Jesus- these Westboro chicks are insane. that said, they seem to have better lawyers (one of their own) than the opposition. my sense is that the court wants to tell them disembark, but lacks an argument that would compel them to do so, and the Snyders didn't help them today.
and the obligatory Ozzie: <object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JRbPWcLode0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JRbPWcLode0?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>
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Well....Ozzy is awesome and the Westboro people are insane. There's not much here to fling poo at each other about.
Ah, well. Here's my take: Despite the rather impressive display by the lawyer/daughter/member of The Westboro Baptist Church, she is a loon, and the rest of the "church" is comprised of loons as well. If anyone is going to hell, it's them.
of that (assuming such a place exists, other than the D&D) i have no doubt. but i'm afraid she has the better argument, unless the justices are prepared to restrict free speech in some creative way.
While I agree precedent is on the side of the loonies, if ever a court existed with an inclination to restrict free speech, this is the one to do it.
this sounds like a worthwhile strategy -- One of Instapundit's readers writes: "I keep wondering whether the existence of homosexuality is proof that God hates Fred Phelps." What I'd like to know is, why can't this vast media conspiracy I keep hearing about get it together on Phelps and his rotten little band of merry madmen? Their shameful protests at funerals are condemned by, to a first approximation, every single other person in the United States of America. So why do they keep doing it? Presumably because it gets them on the teevee. So why won't the Liberal MediaTM take away their fun? Refuse to broadcast any footage that contains their message; refuse to write about them. If we must put them on television or in the newspaper, confine the coverage strictly to the kind of embarrassing stuff you see about stars--who at Westboro Baptist has the worst cellulite? Who's got acne and bad teeth? I'm guessing that after a couple of weeks of this, they'd slink back to whatever rock they live under. Or we could just, y'know, ignore them. Because every time we write a story about them and how terrible they are, we're making them feel important. We're helping them reach people with their repulsive, nonsensical message. If there were ever a time when the world needed a media conspiracy, it's now.
I wish a bunch of people would just show up and beat the s**t out of them. Well....maybe not, but it'd certainly be a lot harder to spew such crap with someone's boot in their teeth.
