I think that might actually be the best way, bon bon. Let me play with it for a minute.

I just got asked to do a favor for Judge Kimba Wood

Fancy!

Oh, fuck. AND my friend already bought tickets for a performance that's at 10:30 tomorrow night. I really wish there were a sofa in my office.

Fancy!

I KNOW! I'm plotzing here.

Unfortunately, bon bon, I don't think there is a way, or at least not an easy one. The lower court Judge's name generally isn't going to appear in the SC decisions, so you would have to figure out which opinions the judge authored and then check on their status one by one.

If you want to know how to do the first part, let me know.

Thank goodness for West Coast help!

Gud:

'd like to vote no on making Chavez an honorary Buffistas. He is too authoritarian,

I'd say less authoritarian than the U.S. or U.K. but given how many of our civil liberties we have waived, not a hight standard. I think you could make a case for less authoritarian than Canada.

has accomplished little against poverty in Venezuela depite his rhetoric,

Because he faces a coup and strike. Since he finally got the power to carry out his political program there have been huge improvements. Also there is more to fighting poverty than statistics. Venezuela had huge numbers of hungry people who are now fed. Huge number of people without medical care who now get it. In short Venezuela has made huge strides against absolute poverty. And is now making strides in relative poverty having beaten back the class warfare carried out by the rich and upper middle classes against the rest of the population.

and had a questionable election.

The others there is room for argument. On this last you've been taken by a propaganda point. The opposition knew they were going to lose because all the polls showed popular opinion against them. They boycotted the election to try and undermine the legitimacy of the Chavez government. Nobody with any credibility, not Carter's organization, not the EU, not the organization of American States argued that the election was less than fair. Teh electronic voting machines had paper trails. There were random audits matching the paper trails with the electronic results. I would be thrilled if voting in the U.S. was conducted on the machines that Venezuela used - which incidentally were developed by a U.S. company. I know some of the arguments used by some extreme right wingers in the U.S. against the legitamcy of these elections. Basically they are based on new (non-peer reviewed) method of analysis. In short they are the electoral theory equivalent of global warming denial.

Also, I'm not a Bush fan, but I don't like Chavez's over the top accusations and general anti-American stance.

I think if you live outside the U.S. you've find it less over the top. When the Soviet Union fell, my reaction was "One evil empire down, one to go". I that the political center of Buffista land is liberal rather than left - but I think if you look at U.S. history since WWII outside its own borders I think you can make a damn good case that it the U.S. government really has been an evil empire - getting worse under Bush, but pretty bad even before him.

About GA: I forgot a bunch of the stuff that happened in the last episode or so, so it is good I'm watching this.

lower court Judge's name generally isn't going to appear in the SC decisions

This is good to know. I got started on the search I planned and found a few decisions, but it seemed low.

so you would have to figure out which opinions the judge authored and then check on their status one by one.

If you want to know how to do the first part, let me know.

I can just use the westlaw field for searching by judge, right?

Thanks so much for your help!

I can just use the westlaw field for searching by judge, right?

Exactly. If the federal judge is a circuit court judge, and you only want cases s/he wrote the opinion in, rather than being part of the panel, you can also use the "opinionby" field, which would narrow it down some, but if the judge is district court, you just use ju(judgesnamehere).