Antonin Scalia (born 1936) is an American jurist who serves as an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Upon the
retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, Scalia will become the Senior
Associate Justice. In 1982, he was appointed as a judge of the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by
President Ronald Reagan. In 1986, Judge Scalia was appointed by Reagan
to the Supreme Court to fill the seat as associate justice vacated when
Justice William Rehnquist was elevated to Chief Justice. While
Rehnquist's confirmation was contentious, Scalia was asked few
difficult questions by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and faced no
opposition. Scalia was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, and took
the bench on September 26, 1986. In his near quarter-century on the
Court, Justice Scalia has staked out a conservative ideology in his
opinions, advocating textualism in statutory interpretation and
originalism in constitutional interpretation. He is a strong defender
of the powers of the executive branch, believing presidential power
should be paramount in many areas. He opposes affirmative action and
other policies that treat minorities as groups. He files separate
opinions in large numbers of cases, and, in his minority opinions,
often castigates the Court's majority in scathing language.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
900:
A debt is pardoned by the Datu of Tondo on the island of Luzon, as
inscribed on the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the earliest known
written document found in the Philippines.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laguna_Copperplate_Inscription>
1509:
Henry VIII became King of England, following the death of his father
Henry VII, eventually becoming a significant figure in the history of
the English monarchy.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England>
1918:
The German fighter pilot known as "The Red Baron", the most successful
flying ace of World War I with 80 confirmed air combat victories, was
shot down and killed near Vaux-sur-Somme in France.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Richthofen>
1960:
Brasília, a planned city primarily designed by architect and urban
planner Lúcio Costa, was officially inaugurated, replacing Rio de
Janeiro as the capital of Brazil.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia>
1970:
In response to a long-running dispute over wheat production quotas, the
Principality of Hutt River proclaimed their secession from Western
Australia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
penalize (v):
1. To subject to a penalty, especially for the infringement of a rule
or regulation.
2. To impose a handicap on.
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/penalize>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass
merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of
advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into
popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of
identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any
free or original imaginative response to experience by the television
screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular
it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content
of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to
invent the reality.
--J. G. Ballard
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard>