Debtor Relief, or Grief? The Bankruptcy Act of 2005

Interview by Julie Reynolds
Washington Lawyer August 2005

The Return of the Local?

Michael Carriere says

... liberals placed an extraordinary amount of faith in the reformist nature of the Supreme Court, using law to supersede local tradition in such landmark cases as Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Since the 1960s, the prevailing wisdom in the Democratic party has been that rights gain their authority from the federal government, with the Supreme Court helping to establish this definition on the national level (often to the detriment of local interests and customs).

Vital Source August 2005

Is Europe Dying? Notes on a Crisis of Civilizational Morale

George Weigel at History News Network August 15, 2005

When an entire continent, healthier, wealthier, and more secure than ever before, fails to create the human future in the most elemental sense -- by creating the next generation -- something very serious is afoot. I can think of no better description for that "something" than to call it a crisis of civilizational

morale.

China's Search for Stability with America

Wang Jisi says No country can affect China's fortunes more directly than the United States. Many potential flashpoints -- such as Taiwan, Japan, and North Korea -- remain, and true friendship between Washington and Beijing is unlikely. But their interests have grown so intertwined that cooperation is the best way to serve both countries.
Foreign Affairs September/October 2005

Answers from Army Corps of Engineers on unwatering New Orleans

WWL-TV New Orleans, 11:28 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Q.2. Why did the levees fail?

A.2. What failed were actually floodwalls, not levees. This was caused by overtopping which caused scouring, or an eating away of the earthen support, which then basically undermined the wall.

These walls and levees were designed to withstand a fast moving category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a strong 4 at landfall, and conditions exceeded the design.

Q.3. Why only Category 3 protection?

A.3. That is what we were authorized to do.

(via InstaPundit)

The legacy of 'radical social work'

Ken McLaughlin on How contemporary social work theory nurtured the new authoritarianism.
Spiked August 24, 2005

Shaking Shibboleths

John Kekes in TPM Online.

The general explanation of why I am questioning shibboleths, however, is that this is one of the traditional responsibilities of philosophers. Socrates began it, and in one form or another it has been going on for over 2,500 years.

Sounds kind of like a shibboleth.

Kith, Kin & Kids

Kay S. Hymowitz reviews Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz
Commentary July/August 2005

Good Schools, Expensive Houses

Seth Foreman reviews The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (With Surprising Solutions That Will Change Our Children's Futures) by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi
American Outlook Spring 2004

Is Our Russ "Howard II"?

Dave Berkman [retired UWM mass communications professor and the host of   'Media Talk,' 5 p.m. Fridays on WHAD/90.7FM] in his "Media Musings" column in the August 25, 2005 Shepherd Express.

The one downside to a Feingold-headed Democratic ticket: With any other candidate Barack Obama pretty much has a lock on the VP slot. But it's highly doubtful the party would nominate a ticket consisting of a Jew and a black.

The Holy Cow! Candidate

Sridhar Pappu says Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, loves data, hates waste, and reveres Dwight Eisenhower. He's also the Next Big Thing in the Republican Party. But can anyone so clean-cut, so pure of character, and (by gosh!) so square overcome the "two Ms"-Mormonism and Massachusetts-to be our next president?
The Atlantic Monthly September 2005

Prosecuting Saddam Hussein

M. Cherif Bassiouni says The new Iraqi government must fix things fast if the trial of Saddam Hussein is going to succeed. The special tribunal is full of legal holes and is tainted by American influence. Here's what the Iraqis can do to make sure justice gets a fair shake.
Foreign Policy July 2005

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States

Serial archives linked at The Online Books Page

How We Measure Up

Is American Math and Science Education in Decline?
New Atlantis Summer 2005

How The Media Pack Got It Wrong

Editorial on the Australian election, Quadrant November 2004

New Liberal Alliance Hopes to Replicate Conservatives' Success

Amanda B. Carpenter writes in Human Events Online on August 26, 2005,

Political operative Rob Stein, who served as chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown during the Clinton Administration, is directing the project. Stein has said he woke up one morning after the 2002 elections and discovered he was living in a one-party country. He vowed to study the conservative movement to determine why it was winning. The answer took him nearly a year to find. When he thought he had it, he compiled it into a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation, packed up and hit the road.

