I run a couple of newspapers. What do you do?

From the Media Can't Get the F-ing Headline Right to Save Their Life department-

Schools to look at factors besides raceSan Jose Mercury News, USA - 4 hours agoBy NANCY ZUCKERBROD AP Education Writer School officials around the country are asking that question following a Supreme Court decision rejecting racial ...
Justices limit use of race in school policiesDallas Morning News (subscription), TX - 6 hours agoWASHINGTON – With competing blocs of justices claiming the mantle of Brown vs. Board of Education, a bitterly divided Supreme Court declared Thursday that ...
High court strikes down school integration plansChicago Tribune, United States - 7 hours agoBy Naftali Bendavid WASHINGTON
Supreme Court strikes down school integration policiesChicago Tribune, United States - 10 hours agoBy David G. Savage and Joel Havemann WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court today declared unconstitutional the use of racial guidelines to integrate public ...
Supreme Court Limits Schools on RaceForbes, NY - 12 hours agoAP 06.28.07, 7:28 PM ET The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school assignment plans that take account of students' race in two major public school ...
Justices Limit School Diversity ProgramsGuardian Unlimited, UK - 12 hours agoFrom AP AP Photo KYER105, WATW101, KYER106, WATW202 By MARK SHERMAN AP Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A half-century after the Supreme Court outlawed segregated ...
Race-Based Pupil Placements Banned by Top US Court (Update3)Bloomberg - 20 hours agoBy Greg Stohr June 28 (Bloomberg) -- A divided US Supreme Court, with President George W. Bush's appointees tipping the balance, said public school ...
Supreme Court Rejects School Race PlansGuardian Unlimited, UK - 20 hours agoFrom AP By MARK SHERMAN AP Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected diversity plans in two major school districts that take race into ...
Court rejects race as factor in school programsABC News - 20 hours agoBy James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that race cannot be used to decide where students go to school, ...
Divided court rejects school diversity plansSI.com - 20 hours agoBy Bill Mears WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down public school choice plans in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky, ...

Nice. But for accuracy's sake I would suggest the following headline in lieu of all of pussyfooting around displayed above-

Supreme Court Overturns Brown v. Board of Education!

The problem with the struggle to get to the top of Dr. King's mountaintop isn't so much the climb as the guys higher up trying to push us back down the mountain.

He chose... poorly.

Oden or Durant? Does it matter? I'm sure we'll pick Sam Bowie.

The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire. Discuss.

Tons of stuff bouncing around the ol' noodle this morning.

I've got another hero. This time she's home grown in Oregon. Go get 'em, girl!

A disabled single mother from Beaverton has filed a federal lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America, claiming that she is the victim of abusive legal tactics, threats and illegal spying as part of an overzealous campaign to crack down on music pirating.

The recording industry sued Tanya J. Andersen, 44, in 2005, accusing her of violating copyright laws by illegally downloading music onto her computer. Andersen claims in a suit she filed last week in U.S. District Court in Oregon that the recording industry refused to drop its case after its own expert supported her claims of innocence.

Instead, industry officials threatened to interrogate Andersen's 10-year-old daughter, Kylee, if she didn't pay thousands of dollars. The intimidation included attempts to contact Kylee directly. A woman claiming to be Kylee's grandmother called the girl's former elementary school inquiring about her attendance, according to Andersen's suit.

Nazi bastards.

Rudy Giuliani is a pinhead. I suppose that sentence is redundant.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Rudy Giuliani charged yesterday that former President Bill Clinton made a "big mistake" when he failed to see the first World Trade Center attack as an act of terror rather thana mere crime - one that set the stage for even bigger and bolder attacks culminating with 9/11.

"The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond," Giuliani said, ticking off terrorist attacks that followed, including the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa and the USS Cole in 2000. "[Osama] bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it."

'Nuff said.

G.O.P Senator Splits With Bush Over Iraq Policy (Waits Until After Funding Debate To Say So.)

WASHINGTON, June 26 — Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and a steadfast supporter of the president, has conspicuously broken ranks with him on the Iraq war, warning that the United States’ standing in the world could be irreparably eroded if the White House does not change strategy soon.

Whatever. DEMOCRATIC Senators haven't even split with the President on Iraq. I'll believe it when Lugar votes his mouth. Until then - bullshit walks.

Rupert Murdoch buying another media outlet is always cause to rend one's garments, but his looming purchase of the Wall Street Journal seems especially bad for some reason.

The News Corporation chief executive is building his own financial news channel for cable television, aiming to usurp General Electric's CNBC, which has a news partnership with Dow Jones.

The Bancroft family met Mr Murdoch in early June and discussed a proposal to protect editorial independence. Talks accelerated last week.

