Put Skynet On The Supreme Court: Let me get this straight: a judge who allows the Bible to influence rulings is fine. But a judge who allows their racial, gender, and life experiences to influence their rulings is not fit for the bench. Blogger John scrambles, like most conservatives, to find arguments against Sonia Sotomayor. That she draws on her life when interpreting law, which requires interpretation, seems utterly permissible and necessary. After all, judges are not robots. [powerlineblog.com]

What Did He Pay And When Did He Pay It: Tarnished Senator Roland Burris doth protest too much. Did the maligned politician pay disgraced former Governor Blagojevich for his appointment as the junior senator from Illinois? Mark Brown basically says "Maybe." He definitely tried, or maybe he's just one of those sketchy guys who comes off as permanently corrupt. Like the Hamburgler. [suntimes.com]

Self-Awareness Takes The Fun Out Of Debate: David Harsanyi tackles the abortion debate with candor and honesty, casting intellectual doubt on his own beliefs as a devout secularist. Which is, you know, totally not any fun. Hey, David — you either love abortion to pieces or you listen to angels who tell you to hate the womb. There is no middle ground. Anti-life or Pro-fanatic! No middle ground! Fight, fight, fight! [denverpost.com]

Judge Dreading It Already: Man, David Greenberg makes being nominated for the Supreme Court sound like harrowing trip down to the last house on the left. Have fun, Sonia Sotomayer! Whether or not conservatives start sparking up the coals to drag her over remains to be seen, but one thing is certain… to Repubicans, "empathy" is just another way of saying "Judge Oprah." [latimes.com]

Dreaming Of Ronald: While Dick Cheney and Colin Powell duke it out in Thunderdome over the future of the Republican party, lone columnist Frank Donatelli meekly pines for a return to Reagan-flavored conservatism. Here is another right-leaning scribbler penning love letters to a man who's politics were inclusive, optimistic, and devoid of alienating wedge issues. Big hearts to The Gipper, yo? [washingtontimes.com]

Jesus Chansaw Massacre: Conservative blogger Steven Crowder goes trolling on the interwebz with a post that declares all Christians are serial killers. Of course, this is all rhetorical derring-do. What Steven is actually saying is the evil, liberal Hollywood goes out of it's way to portray Christians in a negative way. Which might or might not have an itty-bit of validity. Although I take issue with his thesis that all movie baddies are Christian. Hannibal Lecter was certainly a secularist, for instance. The Christian cross is a time-honored weapon against Hollywood's favorite monster — the vampire. See, Steven, not all Christians are serial killers. They're pedophiles. [bighollywood.com]

Left-Wing Loonybird Weeps For Terrorists: Radio Free Europe interviews a godless hippie liberal who thinks Terrorist Club Med should be closed, and that captured evildoers shouldn't be "extreme shampooed." Why does this prancing fruit hate America so much? Also, the man who expresses these opinions is none other than US Central Command commander and Iraqi "surge" architect General David Petraeus. What the hell is going on? What next? Cats and dogs living together? [rfel.org]

Is That Why There's A Pyramid On The Back Of The Dollar? Another day, another Ponzi scheme.  This time, it's in California and a mere $200 million was bilked from investors. The creepiest part of this story is the realization that there are probably more of these investment scams out there, waiting to be revealed. It's a good thing I invest exclusively in shot-gun shells and canned beef stew. [examiner.com]

It's Not A Death Metal Band, It's A Real Pool of Skulls: It's like a scene out of an Indiana Jones movie — a pond dries up to reveal a bed of human skulls. 100 of them. Apparently, it was just a convenient place to dump bodies post-autopsy. Makes perfect sense. Why waste beer time on digging shallow graves? [cnn.com]

In Uncle Sam We Trust: The US government would never, ever experiment on it's soldiers. Except for those couple few times back in history, but whatevs. That was then, when we thought smoking made your lungs strong and women were quieter. So these soldiers who are bringing a suit against the military, accusing that trustworthy institution of messing with their minds, must be mistaken. Clearly, they were abducted by aliens, or time-travelling Soviet madmen. [alternet.org]

Justice Feelgood: The Supreme Court doesn't need Judge Dred, it needs Judge Judy. Someone with the common touch, who knows that Americans are, largely, trash. This is more or less Ellen Goodman's thesis, probably more less than more. But it's in the ballpark. Whoever President Obama nominates for the Supreme Court should be empathetic to the needs of regular Americans, like their need for pasta served in bowls made out of pizza delivered directly to their trailers. [boston.com]

Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me A Buzzword, At Least: The Republican Party is suddenly a sullen, fat goth chick writing angry poems in a composition book . Like, an existential identity crisis totes blows. Shikha Dalmia has yet even more advice for the floundering and listless GOP. Rally the troops around a single, powerful idea — namely, liberty. A word which sounds great, and yet, is suitably vague enough that it can mean almost anything. Plus, if you're the party of "liberty," you can brand the other party as "anti-liberty." Let's here it for more rhetorical flimflammery! [reason.com]

Hey World, Remember Us? How About Now? North Korea is such an attention whore. Gordon G. Chang points out that that prima donna third world nuclear power deserves a little spotlight action. Both President Obama and Bush turned blind eyes toward North Korea, but their recent nuke test makes that broken little country impossible to merely placate with promises of economic assistance. Now is the time to… eh… talk really, really sternly. [wsj.com]

Who Would Jesus Waterboard: Oh, this is awesome. Over at Red State, a poster by the name of "roetenks" passionately argues that Christianity has been a force of butt-kicking good throughout history, and then drops that Jesus would have been "ok" with waterboarding.  The Messiah would have, for instance, waterboarded in order to save his disciples. This, of course, is the man who bade we all "love our enemies." On a side note, Buddha would have been "ok" with curb stomping. [redstate.com]

America, The Deadbeat: The United States might lose it's AAA credit rating, but Felix Salmon is all "So what?" Those once vaunted credit agencies have lost their credibility, and investors will still tie their money up in Treasury bonds. It's not a great thing that the US triple-A might poof and vanish. But it's not the ticket to the Third World hysterical economic journalists think it might be. [reuters.com]

Stop Blaming Bush, Bully: Obama's speech about terrorist detainees, amongst other things, was a big ol' middle finger to President Bush, claims Republican booster Fred Barnes. According to Barnes, Obama's speech has a divisive and partisan duck and swerve, laying blame on the last guy and avoiding answering any real questions about the 240 detainees languishing in Cuba. It should be noted that Fred Barnes hearts the GOP, and totally hates on godless liberals. [weeklystandard.com]

Tin Men And Straw Men: Dick Cheney, you are an embarrassment of riches to political junkies. Over at Talking Points Memo, Zachary Roth debunks the former-Vice President's defense of "enhanced interrogation techniques," and in some cases, sets fire to Mr. Cheney's various, rhetorical straw men. You have to give the guy his due, though. The Iron Hunchback makes Michael Steele, Bobby Jindal, and Sarah Palin look like inarticulate clowns. [tpmmuckraker.com]

Why Do You All Hate America? The ACLU has a blog, and they're using it to rip up Bill O'Reilly's endorsement of the New York Police Department's questionable "stop and frisk" policies, whereby racially-profiled citizens are subjected to on the spot, warrantless searches. To oppose this tactic, according to O'Reilly, is to hate America. Let's take a moment to recall the wise words of Ben Franklin, "Peeps who trade freedom for security are whack, and end up without either." That is not a direct quote. [aclu.org]

Tasered To Death: Justice in Tennessee is a curious thing. A jury recently found that police did not use excessive force when they tasered a man nineteen times, killing him. The 21 year old victim was tripping on LSD, and acting "strangely" outside of a club when he was repeatedly zapped by cops. I would hate to find out what exactly constitutes "excessive force." [inquisitr.com]

Amatuer Terrorists On The Loose: The only good news is that the quartet of would-be car bombers caught in New York City are not members of any known terrorist groups. They're just four whack-jobs with a plot. The bad news is that they were committed enough to try and pull the caper off. But then there's good news again: they're stupid, and were busted. But wait! More bad news: they might not be the only lone whack-jobs with lethal delusions of grandeur. [bloomberg.com]

Crazy Man Beats Dog: "Hey Dude, it's me God. First things first — you're God too. We're both God. Got it? Secondly, the dog next door? The one barking all the time? That dog is the devil. Since we're God, we need to deal with the devil. So here's my suggestion: grab a cinder block, and crack the devil in it's snout." [thepittsburghchannel.com]

Lorena Bobbit Redux: Here's a standard romantic story: boy meets girl, boy cheats on girl, girl nearly bites boy's junk off. Actually, this is a cautionary tale. Or maybe a horror story? Definitely a potential Lifetime Movie, not to mention total bad news, especially if you're the Belgian with the wandering eye and the savaged manhood. [news.com]