My former alt-paper colleague Steve Barnett, now a first-year law student, has a detailed but accessible examination of Roper v. Simmons, the case the Supreme Court just used to overturn the juvenile death penalty. He disagrees with the decision, but finds most of the reasons for disagreeing with the majority opinion wanting. For the record I’m part of that weird subset of righties who are very uncomfortable...

Robert Novak appears to believe that the changes in Social Security being pushed by President Bush will not survive passage through Congress without major changes. Is he misunderestimating the President, as has been done by so many others before? Possibly… but Social Security is referred to as the “third rail” of politics for a reason. Could it be that despite the current positive trends...

Is there an impending crackdown on blogging? Blogging has become the unpoliced Wild West of political ideas. Due to campaign financing rulings, will the Federal Election Commission become involved? The answer is: the FEC is ALREADY revving up to start to the tricky task of regulating some aspects of blogging — and the tipoff comes in an interview CNET News conducted with FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith. Writes...

A student journalist at Rutgers has set off a firestorm that might shut down the university’s investigative journalism class…find out the details here.

A centrist finds fault with both the left and the right in the online article Iraq, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, And The Couch Potato’s Burden: A Muscular Centrist Attack On The Pro-War Position. I don’t necessarily agree with all the assertions made, but it is often good to have assumptions challenged even if simply so that thought does not become caught in a box.

We already know that boobs bid for items on EBay, but did you know you can bid FOR boobs on EBay? Well, maybe not the real ones: A former topless dancer who was famously cleared of battering a Florida nightclub patron with her “crazy big” breasts has shed her oversized silicone implants and put one of them up for auction on eBay. The woman known professionally as Tawny Peaks said on Wednesday...

Here’s a new twist in the Michael Jackson trial for you: a judge’s gag order is interfering with comedian Jay Leno’s gags. No joke: Attorneys for the star of NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” said Judge Rodney S. Melville’s sweeping order barring anyone involved in the case from discussing it outside court “could be interpreted to limit Mr. Leno’s...

Click here to read Stephen Green’s post Yet Another Reason I’ll Never Be a Conservative. Read the post in its entirety. It deals with the censorship issue. We’ll just give you his punchline: Keep the Democrats out of my wallet and the Republicans out of my entertainment. Please. Indeed, Green hits on a fascinating aspect of American politics. There have been many times in American political...

The Age of Internet politics is upon us, and what better manifestation of the new era’s resounding techno/political success is there than the Democratic activist MoveOn.Org — or IS IT? At issue is a meaty Rolling Stone piece by Tim Dickinson which has this underlyling message: don’t you Democrats think you’re possibly putting too many of your eggs in an iffy Cyberspace basket? Dickinson...

Are we focusing on “fixing” the wrong social program? While Social Security is expected to exhaust its reserves in 2042, Medicare should deplete the trust fund financing its hospital benefits in 2019, the latest forecasts show. In addition to the timing, what about the magnitude? Social Security, which Bush has hoisted atop his domestic agenda, is $3.7 trillion short of what it will need for...

Bill Gates is receiving something from the Queen of England: The king of computer software Bill Gates has received an honorary knighthood from the Queen. Mr Gates, 48, the world’s wealthiest man, said it was “a great honour” to be recognised for his business skills and for his work on poverty reduction. The Queen had spoken to him about using computers, he said after a private audience...

…you can go here, and find something else to groan about, but in a good way (is there a good way to groan???).

The Cato Institute released its annual fiscal report card of the nation’s governors – guess which one topped their list. My former governor, a moderate Democrat who (to my delight) infuriated a lot of liberal state lobbies, is high on the list.

Everyone’s favorite moderate Muslim country has a decidedly intolerant strain.

Whether you’re for posting the religious symbols on public property, or if you’re on the other side of the issue (meaning you actually read the Constitution), you’ll be interested in this: The top of the American judiciary is set to make a decision on the issue. I wonder – if the Church-State boundaries are upheld, will the Justices suddenly be Activist Judges?

The results of the “Name Ann Coulter’s Next Book” contest are in, and the winner is “Roosevelt: Wheelchair-Riding, America-Hating Terrorist.” Plausible. I happen to like “Help: I’m Out of Liberal People, Places and Organizations to Hate” better. But the virulent vixen, as always, had a comeback: “Well, at least now they’re trying to be funny, a...

To paraprhase what Mark Twain was supposed to have said: Reports of the death of the West are greatly exaggerated.

It sounds as if New York City narrowly escaped another terrorist attack: a train bombing at the hands of the terrorists accused of last year’s bloody Madrid train bombings. Hand-made drawings and other “highly specialized technical information” about the station were found on a computer disk seized from the home of one of the suspects, El Mundo reported, citing sources close to the investigation....

Can Syria see the handwriting on the wall — or does it need the wall to fall in on it? How much more blunt can the Bush adminstration get — this time as it enlists POTUS: President Bush on Wednesday demanded in blunt terms that Syria get out of Lebanon, saying the free world is in agreement that Damascus’ authority over the political affairs of its neighbor must end now. He applauded the...

Free speech or in-your-face harrassment? That’s the issue swirling around the saga of Steve and Virginia Pearcy, a Berkeley couple who hung a soldier in effigy from their second home in Sacramento sparking a firestorm of protest. But the couple Pearcy has a long history of doing politically provocative things. Digger’s Realm has the latest in its detailed series on this case. This entry focuses...

We discovered this morning we have been named Political Site Of The Day by PSoT. Gracias!

We continue to use the same words we’ve used for more than a year: “Watch Iran” — and the latest news is one more indication that Iran is not cooperating with the demands of the United States or European countries. The latest: Iran has refused to let UN nuclear inspectors visit a suspect military site. The Guardian reports: Iran severely restricted access to a suspect military site in...

You know Syria is in trouble when the United States and France AGREE on a demand: it’s time to quit Lebanon. One day after the pro-Syrian Lebanese government bit the dust amid angry demonstrations, the U.S. and France called on Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon ASAP: In a joint appearance before reporters, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Michel Barnier, the French foreign minister, who...

If they put it in a movie it would seem terribly trite: the murder of the family of a judge presiding over a case involving white supremecists — who reportedly are now celebrating the murders on the Internet. But it’s for real…here in 21st Century America. And, today, Joan Humphrey Lefkow, finds herself living her worst nightmare as officials scramble to find a definitive answer to what at...

If you’re in India you can stock (no pun intended) up on some interesting Hindu nationalist products: potions, lotions and medicines made out of 100 percent, real cow-dung and cow urine. A lot went into these products, in the end. A new goratna (cow products) stall at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) souvenir shop is rapidly outselling dry political tracts, badges, flags and saffron-and-green...