Britain: homegrown terror

What did those who bombed London on 7 and 21 July want? Olivier Roy says The real goals of Islamist terrorism are the provocation of a clash of cultures and the destruction of political integration.
Le Monde Diplomatique August 2005
(via Arts & Letters Daily)

Black and white--and red all over

Review of Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama: Britain's best-known historian examines a turning point in the history of slavery-and the fight for American independence.
The Economist August 25, 2005

Litigation 2004

The American Lawyer says Love them or hate them, these 16 firms drive litigation in America. In this Special Report we've ranked the top plaintiffs firms by gross revenue and looked in-depth at why they've been so successful.

Goodbye to the '68ers

Hans Kundnani says In 1998, 30 years after the student uprisings that politicised a generation, Germany's "1968ers" entered government. Expectations were high but the red-green coalition's achievements have been limited. Their liberalising effect on Germany in the decades before 1998 will be the 1968ers main legacy.
Prospect August 2005

Biennial budget bill reduces certain first-offense motor vehicle convictions to civil offenses, narrows "habitual traffic offender" definition ...

A summary of the recently-passed state budget from our State Bar.

The Ultimate Chain Letter

Russell Roberts on How doing business with strangers creates the extraordinary web that is the modern economy.
Hoover Digest Spring 2005

Why We Work

Gilbert Meilaender reviews Just Work by Russell Muirhead
First Things June/July 2005

Government Lawyers News September 2005

The latest newsletter of the Government Lawyers Division of our State Bar reports on the division's plans for the upcoming year.

Division President-elect Bruce Munson says

Since becoming president-elect of the Government Lawyers Division this summer, I haven't had a reality check until President Jim Godlewski and I attended a strategic planning workshop for State Bar leaders. The Bar has adopted a new strategic planning methodology that utilizes SMART goals.

Division President James Godlewski elaborates.

The SMART planning process is designed to develop goals that are specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-based, and Time-bound. We worked hard through a Friday afternoon and Saturday morning under Eau Claire County Corporation Counsel Keith Zehms' able leadership to craft goals that will guide the division for the next several years.

(via WisBar)

Feingold ups heat, Says Bush 'spinning' on Iraq

Also in today's Capital Times, John Nichols reports on a (campaign?) trip to California by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI).

While Feingold was blunt about his disappointment with Bush's administration, he was coy about whether he will run for president in 2008. Asked at every stop in Los Angeles if he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Feingold repeatedly answered with a variation on the response he gave at the Town Hall forum in downtown L.A.'s Biltmore Hotel, where he noted that John Kennedy headquartered his presidential campaign during the 1960 Democratic National Convention in the city.

Suggesting that he was firmly focused on opening up an honest debate about Iraq and the direction of the broader war on terror, Feingold said of a presidential run: "I really don't know whether I want to do that."

Dem wants to curb gov's veto power

David Callender reports in today's Capital Times on the proposal by Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to further limit the governor's partial veto power.

"This amendment would restore a true partial veto," allowing the governor only to reduce spending in a budget bill, Black said. ...

"The veto was originally intended to be a negative power, a check on the power of the Legislature," Black said. "Instead, because of state Supreme Court interpretations, the Wisconsin partial veto now allows the governor, by creatively deleting words or digits, to write new law, to raise taxes or to make appropriations without legislative approval."

After 30 years, debate over doves officially over

Bob Riepenhoff reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Jim Weix's recounting of the political battle behind establishing a mourning dove hunting season in Wisconsin in 2003.

In 1971, Weix said, animal rights activists made a clever, if disingenuous, move in an effort to prevent dove hunting in the state. Led by the late Lucile Hunt, the animal rights activists were successful in getting a measure passed by the Legislature removing the mourning dove from the state's list of game birds and designating it as the state's official bird of peace.

