said the government — not BP — should be directing the response to the oil spill, including attempts to cap the gushing well.

"The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene and BP cannot be left in charge of assessing the damage or controlling the data from their spill. The public deserves sound science, not sound bites from BP's CEO," Schweiger said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said BP is responsible for the cleanup and will be paying the bill, but said the response is overseen by a host of federal agencies.

Asked who was in charge of the leak, Gibbs said, "BP, with our oversight."
...
In a separate letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward, Jackson and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said it is "critical that all actions be conducted in a transparent manner, with all data and information related to the spill readily available" to the U.S. government and the American people.

The letter asks for a website address to be provided to the government within 24 hours with detailed information about the leak, including air and water quality samples, trajectories of underwater plumes and locations of dispersants. It was not clear whether the administration could enforce its request.

Worst case scenario -- early August:

ROBERT, La. — The executive heading up BP's fight to stop a massive underwater oil spill says he's very optimistic that the Gulf of Mexico will recover.

BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said on the CBS "Early Show" that in the worst case scenario, the oil leak that has already lasted a month will continue until early August. That's when a new well currently being drilled could be finished and cap the flow.
...
Asked if he thinks the Gulf environment will survive the spill, Suttles said he has been told by experts that the Gulf has several factors in its favor. He said that included its large size and the fact that its waters are warm.

Come again tomorrow.

No bike ride today, took the kayaks down the Apple River in Somerset instead. Added "owl" to the list of critters I've personally stirred up going down river.

It was 78 or 80 degrees at 4 or 5pm when he or she took off from an overhanging branch above my head as I passed under. Woke the poor fellow up, I think...

Come again tomorrow? (and naturally, there's a song choice with that one too...)

Althouse on the soapbox.

I see this morning she's dredging up the incident at the libertarian dinner years ago where she allegedly left the table in tears, accusing other conference participants of racism.**

In criticizing libertarian Rand Paul today, the professor says: "I'm certainly not saying he's a racist, but he seems to support a legal position that would place racist private businesses beyond the power of anti-discrimination statutes. "

Hm. That seems to be at odds with her opinion that sexual discrimination by the state against gays is permitted because sexual bigots, like racists, have the right to cater to majority sentiment. *

If we can must tolerate sexual bigotry in that sense and work against it state-by-state because there are no federal protections, why can't we treat racial discrimination in private businesses in the same way?

Otherwise, isn't it a bit hypocritical? Cherry-picking victims of discrimination, and being inconsistent in determining what the federal role is in enforcing individual rights.

Plus, she left out the part about her leaving the table in tears, dismayed at the level of discrimination on display!

Tough times don't last; tough people do. And yes Virginia, true freedom can seem frightening at times to some types more accustomed to the safety of the academy, but that's no reason to reject it collectively for others who are up to the challenges.
---------------------

* I wonder if this whole legal debate will end up turning on the definition of "mutable and immutable characteristics". If so, then the personal example of potential Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan might just turn out more relevant that one initially might think. "If you can pass, or your personal characteristic can be altered or subliminated, you don't need federal protections."

** A more detailed account here (Dan Drezner), here (Jonah Goldberg), here (Jacob Levy), here (Radley Balko) and here (Ronald Bailey):

Anyway next thing I know, Ann Althouse is shouting at two of our dinner companions demanding that they prove to her (Althouse) that they are not racists! She kept asking over and over, "How do I know that I'm not sitting at a table full of racists?" This was completely bizarre! It should go without saying, but I will say it: No one at the conference could even remotely be accused of being racist.

Apparently, the three of them had been discussing the constitutionality of the public accommodations sections of the Civil Rights Act that forbids private businesses to racially discriminate among customers. That is an interesting issue where people ask serious questions about how to balance state intervention and individual choice. Anyway, it's an important issue over which people of good will may disagree-once state-enforced segregation is obliterated, will individual choices under equality of law and in a free market place end racial discrimination? Perhaps not. As Nobel Economics Laureate Gary Becker has argued if a minority group is a very small percentage of a population, then the costs of discrimination will be borne mainly by the minority and market forces may not be strong enough to overcome such discrimination. To me, the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that compelled private businesses to serve people of all races have largely resulted in beneficial outcomes. But beneficial outcomes may not be the only desideratum of state intervention. Consider the egregious violation of property rights that took place in the Kelo v. New London case. After all, forcing Ms. Kelo to sell her house so that the city could give it to a private developer is beneficial to the city of New London's tax base. Again, people of good will can have serious disagreements on where the proper limits to state power should lie. For example, should the Feds outlaw gay marriage, medical marijuana, concealed carry, surrogate motherhood even though some states want their citizens to have the opportunity to participate in those activities? Some conservatives would say yes. Libertarians would say no.

In trying to explain to Althouse why private discrimination might be OK, I later pieced together that my tablemates had posed the question of whether or not Althouse would want to have the right to refuse to serve KKK members if she owned a restaurant--say, the KKK members were planning to have a weekly luncheon meeting at her cafe? My interpretation of what happened is that because she didn't want to appear to be hypocrite, she refused to answer and kept asking more and more abstract questions about their example. When she was backed into a corner, she lashed out, suggesting that people who disagreed with her feelings were racists. Eventually, she was so upset that she began crying. Of course, at that point the possibility of civil intellectual discourse completely evaporated.

I was also astonished by the poise with which my tablemates handled Althouse. Our companions did not raise their voices nor dismiss her (as I would have), but tried to calm her down. In fact, Althouse made the situation even more personal by yelling repeatedly at one of my dinner companions (who is also a colleague) that she was an "intellectual lightweight" and an "embarrassment to women everywhere." In fact, in my opinion, with that statement Althouse had actually identified herself. Before Althouse stalked away, I asked her to apologize for that insult, but she refused.

I sure hope that Ann Althouse's behavior at the Liberty Fund colloquium is not example how "intellectual discourse" is conducted in her law school classes in Madison, Wisconsin.

Heckuva job...

Looks like our environmental policies will mimic our foreign policy interventions of the past decade.

Tensions between the Obama administration and the scientific community over the gulf oil spill are escalating, with prominent oceanographers accusing the government of failing to conduct an adequate scientific analysis of the damage and of allowing BP to obscure the spill’s true scope.

The scientists assert that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies have been slow to investigate the magnitude of the spill and the damage it is causing in the deep ocean. They are especially concerned about getting a better handle on problems that may be occurring from large plumes of oil droplets that appear to be spreading beneath the ocean surface.

