MattZ

glad you liked it anthonyc007, and cool review, but I've got to give you a tiny bit of grief for borrowing a Dave Eggers phrase and attributing it to Wallace.

Nice work, John Paul. Don't sweat the capo comment. The goal is to play it in the key you sing it in, not the key Jeff sings it in. Dude is just being a Wilco guitar nerd (fwiw, I am in that club too).

Interesting. I've spun the album 5-6 times, and I came here to say something similar. I guess I am not alone. Not sure how to describe what I think of this album. I really love parts of it, but only parts, and not even whole songs. A guitar here, a scream there. It just feels like a lot of false starts. I agree that it sounds like Spoon, whatever that means, but it feels like a Spoon cliche. Lots of vamping, lots of echoey Britt, etc. The song structures are interesting, but only intellectually, not emotionally, if that makes any sense. One positive without reservation: the album so

And pitchfork will have it in their year-end top ten of 2010.

Everyone seems to be assuming that the unpublished stuff will now be released. My hope is that the family follows his wishes -- whatever they were.

thanks for sharing that story, radiowilco.

Ahh wonderful. Now the "Catcher in the Rye was not his best work" arguments among my friends are starting.

Me too. It may have been the cliche quote, but it's just so damn perfect that I couldn't help it. This is bumming me out much more than I would have thought.

I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.

The issue here is that you have a Court that garners very little respect in the public as being anything other than a tool for whichever party is in the majority. Too many cases break along idealogical grounds, and Bush v Gore was the pinnacle with, of course, 5 conservatives handing an election to a republican. Notwithstanding the claims that conservatives adhere to an originalist ideology, whereas the liberals adhere to none, all the justices are merely extensions of their political backgrounds. The court's ability to be the final word on a topic degrades over time as the court appears

Why dont you guys give it a try before dismissing it?

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday!

Haha. I don't have one, but I think a lot of people in NYC do. Or, I see a decent number of them on the train in the am. I am always confused about the appeal, but I suppose it would be cool to have your newspapers, magazines, and book on one device that is easy (or easier) on the eyes. I guess if you add in email, internet, apps, etc., then there's your audience.

Kindle users, maybe?

Fair points, bleedorange. You continue to mop the floor with me and my lazy (and perhaps misapplied) application of terms like strict constructionist or originalist. Yet I stand by the subtance of my points. Scalia is every bit the tail wagging dog justice that he excoriates the liberals for being. Which is to say that he gets to his results by putting policy first, and then hangs an originalist hat on it. I would focus on your final paragraph above. I think this is exactly what Scalia is doing. Scalia didn't vote the way he did in this case because he believed that this is what the

I patiently await responses from Poon and bleedorange. For they are two worthy adversaries. EDIT: actually, I will let you guys have the closing argument. Just interested in what you have to say. I've got nothing else to say. My head hurts.

All good points, and you are right that I have been somewhat loose with my language re the proper definition of activist. As for substance, though, I don't buy it. Stare decisis and the respect for precedent IS something that is established irrespective of the rationale behind the original decision. In fact, in their approval hearings, Roberts (and maybe Alito?) insisted that Roe v Wade was safe from being overturned. Why? Because it has become established law. As you said, there's no right to privacy in the constitution. If that's the case, taken with your points above, legal preced

Poon is right. Corporations have been people (so to speak) for a long time. That's not the issue here.

bleedorange- of course, you are right. I am being hyperbolic -- Plessy v Ferguson was precedent. I certainly don't stand for the proposition that overturning precedent is, by definition, improper (or activist). At the same time, I've heard enough from Justice Scalia to know that if the shoe was on the other foot here, he'd be excoriating the liberal justices for overturning a 20 yr old precedent by citing (primarily) to dissenting opinions. Be honest with me. The liberals do this, and Scalia just sits on his hands? Put another way, why is it when liberals overturn precedent, they are act

No, overturning precedent does. Or, it does when the liberals do it, so I figured it was only fair to treat everyone on the court equally. You know, since we are headed for socialism anyway. Let's start at the top! Ok, really, I am done here. My head hurts.

SpeedRacer, I hear you. I agree with you. Scalia doesn't ever stop congratulating himself on how he doesn't do these things. And he can be pretty vicious attacking other justices that he perceives as activists. That's really all I am saying.

Wow, that's a lame cop-out. I call Scalia a hypocrite and your response is, who isn't? How about the liberal justices on the court that don't deny that the Constitution is living/breathing/etc.? They aren't hypocrites. Or, get Scalia in a room. He will tell you he isn't. Don't believe him though. And again, I've never addressed the merits of the case other than to say it could help unions as much as corporations. The merits have nothing to do with the hypocrisy of Scalia. In case you were wondering, I am not a big Scalia fan. Although in truth, he really does write some wonderful o

Sure, the peanut gallery may not know them, but the conservative, precedent-respecting Scalia does. He just happens to disagree with them. So he overturns them. It's the ones he agrees with that he respects. And of course there are compelling sides to both issues of everything. And any intelligent person can not only see it, but admit it, so that shouldn't be your standard. If the issues were open and shut, they wouldn't be before the Supreme Court. I never suggested that Scalia et al. make shit up or don't have completely logical and compelling opinions/rationales. Just that they are