I was in court all day today and so I did not find out that the Supreme Court had ruled in Boumediene v. Bush today. [Note: PDF link.] The Court explicitly held that MCA § 7 (the jurisdiction-​​​​stripping amendment) was within Congress’ power to enact as a matter of Article III (but not within Congress’ power to enact as a matter of the Suspension Clause). I’ve said all along that this question, which the Court calls “a threshold matter” was more signif­icant in the long run and from a separation-​​​​of-​​​​powers stand­point than any ruling on the much more popular and eagerly reported habeas issue. I [ . . . ]

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Today’s Dilbert is very subtle. Dilbert tends to be pretty much hit-​​​​or-​​​​miss most of the time, but today Scott Adams pulled off a nice, subtle strip with a double-​​​​meaning.

I have a rosebush. It is a flori­bunda with deep red–almost maroon–flowers. I’ve been working on it for a few years now, and I prune it when it needs pruning, and I water it every other day, and I feed it and rotate it (it is in a large pot) and clip off dead blooms and whatnot. I care for it, rather like some people care for pets. It is a thing that I am proud of. Proud that I have kept it alive (I have a bad track record with plants); proud that I have been able to transform it from the scraggly little runt I bought at a Home Depot somewhere into a big, [ . . . ]

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This is a gross post. I do not often get sick. In fact, in the past 3 years, I have been sick exactly 3 times. Fortunately, they have all come at the least inop­portune times — during various breaks. I got sick two Christmases ago, and then again last Christmas, and now I’m sick again during summer break. All three times have been really insanely awful sinus infec­tions. I’m not the sort of person who gets sinus infec­tions with every cold. No, I only get sinus infec­tions when I get something–we’re talking about foreign bodies here–stuck up my nose. I don’t go around putting things up there delib­er­ately. [ . . . ]

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