Monday's notes

Condolences go out to the Byrd family as they mourn the passing of Erma Byrd. Erma was married to the longtime senator from West Virginia, Bob Byrd for 69 years.

Here is an article from the Washington Times which looks at Justice Ginsberg's comments about allowing foreign law to influence her decision making. Her comments show she doesn't even have a rudimentary understanding of the separation of powers between the three branches of government. She is clearly unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

The sort of analysis Justice Ginsburg describes is not judicial, but legislative. There is nothing in our Constitution that bars members of Congress from looking at foreign laws to see what works and what does not, what reflects American values and what does not. As long as they don't exceed the constitutional limits on Congress' own authority, they may, if they wish, propose legislation mirroring a foreign law to see if they can win a majority for it and persuade the president to sign it.

Burt Prelutsky has a column making fun of those who claim that the First Amendment is being taken away by the current administration.

The other day I was listening to a talk radio show, and heard a caller announce that there’s no freedom of speech in this country, that, because of the fascistic administration in Washington, people are afraid to criticize the government. His proof was that Cindy Sheehan had been rebuked for merely exercising her constitutional right to mouth off against authority figures. The show’s host correctly pointed out that the 1st Amendment guarantees her freedom to speak her mind, such as it is, but that doesn’t in any way curtail the right of other Americans to call her an idiot. What the host didn’t point out was that even as the caller spoke, he was contradicting his own statement. He was freely sharing his own foolish thoughts with millions of listeners.

Liberals have become so accustomed to having only their own points of view disseminated by the mass media that they now believe that any opinion in conflict with their own is an infringement on their right to free speech. So not only do they feel entitled to spout off ad nauseam, but honest disagreement is regarded as censorship!

Prelutsky goes on to explain why he identifies himself as a conservative rather than as a Republican.

Here is another research study which managed to get results that any of us could have told them before they wasted money on it.

MEN are nearly twice as likely to walk away from a failing marriage as to abandon their struggling football team, research has revealed. And the divorce rate would halve overnight if men showed the same commitment to their relationships as they did to their teams, according to a study by psychologist Dr Aric Sigman. He found that around 94 per cent of men said they would never abandon their team, no matter how badly it performed, while 52 per cent would walk away from a relationship that was not working out.

Well, duh.

From Breitbart we get this:

Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

As I read that article I just couldn't believe his attorney let him testify in such an incriminating manner. However, later in the article it says they tried to stop him from testifying but failed. I could be wrong, but I think he is being intentionally inflammatory in his testimony to get the death penalty rather than rotting in a prison cell for the rest of his life.