The Supreme Court has handed Texas another blow in death penalty cases. It overturned the State's case against a man who was prevented from introducing evidence about his learning disability and low IQ. According to the State, one's mental capacity has nothing to with murder, which is why they thought the defendant deserved the death penalty. And yes I do say they because the jurors did not have all the information.
In capital murder cases you need either an intent to kill and/or malice, if I remember correctly, in order to be convicted. Malice is the key, and without it there's no case. If Texas could it would put to death children I imagine. This is no difference. Have the mental capacity of a 4 year old and you'll still get fried. The question is, do you want that zesty or plain?

I realized yesterday that I hadn't touched my personal website in over a year and a half. I think I was appalled. It's not that I forgot about it. It's more like I've been busy with other things, and I have yet to create a layout to top the one that was on there prior to the one there now.
The reason I messed with it yesterday? The site was unreadable in Firefox, and this was just unacceptable. It's been nagging me for weeks, so I went and deleted the tag that was causing the text problem. It took three hours to find and delete one measely tag. Imagine how long it's going to take to remove the scrolling javascript effect from every page, because I guarantee that's not coming back (that and I noticed some chick ripped it from my site and used it on her site without changing any of the values...how stupid can you be). It's the other reason that kept me from adding my newer writings yesterday. At least the site is readable, and it now states that I actually graduated from law school!
And if you haven't noticed already, I messed around with the blogroll. Added a few links here and there. Seperated them into sections. There's now a RSS 2.0 feed as well.

but maybe it shouldn't have.
Alright, so maybe Notre Dame's defense had some trouble stopping the offense, especially that last minute, which completely killed the thrill of a near miss field goal that had tied the game minutes before. Had they stopped them, the game would have been in overtime, and the refs would have given it to Pitt anyway.
You can't tell me some of those calls were legit. That was so not a pass interference in the 4th quarter, and you have to love it when the student body disagrees with the referees. I wonder if the FCC is going to slap NBC with a fine because that "bullshit" came through loud and clear, or will Palko's be enough.
What a frustrating game! The Irish may not have been at their best, but the refs were biased, and I'm still disappointed. I'm really keeping my fingers crossed, and hopeing for an upset in two weeks.

Here's a neat little scenario. You're walking on railroad tracks (are you insane??), and you suddenly hear the sound of a train coming from behind you. What do you do?
Wouldn't any reasonble person jump out of the way? Run? Hell, wouldn't you step off the track and let the train go by because they do seem to have pretty loud horns?
Apparently, this woman didn't do anything, and the poor thing was hurt. I guess she didn't know that train tracks carry trains, and you can get trampled if you don't move out of the way! And since she wasn't informed of the dangers of walking on these tracks (hello, common sense!!), she's now filed a lawsuit.
Frankly, I'm surprised she survived. Having received such minor injuries maybe she was playing "chicken," and she just doesn't want to fess up. As for her lawyer, scum of the earth.
Via Boing Boing

Ok, so Bush's education policies may not be the best, and yes, he won the election on some issues that I may not agree with. But you know what pisses me off? When I see stupid cartoons like this that make fun of special education students. It's the most disgusting thing I've laid eyes on, and it's done in poor taste to criticize Bush. If you want to bitch about him, fine, but don't you dare make fun of the disabled. It's not funny.
Mr. Rall, have you ever been in a special ed class? I have before I was "mainstreamed". Those kids learn what they can, and they're happy because they get the attention they need. You assume Bush is going to dumb down America? Well maybe the abled kids will learn not to fear and make fun of those who don't exactly look and act exactly like they do. That's a more valuable experience than say teaching to the stupid TASP.
Oh and for the record, mentally disabled does not mean disfigured, unable to walk, etc, etc. And they don't normally barf constantly either. Perhaps that was your subconscience speaking.
From Wizbang.

Liza, Liza, Liza. If it's not a face lift then it must be harrassment. Her bodyguard was attacked by the Minnelli with sex as her weapon of choice. Now he is suing the actress and singer, and I'm wondering, would it really have been that difficult to find another job, or was the money just that good?

Mother dearest calls me facilita, but I want a Sawyer!

So, you want to know what makes a gal like me happy? How about the release of Firefox 1.0, aka, the IE slayer.
Ok, ok, so maybe it's one of many browsers beating up on Microsoft's poor excuse for a web surfing device, but none the less, this release is a milestone, marked by the inability to even access the website! Now that's traffic.
So, here's the deal. If you want to upgrade or just try it out, and you can't access mozilla.org, then feel free to download a copy from my server. I have tons of bandwidth. As soon as I find the torrent for the file I'll link that here too. Enjoy.
Edited 11/10/04 because I have a shoddy keyboard and my brain was working faster than my fingers.

I used to have this weird little routine when I was stuck in DeBartolo or South Quad on one of those many cold, brutal freezing days. Since I was never fond of wearing the big winter coats, I'd just use a regular jacket (with the customary ND letterhead somewhere, of course), some mittens, and maybe a scarf and the hood if the wind chill was in the single digits. Armed with these slim items I'd rush in my baby blue scooter all the way to the library and take my sweet time going through the hall way. It was just enough time to warm up the nearly frostbitten fingers, toes, ears, and lips, and it was half the distance to my dorm room. It was also my favorite stop right after a game.
See, on game day, everyone comes to the library to oogle at the mural we call Touchdown Jesus. We can see it from the stadium, and well from the pedistrian viewpoint, we get to see all the people standing and cheering before and during the game. When the game was almost over, my friends and I would leave and take shelter in the library. We'd smile at the cheering because it was still almost just as loud, and breathe a sigh of relief because this time we weren't going to get trampled by the rest of the students as they raided the field. Oh, and have I mentioned it was warm?
I miss game day. I missed today thanks to a migraine. It wasn't a home game, but Notre Dame proved once again that no matter what the odds, they can still beat a ranked team, and that to me is better than nothing at all. I think people keep expecting Ty to be just as good if not the next Lou Holtz. Hell, I was there his last year, and he was like a god, except Ron Powlus was the QB, and that sort of ruined it a bit.
The point is, Ty is better than Davie, and these boys are slowly but surely picking up the pieces. They win some, they lose some. Don't underestimate them. I think it's about time USC started sweating a little.
Here come the Irish.

We truely do live in a new world where discrimination runs rampant and religion governs rather than common sense. Publishers in Texas changed the wording in health textbooks to reflect marriage as that between a man and a woman.

The decision could affect dozens of states because books sold in Texas, the nation�s second-largest textbook buyer, often are marketed elsewhere...
�I want the reader, the child to know that marriage is between a man and a woman,� Leo said in a written statement released during a board meeting Thursday.
Berlanga noted that one textbook showed a picture of a mother and a father and a young girl and her brother. �We cannot start censoring books because we do not like the terminology,� Berlanga said. �I don�t see two males or two females holding hands.�

What about all the children of same-sex couples? "Oh gee, sorry! Your Daddies are sinners. They're so going to hell." It says that right underneath the section on sexual dysfunction, unless that's been excised too in favor of abstinance because god forbid our children hear anything that might pervert their poor depraved minds!