Politics and other nightmares

I think it's nice that people who can't handle the real world now have an alternate reality in which they can cheer for two liberal presidents, a man and a woman. It must tickle Donald Sutherland no end that in the series about the female president, he plays the evil, heartless conservative.

Another eminent-domain outrage:

Mayor Michael Brown . . . defends the use of eminent domain by saying the city is "using tools that have been available to governments for years to bring communities like ours out of the economic doldrums and the trauma centers."

Hey, they're just following New London, Conn.'s, example.

So, it's Harriet Miers for the O'Connor seat. Bush managed to select someone whose views on major issues are even less-known than those of John Roberts. Everyone is likely to be focused on what the Democrats will make of this, but the early response from Bush's conservative base doesn't seem so good.

For all you political geeks who want to start getting ready for next year's elections, here's a site to bookmark. It's opensecrets.org, where you can find out who is donating how much to politicians, political parties and political action committees.

Welcome to the Roberts Court, America. This is, of course, good news for the new chief justice's Hoosier friends. Not that every Hoosier is his friend.

A lot of people think the current president's bioethics council is concerned a little too much about the ethics and not enough about the bio, although the way they usually put it is "religion trumps science" or some such. That's a fair assessment; I think the administration is less science-friendly than it should be. But some people don't worry enough about the opposite extreme, our scientific enthusiasms running way ahead of our ethical and moral sensibilities.

Let's keep up the pressure on eminent-domain abuse, from all quarters. And here's the view from the lowly little bean company itself.

Dan Carpenter is an Indianapolis Star columnist who might even be too liberal for The Journal Gazette's editorial page. In this offering, we learn that he will go to the mat for Evan Bayh, doesn't think much of John Roberts, has no appreciation for the Constitution and has utter contempt for any Hoosier to the right of, well, Dan Carpenter. This probably won't make him feel better.

You probably think you only have to put up with President Bush for three more years, then live with the effects of his Supreme Court appointments for a generation or so. But here's what a famous journalist thinks:

Woodward said he thought of Bush's plan as a 100-year agenda.

"Creation science" is an oxymoron, and "intelligent design" is just a different way to try to get religion into science classsrooms. That's not to say that religion shouldn't be explored in schools, but mixing faith and science will benefit neither. It would be nice if we could follow this debate from afar, but that's not to be.