This week in sports...a recap

Well, friends, if you read the post below, you know how this past week has ended, but let's get back to where it started.

Part One: Psycho Redux

On Tuesday, late in the balmy evening, Princess and I were up - way past bedtime - having a long discussion about life, boys, relationships with Tall Boys, prom, colleges, that kinda stuff. We heard Jack the Vicious Predator running about up on the third floor, presumably slaying some socks or maybe chasing a moth around.

Until we heard the frantic chirpy squeaking coming down the stairs toward my bedroom.

Yes, to those who have experienced it, you never forget the sound of a BAT in your house. I don't like rodents. Winged rodents produce a combination of rage and panic that I don't like to admit I'm capable of feeling all at once. But I do. So I slammed the bedroom door shut and sent the bat averse but less freaked out Princess to shut the baby's door as well as Therese's. (She has her uses. And besides, she's the idiot who left her unscreened window open at night!)

Jack emerged from the stairwell and had his live squeaky toy in his mouth and decided to share his good fortune with her - after all, she is one of his harem of strangely furless kittens, and he provides for us all, in his strange sock-slaying way. So he trotted toward her and let it go and it shot up and then swooped at her. Oh, the screaming...so she came back in my room with little Therese hot on her heels, slammed the door and we giggled like the nervous fools we were. We heard Jack leaping and bounding in the hallway, then sometime after 3 am the squeaky sounds stopped. We decided to remain barricaded in and let nature take its course.

The next morning, we crept through the house with brooms in hand, looking around for the bat and/or its carcass. Nothing. So we figured Jack took care of business. I kept all the doors shut upstairs and went on with the interminable kitchen painting project from the time the girls left until sometime after 8:00. That night, we were still apprehensive after the sun went down, and none of us could sleep. We shut ourselves in my room again for the night, told bat jokes, wished that daddy was here, etc. All quiet on the Western NY front.

Thursday morning, as I had promised to let Princess sleep in after two nights of less than three hours of sleep, I decided to take a quick shower in my master bathroom while she ate breakfast. I got the water to its ideal temperature, hopped in, pulled the cutain shut...and there, hanging upside down in the folds of the shower curtain and less than 18 inches from my face, was the largest, fattest brown bat I've ever seen. I screamed for my Lord and Saviour's assistance and was about halfway down the stairs, the right half of me soaked from head to toe, completely naked, before I recollected myself and where and who I was. Princess thought I was being murdered, came to the stairs and gaped at me. I pulled myself straight up, sucked in my gut, tried to look casual in my nekkidness, and said to her: "Ummm, yeah....I found the bat. In the shower with me, hanging off the curtain. Go get it."

"ME?!?"

"Well yeah, it's not like I'm going back in there!"

"Why me? You're the adult, you're supposed to protect us!"

"I gave you life."

"Damn you and your uterus, woman..."

"You'll say it to your kids someday. Now go get a broom and a box"

She complied, I dressed myself, gathered what little dignity I had left and held the box while she put on a thick glove, held an inverted plastic bag, snatched the bat off the curtain, shoved it in the bag and stuffed it in the box and duct-taped the box shut.

Living as close as we do to the river, bats are fairly common around here. Unfortunately, there are a few cases of rabies reported in the county (carried by bats, passed on to squirrels, raccoons, and unvaccinated cats) every year. Bat contact is never a good idea. Waking up with a bat in the room is an automatic invite to the doctor for rabies shots. Because they have tiny teeth, bat bites are hard to detect unless you are awake and aware that a bat has bitten you. Out of 17 human bat-strain rabies fatalities in the 90's, only one person was aware of an actual contact and bite - he just didn't report it because he didn't think it was a big deal. Then he died. We cleverly sealed the bat into the bedroom/adjoining bathroom with us for at least one night. NOT cool. So I took the bat to the county wildlife/environmental office, they froze it to death, and did rabies testing. Mercifully, we got the all clear late on Friday. (They've had two positives in the past month). Jack's getting a booster shot just to be safe.