The scientists point out that in the month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the government has failed to make public a single test result on water from the deep ocean. And the scientists say the administration has been too reluctant to demand an accurate analysis of how many gallons of oil are flowing into the sea from the gushing oil well.

21st Century America: The less we know, the easier it is to believe...


ADDED: Enough with the "we're working so hard we're sending out for pizzas" thing too. Bad memories of Bill Clinton's downfall ... didn't he and Monica meet over one of those late-night pizza working sessions?

Thad W. Allen, the Coast Guard admiral in charge of the response to the spill, said Wednesday evening that the government had decided to try to put equipment on the ocean floor to take accurate measurements. A technical team is at work devising a method, he said. “We are shoving pizzas under the door, and they are not coming out until they give us the answer,” he said.

Military might over science. Hoo-ya!

MEANWHILE:
In Florida, already worried about the Everglades and with a precarious drinking water balance, the potential toxic damage is being minimized:

The state's emergency responders downplayed the threat to Florida in a briefing for Senate President Jeff Atwater on Wednesday. South Floridians can expect an occasional tar ball to wash ashore, but they probably will never see oil from the recent spill lapping onto beaches, Florida Emergency Management Director David Halstead told Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.

"If we look at two weeks in the Florida sun, most of that is going to be evaporated," Halstead said. "There is a possibility you'll see very little of any sheen ever even make it down all the way to the Keys."

Even if the oil sheen was caught in the Loop Current, environmental damage in South Florida would be "minimal," Doug Darling, the Florida Environmental Preservation Department chief of staff told Atwater.

"If dolphins or manatees swim through it and come up to surface for air, they're going to get a slight coating," Darling said. "But the fish swimming at 100 feet at not affected by it at all."

Scientists do not agree. The marine animals at the greatest danger are those that must surface for air — such as dolphins, manatees and turtles. Every time they surface for air they are covered again in oil and breath the toxic fumes at the surface.

Deepwater marine life are not safe either, experts say.

Chemical dispersants have caused the oil break up and infiltrate the entire water column. That means marine life on the ocean floor, especially corals, could be damaged.

"If oil is floating on the surface, it is not as available to harm things that live on the bottom," said Richard Dodge, dean of Nova Southeastern's Oceanographic Center and head of the National Coral Reef Institute. "If it is dispersed — either by chemicals or nature — the more it will come in contact with other organisms."

Don't punish the innocent and lessen their personal health choices.

or, A Tax on the Healthy.

The New York Times argues for mandatory premiums from those Americans choosing not to consume medical services.

Make no mistake, they advocate directly reaching in and transferring dollars* from monthly household budgets of non-consumers, to hospitals and medical providers who need help keeping their own books balanced when they can't collect from their customers:

The number of states jointly suing to overturn the new health care reform law on constitutional grounds swelled to 20 last week. ... The lawsuit, filed by state attorneys general and governors ... seeks to overturn two central elements of the law: a mandate that virtually everyone obtain insurance or pay a penalty; and a big expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program that covers the poorest Americans.

The suit contends Congress has no constitutional power to compel people to make purchases from a private company and that the required expansion of Medicaid is an “unprecedented encroachment” on the sovereignty of states.
...
The group’s brief ... contends it will be a hardship for the plaintiffs to buy insurance they don’t want or pay monetary penalties. It charges that Congress exceeded its authority under the Constitution by requiring, for the first time, that people buy something simply because they reside legally in the country.

The Justice Department first challenged the timing of the suits. It pointed out that the plaintiffs have filed suit “four years before the provision they challenge takes effect, demonstrate no current injury, and merely speculate whether the law will harm them once it is in force.”

The department argued that Congress can impose and enforce the mandate under its powers to regulate interstate commerce and to tax and spend to provide for the general welfare.

The law center had argued that people who refuse to buy insurance are not engaging in activity that affects interstate commerce, but choosing not to engage in such activity. The Justice Department replied that even refusals to buy insurance can, in the aggregate, have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

If people without insurance need costly medical care and can’t pay, they typically get cared for anyway. The cost is shifted to hospitals, which in turn shift some of the costs to privately insured patients and to taxpayers who help subsidize the hardest hit hospitals.

Most important, a mandate is deemed essential to the effective functioning of individual health insurance markets that are clearly part of interstate commerce.

If the healthiest people are allowed to opt out, the average premiums will escalate and make insurance increasingly unaffordable for everyone.

And we return to George Will's question for Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings: Does the federal government then also have the Constitutional right to require daily calinsthetics -- exercise and stretching routines -- of the masses? To force an activity on the populace simply for being, in a targeted effort to reduce the nation's healthcare bills that are bringing the country down?

I strongly recommend we don't use this artificial opportunity to punish the healthy who aren't consuming medical services and adding to the stack of unpaid bills. They're the most innocent in this mess. You want those people on your side, more like them.

Instead, how about massive tax on high fructose corn syrup producers, and a 25-cent-per-product corn syrup tax? Let people see the ingredients tallied up on their checkout receipts. At 25cents a pop, maybe we'd encourage better choices from unhealthy consumers.

Better yet, just revise the archaic system of agricultural subsidies that artificially encourages fructose corn syrup overuse. That way, healthy people can opt out of a national plan to seriously address our nation's growing healthcare woes by addressing the root causes of many controllable illnesses, instead of just encouraging more healthcare consumption from those forced to pay for an unwanted monthly subscription to a "Quick Fix" commercial industry.* "got a problem?; have we got a pill for you!.."

(Check out Massachusetts where, once the healthy non-insured population was forced to pay premiums, guess who suddenly began consuming medical services? Because if you have to pay for it, you want to get your buck's worth... I don't think those normal psychological responses were calculated though, when the numbers crunchers figured predicted we could temporarily solve the shortfall by forcing the healthy to pay premiums for their non-use.)

Call me an economical expert, but I guarantee that reducing availability and consumption of that one product (today's corn syrup is yesterday's cigarette) will make for a healthier nation over the current plan: just shifting costs and transferring money via mandatory premiums from younger, healthier Americans to the aging grasshoppers who lived their "Me" lifestyles with no thoughts of caring for themselves in the future.

Means tested charity programs for our poor ill. Government monitored programs only for those who qualify, and need government help economically. =Take the entitlement attitude away. In short, encourage people to maintain health, and use the government programs only as a lifeline for those who can't pay.

And let those who privately support their elders finance their own self-preservation vehicles without having also to fund other people's choices. Thank you, and have a great day.

---------------
* I think it's wonderful if private insurance companies want to cover "children" up until age 26. Disagree with favoring some groups over others though, arbitrarily choosing up winners and losers via mandatory insurance rules.

