At lunch, in midtown, I saw a guy in full Dee Snider "We're Not Gonna Take It" get-up.

My company is putting up Christmas lights in the trees outside today. Why?

Because they had the decency to wait until the 31st, unlike some.

bon, what do you think of Slate's characterization of Alito? He looks extreme right pro-business, pro-law enforcement, pro-guns, anti-civil rights act, anti-abortion in this rundown to me.

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In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey—which later became the case that reaffirmed Roe, Alito dissented when his 3rd Circuit colleagues struck down Pennsylvania's most restrictive abortion regulations. Alito felt that none of the provisions proved an undue burden, including a requirement that women notify their spouses of their intent to have an abortion, absent narrow exceptions. Alito wrote: "The Pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems—such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition—that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion."

Sandra Day O'Connor rejected that analysis, and Casey reaffirmed the central holding of Roe. Then Chief Justice Rehnquist quoted Alito's dissent in his own.

You'll hear a lot about some of Alito's other decisions in the coming days, including his vote to limit Congress' power to ban even machine-gun possession, and his ruling that broadened police search powers to include the right to strip-search a drug dealer's wife and 10-year-old daughter—although they were not mentioned in the search warrant. He upheld a Christmas display against an Establishment Clause challenge. His prior rulings show that he would raise the barriers for victims of sex discrimination to seek redress in the courts. He would change the standard for analyzing race discrimination claims to such an extent that his colleagues on the court of appeals fretted that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, would be "eviscerated" under his view of the law. He sought to narrow the Family and Medical Leave Act such that states would be immune from suit—a position the Supreme Court later rejected. In an antitrust case involving the Scotch tape giant 3M, he took a position described by a colleague as likely to weaken a provision of the Sherman Antitrust Act to "the point of impotence."

And there's a whole lot more where that came from.

Best of all for Bush's base, Alito is the kind of "restrained" jurist who isn't above striking down acts of Congress whenever they offend him. Bush noted this morning: "He has a deep understanding of the proper role of judges in our society. He understands that judges are to interpret the laws, not to impose their preferences or priorities on the people."

Except, of course, that Alito doesn't think Congress has the power to regulate machine-gun possession, or to broadly enforce the Family and Medical Leave Act, or to enact race or gender discrimination laws that might be effective in remedying race and gender discrimination, or to tackle monopolists. Alito thus neatly joins the ranks of right-wing activists in the battle to limit the power of Congress and diminish the efficacy of the judiciary. In that sense Bush has pulled off the perfect Halloween maneuver: He's managed the trick of getting his sticky scandals off the front pages, and the treat of a right-wing activist dressed up as a constitutional minimalist.

My company is putting up Christmas lights in the trees outside today. Why?

I believe that white lights outside should be a winter thing, not a Christmas thing, so putting them up at the end of Daylight Savings Time makes all the sense in the world to me. I realize that most people think of them as a Christmas thing, but honestly, if you think about it for even a second, it makes no sense! It's a winter/Solstice/banishing the dark thing.

Because they had the decency to wait until the 31st, unlike some.

I think the holiday creep in retail is bad enough. There is just no good or logical reason for a hospital to be putting up Christmas lights on Halloween. And outside of retail outlets, I have yet to see anything remotely Christmasy yet. It's just mind-boggling.

Except, of course, that Alito doesn't think Congress has the power to regulate machine-gun possession,

Woo-hoo!

::starts saving up money for a machine-gun::

And outside of retail outlets, I have yet to see anything remotely Christmasy yet.

I've seen holiday lights up outdoors in a couple places for a couple weeks -- and by holidays, I don't mean Halloween. Halloween stuff I started seeing in August.

There is just no good or logical reason for a hospital to be putting up Christmas lights on Halloween.

When do they come down? If the lights come down at the end of January, Christmas lights up would be up 1/4 of the year.

Should I go with 7.62mm or 5.56mm? It's a tough call.

Just confirming that in Canada we do not get the day off for Hallowe'en.

*sits at work wearing tights with cross-bones on them*