BTW, they showed the fucking Peanuts special again last night anyway.

It will take more than one medication to clear up what Bachmann has.

All i know is that I cant stop watching the Reebok commercial. DAMN.

I've read three stories on the Clarence Thomas thing and still don't undrstand it. He agrees but...what?

Anyone out there care to dumb this down for me?

Kinda think Thomas has a point. What does the cost of immediately appealing attorney-client privilege decisions have to do with whether parties should be permitted to do so? I always thought, y'know, the *law* decided that. Oh well, I guess thoughtless snarking on Thomas is too ingrained a habit to hope it changes now.

PS: Yes, I'm quite liberal, and disagree with Thomas in almost every split decision. I just don't get why liberals call him stupid, and point to Scalia as the model of a smart conservative justice. Thomas's decisions are straightforward and clear, even if they're wrong. Scalia's are snarky, misleading, bigoted, and mean-spirited. I'd take Thomas any day.

There are more TV ads in the Reebok campaign worth mentioning:

http://jezebel.com/5410315/make-your-boobs-jealous-reeboks-easytone-ad-campaign-is-an-epic-fail

Sorry MsJoanne, that wasn't directed at you--I waited a while between typing and submitting and didn't see your comment. The only difference is he didn't think a discussion of cost belonged in the decision, because it was irrelevant to the holding. I agree, because idle words of the Supreme Court can trickle down and lead to weird holdings on the part of lower courts, which may now think cost of appeals relevant to permission to appeal.

What's wrong with shamelessly flaunting a nice ass?

Reebok: I think her ass is skinny and not so attractive as to garner extensive viewing. With the issue of weight & size in this country, this image may lead some to think they that are too fat and take drastic action...perhaps that is the desired outcome. The more pairs of butt-slimming shoes you own, the faster you will get a skinny butt. Do they also make breasts smaller? This model is not that well endowed on top. I'm confused. Who is the ad targeted at: voyeurs or women who think they have ugly butts? Or both?

Reebok looks to be the butt of a slew of new jokes.

Speaking of which...

What is par for Tiger?

I don't know but he's played 11 holes already.

(sorry gals)

Good to see all the disclaimers coming out...
about Afghanistan...
about the economy and bankster bailouts...
and hopefully soon, about the health care reform...

i'm SURE those disclaimers will be the clincher for the Dims 2010 elections...

think of how super-productive for the middle class those Dims have been...

in 2010 those Dims'll keep their majorities and maybe even increase them...

you betcha...

The One Percent Doctrine was stupid for terrorism and it's stupid for climate change.

1. You don't do hugely expensive things for a 1% chance.
2. You are implying that there's only a 1% chance of climate change occurring.

Why on earth are you guys promoting something so, er, "Friedmanesque?"

Ed Shultz asks his viewers to text in if they think Insurance companies won the battle over Health Care...most answer yes..

Well, I say yes mostly and maybe no in some small but significant ways..

And it's really too soon to tell..the Insurance Companies are sure pulling out all their stops and it makes me want to throw up...

We need both choice AND affordability for this to be any sort of deal worth celebrating.

Just don't know if his question is really the right question now, but hey it's his show..he can make issues seem simplistic and create false dichotomies till the cows come home.

Sure, the Insurance companies won a heck of a lot more than they deserved...and they're still fighting tooth and nail as we speak..it's really frightening and appalling..are we surprised?!
If so, Ed--you are more naive than ever..

It's not just the insurance companies, btw..it's the senators sleeping with them, the congress desperate to win re-election in their states..
It's lack of vision that this is a true Human and Civil Rights issue of the most fundamental order..and Obama failed to make this argument and the Congress and Senate failed to see it...

But if we can manage to pass something (still unknown) that will move us forward and something that will finally introduce the notion for good that Health Care is INDEED a Human Rights issue, than we win too. We get to say hey, some reform and a challenge has been made toward

So where do we look as to determine who 'won' and who 'lost'?

Isn't there a better way to frame this unbelievably historic and entrenched issue that's been essentially untouched for decades than just asking if the Insurance folks 'won' and we 'lost'?

Maybe not on cable T.V.

I think it wasthe peanuts thanksgiving special he accused obama of targeting.

The Gretchen Carlson piece was very interesting. This Stanford/Oxford graduate says she has to use google to figure out what words like "czar" or "ignoramus" mean. She's actually pretending to be uneducated as part of her folksy shtick.

Brand new CBS News/NY Times Poll:

Do you favor a Public Option ?

59% - YES

29% - NO

Maybe we should have tried this sooner....

Uh, maybe we should go ahead and *double* their pay and stop the war altogether?

This just underscores the point that I and others have tried to make from the beginning -- after 3 decades of constant war, Afghanistan is the 5th poorest country in the world. Another 5, 10, 20 yrs of war and butchery by a Dem POTUS ain't gonna improve that; *peace* and *development* will.

It's the economy, stoopid.

So, nothing about how the UK, Denmark, and the US are conspiring at Copenhagen to stab all the developing nations in the back?

Dollared, there's way more than just one percent change of serious repercussions from increased CO2 and climate change. And most of what we'd do to ward it off, is good choice anyway to save money, independence from foreign suppliers etc. Don't let us be nickled and dimed.

