While I've Been Away Watching Too Much Soccer

So, during the extended dance mix of World Cup '06, it appears one or two things have popped off in the opposable-thumb using world. Some may be worthy of fuller blogging, some may not, but...

• The Sawx have won 11 straight. During the streak Papi has 3 walkoff's. Or one more than the number of goals the U.S. team scoredacquired during that same period. Pedro got cheered, got shelled, got gone. Thanks for the memories Petey. If we see you in October, there's more where that came from, buddy.
• The NBA had it's Draft. FreeDarko, per usual, killed it.
• Speaking of FD, Kaiser and friends have gone similarly all grad-studenty on the Minnesota Twins - it's Tuesday's With Torii.
• For the last sports related tidbit, Fletch is not best pleased (or especially impressed) with the Weekly Standard's anti-soccer missive, which truth be told, sucks enormously - consider the central conceit:

  Soccer is the perfect game for the post-modern world. It's the quintessential expression of the nihilism that prevails in many cultures, which doubtlessly accounts for its wild popularity in Europe. Soccer is truly Seinfeldesque, a game about nothing, sport as sensation.

  More cringe-worthy than an Italian 'earning' a penalty.
• Ezra Klein says not nice things about The West Wing (and here). It hurts because it's a little true.
• And finally in unquestionably good news, SCOTUS reversed then Judge Roberts' ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Apparently, laws matter again. Not only laws, but legal and legislative process matter as well:

  nothing in Hamdan means that the President is constitutionally forbidden from doing what he wants to do. What the Court has done, rather is use the democratic process as a lever to discipline and constrain the President's possible overreaching. Given this Administration's history, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

  In other words, as I, among others have said all along, if the administration thinks it is too constrained by the Law, as written, go through the proper process and get it changed. All that said, though, at 177 pages of opinion, the decision does raise many of the concerns about the inaccessability of Court pronouncement voiced by Publius (and here). I'm sure to have more to say about this later, but right now, all I can say is 'score one for law and democracy'.