April 29, 2007

From the Jo's Easter Pet Parade and Costume Contest, my favorite contestants:


Hot Dog


Bjork Dog


Denim Jo's Dog

April 20, 2007

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, April 18, 2007:

The Court further pretends that its decision protects women. Women might come to regret their physician-counseled choice of an intact D&E and suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem,” the Court worries. Notably, the solution the Court approves is not to require doctors to inform women adequately of the different procedures they might choose, and the risks each entails. Instead, the Court shields women by denying them any choice in the matter. This way of protecting women recalls ancient notions about women’s place in society and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.

Although today’s opinion does not go so far as to discard Roe or Casey, the Court — differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation — is hardly faithful to Casey’s invocations of “the rule of law” and the “principles of stare decisis.”

In candor, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and the Court’s defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives. A decision of the character the Court makes today should not have staying power.

April 10, 2007

Happy Birthday Okazaki Fragment! On March 31, O.F. turned 12 years old. Thanks for being my familiar, and for keeping my lap warm all these years.