The Vermont Supreme Court issued two significant rulings today (although the author of one of the opinions oddly tried to downplay the importance of the decision):

1) Borden v. Hofmann, in which the court spilt 3-2 to say the Corrections Department's use of Nutraloaf -- wheat bread, non-dairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes -- constitutes punishment. Corrections placed inmates on the diet after they became unruly or uncooperative; namely, to stop them from flinging excrement, meal trays or utensils. The majority opinion says inmates are entitled to a disciplinary hearing before being placed on the Nutraloaf diet. Justices Dooley, Johnson and Skoglund composed the majority; Chief Justice Reiber and Justice Burgess dissented. (Skoglund, the majority-opinion's author, called the decision "pedestrian" because of what she said was its relatively narrow scope).

2) State v. Colby and Wardinski, in which a unanimous high court threw out the convictions of Michael Colby and Boots Wardinski. Both men were found guilty of recklessly creating a risk of public inconvenience or annoyance when they, without lawful authority, attempted to disturb a lawful assembly or meeting of persons. The accusations arose from the pair's brief interruption of then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte's graduation speech at the St. Johnsbury Academy in June 2006. The court ruled the statute is an overly broad restriction on free-speech rights, because a person must actually create a disturbance, rather than create merely the risk of one, to have broken the law.

Both teams made a lot of mistakes, a lot of turnovers. It did come down to the last shot.

Next year, UF wins.

And you know me. I'm happy, but not vindictive.

UF has a LOT of good freshmen.

Oh, If you tivo'd it, it is a defensive game. You'll probably watch anyway, you're from the SEC.

The N.M. Legislature passed a repeal of capital punishment a while back and now the Senate has passed it, too.  The bill is going to Richardson's desk for his signature.

The nation's economy used to have too much greed and not enough fear of the future, but now has too much fear and could use a little more "greed" -- spending.

Lawrence H. Summers, the White House economic adviser, calls it "the paradox at the heart of the financial crisis. "

"In the past few years, we've seen too much greed and too little fear; too much spending and not enough saving; too much borrowing and not enough worrying," Summers said Friday in a speech to the Brookings Institution. "Today, however, our problem is exactly the opposite."

In remarks to a private dinner at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Summers was even blunter, according to an attendee: "Before, we had too much greed and too little fear. Now, we have too much fear and too little greed."

SNIP

"While greed is no virtue, entrepreneurship and the search for opportunity is what we need today. We need a program that breaks these vicious cycles. We need to instill the trust that allows opportunity to overcome fear and enables families and businesses to again imagine a brighter future. And we need to create this confidence without allowing it to lead to unstable complacency."

If not - sure looks bad for her.

Waters, a senior member of the congressional committee that oversees banking, has come under scrutiny because OneUnited Bank received $12 million in bailout funds after she helped arrange a meeting between its representatives and those from others banks and Treasury officials. Waters' husband, Sidney Williams, had been a board member and stockholder of OneUnited.

"U.S. Abandons Detainee Label but Policy Is Largely Intact."

The Obama administration on Friday said it was abandoning the use in court proceedings of the Bush administration's term "enemy combatant" as it argues for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, symbolically separating itself from Bush detention policies.

But in a filing in federal court, the Justice Department argued that the president had expansive authority to detain terror suspects there without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration asserted." (NY Times 03/13/2009)

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"Exerting its new influence as the U.S. government's largest creditor, China yesterday demanded that the Obama administration "guarantee the safety" of its $1 trillion in American bonds as Washington goes further into debt to combat the economic crisis."

I was wondering when China would move to exert the power it has accumulated over us by buying Treasuries during the Bush years.
This is one whopper of a debt.

I hope Obama ends the war sooner than later - number one to stop the killing and the ties to Bush era ethics - and number two to stop the flow of our resources (quoted as being a half million dollars a minute) down into the abyss.