Open Thread for Sunday & Monday!

It's International Clothesline Week. Time to abandon that old-fashioned gas or electric clothes dryer and use this amazing new solar-powered device !

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. :-)

While you weren't looking New Hampshire decided to allow same-sex marriage after Gov. Lynch signed the bill into law.

What else?

I posted this to get to the heart of the matter on Sotomayor and the lively discussion regarding her nomination.

I think it would behoove all of us to properly define what exactly an "activist judge" is.  I would define an activist judge as one who does not follow the law and legal precedent when making a legal determination.  Rather, such a judge would substitute what they think the law should be rather than what it is.  However, there is a caveat. 

A judge on the Supreme Court need not follow precedent, as bad precedent needs to be overturned.  A district court or appeals court judge does need to follow any precedent, regardless of how wrong that precedent is.  IIRC, Gonzalez v. Carhart was a model for how judges should act: district and appeals courts struck down the law banning partial birth abortion based on precedent and the law.  The Supreme Court then changed the precedent.

Please offer up your own definitions of an activist judge and whether or not you'd agree that courts inferior to the Supreme Court are beholden to bad precedent.

I figured I'd post it a wee bit early since I'm going to have my hands full with a PC rebuild tomorrow afternoon.

Mike Judge's new animated comedy, The Goode Family , pokes fun at liberals, and has had mixed critical reactions.  Did anyone happen to watch, and if so, what did they think of it?

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. In the news today:

Obama set to choose Sonia Sotomayer for the Supreme Court . Let the mudslinging begin! Oh, wait , it began weeks ago.

North Korea is acting up again. Testing Obama? Internal power play? A bit of both?

Just spinning through the news this morning but not finding much of substance.  So, here are a few things that caught my eye.

The wheels of justice turn, as they should; we might all do better at remembering that before we get all incensed by lawlessness.  The US soldier who raped the 14 year old Iraqi girl and then killed her and her family has been tried and sentenced .

Rather than news headlines, I thought I'd post a couple of political cartoons, just for fun.

Hello Swordsmen! Let's get right into it.

I'd like to open this NCR with a this:

ABC News: A white African-American is suing UMDNJ medical school because he was discriminated against because of his..race? ethnicity? Consider me siding with the plaintiff on this one.

We seem to be eating up the Open Threads lately. Here's a fresh one.

Some news items after the jump.

I'm still typing with one hand but we seem to need a new OT so here you go

Cyberbullying.   More thought police or justifable protection in an electronic age ?    Does the power button or the parent no longer have a role?   Must we be protected from pixels?  Since one of my hobbies involves exploring what pixel people do when allowed full freedom, I find this question to be more than it appears.

In the news today:

Bank Stress Test results : Looks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs were financially solvent enough to pay for good grades, while Bank of America was not. ;)

Fighting escalates in Pakistan .

Toyota has a bad year . First year losing money since 1963!

Good morning!   In the news......

Michael Savage gets pissed at Britain, calls for a boycott .  I thought the R's said only the D's do that kind of thing ;-)

Got granny's original '69 Mustang?  Convert it to scrap iron and get $4500 .   The law of unintended consequences does work.   Classic car fans are scrambling to save the best before they're gone for good.

What's on the front page of your local newspaper today?

Here's mine: Cape Cod Times : Dammit! The Bruins lost! and Ooh look! Pretty flowers!

Good Friday morning Swordsmen. It's been a while since I dropped a NCR, but the last week of every month will always be a tough time for me. I hope everything is going well with everyone. a lot of stuff hit the Google reader that have since blown over, so if you see an old story or two, forgive me. On the ledger: a new guy in at Bank of America, Souter stepping down, Obama the socialist, black optimism, the future of the Republican Party, Chysler, cheating, and a surprise guest arrives to Twitter.

Based on prevailing opinion I will do something long overdue. Let this not be a license for lobbying new moderators to pick sides. But anyways, you all know each other. Respect the rules please. They are not there to restrict but to facilitate debate.

PF and SL, please let me know if you have any issues or need help.

Jeaz, nobody posts a fresh open thread for a couple days and look how testy things get!

Good afternoon Swordsmen! Live, from Chicago, IL..well..technically Schaumburg. Here's your Roundup for Wednesday and Thursday. Torture seems to be on your minds these days, also partisanship, oh and Miss America's runner up. C'mon, admit it--if you didn't Google, would you know who won?  I digress. on the ledger today: Room designs, gun marches, cyber threats, fascism explained, and going green. and I threw a little torture in there for good measure.

 -

Good Tuesday morning, Swordsmen! I think we had a good conversation yesterday. Stories the carried the day at SwordsCrossed were around torture, Obama's budget/spending, among others. On the ledger today: Gary Johnson, Motorbikes, Job losses, Gotch moments, Jackie Chan (yes, that one), immigration, nudging and Yes You Can!

AmConMag wants you to meet Gary Johnson , a 2012 Republican seeking to take the libertarian mantle away from the current front-runner, Mark Sanford.

Good Monday morning Swordsmen! I hope you had your fill of tea and pirates last week, as we try to cycle on towards a new set of stories. On today's ledger: vouchers, stimulus, Al Franken (boo!), Rudy Giuliani, and Palin..oh, and where we are as a country. 

NYT reports on waterboarding usage on 2 suspects.

Good Wednesday morning Swordsmen. Today is tax day, and Americans are filing taxes. Also, there will be tea party marches around the countries protesting Obama's election and implementing campaign promises taxation, bailouts, and other things. We'll see where it goes. On the ledger today: immigrants, tea parties, taxes, lions, dolphins, and charter schools. Otherwise, open thread.

Our next weapon against the pirates? Dolphins .