Did everybody catch the spiral light show over Norway ?

Very cool.

Very strange.

Don't you know the One Percent Doctrine is for whatever conservatives say it is for and not for anything else?

If there is a One Percent Chance that another country could someday do something mean to us, then we must invade.

If there is a One Percent Chance that we can keep pumping unlimited amounts of carbon into atmosphere without triggering catastrophic climate change, then we should not spend a single dollar or doing anything that might limit corporate profits on fighting climate change.

They hold the trademark on this phrase and will fight to the last whining rebuttal for their exclusive right to control how it is applied.

Wiseman: "poor attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor".
Confucius Say: "man with head up ass has tongue in wrong cheek".

Nonymizer, thanks for bringing that decision to my attention. I agree with your assessment -- Sotomayor was wrong to invoke an obsolete judicial doctrine that has been superseded by congressional law, and Thomas was correct to point this out.

Unfortunately, she has done this before in "Hankins v. Lyght". Even worse than in the current case, she awakened dead judicial doctrine to countermand congressional legislation. Fortunately for the law, hers was the minority opinion.

Confucius also say he who lay woman on ground get piece on earth.

"There has to be a medication for what's ailing that poor woman."

Sadly, you can't fix stupid.

Thanks, Nony!!

On a serious note just saw on Olberman Lynn Woolsey demanding competition in the insurance market. We don't have to have a public option, but we must ensure there is valid competition in the industry.

This strikes me as pretty smart in that how can a republican or conservadem argue against competition? Take the 'public' language out of it and strip the debate to it's bare essentials: Real competition is the only mechanism that can truly lower prices.

To Nomyzer:

The cost of immediate appeals of attorney-client privilege rulings is absolutely relevant to whether they should be allowed.

If it is determined that the law is clear that immediate appeals should be allowed, then cost is irrelevant. If it is determined that disallowing immediate appeals could irreparably harm litigants due process rights, then cost is irrelevant.

However, the court seems to have unanimously agreed that the above considerations do not apply.

Thus the court needs to balance the considerable costs and delays of repeatedly appealing rulings during a trial and interrupting the trial until those appeals have been heard vs. the costs of having an entire trial thrown out on appeal and the potential (but not certain) harm to the principles of attorney-client privilege and due process.

Given his record, I would guess Thomas' objection to considering costs is not that the costs are irrelevant, but rather that the other issues that Sotomayer wants to weigh costs against are irrelevant.

If by ridiculous you mean ridiculously awesome then I agree with you.

Note: I am not a lawyer, and I have not read Sotomayor's decision or the law or precedents being considered.

But it seems like the attorney client privilege has consititional implications vis-a-vis due process and the right to effective representation. Thus, even if the law specifically forbade immediate appeals of privilege rulings, it would be appropriate for the court to determine the impact of such a ban on those rights and whether the intent behind the ban was sufficient cause to interfere with those rights.

Yes, I'm quite liberal, and disagree with Thomas in almost every split decision. I just don't get why liberals call him stupid, and point to Scalia as the model of a smart conservative justice.

I'm an attorney and I think they're both idiots and usually wrong, regardless of their writing style, assuming Thomas even writes most of his opinions--and I've heard more than one person note how his writing seems to change as his law clerks rotate. Although I think most of them are federalist society tools.

"Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) thinks ACORN may soon be able in a position to help regulate the financial services industry. There has to be a medication for what's ailing that poor woman."

Rather than just spewing insults, would you care to explain what you believe was incorrect about what she said? Her analysis seems quite correct.

What the hell? Analysis? I do not think that word means what you think it means, else you would refrain from using it in association with Michele Bachman.

Could not post on the Al Gore story, so I'll post it here.

A classic definition that fits current, well, Deniers:

Psychological Defensive Mechanisms.
Denial: Refusal to accept external reality because it is too threatening; arguing against an anxiety-provoking stimulus by stating it doesn't exist; resolution of emotional conflict and reduction of anxiety by refusing to perceive or consciously acknowledge the more unpleasant aspects of external reality.

How does one fight that? Even with the overwhelming body of scientific evidence, these people are entrenched in a psychological defense mechanism.

I think I know the reason for the straying camera in the Reebok ad: That woman has no butt! The poor cameraman was trying ratchet the focus down, but to no avail. No macro lens.

William Greider at The Nation has an interesting column about the manuevering going on with the financial "reform" legislation under way. Under the proposals on the table, in an expansion of The Fed's power to handle financial firms failures, apparently transparency, accountability, and moral hazards do not mean what they once did. Why am I not surprised?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091221/greider

"Gretchen Carlson seems conspicuously unintelligent"
And not only her, other Gretchens, too. As if the name influences the IQ. Really, can anybody here come up with any Gretchen who actually is a smart person?

"Justice Clarence Thomas apparently isn't pleased with Justice Sonia Sotomayo"

She talks too much for his taste?

The Thomas thing is stupid. He wasn't targeting Sotomayor in particular. Scalia joined her opinion in full. His beef was with a certain precedent, not with any one justice. Adam Liptak's making it personal was dumb.

The use of "undocumented" over "illegal" (after all even Rudy pointed that out) is more important.