20081113.1201 The Real Whale Wars

While some folks are busy watching the efforts of Japanese fishing fleets to illegally harvest whales and getting entertainment from watching organizations like Greenpeace try to stop them - the US Navy has been waging it's own war - in the court system.

The real Bush legacy will be effect that he had on the Supreme Court by stacking it with "loyal Bushies"*. You can guarantee that all of the decisions that they will hand down will be an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, to broaden the powerbase of the executive branch (wonder if they'll do that for Obama too? Doubt it.), to take the side of corporations over citizens, and to remove any restraints at all on the conduct of the military.

So the outcome? The Supreme Court says that the Navy is in more danger from enemy submarines than the whales are from the Navy. Therefore they made them exempt from the restrictions on Sonar use when a whale is within 2,200' of the transmitter. Prediction? More dead whales. We can only hope that they wash up on shore in California where they can't be ignored so easily.

[* - How are 2 out of 9 a 'stack'? Simple: Stevens was appointed by Ford, Scalia and Kennedy by Reagan, and of course Souter and Thomas by G.H.W.Bush. That makes 4 loyal to the Bush family - and 7 owe their posting to Republicans. ]