"scalito" it is

well, bushy made his new supreme court pick. not surprisingly, he went with a right wing reactionary with a staunch record of opposing abortion rights and the separation of church and state. while judge alito has yet to be confirmed as a supreme court justice, he has been confirmed as an asshole.

in fairness, i get the impression this guy is less of a dick than scalia and less of a lunatic than thomas. but he is definitely right of both kennedy and roberts. look for these clowns to set back social progress oh, say 50 years or so. i weap for the future

ps- 4KS would like to formally go on record as opposing this nominee.


pss- as a late addendum, i'd like to refer everyone to today's slate, which observes that alito is probably more consistently conservative than scalia (in the author's words, at least scalia has a "libertarian streak"), and is notably extreme in his opposition to abortion rights.

i'm not a vegetarian, but maybe i should be.

as to your questions: yes, those are live chickens that this guy is walking over. and yes, he is spraying disinfectant on them.

miers is toast

it's nice to see bush cronyism take a big hit. hopefully we'll see more big hits later this week if/when the special prosecutor announces indictments on libby and rovey (4KS's #1 enemy of the state).

the downside to this fiasco is that it'll probably give bushy the chance to nominate the staunch jesus freak his "core constituents" are calling for. rovey won't let him make the same mistake twice.

quarters

you've probably tried your hand at the classic parlor game "quarters". but you're probably not as good as this guy. watch it with the sound on for better effect

Judging Books by their Covers

As someone who frequently judges books by their covers (and I mean actual books, not people or whatever), I am pleased to see that there is now a book devoted to the subject. John Updike's review in the The New Yorker was critical of the book's Marxist approach. I am not a Marxist, but if we live in a country where there is time and money enough to write, publish, and widely review a Marxist interpretation of modern book cover design, then I say Bravo!

any publicity is good publicity.

ok. so i just logged into stat-counter, the website that maintains the hit counter on this blog. for those of you don't fool with these things, they also have a feature where you can see where people "came from" (ie- how they navigated to 4KS). typically people come from other blogs who have us linked; occassionally it's a random google search or something. so take a look at one of the searches that brought us up:

search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=3 gay guys fucking each other&FORM=QBRE3

it doesn't come up properly through that link, but the results of the search are here. we are the fifth of a million plus websites to appear.

have a lovely weekend.

"going down" in style

you probably consider yourself a big fan of larry bird. we all do. but would you do some extra hard time in tribute to the legend?

muchas gracias to mr. ben "love" makin, who brought this story [from his home state] to 4KS's attention.

MY NAME IS HUEVOS MCGRINGO

i've decided to take on a new moniker. mcMtL has served me well. however, a newer, better name emerged during the 2005 4KS World Tour Costa Rica Trip. that name is Huevos McGringo. the Huevos McGringo sandwich, served at the java hut in la fortuna, costa rica, features a foot-long baquette with a bacon and cheddar omelet contained within. it is delicious. for further detail regarding its emergence, refer to kenniebloggins' "Proustian" account of the trip over at oceanchum. in any event, the sandwich was so savory i've decide to adopt it as a my call sign.

i am hereinafter yours truly,
Huevos McGringo.

Captain Fishback's Letter

if you haven't already seen this, you should take a look at this letter addressing our indeterminate standard of treatment for enemy combatants. it was sent to john mccain by an army captain who has served tours in both afghanistan and iraq. some of the highlights:

Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.

then later on...

These arguments stem from the larger question, the most important question that this generation will answer. Do we sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security? Terrorism inspires fear and suppresses ideals like freedom and individual rights. overcoming the fear posed by terrorist threats is a tremendous test of our courage. Will we confront danger and adversity in order to preserve our ideals, or will our courage and commitment to individual rights wither at the prospect of sacrifice? My response is simple. If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession.

obviously this comes off as a tad over-the-top. but actually i don't know that it is. i think it's the simple truth.

at his beck and call

well, the harriet meirs nomination gauntlet has gotten off to a magnificent start. i wonder she'll still rescind her opinions on w's order when she on the bench. independent judiciary be damned.

if i'm ever president, i'll nominate reno mellons as a justice. he's an agreeable guy who compliments me a lot, which seems to be the criterion we're going on. plus i'll get double affirmative action points and reno will get to crotch-gaze lots of hotshot attorneys, so everybody makes out.

who's your pick?

Am I the only person who thinks it's a real hoot that the Prime Minister of Japan has the same haircut as Richard Gere?

Here comes da judge

Considering that the last time I attempted what I thought to be a timely and thought-provoking political post this site turned into a verbal food fight, I may be playing with fire here. But here goes:

McMtl recently posted to a link to a game called "Justice Match" on aclu.org. The point is to answer questions and see which Supreme Court justice you are most like. The questions are things like: "Should gay people face imprisonment for private acts of sexual intimacy" or, "If you wrote software for sharing music files, and people used the software to infringe copyrights, should you be held liable?"

The way these questions are posed illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what our Supreme Court (and, therefore, what any individual justice) is supposed to do. And this has nothing to do with these particular questions; conservatives frame the questions that are important to them in an equally flawed manner.

Here is my point: The question facing the Supreme Court (to use one example) is never "should gay people face imprisonment for private acts of sexual intimacy?" It is : "Can a statute outlawing gay sex be constitutional?" And there is a world of difference between those two questions. It is our legislatures (state and federal) who are supposed to answer the first question.

