NARAL has endorsed Barack Obama, late in the campaign and explicitly because he's going to win the nomination.
Wow. That's some real courage there.
But NARAL's been dead to me for a while. Probably the key moment was when it endorsed Joe Lieberman over Democratic nominee Ned Lamont. The Connecticut branch of NARAL endorsed Lamont, on the grounds that Lieberman voted for Samuel Alito and supports rights-of-conscience of hospitals to deny emergency contraception to rape victims, and Lamont was 100% on their checklist. But the national organization (as well as Planned Parenthood) endorsed Lieberman despite his record. They've become part of Beltway culture, where incumbency counts for more than your record does.
So, y'know, until NARAL-national actually works for its goals and takes some risks instead of just participating in Washington politics, they can go suck it.
Did you enjoy Labyrinth? Were you enthralled by the play of the Goblin King's crystal balls?*
The guy responsible is Michael Moschen (in a fortuitous coincidence, pronounced "motion"); he invented the skill, called "contact juggling". Watch him:
*The girls I saw Labyrinth with were enthralled with the Goblin King's pants.
Via Aaron Williams.
Orin Kerr on Herring v. U.S., in the Eleventh Circuit.
Dude gets arrested because the cop has reason to think there's a warrant out on him, only it turns out that there is no warrant. Problem is, a "search incident to arrest" turned up contraband. Should the dude go to jail for having the contraband?
On the one hand, if the cops don't follow the rules, innocent people are fucked, and we become a three-tier citizenry (cops on the top, not-cops in the middle, subject to being jerked around and ordered around by the cops whenever they get a whim, and people cops don't like on the bottom, in jail).
On the other hand, bad guys should go to jail, and the cop thought he was following the rules.
Except that while the individual cop was following the rules, the cop system, it turns out, wasn't (because it reported a bogus warrant), so giving him credit for following the rules doesn't seem fair, because more than just one cop was involved here.
What do you think?
Me, I don't want the cops to search me, even if I'm not carrying contraband, so I want them to have to have a good reason, and that means that if they search somebody without a good reason, that somebody goes free, even if they are carrying contraband. I think that's a result that increases personal liberty without signficantly diminishing public safety and order. That is, I'll argue that simply carrying contraband doesn't particularly threaten safety and order; it's when you do something with contraband that there's a signficant threat, and the cop can be watching you for that overt act.
The most awesome-awful dude in Kentucky history.
We didn't cover him in my 7th grade state history class.
Chris Matthews earns his rep by going after a right-wing radio talk host who's attacking Obama for being an "appeaser" without being able to say what Neville Chamberlain did. It is wondrous to listen to the radio host scream and rant for a while and then watch Chris drill in with "What did Neville Chamberlain do" and the only answer he gets is "He's an appeaser".
Via Doug Tonks.