Finally, finally, finally! Finally, someone takes notice of the right wing radicals who are trying to undo American government by attacking the judiciary, weakening the legislature, and empowering the executive.

Catherine Crier writes a blog post about her new book, CONTEMPT – How the Right is Wronging American Justice. Allow me to quote liberally… so to speak:

The extreme Right has conquered the executive and legislative branches of government, but it has not been able to bring the federal courts to heel…yet. Undoubtedly, this group has a prodigious impact on the Supreme Court and the other federal courts, but it wants so much more. Its leaders have taken an entity that innately resists politics and turned it into a highly politicized battle zone. They seethe over this unelected, independent third branch of government, the last bulwark between the American people and their attempted coup. That some federal judges have proven well educated, fair, and unintimidated by these voices and methods has further stymied their best-laid plans. The extreme Right may control a good part of the castle, but they have yet to breach the citadel. Only, make no mistake, they mean to bring every last wall crashing down.

The Far Right wants to control our federal judiciary in order to enact this reactionary agenda. At first blush, the focus seems to center on social issues—abortion, gay rights, affirmative action, and religion in schools. These items certainly garner the most press attention, but don’t be fooled.

[snip]

There is another insidious aspect to their designs. Economic and political issues are crucial to them as well. If they are successful in our federal courts, this plot will have a profound impact on citizens in every arena. They are making efforts to curtail federal regulation of businesses, environmental protections, worker’s rights, bankruptcy laws, tort liability, and property interests, among other causes.


This radical group also wants much more control exerted by the states. For over a century, the federal courts have built a safety net in order to protect the constitutional rights of every American. But Edwin Meese began arguing in the 1980s that the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states, and now the extreme Right supports his assertion that such Constitutional protections only exist to inhibit action by the national government. They want our individual guarantees surrendered back to the states, where enforcement will diminish and maybe disappear altogether.


Despite the Far Right’s claims that they want the courts to leave Congress alone, they actually aim to reduce congressional authority. They want ultraconservative judges to strike down a great deal more federal legislation and to negate decades of legal precedent—the very definition of “reactionary.” The extreme Right may argue against judicial “activism,” but they certainly know how to practice it. And through it all, they camouflage these issues under a shiny veneer of values, morality, and religion.


Should the nation have minimum wage laws? Should corporations be held responsible when they commit serious wrongs? Should our environment, the air and water, be protected from polluters large and small? Should the Bill of Rights apply to all of the states, or should we have fifty different fiefdoms wherein a simple majority of state legislators can decide our fates?


For the first time since the early twentieth century, these items are actually in play.


Of course, the key to each and every one of these issues is the federal courts. And this drives the extreme Right to distraction. They have nothing but disdain for the founding fathers’ belief in three branches of government and the prescient system of checks and balances. Indeed, they are rewriting America’s revolutionary history to accommodate their point of view.

I have been on about this for years, and I have been increasingly worried lately by the right’s growing power and their continual attacks on the judiciary. This week, as John Roberts’ confirmation hearings begin, all Americans should be paying close attention to the role judges play in our system of government. For any true American, for any true “originalists” out there, the idea that our system of government could function with anything less than a strong, independent judiciary should be absurd. Yet the right is closer than ever to making that claim stick. True Americans must not let that happen.

I wrote a little something about the hurricane over at Seattle Real Estate Talk. I think it says pretty much what I want to say about the whole situation. For now, at least.

Angela Booth’s Writing Blog: Giggle of the Day: Acronym for Vista:

How unkind. From David Pogue at the NYT:


Vista is actually an acronym for the top five Windows problems: “viruses, infections, spyware, trojans and adware.

Technorati Tags: Humor, Microsoft

That’s how the upgrade to Movable Type 3.2 went. I must admit I was a little nervous overwriting all my files on the server, but the whole process went like a dream. Can’t wait to play around a bit with the new interface, check out the new plugins… all dat.

Nice job, Six Apart!

The Poor Man points to this article by Elizabeth Drew about the aggressive infiltration of radical Republicans into the lobbying process. This, and the assault on the judiciary, and the decline of the press… This is what’s killing us.