Part Two: Client Catastrophe

In the midst of all the bat chaos, I was supposed to have a hearing Friday on a case that I lost on a technicality (no gory details, but the former atty screwed something up and my efforts to unscrew it initially failed), I then appealed, won on appeal, and this was my big day with the client - 11 years after her accident, 4 years after she filed her claim - and then she had a death in the family and we had to postpone. I was SO ready to go back in...but that's okay. I'll be ready when we have our day in August. Just a scramble to get in touch with the judge, get a fax in for the record, and not make an even worse impression on a judge who doesn't like being appealed....and then there's a lot of mental prep work and framing of arguments and evidence in my head the whole week leading up to the hearing, now for naught. I spent the weekend painting 27 cabinets, 13 drawers, and a half-mile (or so it seemed) of crown moulding and clearing it from my head.

Part Three: The Weekend War

As all this drama was unfolding, more strife on the teenage front. They went to a party on Sunday night (no school Monday), he behaved badly and embarrassed her, she called him on it, his friends rebuked him as well, he didn't like it one bit, and he snapped at her in front of a group of people. Things remain tense between them, and it is taking a toll - perhaps a fatal one - on the relationship. But he finally listened to her, with help from his friends' observations of his behavior, and has pledged to work on his temper and his snappish-of-late attitude toward her and life in general. Life-changing, end-of-era stress is my diagnosis. Too little, too late seems to be hers. I'm sad for both of them. It will be a difficult summer.

Part Four: Sudden Impact....and Surprise!

For over a month, I have been harboring a huge secret...The Beloved is home! We planned a sneaky surprise visit for Prom night. He didn't want to miss it, or to miss the chance to menace the Tall Boy with an impressive array of K-Bar and Nepalese Ghurka knives as well as firearms. I have been striving NOT to screw it up, made a few slips that the girls did not figure out...and we managed to pull it off. But it wasn't easy, and here's why:

A. I got 45 minutes of sleep Tuesday night. Remember those 27 cabinets? Well, each of them requires 10-15 screws. We own two electric screwdrivers. The Beloved is not real great with organization in his man-room in the basement. I couldn't find the charger for either one. After 4 cabinets, I was re-hanging them all, screwing the hardware on and then mounting them back on....by hand. I think I have arthritis now - seriously. They still hurt. And it took me all night, even with the Princess helping me until 3 or so. And she had no idea why I was doing this, scrambling to get it done before the Beloved arrived. She just helped because she saw that I was desperate to be done and wanted to be there battling at my side. Good kid.

B. I got hit by a car 45 minutes before the flight was due to come in! You can't make this sh*t up. Really. I was makingthe requested pot roast for the Beloved's homecoming and realized, at 1:30, that I had no carrots. Princess has been eating like a rabbit in the run-up to prom. So I had to book out to the store to get carrots. As I was walking in, a 75 year old woman backed out of her parking spot without looking back and clipped me at the hip/thigh, knocking me to the ground. Fortunately, I saw it coming and leapt out of the way, and I have some serious assets going on, and so I bounced back up like the Bumble, relatively unscathed. I didn't take her plate #, but I should have...she was angry at me, wouldn't roll her window down past an inch, apologized begrudgingly for not seeing me (as opposed to "I'm sorry I hit you, are you okay?") and left. A few onlookers were duly disgusted with her as well. Deo gratias, I'm a bit stiff and sore, but not even a bruise to complain of. I was lucky. And in a hurry...so I ran into the store and made it to the airport only 5 minutes late...to discover the flight was 15 minutes early. No matter. It was a thing of beauty to see my boys smiling and flirting with each other the whole way home. Then he hid, I lured the girls into the dining room with an impropmtu after school yay-the-kitchen-is-done tea party, and as we started our after-school gabfest, he sauntered into the room and asked for a cup. Princess screamed and launched herself at him, Therese looked shell shocked and started weeping. It's been hardest on her to be without her Wii buddy these past four months. Princess/Athlete drama has dominated the household.

