Hot Off the Teletype
Candide's Notebooks, June 28, 2007
US Supreme Court almost ends race-based enrollment assignments in public education. It's yet another 5-4 decision, yet another split between the conservative majority and the beleaguered liberal bloc. The full, 185-page decision and dissents in pdf here.
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Scalia's Insults: The Time's ever-entertaining and perceptive Linda Greenhouse (who's been covering the Supreme Court since the days of William Howard Taft) has a fun analysis of the new conservative bloc being too slow for Scalia's liking: "It’s not every day that one Supreme Court justice, even one as rhetorically unrestrained as Justice Antonin Scalia, characterizes another justice, let alone the chief justice of the United States, as a wimp and a hypocrite.Yet Justice Scalia did something very close to that, not once but twice, in separate opinions on Monday. As a result, he has served to lift the curtain a bit on the differences within the powerful five-justice conservative bloc that has marched in lock step through much of the term, bent on reshaping the law and, in several important areas, well on the way toward doing so. [...] Justice Scalia is, of course, well known for his verbal barbs. Few colleagues during his 21 years on the court have escaped his insults, not even Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. He once accused Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of holding “irrational” views that “cannot be taken seriously.” A book published in 2004 under the title “Scalia Dissents” celebrated what it called the justice’s “unique communication skills.” But what was notable about his attacks on Chief Justice Roberts this week was that the two were on the same side. They were in dispute not over outcomes, but over how far and how fast to move the law. As Prof. Jack M. Balkin of Yale Law School wrote on his blog, Balkinization, “It is the difference between bomb throwing and dismantling.” " The full piece...
And to think that we're stuck with these medieval cardinals for the next gerenation. At least.
Dinner and a Power Point? From the Journal: "You've heard of working vacations. Now comes "the working date." Many single people are so busy with careers that they don't have time for a social life. So they're increasingly blending work and romance. For some, the practice has provided a path to lasting love. For others, working dates are one more way to avoid intimacy, or just a major turn-off. In part the phenomenon is driven by so many Americans working wall-to-wall hours. But also, more people are plunging into all-consuming entrepreneurial ventures at younger ages; "as an entrepreneur, you don't really separate" work and life, says Beth Schoenfeldt, New York, co-author of "Ladies Who Launch." And more women have high-powered careers, making them a match for men who can't stop working either."
Fuck.
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