- Email: cambolah at yahoo dot com
- About me
- Best Viewed Using Firefox:

- Template based on a design by Thur
Marriage is love. - April 2005
- May 2005
- June 2005
- July 2005
- August 2005
- September 2005
- October 2005
- November 2005
- December 2005
- January 2006
- February 2006
- March 2006
- April 2006
- May 2006
- June 2006
- July 2006
- August 2006
- September 2006
- October 2006
- November 2006
- December 2006
- January 2007
- February 2007
- March 2007
- April 2007
- May 2007
- June 2007
- July 2007
- August 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- November 2007
- December 2007
- January 2008
- February 2008
- March 2008
- April 2008
- May 2008
- June 2008
- July 2008
- August 2008
- September 2008
- October 2008
- November 2008
- December 2008
- January 2009
- February 2009
- March 2009
- April 2009
- May 2009
- June 2009
- July 2009
- August 2009
- September 2009
- October 2009
- November 2009
- December 2009
- January 2010
- February 2010
Oldies
| CURRENT MOON moon info |
Winner
Local Performers
- All Things Ypsilanti
- Ann Arbor is Overrated
- the anchored nomad
- Arbor Update
- Astrosage
- Bitzen Pieces
- Brookaloo
- Common Monkeyflower
- Corner Brewery
- Corpus Collosum
- Danarchy in the UK!
- Dandelions Are Life
- Doulicia
- Downtown Ypsi
- Dusty Diary
- East Cross Street
- Emily and Ivory
- EMU Talk
- Eric 3.0
- The Frenzied Wren
- Growing Hope
- Hope For Our Families
- Jimmycav's Complete Waste of Time
- L'écriture depuis 2003, Vinnie Massimino
- LEIGHTON rhymes with Satan
- Lip Balm
- The Lynne Show
- Mann About Town
- Mark Maynard
- My Life in Hipsitucky
- Not My Plans
- Onward & Upward
- Out of the Woodwork
- Polygon the Dancing Bear
- PPNA Happenings
- The Queen's Residence
- Ron Suarez
- Sam's Blog
- Sketching Ypsi
- Steven D. Krause
- Suds & Soliloquies
- Sustainable Ypsi
- Teaspout
- Teeter Talk
- Thomason Family Farm
- Visions of Ypsi
- Yesterday Looks Good
- Ypsi City Desk
- ypsidixit
- The Ypsi Tattler
Currently on Tour
- An Audience of One
- Deputy's Wife
- FOMA
- Free to Be
- A Life Less Ordinary
- Midvale School for the Gifted Alumni Ass'n
- Patriside
- Peri's Postings
- Used To Be Me
Jukebox Shuffle
- American Constitution Society Blog
- Allstate Insurance Sucks
- Ann Arbor News
- Anonymous Lawyer
- Bombadill's
- By America For America
- Geekologie
- Historic East Side Neighborhood Association
- Michigan Appeals
- Michigan Lawyer
- New York Times
- Postsecret
- Public Citizen
- Official SCOTUS site
- SCOTUS blog
- Ypsilanti Citizen
- YpsiCrime
- Ypsilanti Courier
- Ypsilanti Symphony Orchestra
Prog Rock
- Blogging for Michigan
- Crooks and Liars
- Daily Kos
- Evil GOP Bastards
- For My Amusement Only ...
- Huffington Post
- Hullabaloo
- Lefty Blogs (Michigan)
- Michigan Democratic Party
- Michigan Liberal
- TPM Muckraker
- truthout
Off the Charts
- Getting an iPad?
- So much for judges as umpires . . .
- Class Acts: Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh
- With Cherry out, Smith shoots to the front of the ...
- Changing from a big bank to a local bank
- Puttin' up the Christmas Tree
- Michigan Workplace Smoking Ban Passes
- Lansing City Council to work on Freedom of Informa...
- I mean this in the nicest possible way
- Vote FOR the millage TODAY
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
So much for judges as umpires . . .
