Somebody had to say it! Go have fun tonight (or I hope you at least had some fun this weekend)!

Bush has nominated 3rd Circuit Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

President Bush today named appeals court Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. Alito, 55, serves on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where his record on abortion rights and church-state issues has been widely applauded by conservatives and criticized by liberals.

A major battle seemed inevitable by midday as a number of civil rights and womens’ rights groups vowed to defeat the nomination, declaring that they will not allow a conservative on such social issues to take the seat of moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Conservative organizations, with equal vigor, geared up in support.

I don’t know much about Alito, but the initial readings I’ve done suggest that this is a solid, if unimaginative, choice. Still, it’s hard to find much to complain about someone who is noted for their “dry, analytical style”–unless you’re a law student, of course.

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting rundown of key decisions by Alito. At first glance, he doesn’t seem like an idealogue, so he’s probably the best that I could reasonably hope for.

What about Roe v. Wade? Well, we’ll see. But you know what–with him and Roberts on the Court, if it’s not toast, I’d wager that it’s at least going to be severely pulled back. But that doesn’t mean that women are going to be going back to the back alleys. If anything, it’ll move the fight from the Courts to the legislature. And the odds of national anti-abortion legislation is extraordinarily slim, to say the least. So pro-choicers and pro-lifers will have to take it to the states. Will that be better or worse? I guess we’ll have to see.

As of this writing, I don’t know who Bush is going to announce to the Supreme Court today (if, indeed, he provides a nominee at all). However, I have said it before and I have said it again–if there were any justice in this world at all, Richard Posner would be pick #1 for the Supreme Court. He is one of the most brilliant jurists in U.S. history, and is one of the most intelligent people alive today.

He’ll never get a Supreme Court nod. I know that. But he damn well deserves it.

“Great men do not seek power, they have power thrust upon them.”
– Kahless the Unforgettable

“Defense Counsel has an obligation to be ethical when dealing with the court. Defendant doesn’t.”

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted by Fitzgerald’s grand jury. He has resigned from his position as Chief of Staff to the Vice President.
Libby apparantly told the Grand Jury that he was informed of the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative from NBC Journalist Tim Russert. In fact, the indictment claims Libby recieved the information months earlier from other government officials who were privied to the information.
Now that the indictment is a matter of public record, we can now see a timeline of events. And for those of you who need assistance, here is a summary of events:

• 1/28/03:
  President Bush gives a State of the Union address and claims that the Iraqi government attempted to procure uranium from Niger.
• 5/6/03:
  A New York Times column challenges the truthfulness of Bush’s allegation. The author claims that in 2002, Vice President Cheney’s office sent an unnamed former US Ambassador investigated the matter and concluded the documents relied on to make the claim were forged.
• 5/29/03 thru 6/12/03:
  Libby was briefed by an Undersecretary of State about Wilson’s trip. He was informed of Wilson’s name, role, and the fact that Wilson’s wife was a CIA employee. Libby was also given classified documents in addition to oral briefings. He also discussed the matter (including Plame’s involvement with the CIA) with other members of the Vice President’s office and with officials from the CIA.
• 7/8/2003:
  Libby meets with Judith Miller, and Libby informs Miller that Valerie Plame is a CIA Operative.
• 7/10/03:
  Libby calls NBC reporter Tim Russert to complain about press coverage of himself. He did not discuss Valerie Plame.
• 7/11/03:
  An unnamed official (called “A” by the indictment) discloses Valerie Plame’s identity to columnist Robert Novak, who would reveal that information three days later in a Chicago Sun-Times column.
• 7/12/03:
  Ambassador Joe Wilson writes his now well-known op-ed in the New York Times where he reiterates that he examined the allegations that examined by him and that he concluded the claims were false. Also, Libby confirms to Matt Cooper
• 10/14/03 thru 11/26/03:
  Libby denied discussing the identity and profession of Valerie Plame with Judith Miller or Matt Cooper, and claimed that he was informed as to Plame’s work with the CIA from NBC’s Tim Russert.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this is the only indictment that occurs, or if there are more to come.

For about a week now, conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher has been promoting her thesis on why excluding same-sex couples from the civil marriage system is a good thing for society as a whole. Her argument was summarized by Volokh Conspirator Orin Kerr (with Maggie’s approval) as follows:

Extending marriage to include same-sex couples would not just give rights to a small subset of the population, but would radically transform what marriage is. So long as only opposite-sex couples can marry, the thinking goes, marriage is linked to procreation; if same-sex couples can marry, too, then marriage is transformed into something else entirely. Adding same-sex marriage would ruin the old institution and create a new one, and the new institution would not longer retain a focus on having and raising children. Viewed in that light, same sex marriage is a threat to society: by redefining the institution, it will kill off its most important feature.