C. The Athletic Appendix began to give out. As noted in HMD#32, the symptoms were classic, the physician dad was in denial, and the kid suffered. We had many texts and calls throughout the course of the day and evening....prom or no prom? And we had picked up the freshly altered and gorgeous dress earlier that morning, too....

D. I slept for 9 glorious, uninterrupted hours last night. No listening for the baby, no getting up at 6:45 to feed and shoo girls out the door to school....and I'd had a combined total of 2 hours and 45 minutes the two preceeding nights. So it was needed sleep.

Which is why I can't sleep now! But I am going to try. So, gentle readers, thanks for bearing with me to this point, I will be back with more tales from the Brookside before you know it. I have a fresh "visitor" story, too....but all in good time.

See, was that so difficult?

Today the CA Supreme Court did the right thing.

They interpreted the CA Constitution.

They did not play politically correct games, they didn't let personal feelings and/or minority activist agendas overtake the rule of law. They looked at Proposition 8, which passed by a majority of the popular vote (which took place at the same time as the liberal landslide that was the '08 election), and decided it was constitutional. This is the way it is, and this is the way it should have gone all along.

They didn't retroactively nullify the "summer of love" same-sex marriages that took place last year, or anything "punitive" like that. They pointed out that which has been obvious for many years in California law, for those who'd bother to read and understand it before stripping naked and fornicating in the streets in protest: same-sex couples are entitled to form domestic partnerships which confer upon them the same rights and responsibilities that hetero couples have, just without the term "marriage" applied. For those who feel the need to have a spiritual/religious element applied - go get it "blessed" by your favorite [non-Catholic] minister, rabbi, guru, duck-billed platypus, or what/whoever floats your boat.


So all you crying Castro-ites....get over it. You can still share financial responsibilities, you can share custody, you can duke it out over who gets the Baccarat when the party's over. (Wasn't it mostly about the party in the first place?)

You lost fair and square. Now get on with your lives.

The ecstasy...and then the agony

Two news stories that I managed to catch today....

1. About time this dirtbag goes down. One wife will get justice, anyway.

and now the one that really upsets and discourages me....

2. Padre Cutie...porque?

18 months ago, it was Fr. Francis. Now Fr. Alberto. More egg on the face of the Church, sure, but what disturbs me most about their stories is how well Satan picks his prey...two very bright men, gifted communicators, role models both aiming for and enaging the young adult segments of our Catholic population...and then they fall so horribly, so publicly, that they leave behind discouraged and disgruntled parishioners and international viewing and listening audiences, and the distinct impression that living up to the obligations and commitments of a priestly vocation is just too difficult for it to be a realistic or viable option.

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! [But I didn't say "argh" in my head!]

Pray for these priests...and then follow that old hair-band anthem and Shout At The Devil!

Send in the Clowns...

...or perhaps I should say the ACLU is on alert. North Dakota legislators got it right!

Human embyros have human status. For now. We shall see if the bill clears their Senate.Way to go, ladies and gents.

Constitutional Crisis?

What happens if The One turns out to be a un-natural (as in foreign-born) fraud? The domino effect of such an inutterable scam...the generations-long besmirching of the Executive Branch, its authority, and the consequences of its downfall on the other branches of this tripartite government would be incredible.

Link to article here

As I've been screaming at the tv since the summer, just suck it up and produce the da*ned birth certificate if you've nothing to hide...and as the Harvard Law professor interviewed in the article points out, I'd fire his a** too, were he my client and still refused to do so.

H/T to the fabulous Vincenzo

And then there's this:

Link to "Open Letter to Barack Obama" from the Chicago Tribune - an ad taken out by "WeThePeopleFoundation.org"

The United States Supreme Court is meeting later this week to conference on one of the several cases demanding production of The One's original birth certificate for inspection and analysis. Four justices must recommend hearing the case. Oh to be a fly on THAT wall!