In subsequent years, the designation was successfully used to block efforts to permit hunting doves.

Ironically, Weix said, it was the election of an anti-hunter, Patricia Randolph, to the Dane County Conservation Congress in spring of 1999 that gave the mourning dove issue the boost it needed. Unaware that Randolph and a group of supporters were there, many hunters and anglers left the hearing before it ended, while the animal rights contingent stayed. As a result, Randolph was elected to a three-year term.

It's unclear if this is an example of how one side can prevail if it has the meetings run late and the other side is made up of the people who have to get up early the next morning.

Randolph's election served as a wake-up call to the sporting community and, at the hearings the next year, a vote on whether to establish the mourning dove hunt became a rallying point for both hunters and anti-hunters. Some viewed it as a virtual referendum on hunter rights. The result was a record attendance at the hearings and an overwhelming victory for the hunters, with a 21,067 to 6,036 vote in favor of the dove hunt.

"You Will Be Afraid"

John J. Pullen says Next to Winston Churchill, Gen. George Patton gave the war's most famous speeches. But nobody knew quite what he said-until now.
American Heritage June/July 2005

ATTAC Against the Treaty

Bernard Cassen on the campaign for and against the European Union constitution.

The Yes campaign of the French Socialists made much of the supposedly democratic procedures under which the 'constitution' was elaborated. Their trump card was that the 105 members of the Convention on the Future of Europe [footnote omitted] would be hearing from the representatives of Civil Society-in this instance, some trade-union officials and leaders of citizens' associations. It was clear from the start that the recommendations of the Convention would not be binding on the ministers of the Twenty Five. Had they deliberately set out to create the impression of a consultative fig leaf, eu leaders could hardly have done better. The analogy with the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, as several American commentators have pointed out, was risible.

New Left Review May-June 2005

Geeks Bearing Gifts: Open Source Software and its Enemies

Nicholas Gruen says Australia should be wary of extending its intellectual property law
Policy Winter 2005

Journalism's Backseat Drivers

Barb Palser says The ascendant blogosphere has rattled the news media with its tough critiques and nonstop scrutiny of their reporting. But the relationship between the two is more complex than it might seem. In fact, if they stay out of the defensive crouch, the battered mainstream media may profit from the often vexing encounters.
From American Journalism Review August/September 2005

Crooks emerges as court's key swing vote

David Ziemer in the August 24, 2005 Wisconsin Law Journal.

The voting of the court this term, Justice Louis B. Butler's first, marks a significant shift from the court's previous term, in which Justice Patience Drake Roggensack was most often in the majority, and Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson was most frequently among the dissenters.

The term was only the second since Wisconsin Law Journal began tallying the justices' voting patterns - the 2000-01 term - that Abrahamson was not the most frequent dissenter.

During the most recent term, [Justice N. Patrick] Crooks was in the majority in 87 of the 91 cases in which he participated, dissenting an astonishingly low four times. That placed Crooks in the majority in 96 percent of cases.

100 to 1, crowd backs paid sick days

Lee Sensenbrenner reports in this morning's edition of The Capital Times on a hearing on the proposed "Healthy Families, Healthy City" ordinance. If passed, the City of Madison would require all employers to provide paid sick days.

MPS leader demands more for students

Alan J. Borsuk reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on a speech yesterday by Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent William Andrekopoulos.

Andrekopoulos told the annual school-year kick-off program for principals, school administrators and community leaders that the auditorium where the School Board meets had been filled in recent years on occasions when people were demanding that jazz radio be continued on the Milwaukee Public Schools' radio station, when people were upset about plans for a piece of forest owned by MPS and when people wanted to protect the pay and benefits of adults.

"I'm still waiting for the day for that auditorium to be filled with adults rallying around our children," he said.

OK, I changed my mind (three times!)

