The Volunteer State embarrassment continues:

The Republican leader, Bill Frist (Tenn.), was asked why he, the head of the anti-filibuster movement, had voted to uphold the filibuster of a judge in 2000. Frist at first stammered — “Mr. President, the, in response, the Paez nomination, we’ll come back and discuss it” — and then settled on an answer: “It’s not the cloture votes, per se,” he said, using the term for filibuster-breaking votes. “It’s the partisan leadership-led use of cloture to kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees.”

Kill? Assassinate? My, what language! Did Dr. Frank Luntz recommend this talk to woo the religious rightists as we march toward 2008?

As some of you may have noticed, my website account was suspended last night–the second time that’s happened in a month. No, I haven’t be storing a bunch of illegal music or porn–I’ve been the apparent victim of comment spam attacks.
After the last shutdown, I upgraded to MT 3.15 and installed an updated MT Blacklist. I thought that was sufficient protection; apparently it’s not.
Currently, commenting is disabled for “unregistered” users while I try to sort through this issue. So if you aren’t registered at TypeKey, or whatever it is, you may not be able to comment. Sorry.

John Jay Hooker writes an interesting–and to me somewhat surprising–letter to Senate Majority Leader Frist in which he contends that Senate Rule XXII(2) because it is in conflict with U.S. Constitution Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 2. His conclusion:

However, there is no question in my mind that the Founders intended for the President to nominate anyone he wants to the Federal bench as the Constitution has no age, residency or citizenship requirements for Federal judges, and moreover, it appears to me that the Founders intended for the President to have an up or down vote in the Senate on his nominees and they should be confirmed with a majority of those voting.

Wouldn’t this interpretation also preclude the Senate Judiciary Committee from withholding nominees from a floor vote? It seems if the Senate can’t use its rules to interfere with a majority floor vote, it shouldn’t have rules to prevent that vote either.

The KNS has an article on the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine’s “Fat Camp,” where owners send their pets to lose weight. According to one study, 6 out of 10 U.S. pets are overweight.
I’ve got a cute little overweight cat here, but I don’t think Fat Camp is in her future. I don’t think she’d fare too well on the underwater treadmill.

I hadn’t followed the case, but based on reading this article, I’m surprised that an amusement park operator was found criminally liable for the death of a woman who fell from a ride.
Based on the story, it doesn’t seem like the prosecution met the burden of showing the defendant acted in a manner which showed blatant disregard for the life of the customer. Of course I didn’t see the testimony.
At any rate, I guess the jury made a statement to all the tourist traps in Sevier County.