I think it's wonderful too the concept of private insurance: people who voluntarily pool their resources to provide for their needs. They want to cover children to 26, and others who have agreed and signed the same contract want the same and are willing to pay for it? Let the businesses and consumers privately decide what to cover, at what percentages, and who to cover at what agreed-upon, pre-determined amount. You don't like? You cancel the contract. Strictly voluntary this pool of people coming together and deciding their needs are similar and they want to share costs.

The whole thing falls apart when you remove the voluntary aspect though. Then -- to take one example -- by forcing private carriers to provide services for these children at 26 of the upper-middle class, you also permit them to take from a working person with less family resources who isn't using medical services at all and instead is insuring their health via daily personal choices.

Does that seem fair to you? Healthy even?

--------------------

*Lest you think I'm a medical Luddite, I'm a big fan of quality medicine like what happens at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. I'd vaccinate my children, if I had 'em; I practice preventative maintenance, and non-commercial nutrition. Exercise comes naturally -- what's more fun than moving your body, running and playing? You don't stop playing the games because you get old; you get old because you stop playing the games... Like Michelle Obama, I get that.

But today's medicine isn't practiced conservatively. We treat the symptoms not the root causes, and much of today's medical treatment is unnecessary by my pocketbook accounts. (And if I'm forced to pay premiums to keep this system temporarily afloat, my critical eye is going to find better ways to be spending my dollars. Let's get people healthy, seriously, even if takes tough love ... and those mandatory calensthetic programs George Will thinks will be legal, should the mandatory purchase plan pass muster too.)

I had a wonderful roommate in college, bright and ambitious... Northwestern chemistry, Baylor medicine. She's doing plastic surgery and Botox in Arizona now, not that there's anything wrong with that... We grow up, some of us let our dreams die. Some of us want to fight for our choices though, and resent being asked to defer our dreams to pay for the already consumed choices of others.

Is it really that hard to understand? Which version seems healthier to you? Choice, or having government and elites making healthcare system decisions -- affecting up to 25% of your monthly income! -- on behalf of the masses?

As a comparable lightweight myself, I say let individuals have the freedom to break free from the pack, and face the consequences of the choices out there alone. We know the odds, but we're willing to take that risk. And you know something?

Y'all need us, our types too:

"For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

We forget that first part, and lock into a mandatory solution penalizing the pack's young and healthy at our own collective risk.

"Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep.
The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a Hunter -- go forth and get food of thine own..."

Come to think of it, I've never seen an obese wolf in the wild. That's a good thing, right?

Weatherwise...

these past few days remind me why we put up with winters in northern Wisconsin. The sun is here; life is good.

Let me see if I can break out the camera one of these days on a bike ride about town...

One, Two ... We Want More.

"We're not too fancy, we just work," left wing Troy Brouwer told NHL.com. "We're cautious with the puck and it seems to go well for us."
...
"I just think we have a lot of character in here and we come prepared," defenseman Duncan Keith said. "The buildings have been loud and crazy to play in and it's been a lot of fun playing in that atmosphere, too."

Americans just begging for a gas tax?

Friedman says yes; I don't see it. I suspect in his circles, such a move might be popular. Elitists sharing the pain and all that...

Not content to just contribute their own, they want to tell the rest of us how to spend our own hard-earned dollars.

President Bush’s greatest failure was not Iraq, Afghanistan or Katrina. It was his failure of imagination after 9/11 to mobilize the country to get behind a really big initiative for nation-building in America. I suggested a $1-a-gallon “Patriot Tax” on gasoline that could have simultaneously reduced our deficit, funded basic science research, diminished our dependence on oil imported from the very countries whose citizens carried out 9/11, strengthened the dollar, stimulated energy efficiency and renewable power and slowed climate change. It was the Texas oilman’s Nixon-to-China moment — and Bush blew it.

Had we done that on the morning of 9/12 — when gasoline averaged $1.66 a gallon — the majority of Americans would have signed on.
...
In the wake of this historic oil spill, the right policy — a bill to help end our addiction to oil — is also the right politics. The people are ahead of their politicians. So is the U.S. military. There are many conservatives who would embrace a carbon tax or gasoline tax if it was offset by a cut in payroll taxes or corporate taxes, so we could foster new jobs and clean air at the same time. If Republicans label Democrats “gas taxers” then Democrats should label them “Conservatives for OPEC” or “Friends of BP.” Shill, baby, shill.
...
Obama is not just our super-disaster-coordinator. “He is our leader,” noted Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics. “And being a leader means telling the rest of us what’s our job, what do we need to do to make this a transformative moment.”

Please don’t tell us that our role is just to hate BP or shop in Mississippi or wait for a commission to investigate. We know the problem, and Americans are ready to be enlisted for a solution. Of course we can’t eliminate oil exploration or dependence overnight, but can we finally start? Mr. President, your advisers are wrong: Americans are craving your leadership on this issue. Are you going to channel their good will into something that strengthens our country — “The Obama End to Oil Addiction Act” — or are you going squander your 9/11, too?

Nothing like exploiting a deadly situation to push your pet policies eh, and making promises to the rest of us: if only we force you to pay more to get to work, get your kids to activities, and throw more money at green-energy start-ups...

If only we were sure the money-throwing, anti-market policies that libs like Friedman and the Kennedy-Shrivers push would work. History tells us otherwise.

Why don't we just compromise here: wait and see how successful these radical new healthcare laws are at solving problems, say, before we begin undertaking any more money-transferring policies that will leave plenty of us poorer off for it?

Why punish workers and families at the pump for the failures of government and BP in the Gulf? Why cancel the summer family vacations, the road trips already, because who can afford to fly anymore? $1/gallon on top of what we're paying already -- that adds up when you're talking real dollars, Tom.

Btw, what do you think the heating bill on this place is? Maybe we could craft a policy of tripling taxation over a modest square footage. A luxury tax to encourage people to stop wasting energy and live more efficiently. Where's the leadership on that?

Now I'm not sure if Mr. Friedman and his family are contributing to terrorism or helping build any "radical" mosques by living in this manner; not sure how many sea otters and endangered turtles he's helped eliminate by flying all over the world every time he gets a tip there's news happening he needs to be there to cover...

In fact, come to think of it, I'm not sure how many miles Mr. Friedman actually puts on his own personal car -- uncomped. I suspect with all that flying and telecommuting Tom does, Juan working three jobs might just be more taxed by the additional $1 per gallon at the pump than Mr. Friedman, with all his millions crying out to be put to better use helping the country end its addictions.