![]() Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them. - Judge John Roberts, September 12, 2005 It seemed like a good analogy. The press sung his praises upon his unveiling of this apropos and wise analogy. It was smiles all around. But there were also the naysayers. There were those that think many members of the Federalist Society say what they think others want to hear, yet when afforded an opportunity, do something else more in line with their agenda. At the time, these warnings were downplayed as the same old partisan bickering we hear over and over again when nominations are made to the United States Supreme Court. He said a number of other very attractive things as he testified over the next several days. As reported by CNN: [Roberts] acknowledged that upholding past cases ensured "predictability, stability and legitimacy."When Roberts was questioned by Senator Arlen Spector, the following exchange occured: Spector: And I begin collaterally with the issue of stare decisis and the issue of precedence.Clearly, on the basis of Roberts' testimony under oath before Congress, one could only conclude that he was firmly committed to upholding legal precedent for a great number of reasons, all of which are historically and substantively rooted in the longstanding jurisprudence of the United States of America, of which he is well aware and conversant. This week, however, we learned the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court is no umpire. We learned that he is, in fact, a liar. Turns out he really was the wolf in sheep's clothing that many claimed he would be. We now know that when he charmed everyone with his baseball analogy, he neither believed in it, nor did he intend to conduct himself in accordance with the principle he used it to illustrate. In Citizens United vs. FEC, a Supreme Court opinion released just last week, Roberts sided with a majority of conservative justices that tossed aside a century of legal precedent to allow for-profit corporations to donate directly to political candidates. This is a sea change in American jurisprudence, and it is entirely motivated by Justice Roberts' loyalty to his conservative agenda. To do this, the Supreme Court recognized for-profit corporations as having the same constitutional rights as American individuals. Bizarrely, the other "originalists" Scalia, Alito and Thomas joined in the opinion despite no evidence whatsoever that this result comported with the original intent of the Bill or Rights. Justice Stevens calls out the conservative majority of the Court, specifically pointing out the disingenuity of the majority's opinion. According to Justice Stevens's dissent, which spans some 90 pages, "The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case." Justice Stevens continues: The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past. . . . .Justice Stevens throws the issue of stare decisis squarely into the argument at hand, and arguably into the face of Chief Justice Roberts, who actually discussed the Planned Parenthood vs. Casey case during his confirmation hearings as an example of his support and respect for stare decisis. The final principle of judicial process that the majority violates is the most transparent: stare decisis. I am not an absolutist when it comes to stare decisis, in the campaign finance area or in any other. No one is. But if this principle is to do any meaningful work in supporting the rule of law, it must at least demand a significant justification, beyond the preferences of five Justices, for overturning settled doctrine. “[A] decision to overrule should rest on some special reason over and above the belief that a prior case was wrongly decided.” Planned Parenthood of South-Eastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 864 (1992). No such justification exists in this case, and to the contrary there are powerful prudential reasons to keep faith with our precedents.Justice Stevens concludes: Today’s decision is backwards in many senses. It elevates the majority’s agenda over the litigants’ submissions, facial attacks over as-applied claims, broad constitutional theories over narrow statutory grounds, individual dissenting opinions over precedential holdings, assertion over tradition, absolutism over empiricism, rhetoric over reality. Our colleagues have arrived at the conclusion that Austin must be overruled and that §203 is facially unconstitutional only after mischaracterizing both the reach and rationale of those authorities, and after bypassing or ignoring rules of judicial restraint used to cabin the Court’s lawmaking power. Their conclusion that the societal interest in avoiding corruption and the appearance of corruption does not provide an adequate justification for regulating corporate expenditures on candidate elections relies on an incorrect description of that interest, along with a failure to acknowledge the relevance of established facts and the considered judgments of state and federal legislatures over many decades.This opinion and outcome is judicial activism at its worst. Stevens is spot-on in his criticism of his fellow Justices. The only credible justification for overturning a century of precedent is that the makeup of the Supreme Court has changed with the additions of Roberts and Alito, and that these conservatives pretend to respect precedent while champing at the bit waiting for a chance to overturn precedent with which they disagree. Roberts is no umpire. He's more like a scam artist hiding in a smoke-filled back room trying to push a counterfeit of the rulebook to help out his team. No doubt the Roberts Court will be remembered better for its majority's intellectual dishonesty and agenda-promoting judicial activism than for its adherence to the rue of law. |
