John Roberts and Mick Jagger

Hey all,

Two topics for today.

First, my thoughts on the nomination of John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States. All politics and judicial ideals aside, this is a bad idea. I had hoped Dubya would have simply promoted an associate justice to be in charge of the court. The advantage there would have been that the new Chief Justice would already have a clue of how to administer the court, and all aspects of its business.

This is a job where experience is going to count, and John Roberts does not have it. He may be a fine jurist (unsure on this point, more later!), but putting someone with little or no experience in charge of running an arm of the US Government is a very bad idea. For example, if given the chance would you rather have an experienced businessman take over a major corporation, or some Joe off the street? Now imagine if a large amount of your retirement fund was in this companies stock! Who would you rather have? Given a semi-blind choice, I think experience should take some precedent.

Mr. Roberts is 20 yrs younger than the average age of the other justices, and will be responsible for leading this group of nine through what I expect to be a long period of change. Should he be confirmed as Chief Justice, he will be more than likely oversee major changes to the court as the other 8 get older and leave the court (either by death or retirement). Is he ready to lead during a potentially tumultuous time? Are we, as a country, ready to promote this inexperienced canidate to such an important post? I would say its a bad gamble.

Secondly, I have reviewed the latest Rolling Stones album, "A Bigger Bang". All in all, a good album, with a few really good cuts, and some that are just OK. My favorite cuts on the album are: Rough Justice, Let Me Down Slow, Look What the Cat Dragged In, and Driving Too Fast. The album has a great blues type feel too it. The song Sweet Neo Con is an interesting song, generally trashing the policies of the Bush Administration, however musically is not one of my favorites.

Nuff for now.
-Paul