No, I don't hear anyone out here begging the president to lead us into higher taxes. For the most part, I think we're all done believing that throwing "extra" money at a problem helps to fix anything, and that mandating lifestyle changes via punitive means is the answer.

I wonder how long it will take though, for that message to get through though to New York Times columnists who choose to live large and isolated. Just please don't tell me that's a heated pool out back ... what a waste!



ADDED: Btw, this line? "...or are you going squander your 9/11, too?" Very Rahm Emanuel-ish.

Never let a good tragedy -- 11 deaths too! -- go to waste when it's just ripe for exploitation: If you can't shoehorn in your preferred policies now, or in troubling times, when can you?

(I think our legislators and Boomer pundits and political advisers just might have learned the wrong lessons from the first Kennedy assassination and the subsequent passage of the Civil Rights bill.)

Diagram it in your head.

I had an ex-nun teaching my combined 7th and 8th grade ALA. (Advanced Language Arts; public school). She taught us to diagram at the board. Me, I was pretty good at it. Some people, it's hard for them to see where things go -- they like to stick to a basic pattern chart, and get all rattled when someone deviates.

Let me see if I can be of help with this sentence, reportedly by Rush Limbaugh: (Not sure, but I'm going to guess it was spoken -- it reads that way, and few write as they speak.)

"We start analyzing these things rationally or logically or logically, it's not going to make any sense."

OK, so think of punctuation marks as signposts, there to help your reader. Where do you put them to help? And show the "unspoken" words in parentheses, if it helps you fill in what's missing in order to help you diagram.

If we add a comma after the first "logically"; maybe make the second (comma) into an ellipses to insert the pause (a dash would work too); and put in the missing verb early on... it reads like this:

"We (had better) start analyzing these things rationally or logically, or logically ... it's not going to make any sense."

(Does) That help any? Even without context clues, it should make sense what the original intent was with the words chosen. No need even to draw out the diagram; you can now see it -- the structure working -- in your head.

Instead of criticizing what's perfectly understandable to others, or perhaps critiquing with the goal of bringing the speaker's choice of language more into conformity with what your ear has been trained to expect -- I hate that; why not learn the complexity of diagramming in your head, so you can ride comfortably along with where the speaker is steering you with his deliberately chosen words?

Don't be afraid of going someplace unfamiliar. Don't miss out because it's not what you know and therefore "doesn't make sense". What is easiest on the ear is not necessarily the simplest. You just have to challenge yourself, and not expect every idea to be delivered in the manner, perhaps, to which one has become accustomed.

That's the trouble with having everything served up for you. You miss out on so much. As if you're blind to it, literally.

Something for Everyone...

Lunchtime listening is ... Barry! *

All the time...
All the wasted time...
All the years, waiting for a sign
to think I had it all ...
All the Time!

* You knew he was going to turn up in the rotation if we're playing the full eclectic set, no? I just wish he'd pick up the tempo on this one. Maybe that's the point.

... All the Time.

"Racism... is a waste of time."
~ Bill Cosby, talking about Lena Horne's career,
on the Tonight Show.

"How do you give that back?" he said, talking about all types of discrimination that arbitrarily robs people of opportunities.

A waste of time, indeed.

Looking at the Scorecards.

Chief Justice Roberts' vote gave her a win today in Comstock, but Solicitor General Elena Kagan hasn't impressed everyone in her early tries at oral argument.

Tony Mauro, The National Law Journal:

[T]he mixed report card she has gotten as an advocate may not help as she defends against charges of inexperience raised by Republicans during her confirmation hearings, expected to start in late June.
...
Slate.com's Dahlia Lithwick, a longtime connoisseur of high court arguments, has been more direct in criticizing Kagan's style. "It's hard to see Kagan's performances thus far at oral argument recommending her for the court," Lithwick wrote the day Kagan was nominated. A Salon.com analysis noted "the justices' occasional frustrations with Kagan -- and Kagan's occasional obtuseness" during oral argument.

One argument during which Kagan took a browbeating from Roberts was Robertson v. U.S. ex rel. Watson. "That's absolutely startling," Roberts said after Kagan asserted that U.S. attorneys only speak for their offices, not for other U.S. attorneys. "The United States is a complicated place," she replied, again using a facetious tone. "I take your word for it," Roberts snapped.

Covington & Burling's Robert Long, who argued on the same side as Kagan, said, "She has a down-to-earth, informal style that is very effective," But he added, "In that particular case it did not go over too well."

During arguments in the Free Enterprise Fund case, Kagan also seemed to get under Roberts' skin, but Carvin, Kagan's adversary in the case, shrugged it off. "People make too much of some supposed friction between her and the chief justice," Carvin said. "It may be just some transitional issue" relating to Kagan's move from academia to oral advocacy.

Carvin may be on to something. Until the past two decades, solicitors general often came from academia or the bench. Erwin Griswold, one of Kagan's predecessors as Harvard Law School dean, was also SG, as were other Harvard law professors. Advocacy skills were not regarded as prerequisites, and that deficit was sometimes evident.

But more recently, the Court has become accustomed to solicitors general who arrive with dazzling advocacy skills -- Seth Waxman's calm, "bring it on" approach to the fusillade of questions, Paul Clement's notes-free confidence, Theodore Olson's blunt persistence in staying on message. As a throwback to an earlier era, Kagan and her audience may have needed time getting used to each other.

In the Robertson case, Kagan violated the cardinal rule against answering a question with a question -- a question from Scalia, no less. "Well, I'm not making the argument," Scalia sputtered. Roberts chimed in, "Usually we have questions the other way."

Again Kagan apologized for her indiscretion. But soon she may have the last laugh. Next fall, if confirmed, she gets to ask the questions.

BP hires Kirkland & Ellis.

Thinking like a lawyer... It's been 5 years last Saturday.
Not always rewarding necessarily, but it's not true we're all tainted.

or, "When you consider those things you want but do not have, count your blessings also for all those things you don't want and don't have."

Duly noted, and lived.

Secretary Napolitano reassures the nation.

Does the administration honestly not get how the language they choose to use comes across to people? Didn't we go through all this with the Christmas Day bomber? I think we did...

The President "has tasked the Department of Energy to participate in providing any possible expertise on that front.” And that's a spoken, not a written quote? Hello... ?

Despite the admissions of inadequacy -- maybe they did learn something; no Napolitano claim here that "the system worked" -- and the apparent obliviousness that good risk management plans out worse-case scenarios before things are blowing up on ya, I'm not sure what this ... dialoguing actually contributed today.