I guess I wish I knew enough about the newspaper business to understand what "editorial independence" means. If it means that news section of the Journal will remain pretty much independent then that's a good thing. On the other hand if it means that the batshiat crazy editors of the opinion section of the Journal will remain independent then I'm not sure what the difference between a Wall Street Journal owned by the Bancroft family or a Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch would actually be.

Discuss!

Oh, he's just like any other man, only more so.

Digby pretty much sums up how I feel about the about the Supremes decision yesterday defending the right of the well-to-do to buy our government:

I think we need to start thinking about how to deal with the new era of wingnut judicial activism. If anyone actually thought the Warren Court was activist for trying to right long standing social inequality, they haven't seen anything until they see what John, Clarence, Nino, Sammy and Tony do to expand the rights of rich people and corporations while turning back the clock on everything else. It's going to be a generational battle. I hope everyone realizes this.

I will never forgive Joe Lieberman, Huckelberry, St John and the the rest of the milquetoast losers of that gang of 14. This is on their heads.

That was actually my first thought- "thanks for nothing Gang of 14." It's so wonderful you were able to preserve the filibuster. No doubt it will come to good use the next time a Democratic President wants to nominate a Justice that's halfway sane and Republicans want to keep that person off the court. Conservatives get their way now. Conservatives get their way then. Everything is working well.

As for the money = speech argument I realize that there are tons of liberals that believe adherence to the 1st Amendment is such an absolute that they're willing to see the republic collapse under the weight of corporate dominance of our government. More power to them.

As for myself I tend to believe this country was founded on the principle that no citizen would have a louder voice than another in the public square. If money = speech then this principle is meaningless because the rich will dominate the discourse, as they pretty much do now. But putting that to the precedent that corporations enjoy the rights of citizens under the law continues to leave me shaking my head at the absurdity of that precedent.

The one precedent, I might ad, that the Roberts court appears to be in no danger of overturning.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

This short opinion piece by Kevin Myers is fascinating in it's central thesis that a belief in God, not necessarily the existence of God herself mind you, more often than not leads to a kinder, gentler society.

But here is the paradox. Rulers who believed in a Divine Creator have tended to create gentler societies than have atheists. The twentieth century was the first in which various avowedly godless states came into existence: and robbed of the inhibitions caused by a belief in the afterlife, the most astonishingly lawless regimes in world history emerged. The Aztec society which removed a heart each dawn from a teenage rib-cage to lure the sun-god from his couch, the Dahomey chieftain who daily dispatched a child to the afterlife to enquire after the health of his ancestors. Why, these were positively vegan compared to the godless butchers of the 20th century, the fine fellows who variously supervised human affairs from the Rhineland to Vladivostok, and from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the South China Sea. Their victims can be measured, not in the modest hundreds but in the hundreds of millions. The world has never, ever seen anything like the evil triumphs of the totalitarian secular states of the 20th century.

Which is not an argument in favour of the existence of god, merely one in favour of the belief in one: it is the social utility of a theistic faith which is appealing, not the fictions which lie at its heart.

It's a terrific argument but unfortunately grounded on tons of logical fallacies and historical oversights which Myers simply ignores.

First off the idea that religion and totalitarian dictatorships cannot commingle is ridiculous. I would suggest Myers check this page for just a couple of examples of how the Nazi state merged the Christian religion with the government. Hitler himself famously said "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." Another famous founder of a totalitarian state who later went on to found the Beatles, said "religion is the opiate of the masses."

Totalitarian states COUNT on the religious. They are the ones least likely to question, quick to dispense with personal morality when carrying out the greater will of the god/ state. I would argue that a large contingent of the faithful is a necessity to a fascist state.

Then there's the idea that the predominance of Christianity itself will lead to a kinder, gentler state. I'm sure all those who died in the crusades and inquisition would be quick to back up that idea. But violence and cruelty aren't limited to Christianity. What the hell is the Aztec sacrifice example that Myers uses if not as a demonstration of the violence of religion? Religion doesn't mean peace. It just means for more organized violence.

It just doesn't matter.

This "investigative" piece on the political contributions of journalists is stunningly imbecilic.

OSTON - A CNN reporter gave $500 to John Kerry's campaign the same month he was embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq. An assistant managing editor at Forbes magazine not only sent $2,000 to Republicans, but also volunteers as a director of an ExxonMobil-funded group that questions global warming. A junior editor at Dow Jones Newswires gave $1,036 to the liberal group MoveOn.org and keeps a blog listing "people I don't like," starting with George Bush, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, the NRA and corporate America ("these are the people who are really in charge").

Whether you sample your news feed from ABC or CBS (or, yes, even NBC and MSNBC), whether you prefer Fox News Channel or National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker, some of the journalists feeding you are also feeding cash to politicians, parties or political action committees.

