human sacrifices?

 alito really IS funny ain't he? the deal here is dog fighting is ILLEGAL in almost all if not all states. it's cruel and people who participate in it have something very wrong with them. people who watch cock fights (we even recently had a case of FINCH fighting here in connecticut) or even bull fights (fuck being a part of 'our culture') in my personal opinion have something wrong with them.

i just don't see how ANYONE can hurt an animal or watch an animal being hurt or pay to see which animal wins a fight. something isn't quite connected inside of someone who enjoys watching an animal (or human) suffer. (i'm going to address the bdsm s&m world in another posting when i'm good and ready. i have lots to say on that and i have the background to say it)

yes, i think hunting and fishing is wrong. yes, i think we shouldn't tear into the flesh of other creatures (i don't preach as a rule, except for now of course AND i don't think i'm  'better' than someone who DOES eat the flesh and bones of other creatures).

i'm not a judge (or lawyer obviously) but can someone 'splain to me, how come if dog fighting is illegal why a video of dog fighting (unless it was educational) as sport SHOULD be legal?

am i for free speech? of course i am EXCEPT when a person or animal is being abused or otherwise hurt against their will

anyway, i'm getting off of my soapbox now

Court Wary of Ban On Cruelty Videos
Animal Rights Law Finds Little Support

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writer 

It has been 25 years since the Supreme Court decided that a category of speech -- child pornography -- was so unredeeming that it did not merit the protection of the First Amendment. Justices gave no indication Tuesday that they were ready to add another.

In an oral argument on animal cruelty that touched on bullfighting, cockfighting, fattening geese to make pate de foie gras and even a hypothetical "human sacrifice channel," the court searched for the limits of the Constitution's guarantee of free speech. The justices indicated that Congress had gone too far in its attempt to protect animals from abuse.

The Obama administration asked the court to reinstate a 10-year-old federal law that bans the production and sale of videos that show torture, mutilation and death of animals. The primary focus of the law was to ban "crush videos," which appeal to a sexual fetish by showing women stepping on or otherwise torturing small animals............

yessssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!!!

for ONCE the RIGHT decision. now if only they would have ruled correctly in the connecticut douchebag case (although that wasn't the supreme court, it was the u.s. district court of appeals i believe). same thing though. a student's rights were grossly violated. different decision though. avery doninger LOST (how that could have happened, i don't know. we could ask sotomayor though. SHE was one of 'em who made that travesty of a judgement


Student Strip Search Illegal
School Violated Teen Girl's Rights, Supreme Court Rules

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writer

Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old girl when they strip-searched her on the suspicion she might be hiding ibuprofen in her underwear, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The decision put school districts on notice that such searches are "categorically distinct" from other efforts to combat illegal drugs.

In a case that had drawn attention from educators, parents and civil libertarians across the country, the court ruled 8 to 1 that such an intrusive search without the threat of a clear danger to other students violated the Constitution's protections against unreasonable search or seizure.

Justice David H. Souter, writing perhaps his final opinion for the court, said that in the search of Savana Redding, now a 19-year-old college student, school officials overreacted to vague accusations that Redding was violating school policy by possessing the ibuprofen, equivalent to two tablets of Advil.........

what's wrong with THIS picture?

the head of the epa actually LISTENING to scientists? why king george must have been dethroned.........and a new administration (one with morals and a conscience AND a brain) must have been installed. is it too late to save our planet? i don't know. i hope not
E.P.A. Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide

By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.

The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.

The environmental agency is under order from the Supreme Court to make a determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare, an order that the Bush administration essentially ignored despite near-unanimous belief among agency experts that research points inexorably to such a finding...........

apparently

the assholes who made this decision NEVER SAW STAR TREK IV OR HEARD FAREWELL TO TARWATHIE







Supreme Court: National Security Trumps Whales, Environmental Law
By Brandon Keim
It's a loud, sad day off the coast of California: the Supreme Court today ruled in favor of the Navy and against environmentalists who argued that military sonar frequencies kill whales.

"The balance of equities and the public interest ... tip strongly in favor of the Navy," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. "The Navy’s need to conduct realistic training with active sonar to respond to the threat posed by enemy submarines plainly outweighs the interests advanced by the plaintiffs."

On the legal side of the whales is the Natural Resources Defense Council, who in 2005 filed a lawsuit in Santa Monica, California, contending that the Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar in whale-rich areas violates the Environmental Policy Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

"By the Navy's own estimates, even 300 miles from the source these [low frequency] sonic waves can retain an intensity of 140 decibels — a hundred times more intense than the level known to alter the behavior of large whales," reads the NRDC's marine sonar page. "Mid-frequency sonar is more widely used and has been associated with mortalities of whales."

The NRDC produced graphic evidence of whales beaching themselves in distress, their brains and ears bleeding, or suffering from "the bends" — an affliction known to deep-sea divers who surface too quickly. Sonar appeared to have disoriented the whales, which rely on sound to navigate, in much the way that unrelenting and blinding light might make life difficult for people............

she cannot i mean CANNOT answer

a f**king question. she just cannot. listen to her dance around the SECOND question katie asks (i still do NOT like katie. DO NOT think i'm going soft on her). sarevil is a dope. plain and simple. if YOU are not seeing that, YOU are a fool



ok ok ok, does anyone else think she sounds like a beauty queen contestant being interviewed for that ONE question they ask. you know, 'what would you do to save the world'?

never

never ever again.
never
i will NOT allow roe v. wade to be taken away. i will do EVERYTHING in my power to keep abortion safe AND LEGAL.
(what i prefer of course is COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION. REAL comprehensive sex education. NOT ABSTINENCE ONLY PREACHING. i believe with my whole heart and soul we could cure MOST of the ills of the world with education. it starts there and can only grow. more education, less unwanted pregnancies)

Repairing the Damage, Before Roe

By WALDO L. FIELDING, M.D.
With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside.

When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe “bad old days.” Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.

I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City, from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals.

There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done.

The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear: The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die.........

what a GREAT ambassador

for truth, JUSTICE and the american way!!!

N O T

a judge who also (in addition to king george and his court) spits on our constitution

i too think we have to defend ourselves against terrorists (many of which WE are responsible for creating. NO not all of them, but many). BUT this is america not north korea, or cuba, or iran. WE have to do it within the boundries of our OWN laws

Secret trials for terrorists, says US judge

David Nason, Chicago

A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being "hog-tied" by the US constitution.
Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had "over-invested" in them.
His proposed "big brother" solutions flabbergasted delegates at the Australian Bar Association's biennial conference, where David Hicks's lawyer, Major Michael Mori, is to be awarded honorary life membership.
"We have to fight terrorism with our strengths, and our strengths evolve around technology, including the technology of surveillance," said Justice Posner, a prolific legal scholar who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. .........