During the hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the administration’s actions after the explosion, saying that officials had engaged in an “all-hands-on-deck response to this event.”

“We planned for a worst-case scenario from the moment the explosion occurred, and now, almost four weeks later, we are continuing to sustain a strong and effective response,” she said.

I'd hate to see how they define weak and ineffective...

Ms. Napolitano acknowledged, however, that the government was largely at BP’s mercy in stopping the leak and addressing much of the oil in the water.

“Frankly,” she said, “the federal government has limited capability and expertise in responding to wellhead incidents on the sea floor. Nonetheless, the federal government has mobilized scientists and industry experts to collaborate with BP to identify and execute the best strategies for sealing the well, and the president has tasked the Department of Energy to participate in providing any possible expertise on that front.”
...
“We will not rest until BP permanently seals the wellhead, the spill is cleaned up, and the communities and natural resources of the Gulf Coast are restored and made whole," Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Salazar said in a joint statement on Sunday.

See, words matter. "We will not rest..."

Oh sure you will. Fundraising dinners will happen; celebratory political events will occur.

This thing is going to take years and years to "fix" "make whole", so pretty words -- like campaign promises -- ultimately have little stand-alone worth.

Get it?

Unfortunate decision ..."crucial ambiguity"

Ilya Somin weighs in on Comstock:

I tend to agree with Eugene that today’s Supreme Court decision in United States v. Comstock is very bad news for constitutional federalism. However, the ultimate import of the decision is hard to gauge because the majority opinion is ambiguous on at least one crucial point: whether Necessary Proper Clause cases are governed exclusively by the ultradeferential “rational basis” test, or whether courts should also weigh the presence or absence of five other factors the Court relied on in upholding the statute under which Comstock was detained.
...
There is one aspect of the majority’s reasoning that may give hope to advocates of judicial enforcement of federalism. Near the end of the Court’s opinion, Justice Breyer lists five factors that determined the outcome:

We take these five considerations together. They include: (1) the breadth of the Necessary and Proper Clause, (2) the long history of federal involvement in this arena, (3) the sound reasons for the statute’s enactment in light of the Government’s custodial interest in safeguarding the public from dangers posed by those in federal custody, (4) the statute’s accommodation of state interests, and (5) the statute’s narrow scope. Taken together, these considerations lead us to conclude that the statute is a “necessary and proper” means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned, and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others. (emphasis added).

This immediately raises the question of what happens in the case of a statute where one or more of these considerations cuts the other way. Like Randy Barnett, I particularly have in mind the Obamacare individual health care mandate, which is certainly not “narrow in scope” (it forces millions of people to buy a product they may not want), does not “accomodate state interests” to the extent the Court claims the Comstock legislation does, and may lack a comparable “long history of federal involvement” (the federal government has often regulated health care, but never by forcing individuals to purchase products).

The ultimate impact of Comstock will depend on whether the key holding is the imposition of the rational basis test (which could potentially be used to uphold almost anything), or whether it is the five factor test quoted above, which is much less definitive. Only five justices signed on to the majority opinion; Justices Alito and Kennedy concurred on narrow grounds and made clear that they reject the rational basis test. If even one of the five decides that the multifactor test is the true operative standard (most likely Chief Justice Roberts), Comstock might turn out to be less dangerous that it initially seems.

I think the Court got this one badly wrong, and that the challenged statute should have been invalidated. I explained my reasoning in this post, where I commented on the oral argument:

...
Essentially, the government’s argument rests on the assertion that Congress has the power to engage in any “beneficial” activity that is in some way connected to something it can do under its enumerated powers, even if that “beneficial” activity does nothing to faciliate the actual implementation of those powers. Pretty much anything Congress might want to do could be justified on those grounds. As Comstock’s lawyer put it in his part of the oral argument, “the government’s argument essentially collapses into the notion, well, if it’s a good idea, it must be necessary and proper to do it.” If the Court accepts this reasoning, it would turn the Necessary and Proper Clause into a free-floating grant of unlimited power.

The above passage criticizes Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s arguments for the government. But it applies also to the Court’s opinion, which similarly tries to link the statute to Congress’ authority to operate a criminal justice and penal system.

I also agree with most of the strong critique of the majority opinion in Justice Thomas’ dissent (joined by Justice Scalia). Scalia’s support for Thomas’ position in this case suggests that he may be having second thoughts about the very broad view of the Necessary and Proper Clause that he embraced in Gonzales v. Raich. It’s also worth noting that the dissent extensively cites co-blogger Randy Barnett’s excellent article “The Original Meaning of the Necessary and Proper Clause.”

Overall, I think this is a very unfortunate decision, particularly in so far as Chief Justice Roberts endorsed the majority opinion. I am probably less optimistic than Randy Barnett. At the same time, there is a crucial ambiguity in the Court’s reasoning that might reduce the decision’s future impact. And the coalition between Roberts and the four liberals might prove to be more fragile than it currently seems.

Preliminary blog opinions on Comstock.

Eugene Volokh thinks the game is pretty much over:

Unlike the Kennedy and Alito concurrences, which at least stress the importance of constitutional limits on federal power — though they disagree with Thomas and Scalia about whether those limits were transgressed here — the majority has pretty broad language in support of nearly unlimited federal authority. And this language was joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and not just the four liberals. This suggests that the brief resurrection of the enumerated powers doctrine, under which courts would strike down some Congressional actions as going beyond the constitutionally granted powers (even without regard to, say, the First Amendment or similar express rights guarantees), may be largely over.

Randy Barnett says there's still hope...

I just finished reading the opinions in Comstock. While I disagree strongly with the majority’s analysis, and am disappointed that Chief Justice Roberts joined Justice Breyer’s opinion, the case has little or no import for the constitutional challenges to the individual health insurance mandate. The reason for this is simple. Comstock involved whether ample connection existed between the law incarcerating sexual predators after their federal criminal sentence had been completed and an enumerated power. The majority and concurring opinions found such a connection. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, did not. In particular, the dissent contended that this law was not justified by its connection to any enumerated power.

With the challenges to the individual mandate, however, Congress is explicitly asserting that the individual mandate is “necessary and proper” to execute its power under the Commerce Clause. Moreover, the argument for “necessity” is reasonably straight-forward: it is necessary to compel all uninsured persons into the insurance pool to pay for the increased costs being imposed on insurance companies by the Act. Under the Court’s normal deferential approach, finding “necessity” won’t be hard.