Interesting.

Love this quote at the end of the ad, too:

“In a government of laws, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a
lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become
a law unto himself; it invites anarchy .” Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438

It happened in Vegas....

....and he's STAYIN' in Vegas!

Moron Barack and the BAIPA

Oops, typo. I meant "more on" Barack and the BAIPA. (Ri-i-i-i-g-g-gh-t....)

Some more backstory - the BAIPA was introduced at the state and federal level in 2001, when BO was an IL state senator. BO chaired the committee responsible for steering it through the IL legislature, spoke out against it, and singlehandedly struck it down. In other words, he saw to it that the bill did not make it out of committee to a vote in the Legislature. Meanwhile, a virtually identical version of the BAIPA came before the US Congress and was unanimously passed - not one US Senator from either party voted against it. Yet BO would have done so, had he been there, if his action in the IL Senate is any indicator. So here's the question:

Does Barack Obama support infanticide?

This has become a hot topic and subject of some scorcher emails between warring political factions in the Beloved's family. I usually ignore the leftists and stay out of it, but I came to blows with the "other" lawyer of the same last name who claims (as Barack did at the time) that the language of the statute defining what "born alive" means was "fuzzy" and left room for a lot of doubt about when babies deserved protection - thus placing Roe v. Wade in jeopardy. So I put together some facts and emailed them back to everyone. Now I ask you, non-lawyers and otherwise, to check it out and tell me what's so confusing - these are short laws and I've linked to them, but here's subsection (c) of each:

The IL BAIPA:

A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law. [emphasis added]

The Federal BAIPA:

Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being "born alive" as defined in this section" [emphasis added]

Here are some quotes by BO during the debate on the IL bill in 2001, with my comments thrown in:

"I just want to suggest ... that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. [or is it "scruti-neh?" His Jesse Jackson-esque Southside accent/patois has conveniently gotten much thicker since 2001]

Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus [did you read the statute? What part of "live" and "born" don't you get, Senator?] as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a - child, a 9-month-old - child that was delivered to term....

I mean, it - it would essentially bar abortions, [WTF? How? Did we read the same bill?] because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional."

And this guy is a friggin' Constitutional Law professor? I'd want my money back. To steal his own line: "He Doesn't Get It!"

It seems he just flat-out did not understand the plain meaning in the bill's language. It is very clear that the protections of this bill are specifically afforded to a BORN child who has emerged from the womb with discernible signs of life (see subsection (b) of the IL BAIPA). Either that or he was being deliberately disingenuous to court favor from the left-wing and/or pro-abortion segments of his constitutency for political reasons.

As to the feared infringement on Roe v. Wade, even NARAL didn't oppose the BAIPA. When this debate was raging on, NARAL's spokesperson stated the following:

"We, in fact, did not oppose the bill. There is a clear legal difference between a fetus in utero versus a child that's born. And when a child is born, they deserve every protection that the country can provide them." [emphasis added]

And incidentally, the BAIPA has never faced constitutional attack.

One of my chief annoyances with Obama is how he slithered into the US Senate in the first place. His opponent was beating him 70-30% in the polls until he got an "October Surprise" - a sex scandal, courtesy of divorce documents forwarded to the press (the ex-wife is Star Trek actress Jeri Ryan). And now how many investigators does he have combing through documents and digging in the dumpsters of Alaska? His lack of experience and his radical left positions were absolutely killing his chances of making it out of Springfield. He was not qualified either by experience or intellectually, as just this one issue shows.

But anyway, even though it was too late to get another competitor on the ballot, one of my favorite conservative Catholic thinkers, Alan Keyes (go ahead, laugh, but I've seen him speak live and he's brilliant), attempted to run against BO via a write-in campaign, and they had some fierce debates...which Alan won handily, in my opinion. Here's a quote from the debates on this subject:

"Christ would not stand idly by while an infant child in that situation died. ... Christ would not vote for Barack Obama, because Barack Obama has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."