Massimo Pigliucci in the New Humanist July 5, 2005

Freedom and Security

The Federalist Society's 24th annual National Student Symposium was held at Harvard University earlier this year. The linked video is of a discussion on "Freedom and Security: The War on Terror, civil libeties and the Court" by this panel:
- Professor Jack L. Goldsmith, Harvard Law School
- Dr. Robert A. Levy, Cato Institute
- Dr. Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum
- Professor Nadine Strossen, New York Law School; ACLU
- Judge Richard C. Wesley, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Moderator
[REAL PLAYER]

A new civil right

Mark A. R. Kleiman says

... I never knew -- until "The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University" told me -- that it was a civil right to get a high-school diploma now matter how little you know, and consequently to have a high-school diploma that certifies precisely nothing about your abilities and which therefore has roughly no value in the job market.

(via KausFiles)

What's wrong with public broadcasting?

James MacGuire On the problems and prospects of public broadcasting in America.
The New Criterion

Where People of Faith Work

Barbara Elliot says

"A comparison of the United States and Germany reveals very different approaches to similar problems; perhaps a combination of the two would be best."

American Outlook Spring 2004

Avery v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Illinois)

On August 18, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed a $1 billion judgment against State Farm Insurance Co. stemming from a national class action lawsuit. In rendering its decision, the high court held that the trial court erred in giving the suit class action status.

(via Defense Research Institute)

The Ugly Politics of Parental Choice Opponents

George Mitchell in Wisconsin Interest Vol. 14, No. 2 [PDF]

Internal Debate within the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Excerpts from an interview of Baburam Bhattarai in Tehelka July 9, 2005

Q. Is Prachanda Path a result of a collective thinking? If it is, why is the ideology named Prachanda Path?

A. According to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) theory, all ideas are cumulative and interactive reflections of the material world, which include collective human activities, in the human consciousness. Hence nobody should have any doubt that Prachanda Path is a result of the collective thinking of the vanguard of the Nepalese working class.

Monthly Review July-August 2005

Giving India a Pass

Last month the Bush administration announced plans to sell India civilian nuclear technology, prompting a firestorm of criticism from nonproliferation advocates charging that the move would reward irresponsible behavior and spur proliferation elsewhere. Indiana University's Sumit Ganguly argued in Foreign Affairs back in 2001 that Washington's approach to nuclear issues on the subcontinent was outdated. In this postscript, he explains why the Bush administration's new policy makes eminent sense and why the criticisms of it are specious.
Foreign Affairs author update August 17, 2005

In The Middle Of Summer, Permafrost Melts; Global Warming Q.E.D.

It's not like the Earth has gone through the Ice Age-warming-Ice-Age cycle before, or anything natural like that. No, according to Sens. McCain and Clinton, Alaskan permafrost retreat is the confirming piece of evidence for which we had been searching to put down any lingering doubts about human-induced climate change.

Meanwhile, a recent estimate puts the cost of deploying certain scientists' remedial prescriptions for this "problem" at half the world's GDP. It makes McCain's $776 billion proposal look positively svelte.

The Media's Latest Profundity Regarding Judge Roberts' Qualifications

He opposed a presidential commendation describing Michael Jackson as an "outstanding example" for American children.

Judge Roberts believed the proposed award for the "mono-gloved" entertainer, as Judge Roberts referred to him, was an unseemly attempt to purloin attention surrounding a figure in the public eye. He expressed similar concerns regarding proposed awards to other media stars.

Additionally, Judge Roberts remarked that "if one wants the youth of America and the world sashaying around in garish sequined costumes, hair dripping with pomade, body shot full of female hormones to prevent voice change, mono-gloved, well, then, I suppose 'Michael,' as he is affectionately known in the trade, is in fact a good example."

Fortunately, the Washington Post discovered this information in time for inclusion in the Senate Judiciary Committee members' hearing preparations.

Media Reform and Media Revolution

Dru Oja Jay reports from the National Conference on Media Reform.

The MoveOn.org/Howard Dean/Free Press model of turning concern into action, whereby widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo is channeled into focused campaigns to change specific policies, has become popular-though concerns about the lack of accountability or democracy in this model (e.g., who decides what campaigns to take on) have been voiced.