The problem with the mandate is whether it is a “proper” means to achieve a constitutional end. The Court has previously held that mandating state legislatures (in New York v. U.S.) and executive officials (in Printz v. U.S.) is an “improper” commandeering of states and therefore violates the Tenth Amendment’s reservation of powers “to the states.” The challenges to the individual mandate raise the issue of whether mandating all persons to enter into a contract with a private company is “improper” commandeering of the people and therefore violates the Tenth Amendment’s reservation of powers “to the people.” Because such a commandeering has never been previously been attempted, the Court will have to address whether it is an “appropriate” (McCulloch) means to achieving an enumerated end, however “necessary” it may be. Deciding this question returns the Court to the scope of the Commerce Clause.

No swiping, Swiper! Stop grabbing, Grabbers!

Justice Thomas pushes back in Graham, against his more elite brethren:

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented from Monday's ruling. Thomas criticized the majority for imposing "its own sense of morality and retributive justice" on state lawmakers and voters who chose to give state judges the option of life-without-parole sentences.

"I am unwilling to assume that we, as members of this court, are any more capable of making such moral judgments than our fellow citizens," Thomas said.

---------------------


* "Thanks for helping me stop Swiper!"

A limited win. Fear not.

Perhaps Justice Roberts did not sign on as broadly to the "no life sentences unless the child murders" meme, as is initially being reported.*

The high court ruled Monday in the case of Terrance Graham, who was implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17. Graham, now 22, is in prison in Florida, which holds the vast majority - at least 98 - of juvenile defendants locked up for life for crimes other than homicide.

"The state has denied him any chance to later demonstrate that he is fit to rejoin society based solely on a nonhomicide crime that he committed while he was a child in the eyes of the law," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. "This the Eighth Amendment does not permit."

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with Kennedy and the court's four liberal justices about Graham. But Roberts said he does not believe the ruling should extend to all young offenders who are locked up for crimes other than murder.

And that's a key distinction, looking beyond Graham's sentence and determining how it applies to others.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that Terrance Graham’s sentence of life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.” Unlike the majority, however, I see no need to invent a new constitutional rule of dubious provenance in reaching that conclusion.
...
So much for Graham. But what about Milagro Cunningham, a 17-year-old who beat and raped an 8-year-old girl before leaving her to die under 197 pounds of rock in arecycling bin in a remote landfill? Or Nathan Walker and Jakaris Taylor, the Florida juveniles who together with their friends gang-raped a woman and forced her toperform oral sex on her 12-year-old son? The fact that Graham cannot be sentenced to life without parole for his conduct says nothing whateverabout these offenders, or others like them who commit nonhomicide crimes far more reprehensible than the conduct at issue here.

The Court uses Graham’s case as a vehicle to proclaim a new constitutional rule —applicable well beyond the particular facts of Graham’s case — that a sentence of life without parole imposed on any juvenile for any nonhomicide offense is unconstitutional. This categorical conclusion is as unnecessary as it is unwise.

A holding this broad is unnecessary because the particular conduct and circumstances at issue in the case before us are not serious enough to justify Graham’s sentence. In reaching this conclusion, there is no need for the Court to decide whether that same sentence would be constitutional if imposed for other more heinous non-homicide crimes.

A more restrained approach is especially appropriate in light of the Court’s apparent recognition that it is perfectly legitimate for a juvenile to receive a sentence of life without parole for committing murder. This means that there is nothing inherently unconstitutional about imposing sentences of life without parole on juvenile offenders; rather, the constitutionality of such sentences depends on the particular crimes for which they are imposed. But if the constitutionality of the sentence turns on the particular crime being punished, then the Court should limit its holding to the particular offenses that Graham committed here, and should decline to consider other hypothetical crimes not presented by this case.

In any event, the Court’s categorical conclusion is also unwise. Most importantly, it ignores the fact that somenonhomicide crimes — like the ones committed by MilagroCunningham, Nathan Walker, and Jakaris Taylor — are especially heinous or grotesque, and thus may be deserving of more severe punishment.

Those under 18 years old may as a general matter have “diminished” culpability relative to adults who commit the same crimes, but that does not mean that their culpability is always insufficient to justify life sentence.

It does not take a moral sense that is fully developed in every respect to know that beating and raping an 8-year-old girl and leaving her to die under 197 pounds of rocks is horribly wrong. The single fact of being 17 years old would not afford Cunningham protection against life without parole if the young girl had died — as Cunningham surely expected she would — so why should it do so when she miraculously survived his barbaric brutality?

The Court defends its categorical approach on the grounds that a “clear line is necessary to prevent the possibility that life without parole sentences will be im-posed on juvenile nonhomicide offenders who are not sufficiently culpable to merit that punishment.”

It argues that a case-by-case approach to proportionality review is constitutionally insufficient because courtsmight not be able “with sufficient accuracy [to] distinguish the few incorrigible juvenile offenders from the many that have the capacity for change.”

The Court is of course correct that judges will never have perfect foresight — or perfect wisdom — in makingsentencing decisions. But this is true when they sentence adults no less than when they sentence juveniles. It is also true when they sentence juveniles who commit murder no less than when they sentence juveniles who commit other crimes.

Our system depends upon sentencing judges applying their reasoned judgment to each case that comes beforethem. As we explained in Solem, the whole enterprise of proportionality review is premised on the “justified” assumption that “courts are competent to judge the gravityof an offense, at least on a relative scale.”

Indeed, “courts traditionally have made these judgments” by applying “generally accepted criteria” to analyze “the harm caused or threatened to the victim or society,and the culpability of the offender.”

Terrance Graham committed serious offenses, for which he deserves serious punishment. But he was only 16 years old, and under our Court’s precedents, his youth is one factor, among others, that should be considered in deciding whether his punishment was unconstitutionally excessive. In my view, Graham’s age — together with the nature of his criminal activity and the unusual severity of his sentence —tips the constitutional balance. I thus concur in the Court’s judgment that Graham’s sentence of life without parole violated the Eighth Amendment. I would not, however, reach the same conclusion in every case involving a juvenile offender. Some crimes are so heinous, and some juvenile offenders so highly culpable, that a sentence of life without parole may be entirely justified under the Constitution. As we have said, “successful challenges” to noncapital sentences under the Eighth Amendment have been — and, in my view, should continue to be — “exceedingly rare.”

But Graham’s sentence presents the exceptional case that our precedents have recognized will come along. We should grant Graham the relief to which he is entitled under the Eighth Amendment. The Court errs, however, in using this case as a vehicle for unsettling our established jurisprudence and fashioning a categorical rule applicable to far different cases.

