One More Time Around

I've been busy writing other things this week, so just a couple quick hits.

It's official. Brett Favre is returning to the Minnesota Vikings for his 20th season. I know, I'm as stunned as you are. Perhaps more-so. According to Favre, this will be his last season. Fifty bucks says we get to do this all over again next August.

Doctor Laura Schlessinger made some headlines last week. Honestly, I thought she'd retired to Cancun ten years ago. But apparently, she is still on the radio, continuing to tell people who already know exactly what they should do, exactly what they should do. Well, she found herself in a little trouble this week after telling a woman who called to complain about her husband's racist friends that black people just need to lighten up. It might have been considered typical Dr. Laura fare had she not insisted on using the N-word eleven times during the conversation and complaining that if black people get to use it, white people should get to use it too. Later in the show she took herself off the air and the following day issued an apology. Again, she might have fared better had she simply stopped there. Instead, she made an appearance on Larry King Live Tuesday night (presumably so no one would actually see her) and announced she would not renew the contract for her show at the end of this season because she doesn't want to have to "prune her words." According to Schlessinger;

"(I) want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors."

Sigh. Are there really white people walking around desperate to throw up the N-word every chance they get, and upset because it has been deemed socially unacceptable for them to do so? Besides Dr. Laura?

At a Tea Party rally earlier this week, Phoenix area sheriff Joe Arpaio actually suggested stationing the U.S. Border Patrol on the Mexican side of the fence to curb illegal immigration. Apparently it's not enough for Arpaio to arrest Mexicans in Arizona, He now feels he needs to arrest Mexicans in Mexico. I guess that would take care of any racial profiling issues.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of Judge Walker's ruling two weeks ago overturning California's ban on same-sex marriage and have issued direction to hear the case immediately. In their comments the Court seems to doubt whether opponents of same-sex marriage even have standing to challenge the ruling. In order to have standing to appeal a ruling, the party issuing the challenge must show that they have suffered actual harm as a direct result of the ruling. And the definition of actual harm has narrowed even further under the current Supreme Court. Seeing as how opponents managed to produce only one witness and almost no evidence to support their claims during the trial, I certainly am interested to see what they present to support their appeal.

Finally, in a bizarre decision announced this week, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was convicted of only one of the twenty-four Lincoln-would-be-rolling-over-in-his-grave bribery and extortion counts he was charged with last year. The jury couldn't agree on the other twenty-three, many times split 11-1 in favor of conviction. In what was perhaps the dumbest post-trial press conference ever broadcast on television, Blagojevich's lawyer Sam Adam emphatically insisted that even though he had provided his client with "absolutely no defense whatsoever," the government had still failed to convict him. I hope Blagojevich emphatically insists on paying his lawyer absolutely nothing whatsoever.