All I want for Christmas is some new 'Doctor Who'

When Doctor Who lands in the nation's living rooms on Christmas Day it is traditional for a succession of baddies to follow. This year, however, his foe won't be Daleks and Cybermen – but an extremely hungry, flying shark.

And if that isn't unlikely enough, the shark features in an adventure that takes Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol for its inspiration and involves the Doctor trying to save a ship of 4,000 passengers from certain death.

"If you're going to do a Christmas Day episode, which is based on the principle that the audience have had a selection box for breakfast and are probably drunk, then you have to move it on a bit – because a normal episode of Doctor Who wouldn't be enough," joked lead writer Steven Moffat after a special preview screening last night.

The show marks Matt Smith's first Christmas Day special as Doctor Who. "I've always wanted to do a Doctor Who Christmas special. It's wonderful, It's been wonderful," he told fans. The episode also stars Michael Gambon as the scrooge-like Kazran Sardick, the singer Katherine Jenkins – and of course the Doctor's companion Amy Pond.

via guardian.co.uk

A question for my lawyer friends out there

Adam G. Ciongoli, the general counsel of a big insurance company, argued a case before the Supreme Court last week. But he was not representing his employer. Indeed, he was not representing any client at all.

Mr. Ciongoli was there because neither the prosecution nor the defense was willing to support a particularly harsh sentencing decision from the federal appeals court in St. Louis. The Supreme Court had appointed him to defend the decision because no one else would.

The court uses that odd procedure roughly every year or so. It is a great honor for the lawyer involved, but it raises questions about whether the court is engaged in a kind of judicial activism in shaping the case before it.

The adversary system generally allows the parties to decide which issues to present. And the Constitution says that federal courts should decide only actual cases and controversies.

via nytimes.com

I've spent some time around the law, but I'm no lawyer. But this heretofore-unknown-to-me practice does raise a question about the law, then: If the Supreme Court *actively appoints lawyers to argue cases that have nobody arguing them* how could it ever justify the dismissal of a case based on "standing"?

I ask this, because there's a theory floating around that the U.S. Court of Appeals will dismiss the Proposition 8 case for lack of standing -- the governor and attorney general of California won't defend the measure, so a private group has stepped forward to do so. The argument is that group, not being the state, lacks the standing to defend the measure. So the court could dismiss the case, letting Prop 8 be overturned in California -- but letting the Supreme Court avoid the thorny question of gay marriage rights in the Constitution.

Which might sound like a swell "half a baby" compromise to those interested in limiting judicial activism -- but again, if the Supreme Court can appoint people to argue the cases that (essentially) it wants to hear, wouldn't dismissal based on standing be more a political move than a legal one? What am I missing?

It's possible that most terrorists aren't that smart

STOCKHOLM — Two days after a bomber killed himself and slightly wounded two people in a commercial district here crowded with Christmas shoppers, investigators offered glimpses of a suspect who, in the pattern of other Islamist terrorists, moved unobtrusively between Europe and the Middle East as he prepared to martyr himself, only to botch the operation in a manner that suggested a clumsy do-it-yourself attack.

via nytimes.com

Speculators Bet On Madoff Case

The lawsuits filed by the trustee seeking money for Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud victims may be a blow for the defendants — but they are catnip for an obscure breed of Wall Street traders speculating on the outcome of the enormous Madoff bankruptcy case.

In recent months, hedge funds and other investment firms have been quietly contacting Madoff victims whose loss claims have been approved by the trustee, Irving H. Picard. These funds — specialists in beaten-down assets known as distressed securities — are offering to buy those claims immediately for cash, but at a sharp discount from their face value.

via dealbook.nytimes.com

Is it wrong to hope that somehow, everybody loses?

Obama: Passive on DADT

This afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to say that President Obama would call on the Senate to stay in session until it brought up the stand-alone measure to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In a series of passive replies to the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson and the Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld, Gibbs didn’t directly urge the Senate to consider the measure, but said, “our hope is that the Senate will take this up again and we’ll see this done by the time the year ends.” “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DREAM, along with government funding, are all in a basket of issues that are likely to come after” START, he argued earlier in the press briefing.

via wonkroom.thinkprogress.org

Now, maybe the administration is working furiously behind the scenes to get the DADT repeal done during the lame duck. But this certainly *looks* like, once again, the president doesn't have the heart to fight very hard or very visibly for a liberal priority.

Just sayin'.

Cliff Lee's return to Philadelphia brings me a step closer to complete betrayal of the Kansas City Royals

I want to stay a Royals fan. I don't know why I still want to be a Royals fan -- something about not turning your back on who you are and where you come from, I guess.

But Lordy, people, it's tough to stay strong when you live in a place where the major-league team just beat out the New York Yankees for the most-coveted free agent in baseball. A pitcher I really loved during his first go-round here. 

I know, I know: Big-market and small-market disparities. It's still way more fun to root for a team whose objective is "let's try to win the World Series next year" instead of "maybe we'll be ready for above-.500 baseball in 2012 if everything pans out juuuuuuust right."

I'm trying to stay loyal, Royals. But the Phils are making it real hard. I might even buy my son a Phillies baseball cap.

The rank, ugly hypocrisy of the Wall Street Journal

As the Virginia case shows, ObamaCare really does stretch the Commerce Clause to the breaking point. The core issue is whether the federal government can order individuals to do anything the political class decides it wants them to do. The stakes couldn't be higher for our constitutional order.

via online.wsj.com

You know, I'm not a huge fan of the individual mandate. And I should be against ad hominem attacks. But I'd take this rhetoric from the Wall Street Journal a lot more seriously if they didn't *regularly* publish John Yoo, who is of the opinion that the president has the right to violate treaties, order a child's testacles crushed and suspend the First Amendment in a time of war if he so chooses. This paper has regularly given its imprimatur to the idea that there are no limits when a president doesn't want there to be.

Oh, I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. The paper has regularly given its imprimatur to the idea that there are no limits to the federal government's power when a Republican president doesn't want there to be.

The Wall Street Journal's fidelity to liberty and Constitutional order isn't just suspect -- it's laughable. The hypocrisy is too thick to bear.