At Random

The Administration gets shot down on assisted suicide:

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming that states have the authority to regulate medical treatment of the terminally ill may help turn an Oregon law into a national model, after more than a decade of legal battles over assisted suicide.

Of course, the opposition is mobilizing, but the measure in Oregon, which passed narrowly the first time, passed by a larger margin when it was reconsidered in 1997. What happened to "the will of the people"?

This is a narrowly decided case, focusing on Ashcroft's abuse of power. The opinion is at FindLaw.

This is interesting from much more than the assisted suicide vantage. The question before the Court was really the invocation by the Attorney General of broad powers that had not been specificaly granted by Congress. It's a states' rights issue, and this Court has been largely on the side of states' rights. The irony, of course, is that the Republican Congress and White House, traditionally (there's that word again) the party of limited federal government and states' rights, is in major power-grab mode and is repeatedly being shot down by the Court.

Makes my day.


A choice item, courtesy cabanaboyscoot: A Virginian in defense of liberty -- that used to be normal:

So if this amendment doesn't help protect my marriage, and doesn't help protect my family, and if it doesn't even change the status of same-sex marriage and civil unions and domestic partnership contracts, then what exactly does this amendment do? I submit to my fair-minded colleagues that this amendment sends a message. And that message is, if you are gay, or lesbian, or even a man and a woman living together and committed to each other who are not married, you are not welcome in the Commonwealth of Virginia.


Just as a reminder of what the wildmons want to perpetuate, read this from towleroad. It sort of ties a lot of things together.


A very interesting article on BBM from the San Francisco Chronicle, courtesy of my good Ozzie friend Nigel:

And this from "Mike, AZ," posted on the "testimonials" page of "Brokeback's" Web site. Haunted by either a screening or maybe simply the online photos and promotional trailer, he writes, "I just want him back; more than anything, just come back to me and tell me you love me."

Ouch.