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This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Various

Videos: Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was pretty good with a Monty Python-like feel at certain points and a cute "extra" concerning one of the bits from the movie. Also, as to television, House was good again this week.


[Edited for your satisfaction.]

Winter Olympics: Don't really care about them. I am not alone, which was why the hotdogging of one Olympiad (cost her the gold, got a silver) was probably fixed -- they needed some controversy.

OTOH ... Bryant Gumbel's did say something about there not being many blacks in the games, leading to controversy for those not focused on the fact that a local reporter had his foot run over by George Steinbrenner's golf cart. [I speak of those on NYC Sports Radio.] It is not shocking, by the way, that winter sports do not have many blacks -- surely, they ski and all etc., but the environs that favor such supports tend not to be areas with a lot of blacks.

Another news flash: basketball has a lot of black people, while hockey does not. By the way, what is this business of professional hockey players being in the Games anyway? It is like some sort of scrimmage -- the NHL splits up to their corresponding countries. Anyway, pitchers and catchers have reported, so we now have the official beginning of the baseball pre-season. Oh, and Jose Lima is back in the NL, fighting for a spot on the Mets roster and a chance to act goofy along with Pedro at the games.

Congress Do Nothing/Asshole Watch: Sen Roberts, he of the non-existent report on the abuse of intel before the war, has decided that we do not really need further investigations on the domestic spying controversy. After all, a "fix" is in the works that will give the President ex post facto right to violate the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the House will have an investigation, but not exactly on what actually is so controversial. The "asshole" also focuses on the senators who warned their colleagues not delay the Alito vote because they had to focus on the wiretapping issue. You know, the issue that there was bipartisan agreement on that something seriously was done. Full of shit.

[I see now that Roberts has gotten some heat and appears to be trying to figure some sort of CYA move. Suggestion: Support a real comprehensive investigation. This might sorta help in determining the best "reform." But, Dems seem more open -- see the 96-3 vote against Feingold's Patriot Act delay -- to looking like asses by pressuring Paul Hackett to not run for Senate than applying much pressure. So, why should the Republicans care? Or the voters, huh?]

Courts: Meanwhile, Alito has reached into the good old boy network for his first law clerk with serious conflict of interest concerns. Cases: US v. Knows His Gun ... amusing caption of a serious case, involving child molestation. One involving child pornography is aptly entitled US v. Gross.

A third partly involves a claim that a "death sentence was imposed in violation of his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation because the Bible amounted to evidence against him," spelling out in a footnote that there are various "eye for an eye" quotes in said book. Basically, though it failed, the claim was that supplying a Bible arguably was an illegitimate outside influence on the jury. But, what if the juror just raised the same point without the Bible? It seems pretty obscure, but such is the law sometimes, especially habeas.