Which leads us back to the fundamental question: Does Barack Obama support infanticide? Maybe not "actively"- but now you've seen the actual language that he refused to support FOUR TIMES OVER. I believe that he he tacitly condones it. He has lied to anyone who has asked him about his conduct and his position any time this subject has arisen since that time. He's tried to hide behind the Constitution with specious claims that the "right" to an abortion might be at risk. As you now know, his argument was, is, and always will be a farce. Can we entrust our nation to someone who either does not feel any compunction about lying or does not understand the import of our Constitution?

But again, let's get back to basic humanity and mercy. By far, the saddest thing is that this man has held his own newborn children in his arms - undoubtedly he has felt that sense of fierce paternal protectiveness over the tiny miracle he's helped to create- and he yet can sleep at night knowing that by his failure and refusal to act, untold thousands of Gianna Jessens have gone to cold, lonely deaths through callous neglect after being born alive.

What's the Statute of Limitations here?

Descendants of the Knights Templar are suing Pope Benedict for 700 year old wrongful seizure of property claims.

Hmmmmm....

For Digi...

As this is her milieu, I will refrain from comment and let her have at it:

VA Officials Weigh Charges In Gender-Uncertain Wedding

In a word...OY!

"The Nation Will Live to Regret What The Court Has Done This Day"

...so says Justice Antonin Scalia

Amidst the awful news today coming out of Oklahoma, where two little girls were randomly and mercilessly shot to death and the killer(s) remain at large, and Iowa, where four young boys died when a tornado hit at Boy Scout camp, there's this:

Guantanamo detainees have habeas corpus rights.

What does this mean? Well, I am by no means a criminal law specialist, just a connoisseur, but here's the nutshell version. A writ of habeas corpus (literally "to have the body" of a prisoner, remember "Habemus Papam?") allows a prisoner the right to challenge the authority of a warden to continue to hold him on the grounds that his confinement is illegal, inasmuch as he had ineffective assistance of counsel at the time of trial. (A bit different than an appeal, which challenges the judge's conduct of the trial and his rulings from the bench).

He submits the writ to a judge, who reads it and either denies it or orders a hearing, at which time the prisoner can argue that his confinement is unconstitutional, cruel and unusual, etc. It is a device used to challenge the death penalty on constitutional grounds, as well as appeals.

So...

The Al Qaeda detainees being held in Cuba at GTMO, who were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq while actively engaged in terrorist activities calculated to kill American, British, and all coalition troops, not to mention any and all citizens of those countries who dared to oppose them, now have the right to petition the Federal Courts of the United States of America for release, despite the fact that they have never set foot on American soil.

Previously, such matters would be subject to decision before a military tribunal - cases stretching back to the Nuremberg trials confirm that foreign enemy combatants engaged in wartime activities against Americans and detained outside this country did not have habeas corpus rights, (i.e., Nazis who escaped after Germany's surrender and were subsequently captured in China helping the Japanese fight the Allies.) When the GTMO situation arose after 9/11, Congress passed legislation to allow these alien detainees to be tried before military tribunals, invoking the constitutional right to deny or "suspend" habeas corpus rights in times of war (the "Suspension Clause" - see below), and the President and Commander in Chief signed Congress' bill into law. Years later, the judicial branch is usurping the painstaking research, debate, and centuries of history that went into crafting and passing the law.

So essentially, our courts and taxpayer dollars will fund these evil bastards' attempts to be freed, and they will be entitled to free counsel provided by the very nation they have vowed to destroy.

Entire opinion here, (Boudemiene v. Bush 553 U.S. ___ ) but below are some highlights from the blistering dissenting opinions of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia (my legal idol). This is longish, but worth sticking around to read.

