The law and the jungle

A group of us were talking about Dennis Rader on Friday and finally reached the same conclusions millions of other people have: 1. He's possibly the scariest of all the serial killers, and his calm recitation of his deeds was the most chilling thing we'd ever heard. 2. We could never see the world as he sees it if we tried for a million years.

Not all drive-by shootings are by young-punk drug dealers. We shouldn't make light of what this man has done, but if I make it to 84, and somebody messes with me like this . . . I'm just saying, that's all.

Some undoubtedly thought the efforts to get Supreme Court Justice David Souter's house through eminent domain were just a prank by people who wanted to make a point about property rights. If so, it's becoming ever more elaborate. Hope they keep at it.

Equal rights under the law? Not in Hawaii, apparently.

This is probably the last gasp of those still trying to find a reason to keep John Roberts off the Supreme Court. The idea in question is still a matter of dispute now, and it certainly wasn't "out of the mainstream" back then.

I've always liked the great movie "12 Angry Men," but for a long time I probably took the wrong lesson from it: The jury system works, and the truth will prevail! Actually, 11 of the jurors in the movie were nincompoops who were ready to send the defendant to the chair without a minute of discussion. And most juries don't have the Henry Fonda character to slow them down and make them consider the actual evidence in the case instead of their own prejudices and preconceptions.

It's the idea that terrifies conservatives and gives liberals a glimmer of hope: No matter what Supreme Court nominees sound like, they "evolve" on the court and often become something other than what the president who appointed them wanted. The only problem with that truism is that it isn't true.

More on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' Indiana childhood, from a classmate at their Catholic prep school who recalls that Roberts once caused everyone else to get D's and F's by getting 100 percent on a test that was graded on the curve. And they still liked him!

Martha just had to get to that yoga class, so now she's got to do three more weeks in the joint. Of course, her joint is nicer than most of our joints. I could be a pretty good agoraphobic if I tried. I once spent a whole vacation week by stocking up on everything I'd need and never leaving the house once. Put an ankle bracelet on me and stick me in Martha's house, and I'd be happy for at least a year or two.

We've had another week of speculation about how the Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts will go, which means another week of incoherent nonsense from people who either don't know what the Constitution is supposed to be or don't care.

The opposition to Roberts seems to have coalesced into two major talking points: