Sherry Chandler

A correspondent sent this link with the remark, “let’s open ANWR and more of our coastlines to the same stalwart oversight.”

Greg Palast, Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Oil Spill:

Chicago Tribune (revised)

[Thursday, June 26, 2008] Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won’t have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon’s liability by 90% to half a billion. It’s so cheap, it’s like a permit to spill.

Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty.

But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone.

In San Diego, I met with Exxon’s US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, “Admit it; the oil spill’s the best thing to happen” to the Natives.

His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal - but Natives die.

And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late.

Follow the link and read all of this post.

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Addendum: And then there’s this: Supreme Court Strikes Down ‘Millionaire’s Amendment’ :

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a law meant to level the financial playing field when rich candidates pay for their own political campaigns.

The 5-to-4 decision, legal experts said, was significant for rejecting the rationale behind the law, known as the “millionaire’s amendment,” and for confirming the court’s continuing skepticism about the constitutionality of campaign finance regulations.

“Supporters of reasonable campaign finance regulation are now zero for three in the Roberts court,” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “This is a signal of what is to come. What could easily fall following this case are the longstanding limits on corporate and union spending in federal elections.”

The law at issue in Thursday’s decision imposed special rules in races with candidates who finance their own campaigns. Those candidates are required to disclose more information, and their opponents are allowed to raise more money.

Five/four, five/four, five/four…

Well the Supremes have revoked the protections the Second Amendment afforded the American people from the dangers of an unregulated militia.

Several years ago I read a study of Thomas Jefferson’s ideas and I came across the truism that the early framers of the Constitution & Bill of Rights were thoroughly schooled in the Law, and in Colonial America that meant they were extensively trained in Latin composition. I have noticed that writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare and Sterne who have such training often write as if they were translating from the Latin.

So when I see a phrase such as “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” I recognize that peculiarity of Latin grammar, the Ablative Absolute. Such critters are adverbial phrases which directly modify the verb in the main clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” [emphasis inserted] Many a dangling participle has been aborn by writers trying to employ an Abl. Abs. in English. It follows that an unregulated militia would have its gun-totin’ rights severely curtailed in the interests of the safety of the State.

Scalia aspires to the distinction of being a Strict Constructionist. He needs to brush up on his history and grammar first. People who deploy dangerous armaments such as handguns and legal opinions need a thorough grounding in the basics lest they go off half-cocked.

I own a firearm or three and I also had the unhappy adolescent experience of shooting a goat in the leg through carelessness. The safety on my .22 was not very, so I learned to be extra careful. Anyone who wants to carry a firearm or even keep one in the house for protection needs some thorough training in safety and marksmanship. That is the true meaning of “well-regulated.”

From Lady Wilde’s Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, The King of the Cats

A most important personage in feline history is the King of the Cats. He may be in your house a common looking fellow enough, with no distinguishing mark of exalted rank about him, so that it is very difficult to verify his genuine claims to royalty. Therefore the best way is to cut off a tiny little bit of his ear. If he is really the royal personage, he will immediately speak out and declare who he is; and perhaps, at the same time, tell you some very disagreeable truths about yourself, not at all pleasant to have discussed by the house cat.

A man once, in a fit of passion, cut off the head of the domestic pussy, and threw it on the fire. On which the head exclaimed, in a fierce voice, “Go tell your wife that you have cut off the head of the King of the Cats; but wait! I shall come back and be avenged for this insult,” and the eyes of the cat glared at him horribly from the fire.

And so it happened; for that day year, while the master of the house was playing with a pet kitten, it suddenly flew at his throat and bit him so severely that he died soon after.