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Class Acts: Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh
![]() Pat Robertson showed today what a true class act he can be. As Rachel Maddow points out, he's apparently not content blaming 9-11 on the ACLU, hurricane Katrina on gays and Ariel Sharon's stroke on the Israeli peace process. He's now outdone even his own preposterous self by blaming the Haitian earthquake on a 200-year-old pact with the devil. Not to stand by idly whilst Robertson pushes what I like to call "The Hate Agenda," Rush Limbaugh chimed in with his own unique perspective. Limbaugh's tone always seems to be on the edge of old white male racial hysteria, and his arguments (though delivered with fervor) reminisce of fingernails scratching a chalkboard. This one is typically bizarre, but then again, my IQ is north of 65, so I'm obviously not a member of his target audience. You can listen to his screed here, but as you probably have guessed by now, there's no real reason to. He accuses President Obama of exploiting the Haitian humanitarian crisis by holding a press conference and offering aid. He further explains that there is no reason to donate to Haiti, as that's what our income taxes are for. ![]() What I love most is when Maddow calls Robertson the "unintended consequences of the First Amendment." I say ditto for Limbaugh. If you have little interest in listening to these two jackasses, just go to DoctorsWithoutBorders.org or RedCross.org and donate to the relief effort. |
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
With Cherry out, Smith shoots to the front of the pack
Now that frontrunner John Cherry has dropped out of the race for Michigan governor, Alma Wheeler Smith, our local state representative, has shot to the front of the Democratic pack of candidates.You can read Smith's reaction to Cherry's withdrawal here. |
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Changing from a big bank to a local bank
![]() A long time ago, in what seems like a galaxy far, far away, I commenced a banking relationship with a local bank called Standard Federal. At the time my then employer worked out a pretty good for employees if they switched over. I liked the bank, liked the service, and liked that fact that it had a long history in Southeastern Michigan. Sometime thereafter, Standard Federal was re-branded to become LaSalle Bank, and in 2007, Bank of America bought LaSalle Corporation and took over its banks. I didn't think about it in terms of anything other than a name change until the financial crash, reports of financial shenanigans and wrongdoing at Bank of America, and my own experience with an obnoxious and annoying BofA employee. Meredith and I no longer have the level of comfort patronizing BofA than we did before these things happened. I love the online bill paying system, but that is not enough of a reason to continue to patronize a large national bank that exhibits little appreciation for ethical and moral business practices, and at times shows contempt for its customers. We are now thinking of switching over to a local bank. The question is, which one? What local/regional bank do you use? Why? Let us know who you think we should switch to in the comment section of this post. |
Friday, December 18, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Michigan Workplace Smoking Ban Passes
![]() Both the Michigan House and Senate passed a workplace smoking ban. Governor Granholm has pledged to sign the bill. The exemptions are reasonable, the floors of the casinos, cigar bars, and specialty tobacco shops. People can still smoke in their cars and home offices. |
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Lansing City Council to work on Freedom of Information Policy behind closed doors
You can read all about it here.![]() I'm not sure what's funnier, the argument that the group working on transparency issues should not meet in public or be subject to the open Meetings Act, that the group is creating a "legal opinion" just because the lawyer is there, or that a public official will have trouble candidly expressing his or her views in an open meeting. If you can't candidly express your views on transparency in an open meeting, perhaps you should reconsider serving as a public official. So we are left to wonder whose idea it was to eliminate transparency in the process of reworking the policy on transparancy. I think I see where this may be going. Irony so thick, you slice through it with a knife. |












