fall, justices, good and bad folks, and where did dick go?

sitting in my office this morning there is not a hint of blue in the sky...it looks cold. there is a tree in the median, a small one, with only a few holdouts clinging to its branches, the leaves right outside my window are changing and behind the building across the street there is a canopy of yellow and gold in front of a building sticking out in the distance. it almost feels like fall.

with alita being nominated i am realizing that supreme court justices and their philosophical and political views can cause quite a conundrum for folks in criminal law. although you wouldn't think it given his apparent pension for conservative political and social views...many of his dissents are actually extremely beneficial to criminal defendants. interestingly enough, scalia has the same issue...his attitude towards legislatures and the powers they actually have often manage to uphold key constitutional rights of criminal defendants. look at his writings recently on the federal sentencing guidelines...of which i know nobody else cares, but i am just that kind of dork. so i am torn when it comes to justices because those that can be socially conservative and federalist and all those "dirty" words often use that to my benefit and to uphold principles and rights that i personally feel are some of the most important ever attempted...

which brings me to my next point...looking back on my life with the help of a close friend i think i am finally seeing people everywhere along the continium. i can't think of one "good" person or one "bad" person i ever met. last summer i met a man that many would describe as a monster for things he had done, but spending time with him i didn't get the impression that he was a "bad" person...yes, he had done horrible things, but he was personable and friendly and intelligent. i guess if you deal with criminals a lot you realize that they are a lot like everyone else. and even the best people i have known have done things that make them think they are bad people...i know i have...we wouldn't be human if we didn't.

finally, what happened to dick cheney? he is definitely not the voice folks thought they were getting to whisper in gw's ear in 2000. in his stint with the elder bush as secretary of defense he was asked why the gulf war ended only with kicking saddam out of kuwait and not with the ever-popular "regime change"...his response..."once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? you then have accepted responsibility for governing iraq. how many american casualties is saddam worth? and the answer is...not very damn many." care to change your answer dick? i guess you could argue that "not very damn many" means somewhere short of five figures. what happened to that guy? did his heart finish him off and leave us with a look-alike hell bent on world domination? guess september 11th brought about one hell of a "flip flop" from quite a few people.

that joke isn't funny anymore...