That Blog Ate My Dog, Football Edition

Going to be light blogging today because of an outbreak of football.

And what football! My beloved Steelers, whose mere sweat is like the tears of joyous children, are hosting the foul and rightly hated Ravens.

Oh, how we hate the Ravens. We hate them so much.

So quick stuff....

Upcoming Supreme Court cases. Quick takeaways....

The marquee case on the docket so far is a suit brought by the father of a fallen Marine against a small Kansas church whose members protested at his son’s funeral. The case, to be argued Wednesday, is freighted with rage on both sides.

Oh, the loving Christians of the Westoboro Baptist Church. Such nice, nice, nice people. Except for their batshit evil qualities. Have to side with them on this one....Mostly. Protest is important. Particularly when it's as fringe as these dingbats are. The right to speech is ultra important.

That said, aren't cemeteries generally privately owned? I may be right, may be wrong, but in that event, I can certainly understand why a cemetery would have a valid reason to disallow protest. After all, cemeteries are in the business of providing funerals. These protests specifically interfere with that.

Man, what's going on with our pass defense?

In a second major First Amendment case, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, No. 08-1448, the court will decide whether states may restrict the sale of violent video games to minors. The lower courts in the case and many courts considering similar questions have uniformly said no.

Video games should be placed under higher regulations than any other art form why? What now?

Polamalu is a monster, what what?

The first question is presented in Skinner v. Switzer, No. 09-9000, an appeal from Hank Skinner, an inmate in Texas who is seeking access to DNA evidence that he says could prove his innocence. In March, the court granted a stay of execution less than an hour before Mr. Skinner was to be put to death in the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons.

One of the prosecutions arguments is that Skinner waited too long to attempt to present this evidence. Soooo.....The state is going to kill someone because they missed a deadline? Personally, I'm generally opposed to the death penalty. Because frankly, I have serious reservations about the competency of the government to handle it.

That said....Really, if you allow the government to mete out the ultimate penalty, shouldn't it be a requirement that a higher level of proof be required? Should there really be squabbling over deadlines if possibly exculpatory evidence is available?

Enough.

Football time.