Z July/August 2005

The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies

Kay S. Hymowitz says Rejecting the Moynihan report caused untold, needless misery.
City Journal Summer 2005

The Case for a Democratic Marker

Christopher Hayes interviews Rick Perlstein, author of The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo: How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party.

[Q] The most common analysis of why Democrats have strayed from this project-as one New Deal congressman whom you quote says "Freedom Plus Groceries"-points to corporate money. Today's Dems are feeding at the same trough and they can no longer take on the insurance companies, etc. But in the latter half of the book, you provide a fascinating psychological account of why the Democrats strayed from this project, which was sort of born out of the conflict of the '60s.

[A] Yeah. The trauma of the generation of people who are running the Democratic Party was being blindsided by the political failures of left-of-center boldness. If you look at a lot of the most resonant and stalwart centrists and Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) Democrats, for a lot of them, their political coming-of-age was being blindsided by conservatism. For Bill Clinton, it was losing the governorship in 1980. For Joe Lieberman, it was losing a congressional race in 1980. For Evan Bayh, the chair of the DLC, it was seeing his dad lose his Senate seat to Dan Quayle in 1980. But the formative traumas of my generation of Democrats-and I'm 35-have been the failures of left-of-center timidity. So there really is a structural generational battle among Democrats. People of a certain age are terrified that the electorate is going to associate them with the excesses of the '60s, but most voters are too young to remember that stuff. The Republicans keep trying to paint the Democrats as the party of the hippies and punks who burn the flag.

In These Times July 21, 2005

Picking Judges Online

The Framers clearly intended to keep a "constitutional distance" between the people and the selection of judges, but that distance has badly eroded since 1787. Not only are Senators now directly elected, removing some of the insulation between the people and the confirmation process, but several modern extra-constitutional innovations-such as opinion polling and broadcast media-have further shrunk the gap between the judiciary and the people.

New Atlantis Summer 2005

The U.N., Biotechnology, and the Poorest of the Poor

Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko on How the U.N.'s systematic sacrifice of science, technology, and sound public policy to its own bureaucratic self-interest obstructs technological innovation and hurts the poorest of the poor.
Hoover Digest Spring 2005

Wild About Harry

Ken I. Kersch reviews Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse
Commentary July/August 2005

Dog-Whistle Reversed

A rare permalinked post at KausFiles.

... it seems deceptive to target only [then deputy Attorney General Jamie ] Gorelick, and extremely foolish to assume that all the screw-ups the 9/11 Commission may have made are attributable to some insidious desire to protect her (as opposed to, say, protecting John Kerry, or Bill Clinton, or the Pentagon, or George H.W. Bush, or the Commission's already-written story line--or to sheer negligence, lack of manpower, or excusable bad luck).

Blogging's burdens may not pay off

Ann Meyer's article in the August 8, 2005 Chicago Tribune quotes Robert Ambrogi. He elaborates on his weblog.
(via WisBlawg)

Business Buzzwords That Make You Gag

Readers wrote in to By Anne Fisher of Fortune with their nominees for this column's first ever Most Annoying Lingo awards the Mallies. Find out which phrases they would like purged from our professional conversations.
(via Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor)

Regime Change and Its Limits

Richard N. Haass says So far, the Bush administration has shown it would like to resolve its problems with North Korea and Iran the same way it did with Iraq: through regime change. It is easy to see why. But the strategy is unlikely to work, at least not quickly enough. A much broader approach -- involving talks, sanctions, and the threat of force -- is needed.
Foreign Affairs July/August 2005

Patent Troubles

A roundtable discussion on Does the Patent System Need Fixing? [PDF]
Corporate Legal Times June 2005

Heat and light

An unexplained anomaly in the climate seems to have been the result of bad data
The Economist August 11, 2005

How to Think about Constitutional Change

Part I: The Progressive Vision, June 7, 2005, (linked above) and
Part II: Originalism, Pragmatism, and the Constitution, August 2, 2005, by Michael S. Greve.
American Enterprise Institute
(via Todd Zywicki at Volokh Conspiracy)

