From cnn.com: In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Stanford ‘52) said that states should be allowed to set their own rules. “The states’ core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens,” said O’Connor, who was joined by other states’ rights advocates. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas joined O’Connor in dissention.

I guess they teach reading comprehension and Constitutional Law at Stanford, courses that the six other justices need to revisit.

Totally unrelated, props to the House of Representatives who passed a bill to expand stem cell research under thread of Bush veto. Victories like these are these over the crazies in the Religious Wrong are too few and far between.

Taxes – A necessary evil, but very unfair. I’m not complaining about the rich paying too much, but rather the poor and middle class being unfairly burdened. The commerce of filing and minimizing your taxes is a big industry. Knowing your way around deductions, loopholes, tax shelters and the like takes a degree in accounting or a good accountant, both of which cost money. Estate taxes are hurting middle class Americans who have paid taxes on their income, yet their hard work will be taxed upon their death if they don’t hire a tax advisor to restructure their holdings into Trusts and gifts. The complexity of our tax system is a burden to low and middle class Americans, those that can least shoulder this form of recessive taxation. Congress should spend their effort making the tax code more fair for all people, instead of doling out yet another subsidy to farmers, energy companies, and H&R Block.

Farm Subsidies – A bit of indirect foreign aid or a misdirected waste of money. American farmers and Scottie Pippen (who got almost $100k from subsidies last year) should grow food, raise cattle and compete in an open market. If the market can’t sustain another peanut farmer, then I’m sorry but that’s what the market called for. America has huge trade deficits, and Congress is rewarding farmers to not make too much food, food that could be sold abroad or used to lessen our imports. Subsidies to farmers for empty fields should be stopped. No developing country it going to pull itself up through farming in the 21st century, unless you’re growing coca leaves or beautiful fields of poppies. Instead if America wants to help those developing countries, invest in infficient energy plants abroad and help build factories. South America and Africa should look to the surging productivity of Asian economies as a guide instead of trying to copy the economic growth plan of a hundred years ago.

Med-Mal Awards: Congress could rein in the exploding costs of health care by setting limits on medical malpractice awards. The American Dream isn’t to sue for wealth as seems to be the case. I’m sorry, it may sound harsh, but excessive judgements for medical malpractice (honest mistakes are just mistakes) are just paying off greedy plaintiffs and their sleezy lawyers. Awards should be capped while giving the judge in the case some guidelines and limits to which they can adjust the award as fairness dictates. Juries are not made by willing people as everyone I know tries to get out of serving and thus juries are not your peers. Judges should have the discretion to halve or double the award in special cases after polling the jury in private to get each jurors opinion on the appropriate awards.

Feels good to get this on paper. Thanks for reading Draft 1.

The USS Cole was attacked by terrorists while at portin Yemen back in 2000. Far from recent news, but here’s how we brought her back for repairs. The Cole is a fairly big guided missile destroyer. The Marlin is a huge ship and it partly submerged itself, had the Cole tugged over it, and ascended with the Cole now on its deck.

The Cole returned to the Fleet in 2002.

I hope that you will spare me a few minutes of your time to tell you about something that I saw on Monday, October 27.

I had been attending a conference in Annapolis and was coming home on Sunday. As you may recall, Los Angeles International Airport was closed on Sunday, October 26, because of the fires that affected air traffic control.

Accordingly, my flight, and many others, were canceled and I wound up spending a night in Baltimore. My story begins the next day.

When I went to check in at the United counter Monday morning I saw a lot of soldiers home from Iraq. Most were very young and all had on their desert camouflage uniforms. This was as change from earlier, when they had to buy civilian clothes in Kuwait to fly home. It was a visible reminder that we are in a war. It probably was pretty close to what train terminals were like in World War II.

Many people were stopping the troops to talk to them, asking them questions in the Starbucks line or just saying “Welcome Home.” In addition to all the flights that had been canceled on Sunday, the weather was terrible in Baltimore and the flights were backed up. So, there were a lot of unhappy people in the terminal trying to get home, but nobody that I saw gave the soldiers a bad time.

By the afternoon, one plane to Denver had been delayed several hours. United personnel kept asking for volunteers to give up their seats and take another flight. They weren’t getting many takers. Finally, a United spokeswoman got on the PA and said this, “Folks. As you can see, there are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area. They only have 14 days of leave and we’re trying to get them where they need to go without spending any more time in an airport than they have to. We sold them all tickets, knowing we would oversell the flight. If we can, we want to get them all on this flight. We want all the soldiers to know that we respect what you’re doing, we are here for you and we love you.”

At that, the entire terminal of cranky, tired, travel-weary people, a cross-section of America, broke into sustained and heartfelt applause. The soldiers looked surprised and very modest. Most of them just looked at their boots. Many of us were wiping away tears.

And, yes, people lined up to take the later flight and all the soldiers went to Denver on that flight.

That little moment made me proud to be an American, and also told me why we will win this war.

If you want to send my little story on to your friends and family, feel free. This is not some urban legend. I was there, I was part of it, I saw it happen.

Will Ross
Administrative Judge
United States Department of Defense