The Poor Man sees an opening for Democrats to play David to this Goliath. He may be right, but I have a hard time seeing that we have enough bold and nimble warriors to stop this conservative onslaught. Our constitution, our rights, our very notion of America is being chiseled away piece by piece before our eyes. I am not sure that the right people are getting the big picture.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Corruption

I am lucky enough to have met Robert A. Moog, the engineer who changed the world with his eponymous synthesizers. I was 12 years old, or thereabouts, attending a kind of science and technology camp at Western Carolina University. Bob Moog lived in nearby Asheville, and invited our class to his house for a tour of his workshop. I was too young to appreciate who I was meeting at the time, but Moog’s enthusiasm and love for technology and music won me over, and I certainly have never forgot—nor ever will forget—the time spent in his presence.

I had spent most of my first week at camp playing with a sound generator. The thing was a monster and looked and worked like an old telephone switch board. To get the sound, you would use patch cables to hook up different tone generators, and then tweak the switches and dials to get the desired effect. The process was crude and cumbersome, and the output wasn’t impressive by any means, but to a curious young geek it was an absorbing pursuit. Little did I know that I would soon meet the man who had consigned beasts like this to the scrap heap, and had enabled a generation of musicians to explore and extend music in ways no one had dreamed possible.

I remember Moog as kind, gracious, funny, and charming, We toured his workspace, oohing and aahing over vintage synthesizers and getting a sneak peek at a Fairlight CMI, a powerful new type of computerized synth with dual 8-bit processors and a green monochrome screen. I think that he and I talked about my adventures with the beast back at the college, but I can’t be sure that I wasn’t merely tongue-tied and shy.

I do remember that Moog was gregarious and garrulous, conducting the tour himself with an unmistakable enthusiasm for his work. We ended up sitting on his porch eating cookies and drinking lemonade while his wife showed off some treasured memorabilia, including some early albums recorded with Moog synthesizers.

Bob Moog died Sunday of a brain tumor at his home in Asheville. He was 71. His inventions paved the way for the kind of creative tools that I take for granted today. His work enabled and inspired the musicians that wrote the soundtrack to my youth. And, personally, he was a really cool guy. May he rest in peace and be ever remembered.

Technorati Tags: Moog, Music, Remembrance

Two quickies to wrap up my day and catch me up…

The Poor Man, after quoting a damned good piece by Paul Begala about the hypocrisy of the right, catalogs a long list of hate-filled rhetoric from Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, and others. This kind of speech is shocking and sickening enough on its own. In aggregate it is cold-sweat nauseating.

And here, Editor & Publisher takes its industry to task for its complicity in selling the war.

Technorati Tags: Politics

This is freakin’ me out, man:

Science Blog—Light that travels faster than light:

A team of researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has successfully demonstrated, for the first time, that it is possible to control the speed of light – both slowing it down and speeding it up – in an optical fiber, using off-the-shelf instrumentation in normal environmental conditions. Their results, to be published in the August 22 issue of Applied Physics Letters, could have implications that range from optical computing to the fiber-optic telecommunications industry.

I guess I knew that the speed of light could slow down – say when it encounters water – but I had no idea you could slow it a stop. And it just goes against everything I know about physics (which, admittedly, ain’t much) to find out that you can speed light up! Jinkies! So nothing moves faster than the speed of light? Apparently, light does.

Technorati Tags: Light, Science

Fanatical Apathy – Grappling With Cindy:

Adam Felber explains “why everyone besides me is dead wrong on Sheehan.” It’s a good take. You should read it.

UPDATE: And while you’re at it, why not read Cindy Sheehan’s own latest entry on The Huffington Post.

Technorati Tags: cindysheehan, Politics

Dear Leader’s Daily Thought:

hi… you know we are working real hard down here in crawford…. keepin amrica safe for freedom and stuff… but we like to have our fun too. we like to play jokes and stuff.and the bigest joker is my secretary of defense rumsfeld i call him rummy… anyway he is doin a real good job he is the best secretary ever… but the last couple of years he has begged me like a milyen times to let him resign and i always say no way be cause he is doin such a good job.


any way the otehr day we were gettin ready for another forin policy meetin about iraq and he begged me to let him resign again and he was begign and beggin… and i said no way… and he ran over to the curtins and he took the rope off and he started tiein the rope around his neck and he started screemin he was gonna do it and he said i was a in human monster… and i laffed and laffed. and we have jokes like that all the time down here in craw ford… helps break up the stress of a busy work day.


bye for now.

Technorati Tags: Humor, Politics