Taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals.

One more thing regarding the Sotomayor nomination...

I noticed yesterday that the Wall Street Journal and other conservative mouthpieces had taken up the cry against "empathy" which Sotomayor had at one point argued is an important trait for a judge to embody. The general argument is trying to use pigeonhole Sotomayor into the larger conservative frame that liberal judges are wishy-washy emotional basket cases while conservatives are cold, rational purveyors of the rule of law.

I find the argument against empathy kind of puzzling. The opposite of empathy isn't objective reason. Consider that the most famous people who lacked empathy were guys with names like Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, David Berkowitz and Jeffrey Dahmer. In our society those that lack empathy for other living things could generally be classified as "sociopaths," not brave defenders of reason above emotion.

There might be something to saying that all conservatives are sociopaths to a greater or lesser degree. That's not an argument I'm making here. I'd point out for example that conservatives have occasionally demonstrated great shows of empathy towards others, although usually it's finely focused on the rich, powerful or only those that they share direct personal experience (James Brady.)

On the other hand there's the example of the conservative Dick Cheney. It's clear to me that other different circumstances, were he not to have had the mechanisms of the federal government at his disposal to torture and maim others, Dick Cheney would have amassed a body count one way or the other. Had he been a video store clerk instead of a Secretary of Defense and Vice President I don't doubt for second that he would've eventually made the national news due to a horrific discovery in the freezer of his apartment. Cheney is quite clearly a sociopath.

Empathy is that which separates man from animal, christian from gentile, liberal from conservative and decent Supreme Court justice from Antonin Scalia. The idea that a judge that actually understands the implications of how she rules to all the citizens of this land would somehow be a bad something is the greatest form of lunacy.

On an unrelated note I have a review of "Drag Me To Hell" up at Swiney's place.

I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just gonna bash your brains in.

What do I keep saying? The President is a sociopath.

GEORGE W. Bush, like most pollies, has no real love for the press that dogs his every step, but at least our elected leaders don't try to physically flatten critics. Touring a Caterpillar factory in Illinois yesterday, the US Commander-in-Chief got behind the wheel of a giant tractor and played chicken with reporters. "I would suggest moving back," Bush said as he climbed into the cab of a massive D-10 tractor, "I'm about to crank this sucker up." As the engine roared to life, White House staffers tried to steer the press corps to safety, but when the tractor lurched forward, they too were forced to scramble. Even the Secret Service got involved, as one agent began yelling at reporters to get clear of the tractor. Watching the chaos below, Bush looked out the tractor's window and laughed, steering the huge machine into the spot where most of the press corps had been positioned. Bush was still laughing when he pulled to a stop. He gave reporters a thumbs-up. "If you've never driven a D-10, it's the coolest experience," he said.

They don't have a name for what he is.

George W. Bush - still a heartless sociopath.

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, "There's one terrible pilot."

On the eve of the 2nd Gulf War and thousands of dead Iraqis and Americans. "Now watch this drive."

Clowning around pretending to play guitar while hundreds drowned in New Orleans.

Today in Florida where he dismissed a cease fire in Lebanon as "stopping for the sake of stopping"

Antisocial personality disorder (APD or ASPD) is a psychiatric diagnosis that interprets antisocial and impulsive behaviors as symptoms of a personality disorder. Psychiatry defines only pathological antisocial behavior; it does not address potential benefits of positive antisocial behavior or define the meaning of 'social' in contrast to 'antisocial'.

...

Central to understanding individuals diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder is that they appear to experience a limited range of human emotions; however this should be regarded critically due to current lack of exploring emotional response in detail even in animals. This can explain the lack of empathy for the suffering of others, since they cannot experience emotion associated with either empathy or suffering. Risk-seeking behavior and substance abuse may be attempts to escape feeling empty or emotionally void. The rage exhibited by psychopaths and the anxiety associated with certain types of antisocial personality disorder may represent the limit of emotion experienced, or there may be physiological responses without analogy to emotion experienced by others. - (Wikipedia, emphasis mine.)

In layman's terms- he's a sociopath.