* The Supreme Court has ruled that teenagers may not be locked up for life without chance of parole if they haven't killed anyone. By a 5-4 vote Monday, the court says the Constitution requires that young people serving life sentences must at least be considered for release.

"Pay my taxes first!"

Sandra Diaz-Twine tells Good Morning America what she's planning post-Survivor.

Make it a Better Day.

Considering the federal government's role in preventing and planning emergency response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina levy breach and the April 20 BP oil spill, David Bernstein wonders about the effectiveness of those Organization Kids playing as public servants in Big Government:

[G]iven that we have had two administrations in a row that have believed in big government and have proven incompetent, maybe having the government run by believers in government causes incompetence.

Or perhaps government just has some structural flaws that transcend the ideology of whatever party happens to be in power.

"Hey, hey, hey..."

Goodbye.

With two out in the eighth inning and the Yankees leading by two runs, Manager Joe Girardi called on Rivera to relieve Joba Chamberlain with the bases loaded. Rivera walked designated hitter Jim Thome to force in a run before Jason Kubel hit a grand slam over the right-field fence to give the Minnesota Twins a three-run lead on their way to a 6-3 victory.

The 46,628 fans at Yankee Stadium, many standing in expectation of Rivera’s ending the inning, quickly sat down and went silent.
...
As startling as it was to see Rivera fail so spectacularly, it was equally rare that the comeback came from the Twins. One of the best teams in baseball, the Twins had lost 12 straight games to the Yankees, including a three-game sweep in an American League division series last year.

They dropped the first two of the series, but avoided the sweep with Kubel's big klunk.

On Chicago goalie Antti Niemi:

“He’s been good for us all year,” forward Kris Versteeg said. “Everyone seemed to be doubting him except us. We’re confident in him. We have to give him a lot more help than we did tonight.”
...
Niemi made 44 saves, Dustin Byfuglien scored the tiebreaking goal with 6:45 remaining in regulation to help Chicago get off to a fast start for a change this postseason by beating the San Jose Sharks 2-1 Sunday in the opener of the Western Conference final.
...
The matchup between the top two seeds in the Western Conference featured fast skating and numerous scoring chances but few goals as Niemi and Evgeni Nabokov were up to the task for most of the game.

With the score tied at 1 in the third period, the Blackhawks found a way to break through. Captain Jonathan Toews won an offensive zone faceoff from Joe Thornton and Patrick Kane got the puck off the boards to Byfuglien. The talk going into the series was about how the Sharks would contend with the 257-pound Byfuglien in front of the net. But he showed he can also be dangerous from further out.

Byfuglien beat Nabokov with wrist shot from the slot for his fifth goal of the postseason, giving Chicago its first lead of the night.

“I feel like I’m at the top of my game right now,” Byfuglien said. “I think there’s improvements to be made. Just got to keep working and just getting in front, you know, getting dirty.”

Gone, but still a part of the team.

Come together...

On Sunday, Sharon Love sat in the stands wearing a blue-and-orange ribbon with angel’s wings, as Virginia took a 14-12 victory in its first game since Yeardley Love was found dead in her apartment May 3.

George Huguely, who was a senior on Virginia’s men’s lacrosse team and who had dated Yeardley Love, has been charged with first-degree murder.

Just before the game ended, Sharon Love and her older daughter, Lexie, were escorted to the field. One by one, the Cavaliers ran up and embraced them.

“It was really great to see Mrs. Love and Lexie, because I see Yeardley in them, in their laugh,” Marye Kellermann, a senior attack for Virginia, said.
...
The Virginia players wore warm-up T-shirts that said: “One Team. One Heart. One Love.” They also wore black patches on their jerseys that had the word “LOVE” displayed in white. And the Towson players wore wristbands with Love’s initials on them.

“Going out on the field and feeling a sense of emptiness knowing Yeardley’s not there, that’s definitely been the hardest thing the past couple of weeks,” Kellermann said.

Less than three minutes into the first half, Virginia led by 3-0, and Klockner Stadium had begun to shake. Towson tied the score five times, but Virginia never trailed, never wavered and never lost track of the afternoon’s focus.

When Kaitlin Duff found Charlie Finnigan for the final goal with 1 minute 58 seconds remaining, it did not heal everything or make everything feel as it once did. But it did give the Cavaliers, Sharon and Lexie Love, and plenty of others here a chance to exhale.

Caity Whiteley, who was one of Love’s roommates, was one of three Virginia players who scored three goals.

“I know I wasn’t ready to be done,” Virginia Coach Julie Myers said. “I don’t think the girls were even close to being ready. We still need to be together as we take the next steps.”

Sixth-seeded Virginia (14-5) will face third-seeded North Carolina (16-2) in a quarterfinal match next week in Chapel Hill.
...
After the women’s game, the Virginia players held up pieces of paper with Love’s No. 1 on them as the Cher song “Believe” boomed over the loudspeaker. The song became something of a team anthem after the Cavaliers’ bus driver played it during trips to Virginia Tech and Maryland last month.

Lauren Benner, a junior goalie, said Love and the rest of the team danced and sang along during those bus rides, but on Sunday, the paradox of the song’s chorus — “Do you believe in life after love?”— was not lost.

“I mean, love is everywhere,” Benner said.

Mira! Mira!

And it's Sandra for the win... Again.

A Lady and a Champion.

Making Dad proud ... wherever he is.

Boston University's Class of 1970 is invited to take that final walk across the stage ... and about 10% of the Class shows up, some to finish up family business after waiting patiently for 40 years:

That spring was supposed to bring a flowery conclusion to their four years of academe. But President Richard M. Nixon had invaded Cambodia. National Guardsmen had gunned down students at Kent State, killing four and wounding nine. Young men still faced the draft. And this campus, like many across the country, was in turmoil, with strikes, sit-ins, building takeovers and fire-bombings.

The situation became so incendiary that, for safety’s sake, university officials called off final exams, canceled graduation and sent students packing.

This weekend, on what would have been the 40th anniversary of that ceremony, the university sought to make amends with a proper graduation.

But more than pomp and circumstance, the university wanted to give the students — now in their early 60s, many of them grandparents — a chance to heal the wounds, reflect on what their time here had meant and feel better about their alma matter.

“This is not an apology,” Robert A. Brown, the president of the university, said in an interview beforehand. “We did exactly the right thing by calling off exams. It’s an opportunity to reach out to this cadre of alums and say, ‘Come, be with us.’ ”

About 300 of the 3,000-member class showed up, many with their grown children in tow, not to mention unfinished business.

