After a pleasant and relaxing extended weekend (!) you wake up on Tuesday with every cell in your body crying out that it needs more sleep, your daughter sitting on your bed literally pounding on you to get up, and your head awash with all the work you've fallen behind on, which must be done in order to catch up with the bills you've fallen behind on. So what do you do about it all? Demand a bit more sleep from your daughter, and then eventually get up and get some coffee and sit down with the news, just like every other day.

Well, there's a lot in the news today and, as is typical, none of it is encouraging and even less of it makes much sense. The bad news, and my cynical opinions about it, to follow.

President Obama has selected Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his nomination for the Supreme Court. Does she lean liberal in her decisions? Yes, but that is the president's pleasure, and it comes as no surprise. She is being touted as potentially the third female justice in Supreme Court history, if that is an important and qualifying demarcation, and also she would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the highest court in the land.

Unless you want to count Justice Benjamin Cardozo who was nominated by Herbert Hoover in 1932. Cardozo was descended from Portuguese-Jewish immigrants, but (unlike other U.S. departments) the U.S. Census Bureau does not consider Portuguese to be Hispanic, so there. I have one question: when will all this end? Seriously? When the first Icelandic transsexual descended from handicap Androids is nominated to the Supreme Court, who will celebrate? And for the record, both Cardozo and Sotomayor are Latin American.

The recent constitutional amendment voted on by the people of California is being reviewed by the state's Supreme Court today. They will decide if it is actually constitutional or not. Hold on... Think about it for a second... Does this make sense to you? Our constitutional amendment is not constitutional? Well, if it ain't broke don't fix it, I guess. Anyway, the next time you go in to the polling place to vote for something, anything, say, a judge for example, consider that the judges will decide if the election even matters or not. And then when you try to wave the constitution in their face, they will no doubt advise you that it can only be amended and interpreted through the proper channels -that is, by becoming a judge. [Update: Proposition 8 upheld by court.]

President Obama is still planning on closing the Guantanamo Bay terrorist holding facility, even though congress did not approve the funds for it, interestingly. Closing Gitmo may be good for America's image abroad, if that is important, but if you think moving terrorists into a SuperMax prison is a good idea, read this. You know all those stories about prisoners running gangs, doing drug deals, and ordering hits from prison? Just think about it for a second.

North Korea detonated a second atomic bomb, and then, for good measure, shot off a bunch more missiles to celebrate. Unenforced but strongly-worded U.N. Security Council resolutions are sure to be half-heartedly crafted soon, after it is all discussed in committee. Nothing good can come from North Korea having the bomb, but if Kim Jong-il had at least timed the nuclear explosion with the end of the Lost season finale, well then, that would have been bold. Meanwhile, Iran gets its uranium from Venezuela and Bolivia, in case you were wondering. It's not so much an "axis of evil" anymore, as much as it is "a thousand points of darkness".

20 billion dollars has been given to GM to help them with their impending bankruptcy, it seems. That's about the same amount as the California budget gap, but Obama administration officials say that California needs to solve the financial crisis by itself. I don't really know where to start with this one, except to say that my next car will be an American-made Toyota as I always intended, though I may register it out of state to save a cool grand.

Lastly, the great hope of pop culture, Susan Boyle, started out a bit "shakey" in her performance the other night, but she quickly recovered and was selected to be a finalist anyway. I, for one, hope she wins. If you happened to have been trapped in the cargo hold of the International Space Station for the past month or so and do not yet know who Susan Boyle is, here's the original truly awe-inspiring vid. Watch it again just to get your week started out right.

Before she went onstage on Sunday night, with the world watching, Susan Boyle said:

All my life, I've always striven to prove myself, that I can be accepted, that I'm not the worthless person that people think I am, that I do have something to offer.

There is yet hope for us all.




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