Commentators on both ends of the spectrum get angry with the Court when it insists on answering the second question and not the first. We act like they are dodging their responsibility and being overly legalistic. But, the Court is not meant to be a policy-generating body. It is a body designed to test the constitutionality of policies generated by legislatures.

I am certainly no conservative, but it was painful to have to watch John Roberts' confirmation hearings and hear explain this point over and over again to the Congress members (who may or may not have been playing dumb). Every time I turned on the TV some Congressperson was asking Roberts something like "how could you possibly rule against my school lunch funding plan? Do you want little children to starve to death?" His answer was always to the effect: "My opinion of your plan's constitutionality is not the same as my opinion whether it was a good policy." The point being that good policy can still be unconstitutional, just as there are plenty of truly awful policies that are completely constitutional.

I'm not picking on Democrats; it's just that they were the ones in the position to put the nominee through the ringer this time. It's the same mistake that conservatives make all the time. For instance, they just don't seem to get that even if making christianity the state religion would benefit everyone enormously (a big 'if', I realize) it is not constitutional.

Our national debate would be much more productive if we quit making every policy choice a constitutional issue. Then we could demand that Congress reassert itself as the policy-generating body and let the Court do what it is meant to do: evaluate those policies' constitutionality.

If anybody wants to comment on this, please do. I promise I will not call you stupid.

who's your favorite supreme court justice?

if you don't have one, or even if you do, you could check this out to get a quick frame of reference for where the justices have stood on recent cases of import. you could also get some background info on the justices here (though it's sort of outdated).

my favorite? the old man of the court, justice john paul stevens.

the answer to saucy's prayers

longtime 4KS commenter christa t called my attention to this job posting. this position would benefit the sauce two-fold, filling both the musical and spiritual voids brought about by astra's implosion.

honest to god...

that's a real fish.

if only

apparently the FULL R.E.M. LINEUP rocked the bowling alley next to la parrilla last saturday night as part of a wedding reception. yep, that's right. last saturday bill berry joined the boys for a quick set at kingpins. if only i'd been jonesen for bowlin or mexican that night. alas.

as a matter of fact, there was a lengthy stipe sighting that same night at go bar. but i venture to say it would have been a tad better to see the full lineup perform in the arcade of an eight lane bowling alley. the only thing that could beat that would be if they rocked the the blind pig game room.

Things I Learned on the '05 4KS World Tour

1. Costa Ricans love the shit out of Mad About You. And Seinfeld to a lesser degree.
2. McMTL is a polished, adept and determined emissary for our country in the face of cab drivers, wannabe cab drivers and 25ish girls from Calgary (see later post) and 50ish dudes from Sarasota.
3. Kennie Bloggins may very well approach Proustian heights with his incessant chronicling of the trip.
4. Typically, the food is pretty fucking boring and gets old after a day. Typically you'll find a Costa Rican restaurant with the heading "Tipical Food," unless it happens to be one of the countless pizzerias that dot the foodscape. Typically, the meal consist of a typical spread of cheese, chicken, rice, beans and rice, maybe some egg, maybe a tomato. SOunds good but gets old.
5. Post-twilight walks through the rain forest yield sights of multiple sacs of semen.
6. McMtl can successfully (some girl from Calgary) and unsuccessfully (some guy from Sarasota) entertain and entrance travellers with the question and the pondering of the question: Who do you think would win if I fought a cow?
7. Some cabbie named Luis in Monteverde is masturbating to an image he has of the aforementioned blonde giant at this instant.
8. Costa Rica is not renowned for a gift for logistics.
9. Child prostitution is frowned upon. Not sure why.
10. Cicadas (or was it Cetadids) can screw for long periods of time.
11. McMtl snores.
12. Costa Rican women are hot.
13. I have no effect on Costa Rican women.
14. If you're walking through a crumbling San Jose park on a dreary Sunday and you accidentally point at a circle of adolescents, they might ask you to a "Smoking Weed Party."
15.Never doubt McMtl and Kennie Bloggins when they try to get me to go to a hot springs resort.
16.McMtl and Kennie Bloggins have a definite future in setting up sultry photo shoots at said hot springs, as they demonstrated in their precise and carefully choreographed dual photo shoot starring each other, sans shirts, on said grounds.
17. Costa Rica is probably cooler than Athens.

a tragic announcement

upon our arrival back from the 4KS World Tour - Costa Rica Trip, mcsquared and myself received some startling news: astra has broken up. in the weeks prior to this announcement, there had been some rumblings of turmoil within the band [including a possible yoko-like situation], but this still comes as a surprise. astra's website indicates the band is merely on "hiatus", but sources indicate the reunion prospects are grim.

4KS was founded upon the principle of astra and saucy mockery. however, in this tumultuous period of transition for the astra boys, we will temporarily relax that posture. our sincere condolences are offered to saucy, josaiah, paul, and wes. and only in small part because our ostensible subject matter has dissipated.

what will come next for the astra boys? could a saucy solo project be in the works? only time will tell. until then, our best wishes are with them.

who's cuter, reno or meirs?

I'm damn sure which one would make a better Supreme Court Justice. I think if you put Reno's glasses on Miers, Reno --hands down-- is foxier than Miers. Isn't the president looking awfully fetching in this picture as well?