“That was a big deal,” Dr. Marcia Wells Avery, one of three black nursing students in the class of 1970, said of her canceled graduation. “It was worse for the parents and the grandparents, many of whom are dead now and were robbed of that opportunity to see their child march across that stage.”

“My father vowed that B.U. would never get a penny from him,” added Dr. Avery, who is now a nursing professor at Northwestern State University in Louisiana.

Still, Dr. Avery was enjoying the weekend. She decided to drop by the bookstore and “buy up all the B.U. paraphernalia” she could find. She said she would even consider making a future donation to the school.

And by the end of the ceremonies on Sunday, she was beaming. “It’s O.K.,” she said. “I feel complete.”

So many people affected in the culture wars, in ways little and life-changing too. It's sometimes the quiet dreams you hold closest.

Welcome to Mars... it's open all hours!

Pere Ubu, w/Dave Marshall.

It's the lyrics I like -- something in there for everyone ... she could be a whore, something they're jonesing for, or the Virgin Mother. Take what you need.

Welcome to Mars!
It's open all hours.
"What are we doing here?"
Mal's in the back and Fred's on the phone, sayin',
"What are we doing here?"
(are you insane, friend?)
Oh, you are never alone in the Twilight Zone.
What are we doing here?

Waiting. For. Mary.
Waiting. For. Mary.
Waiting. For. Mary.
Oh.

I oughta know but my memory is goin.
As bad as it seems maybe we're dreamin.
Don't mind the stares we've paid for these chairs.
And keep up that smile, it might be awhile.
What are we doing here?

Waiting. For. Mary.
Waiting. For. Mary.
Waiting. For. Mary.
Oh.

Oh, I.
Won. Der. Why.
She. Can't. Be.
On. time. Ever?

What do you know, it had to be snowin!
I'm down on my knees.
I'm beggin you please.
Oh, what do you see?
Why, it had to be me, sayin, What?
What are we doing here?
Now, one at a time or ... in a line!

Waiting. For. Mary.
Waiting. For. Mary.
Waiting. For. Mary.
Oh.

All right, out the door at 11. Mal's meeting me at an auction in Cumberland this morning. And then maybe take the boats out. I put the kayak in Rice Lake yesterday morning, getting a nice back and arm workout with sun on the shoulders -- cinnamon skin, and drove the trailer over again in the early evening, as the put-in is right down the street. But it takes at least two to do a decent river journey, unless you're a big fan of long bike rides, or willing to hitch a ride.

Sunday morning Christian reading.

Rv 22:12-14, 16-17, 20

12 Look, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, to repay everyone as their deeds deserve.

13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

14 Blessed are those who will have washed their robes clean, so that they will have the right to feed on the tree of life and can come through the gates into the city.

16 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to attest these things to you for the sake of the churches. I am the sprig from the root of David and the bright star of the morning.

17 The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' Let everyone who listens answer, 'Come!' Then let all who are thirsty come: all who want it may have the water of life, and have it free.

20 The one who attests these things says: I am indeed coming soon. Amen; come, Lord Jesus.

Sunday morning public service announcement.

If you're going to drive and do heroin, at least pull into a rest area or onto the shoulder to shoot up, eh? Silly Madison kids!

MADISON, Wis. -- Madison police said a man suspected of shooting up heroin was arrested on a charge of fourth-offense intoxicated driving Wednesday afternoon following a crash.

Police said Donald E. Wells Jr., 27, of Madison, crashed into a brick wall and then into a tree outside of 925 S. Whitney Way shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday.

The Madison Police Department said officers reported that Wells had a shoestring tied around his right arm and around the steering column in tourniquet fashion. Police said he also had drug paraphernalia, including a syringe, in the center console of the car.

Police said the driver, whose pupils were very small, told officers that he dozed off and denied having just used heroin, although he admitted past use.

Police said the driver was arrested after being taken to a hospital.

I love this comment, from another story on the arrest:

"Officers said the suspect had a shoestring tied around his right arm and around the steering column in tourniquet fashion," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain. "He also had drug paraphernalia, including a syringe, in the center console of the car."

Wells told police he dozed off and denied having just used heroin, although he admitted past use, DeSpain said.

"Based on the preponderance of evidence, he was arrested after being taken to a hospital," DeSpain said.

Gee, ya think? Madison is notoriously lax at enforcing rules (it's a college town, dontchaknow?) and Wisconsin leads the nation in intoxicated driving. Maybe they could keep the kid locked up on his fourth offense, until he makes changes? Or do we wait until he kills someone until we have conclusive proof the man is a danger to others? Kids are getting off school at 3 in the afternoon, remember... and Whitney Way is a residential road.

Staunching the bleeding.

Personally, I think his persuasive powers are overrated, but wouldn't it be wonderful if President Obama had a track record for bringing together all factions to solve problems?

Never mind the finger pointing -- plenty of time for that -- now is the time to come together, and solicit help from the Saudis and worldwide if needed, to drill the emergency well to relieve pressure from the leaking. "Top hats" and caps are just for show, short term. And BP is still in the director's chair, directing cleanup efforts? Hm... it is wise to put the mess-maker in charge of the cleanup, or do they have incentive to minimize or hide the damage?

This oil spill is an excellent example of what's happening in America today. Our brightest and best-known minds are good at ... talking. Debating. Finessing the rules. Bringing people together. But that doesn't seem to stop either blood or oil from spilling.

We don't excel at science and technology -- who cares?; we buy those goodies. And we don't understand such common-sense reality as: If it's spilling, it's going somewhere folks and affecting the ecology. Whether you see it or not.

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.
...
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.
...
The undersea plumes may go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between the flow estimates, suggesting that much of the oil emerging from the well could be lingering far below the sea surface.

The scientists on the Pelican mission, which is backed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that monitors the health of the oceans, are not certain why that would be. They say they suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly.

BP said Saturday at a briefing in Robert, La., that it had resumed undersea application of dispersants, after winning Environmental Protection Agency approval the day before.

“It appears that the application of the subsea dispersant is actually working,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said Saturday. “The oil in the immediate vicinity of the well and the ships and rigs working in the area is diminished from previous observations.”

Many scientists had hoped the dispersants would cause oil droplets to spread so widely that they would be less of a problem in any one place. If it turns out that is not happening, the strategy could come under greater scrutiny. Dispersants have never been used in an oil leak of this size a mile under the ocean, and their effects at such depth are largely unknown.

by Justin Gillis, New York Times.