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Flying Picture of the Day

About to touch down at Seattle Int’l.

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Flightsim

Flying Picture of the Day

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About to execute a perfect landing on a remote airstrip in Alaska.

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Flightsim

Picture of the Day

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Me flying over Peru in a Cessna Grand Caravan. Well, virtually flying — in MS Flight Sim 2004.

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Schiavo and Judicial Activism

I was listening to the Sean Hannity show on my way into the office this afternoon. He was discussing the Florida District Court’s ruling denying the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order under the federal statute passed by Congress (the “Schiavo Act”). Hannity stated that he believed the court’s opinion did not even reference the Schiavo Act. He was hammering the federal court’s decision as symptomatic of the arrogance of the judiciary. Senator Rick Santorum came on the Hannity show and claimed the Schiavo Act required the federal court to order the reinsertion of nutrition and hydration tubes pending a full hearing on the merits. Santorum also decried the ruling as an abuse of judicial power. This seems to be the Christian Right’s theme: a National Right to Life Committee spokesman referred to the federal court’s decision as a “gross abuse of judicial power”; Christian Defense Coalition Director Pat Mahoney, quoted in a Focus on the Family article, attributed the federal court’s decision to “an arrogant and activist federal judiciary.”

Unfortunately, all of these comments about judicial activism are wrong.