BROWN OUT!? WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMIN'? PLUS - REHNQUIST ON DRUGS ...

CONDUCTOR: SCOTUS LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST'S DRUG HABIT
The man in full.
By Jack Shafer - Slate - Sept. 9, 2005

This was a watershed event in Rehnquist's life. Did the experience—being dazed on drugs, humiliated in the press, getting off Placidyl—contribute to his jurisprudence? How could it not have?

As we usher the 16^th chief justice of the United States to his celestial reward, let us remember him in full. He labored successfully to return power to the states, treated colleagues with warmth and respect, was said to be a gregarious boss, and, inspired by a judge's costume he saw in the performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, added four silly gold stripes to each sleeve of his judicial robe.

And for the nine years between 1972 and the end of 1981, William Rehnquist consumed great quantities of the potent sedative-hypnotic Placidyl. So great was Rehnquist's Placidyl habit, dependency, or addiction—depending on how you regard long-term drug use—that by the last quarter of 1981 he began slurring his speech in public, became tongue-tied while pronouncing long words, and sometimes had trouble finishing his thoughts ...

According to a Jan. 4, 1982, New York Times account, Rehnquist sought help with the drug in December 1981 because it no longer relieved his pain. He entered George Washington University Hospital on Dec. 27. According to the physician spokesman for the hospital he suffered "disturbances in mental clarity, characterized by distorted perceptions," as doctors weaned him off the drug. The spokesman added that after his Placidyl was cut off, Rehnquist began ''hearing things and seeing things that other people did not hear and see.'' The doctors took his dose back up before re-weaning him. By mid-January, Rehnquist returned to the bench ... http://slate.msn.com/id/2125906/?nav=fix

How did Rehnquist vote on the Court's decision to retain federal jurisdiction over "Medical Marijuana"?
Rehnquist, 80, joined a dissent written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that said that states should be allowed to set their own policies for marijuana use.

BROWN OUT! Boy, did anyone see THIS ONE coming?!

Mike Brown issued a hand-written memo from his empty desk in an undisclosed location is a sub-basement of the White House via a mailroom courier - since there was no phone, fax, computer or even a refurbished Selectric available to him. Now he can get busy rehabilitating his image in preparation for a return to the "horsey set" . . .

(Brown Out II ... )
UNSUBSCRIBED: CLARENCE "GATEMOUTH" BROWN
Another Katrina Victim

Suffering from both heart disease and lung cancer, eclectic blues and country guitarist, fiddler, singer, harmonica player Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown died in Texas on Saturday at age 81. The Louisiana native was forced to evacuate his home in Slidell before Hurricane Katrina hit -- the house was destroyed -- and went to stay with relatives in Orange, Texas (Gate's hometown). Salon - The Fix
CUTE!
Kitten 'n' Kibble ...

MONEY QUOTE:
Kanye West on rap and immortal fame: "Death is the best thing that can ever happen to a rapper. Almost dying isn't bad either." E - ONLINE

IS POSSESSION OF SEX-AIDS CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED?

"BUCKY" over @ the Democratic Underground
boards posted:
"If vibrators also fired bullets, they'd be protected under 2nd Amendment - In a discussion about "sexual minority lifestyles" just now I found out that possession a/o sale of sexual toys is criminal in some states. Obviously this is a huge violation of the right to privacy which John Roberts doesn't think exists (which is crap since right to privacy is simply a logical corrollary to protections against unlawful search and seizure). So I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that if you want to legalize sex toys everywhere and extend to their owners the full constitutional protection to which they're due, all you really have to do is reengineer them a little bit so that vibrators, penis rings, and other snap-on implements of personal pleasure can also fire bullets. They don't have to be accurate and they don't even have to be loaded to then fully qualify for absolute protection under the Second Amendment ..."