It should be noted that there are a number of implicit (and false) assumptions left out of this analysis.

1. People need to be encouraged to procreate.
   Not true. As proof, I present exhibits A, B, C, D, E, and F. So long as society encourages people to have sex, and the majority of people in society are heterosexual (or bisexual), children will be had, and someone will raise them.
2. Children raised by their biological mother and father are “better off” than children raised by any other parenting structure.
   Ignoring the idiocy of such a blind generalization being used in this context, it’s also factually untrue. For an excellent debunking of this one, I would refer you to Penn & Teller’s BullShit, season 3, episode 2. Sufficed to say many of the studies used to bolster this fallacy ignore extraordinarily important issues like socioeconomic class.
3. Transforming a “pillar of society” into something else is undesirable.
   I’m sure I don’t need to go into a litany of the beneficial societal upheavals America has undergone in its history, but it’s certainly worth pointing out that one of the great unspoken assumptions of most conservative social policies is “change is bad”. Change isn’t inherently good or bad. It needs to be evaluated in context.

It should also be pointed out that Gallagher’s argument that allowing homosexual couples to marry is antithetical to the children-related purposes of the marriage institution are patently ridiculous. Several of the couples in the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health argued that one of the reasons they wanted to be married was to simplify the legal status of their parental rights. Marriage as we know it is a one-stop shop for all the legal rights and economic benefits people need to safely and securely raise children together. It’s part of the reason we still have shotgun weddings, even in 2005. Children will always benefit from having parents in a stable, loving relationship whether its same-sex, polyamorous, straight, or otherwise. In this sense, marriage will always be about raising children.

Perhaps Ms. Gallagher simply didn’t get the words out properly, or was a victim of, in her own words, of “bad time management”. But Gallagher’s argument as presented on the VC is sorely lacking in any real justification that marriage needs to be a regulated entity at all, and certainly fails to justify the restriction she’s arguing for.

“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
– Steven Weinberg

Winter is upon us, and for those of us who have grown really tired of football, are dreading the holiday time spent with the people we only spend time with over the holidays, and have noticed that police procedurals and slow, boring supernatural dramas dominate TV, what else is there to turn to besides books?

With that in mind, here’s a random list of books to keep you occupied during a time of cultural drabness.

• With intelligent design threatening to be taught in public schools and social conservatism having won its struggle against libertarianism in the Republican party, there’s no better time to curl up and read Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein. Job is maybe one of the funniest send-ups of Evangelical Christianity I’ve ever read.

• Speaking of funny religious books, I’d also highly recommend Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus’ Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Ever wonder what Jesus did between the time he was 12 and 30? Moore answers those questions, charting the journeys of Jesus and his friend Biff as they learn alchemy, Kung-Fu, yoga and more in India and Asia.

• Moving away from religious satire, I saw a trailer recently for yet another adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which is always worth a re-read. Really, anything by Jane Austen is good. She was probably the best writer of dialogue in the 19th Century, and her stories are timeless.

• Another of my favorite 19th century authors is Alexandre Dumas, and The Count of Monte Cristo always makes for an engrossing read. If you prefer sci-fi to 19th century action, then I’d recommend the Monte Cristo-inspired The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, which probably ranks as one of the best science-fiction novels of all time.

• More of a mystery/thriller fan? Then I’d highly recommend Keeper by Greg Rucka, or the classic Fletch by Gregory MacDonald.

Got any other good book recommendations out there? Post ‘em in the comments!

Well, I have to say that I certainly didn’t see this coming.

“For the last six months,” she says, “people have been sending e-mails saying, ‘What are you doing next?’ And I’ve told them, ‘You may not want what I’m doing next’.” We’ll know soon. In two weeks, Anne Rice, the chronicler of vampires, witches and—under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure—of soft-core S&M encounters, will publish “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt,” a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. “I promised,” she says, “that from now on I would write only for the Lord.”

[...]

Rice knows “Out of Egypt” and its projected sequels—three, she thinks—could alienate her following; as she writes in the afterword, “I was ready to do violence to my career.” But she sees a continuity with her old books, whose compulsive, conscience-stricken evildoers reflect her long spiritual unease. “I mean, I was in despair.” In that afterword she calls Christ “the ultimate supernatural hero … the ultimate immortal of them all.”

Well, that’s just great. Now instead of books about whiny, effeminate vampires, we’re going to get books about whiny, effeminate Messiahs.

Fun!