Ownership of Facebook

John Egan at Technorati Blogging reports on the new website WhoOwnsFacebook.com.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Strikes Back at Critics

The AP reports that Justice Thomas takes aim at court's critics.

Well, good for you, Clarence. If you are aware of the criticism "out there" then the Court may actually be on the way to improvement and your critics may -- then -- be able to turn to tackling other problems.

We all want to be "proud" of the U.S. Supreme Court, we really do.

Honest critics realize that you can't keep politics out of the court room or out of judging, but political bias can not be blatant and over-riding of legal reason, so much so presently in fact, that Justices can often be predicted in their opinions -- not on the basis of legal precedents -- but on the basis of their PERSONAL political biases, and that is a sad thing.

The most important characteristic of a judge should be impartiality, joined with a love of and loyalty to the principles that made America the great country that it is, in spite of its many faults.

Wise decisions are those that mold precedents into the glue that keeps the nation strong, prosperous and healthy -- in every respect. Everything that weakens the nation -- also badly split Supreme Court decisions -- should be viewed with a "jaundiced eye", in the sense of Charles Dickens, quoted at GoodReads:

""Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colors are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision."
— Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist) "

If we are not as proud as we could be about Supreme Court judging and ancillary issues, it is not because we are sports fans who will not say anything good about rivals. Quite the contrary, we level the greatest criticism at the athletic teams we support, because we best know their weaknesses.

Any intelligent man realizes that it is one thing to be an armchair quarterback and quite another to actually play the game. The same is true for judging of course, or any other human endeavor. Being the one who carries responsibility is always different than merely commenting about it. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court must keep in mind that it is not enough to "be wise"; rather, one must speak and act wisely, especially at the top level of the judiciary.

PowerWall at MSNBC: News Photos Videos and Gossip About "Power Players" and "VIPs"

We just viewed PowerWall by chance at MSNBC and liked the format which uses up fully the available screen rather than, as many websites do, being very inefficient with available space. Take a look at what PowerWall itself labels as news, photos, videos and gossip about "Power Players" and "VIPs". We put both terms into quotation marks because those labels are always a matter of opinion. But these are the people that people like to read about, and since we ourselves are "picture" rather than "text"-oriented, we found this website OK.