Not surprising

For the record, I don't believe in man-made global warming, will sometimes shop at farmers markets, and always prefer natural ingredients to processed. But the term "organic" is just a marketing ploy to rip off hippies.

Narrow Gun Rights Victory

So four of nine Supreme Court Justices think that the Bill of Rights is optional. Letting you know how they feel about the victory for gun rights, the Washington Post headline says "Supreme Court extends gun rights nationwide" instead of "affirms", "protects", or "guarantees".

The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution's Second Amendment restrains government's ability to significantly limit "the right to keep and bear arms," advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

By a narrow, 5-4 vote, the justices also signaled, however, that some limitations on the right could survive legal challenges.

Writing for the court in a case involving restrictive laws in Chicago and one of its suburbs, Justice Samuel Alito said that the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states."

The court was split along familiar ideological lines, with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and four liberals opposed. Chief Justice Roberts voted with the majority.

Only Hispanics Can Represent Hispanics

A Federal Judge in New York didn't like the outcome of recent elections, so he gave residents extra votes to make things more fair for Hispanics.

Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday night.

Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.

Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.

Perhaps Robinson, a Bush appointee, should have recused himself from the case since he is presumably non-Hispanic and could not possibly rule in their best interests.

This post was updated to correct inaccuracies. Thanks to ParatrooperJJ for keeping us honest.

Useful Idiots

Environmentalist wackos are upset because the Gulf Oil Spill is diverting attention away from Global Warming. Christopher Reddy even asks: "What if carbon dioxide were as black as oil?"

But while we have readily and rightfully committed ourselves to understanding the cause of the spill, its effects and how to help restore the affected Gulf Coast region, we still can't seem to come to grips with a much more dangerous, far-reaching pollutant that is changing the fundamental chemistry of our entire planet: carbon dioxide.

CO2 is necessary for life, and without it we would all die. It is what plants breathe, what we exhale, and is fundamental for the world's ecosystem. If we eliminated or even severely reduced CO2 on earth, we wouldn't last 6 months. Plants would die, animals that eat plants would die, and we would die.

We learned that in elementary school, but Reddy must have had the chicken pox that day.

Monolithic Media

Here is an interesting comparison of the number of news stories about each event. One is 24/7 news, the other got almost no coverage at all outside of the local news.

And then there's this: