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. Christ­mas [ . . . ]

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