Look, I don't give a rat's ass whether journalists contribute campaign cash to the Republican party, the Democratic party or the People's Front of Judea. It just doesn't matter. The problem with journalism today isn't that journalists are too engaged or too biased towards their individual causes. The problem with journalism today is that modern journalism is too biased towards "objectivity." At least their own twisted concept of what objectivity means.

As long as journalism continues to conflate relativism and objectivity then people will think journalism sucks.

We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.

This story hits the Republican anti-immigrant base/ support the troops/ Bush is a moral man trifecta.

CBS/AP) While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government.

Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife, Yaderlin Hiraldo, whom he married in 2004.

Their attorney, Matthew Kolken, said 23-year-old Hiraldo illegally entered the United States in 2001 to reunite with her husband, whom she had met in her native Dominican Republic and later married at his New York State Army base in 2004.

If you haven't been following the search for the two soldiers then suffice it say it looks like Jimenez is most likely dead. Judging by state of the body of his squad mate that they recovered it's a good guess to say his death was probably pretty horrible.

You could argue that he knew the risks when he signed up and that he probably signed up just to gain residency for himself and his wife. I don't care. The least you could say is that he took that risk. Most of the critics of immigration seem to fall squarely into the chickenhawk category when it comes to the war in Iraq from where I'm sitting. He's obviously a braver man than they, regardless of his reasons.

All that doesn't even begin to touch on the thing that really disgusts me about this story. The Bush administration could give her amnesty with a wave of a pen. It doesn't appear to this point that they've avoided doing so out of any weird idea about sticking to the letter of the law (but only on immigration, mind you) but rather that they simply don't care.

It's just another vivid reminder that the soldiers and their families are worthless in the eyes of this administration unless it's in their capacity as props to stand behind the President while he delivers a speech on how he's tough on terror.

If you don't tell me what I want to know, then it'll just be a question of how much you want it to hurt.

I'm so happy that Justice Scalia is turning to a fictional character in defining his own brand of jurisprudence. The "Jack Bauer Rule" can be the definitive legal defense employed by torturers everywhere.

Of little note is the fact that this isn't the only element of Scalia's legal philosophy grounded on creative fiction. Here are some of his lesser known legal theories:

The Bugs Bunny Rule - Shooting a buddy in the face with a shotgun is okay since he'll be magically okay by the next scene. If you do it while dressed by a girl bunny then you can't even be charged.

The A-Team Defense - Guns don't kill people. Guns don't even HIT people, just the ground around their feet. The Second Amendment rules supreme.

The Caddyshack Clause - Gopher removal is allowable by any means necessary. Gambling is legal at Bushwood as long as the club President is involved.

The Caped Crusader Rule - It is allowable to shot a suspect with a neutrino ray, drop a suspect into a vat of chemicals or off a clock tower or blast a suspect into atoms as long as that suspect defines themselves as a "supervillain" (or a "liberal.")

The Dirty Harry Defense - (Also referred as the "Deathwish Doctrine.") Vigilante killing is not illegal, especially if it's in revenge for the murder of the member of one's family.

The Arsenic and Old Lace Amendment - cute little old ladies can get away with anything.

And now for something completely different.

No reason to link this otherwise uninteresting article other than the fact I thought this quote was funny-

Snow acknowledged that U.S. officials have heard similar positive statements from Iraqi leaders before, but said: "We think they are very serious in moving on the key items. ... I think the president was impressed and reassured by the sense of seriousness that he heard"

Iraqi leaders weren't that serious before but they are now and the Prezident is really serious about how serious they've become.

Do you have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is? Do you?

Josh Marshall makes a great observation (as usual) on the hullabaloo surrounding Reid's "incompetent" comment on General Pace.

Thinking back over the blather last week over Sen. Reid's (D-NV) comments about Gen. Pace, it's quite astonishing that the White House could with a straight face attack Reid for questioning Pace's competence only day's after they'd fired him. Think about that. The White House fires Pace as part of its many-month effort to sack everyone from the Rumsfeld era at the Pentagon. And Reid is in hot water for questioning the man's abilities?

This incident was also illustrative of the insane relativist media-driven world we live in these days. In the last few weeks we've had to endure debates about Nancy Pelosi's "earmarks" initiated by the architects of the biggest budget deficits in history who have literally thrown taxpayer's money into a bottomless pit in Iraq, Diane Feinstein's "secret' land dealings begun by some of the very same people who gave us the K-Street project and then Reid's criticism of a General's incompetence started by the people who are, well, incompetent.

In a rational world this idiocy would've been laughed off by reporters and never seen the light of day. You don't go to Paris Hilton for advice on avoiding sustance abuse or Charles Manson for information on how to love your fellow man. The source in and of itself should have been enough to kill these non-stories well before they made it onto our teevees. These are indeed strange times.