Media Matters

Jonathan Kay reviews South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias by Brian C. Anderson
Commentary July/August 2005

Reviving The Lost Art of Impeachment

Matthew Woessner:
"The proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage would do nothing to remedy judicial activism, which is the cause of that controversy and many others."
American Outlook Spring 2004

What al-Qaida Really Wants

Yassin Musharbash says If there is anyone who might possibly have an inkling as to what al-Qaida are up to, it is the Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein. He has not only spent time in prison with al-Zarqawi, but has also managed make contact with many of the network's leaders. Based on correspondence with these sources, he has now brought out a book detailing the organization's master plan.
Spiegel August 12, 2005

Background Material for Attorney General's Speech to Conservative Groups

Memorandum February 16, 1982 to Tex Lezar from John Roberts [PDF]
(via Human Events)

Corruption at the heart of the United Nations

An investigation has concluded that the former head of the United Nations' oil-for-food programme in Iraq took kickbacks to help an oil company win contracts. Another senior UN official is accused of soliciting bribes. The report is a severe blow to the organisation at a crucial time.
The Economist August 9, 2005

The middle ground on caps

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorializes on two controversial recent decisions by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

On Thomas v. Mallett,

We agree that this was a bad decision on lead paint.

On Ferdon v. Wisconsin Patients Compensation Fund,

Nevertheless, we still think there is room for reasonable caps if only in recognition that excessive damages, though not as common as imagined, can still happen. Fortunately, it doesn't appear that the Supreme Court has closed the door on a legislative solution.

Chapter Officers

Gordon P. Giampietro, President
Rebecca G. Bradley, Vice-president
Daniel W. Gentges, Secretary and Treasurer
Terrence R. Berres, Webmaster

Chapter Board of Directors

Our chapter's current directors are:
Donald A. Daugherty, Jr., and David W. Simon, Co-Chairmen;
Larry J. Bonney; Karl R. Dahlen; Kenneth A. Dortzbach; G. Michael Halfenger; Michael E. Hartmann; Thomas R. Hrdlick; Daniel Kelly; Jonathan H. Koenig; Paul D. Langer; Tim Lopez; Stephen D. Rogers; Theodore R. Rolfs; and David J. Tolan

Chapter Advisory Board

(affiliations listed for identification purposes only)

James T. Barry, III
President, Colliers Barry, Milwaukee

Hon. Michael B. Brennan
Circuit Court, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin

Hon. John L. Coffey
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Dean Joseph D. Kearney
Marquette University Law School

Hon. Rudolph T. Randa
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin

Thomas L. Shriner, Jr.
Foley & Lardner

Hon. Diane Schwerm Sykes
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Prof. Christopher Wolfe
Marquette University

The State of Nature

Is the world getting greener? Or are we selling it short for a fistful of greenbacks? Apparently, even committed environmentalists can disagree. When Carl Pope looks out his door, he sees the polar ice caps melting, ecosystems on life support, and clean water disappearing. But Bjorn Lomborg believes humanity's backyard has never looked better. Who's got it right? For young and old, rich and poor, the answer might just mean the world.
Foreign Policy July/August 2005

The Trouble with Kim Jong Il

Henry S. Rowen says We need a better class of dictator running North Korea. Challenges the administration faces in dealing with Kim Jong Il.
Hoover Digest Winter 2005

The ACLU's 30 Years War

Scott Johnson asks Will the Boy Scouts ever hold their Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill again?
Weekly Standard August 8, 2005

The struggle for Islam's soul

While most Muslims abhor violence, some terrorists are a product of a specific mindset with deep roots in Islamic history. If Muslims everywhere refuse to confront this, we will all be prey to more terror, writes Ziauddin Sardar.
Toronto Star July 22, 2005
(via Arts & Letters Daily)

Remote Control

Stuart Taylor Jr. says in The Atlantic Monthly of September 2005,

Now that Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement, how many remaining justices have ever held elected office? How many have previously served at the highest levels of the executive branch of government? How many have argued big-time commercial lawsuits within the past thirty-five years? How many have ever