We begin with a brief review of HISTORICAL FACT:

America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 60–61, 70, 190 (2004). On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. See id., at 552, n. 9. It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, 13 of our countrymen in arms were killed.

.

-- Justice Antonin Scalia

.
The Suspension Clause reads: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” U. S. Const., Art. I, §9, cl. 2.

.

-- Justice Antonin Scalia

.

[I think it's safe to say our nation is in such a situation at present - KB]

.

Today the Court strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants.

.

-- Chief Justice John Roberts

What competence does the Court have to second-guess the judgment of Congress and the President on such a point? None whatever. But the Court blunders in nonetheless. Henceforth, as today’s opinion makes unnervingly clear, how to handle enemy prisoners in this war will ultimately lie with the branch that knows least about the national security concerns that the subject entails.

.

-- Justice Antonin Scalia

.

...[t]he decision is devastating.At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield....Some have been captured or killed.... But others have succeeded in carrying on their atrocities against innocent civilians. In one case, a detainee released from Guantanamo Bay masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese dam workers, one of whom was later shot to death when used as a human shield against Pakistani commandoes... Another former detainee promptly resumed his post as a senior Taliban commander and murdered a United Nations engineer and three Afghan soldiers... Still another murdered an Afghan judge...It was reported only last month that a released detainee carried out a suicide bombing against Iraqi soldiers in Mosul, Iraq...These, mind you, were detainees whom the military had concluded were not enemy combatants. Their return to the kill illustrates the incredible difficulty of assessing who is and who is not an enemy combatant in a foreign theater of operations where the environment does not lend itself to rigorous evidence collection.

.

-- Justice Antonin Scalia

.
The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.

.

-- Justice Antonin Scalia

.
Today the Court warps our Constitution in a way that goes beyond the narrow issue of the reach of the Suspension Clause.

.

-- Justice Antonin Scalia

.

(What he means by this, chillingly, is that the Court opened a Pandora's box today - now OTHER of our nation's Constitutional rights and protections, by analogy, can be conferred upon foreign nationals...and trust me, they will be. - KB)

.
The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done
today. I dissent.

.

Me too, Mr. Justice Scalia. Me too.

Uninformed Consent

So you take a peek at your son's cell phone and discover his 16 y/o girlfriend is preggers. What's a mom to do?

A. Rejoice at the miracle of life
B. Beat your son to a pulp
C. Cry a lot, but carry on and support all three children (son, girl, baby)
D. What this evil hag did



My friends, just goes to show ya that laws - good and bad ones - are made to be broken.


Prayers for all miserable wretches involved, and especially for the little lost soul in this "victimless" crime.

So much reparation needed, so little time...

Loud, proud, and legally protected...

It took me awhile to know what to title this post. May be contest worthy. Entire story at The Onion:

Controversial Court Ruling Upholds Homosexual's Right To Prance Around Demanding Attention And Being A Drama Queen

HARTFORD, CT—The Connecticut Supreme Court on Monday upheld the right of individuals, regardless of sexual orientation, to engage in any number of "grandiose behaviors," including, but not limited to, sashaying across the room "like a hussy, yelling 'Oh my God!' at the top of their lungs while hopping up and down, and generally acting like Miss Thing."

The court ruled 5-2 in favor of the plaintiff in Carmichael v. State of Connecticut, a landmark case overturning a lower court's decision against homosexual Michael Carmichael's right to excessive theatrics. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers argued that "although the loud and emotionally over-the-top behaviors of Mr. Carmichael may be considered annoying by the community standards established by both his heterosexual and homosexual peers, the question of whether or not an individual is acting overly queeny is not a matter for the law to determine."

The "actual" courtroom sketch

(LOL!!!)

DISCLAIMER: I guess I thought everyone knew The Onion is not "real" news, so to the outraged commenter who wanted to know how to get in touch with the Governor of CT, who to kill, etc., I'm truly very sorry to have alarmed you, this was just a joke!