How does he shift the court if passes the Senate?

Rightward; there's not much that can be done about having a Republican president and Senate. OTOH SOC was not as liberal as people give her credit for. These things are delicate: Kennedy enjoys being the swing vote and feels intellectually inferior. He may end up switching from a Roberts/Scalia/Alito/Thomas majority. But that's just my hypothesizing.

The thing you will be hearing most about-- because, apparently, Roe was the most important thing that happened in legal history ever-- is that he dissented when Casey was before his court. IIRC he said the state had a legitimate interest in spousal notification (*not* consent).

ETA: I just saw another opinion where he struck down New Jersey's partial birth abortion ban because it was mandated by the Supreme Court. In looking at it a little bit, it appears to be moderate and principled.

It has 384MB of RAM and I might have some more old RAM laying around, but 384 for sure. Ah, the technology thread, I forgot about that one.

I'd say about 1 person in 20 is dressed up at work here today. I briefly considered it, but decided I didn't feel like washing my costume yesterday. That and most of department is out today and no one among the handful of us that are here are dressed up. So far I've seen fairies, ghosts, a fly, assorted ghouls, a flight attendant and a jedi.

The lab director was going door to door delivering Halloween cookies. Can't complain about a free cookie.

Roe was the most important thing that happened in legal history ever

Well, that and the Anna Nicole Smith thing.

This is (i think) my five year anniversary of moving to Los Angeles. I arrived on Halloween, thinking I would stay for a year. I say "i think" because I can't remember what year I moved here. I think it was 2000.

The headline, if no one wants to click, is "Dick to replace Johnson vs. Gamecocks."

Made the more amusing by the fact the article is full of quotes from Arkansas coach Houston Nutt.

Apparently I am 12 today.

And I note that "Gamecocks" is often shortened to "Cocks."

Dear woman in the cafe:

When you have to attach a one-page explanation of your costume to the back of your shirt, it's not a good costume.

When the explanation is in 11 point type and virtually unreadable by my bad-vision eyes, it's really not a good costume.

In looking at it a little bit, it appears to be moderate and principled.

It sounds like he's whip-smart and isn't going to kowtow to Scalia, which is kinda how I feel about Roberts, too.

At least he has his own brain and isn't going to legislate from the bench the way Scalia and Thomas have tried to.

So, Scooter Libby wrote a novel back in '96. Whitefonted for those who don't want to read Scooter's writings about sex:

Crimes against good taste: Lloyd Grove at the New York Daily News has a quick overview of Laura Collins' New Yorker summary of Scooter Libby's fiction debut, the 1996 novel "The Apprentice." The story is a thriller set in turn-of-the-century Japan, but Collins writes that "certain passages can better be described as reminiscent of Penthouse Forum." For instance: "The main female character, Yukiko, draws hair on the 'mound' of a little girl," and the "brothers of a dead samurai have sex with his daughter." Collins says that "other sex scenes are less conventional," and quotes one longer passage: "At age 10 the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest." A suspiciously enthusiastic reader review on Amazon writes: "Libby's story builds and builds and builds until it reaches a crescendo of sexual and political tension. What a great read! Hope he is working on something new." (Also worth quoting is the opening image in the Daily News item: "The last time I saw Scooter Libby, he was trying to persuade Maureen Dowd to join him in doing tequila shots at the celebstudded Bloomberg party after the 2003 White House Correspondents Association Dinner.") (Lowdown, Amazon)

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