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

_______________________________ 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

_____________________________ 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

___________________________ 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