I’m still tired, but I’m back. Yesterday was supposed to be a volunteer day, but the prison is still closed for activities. Turning 39 for the 27th time is just like it was the 26th time. I’m current with replies. Tomorrow appears routine.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:31 (average 5:29). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times: The Obama administration has decided that it will appeal to the Supreme Court a sweeping ruling by an appeals court in January that President Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate in making three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board last year.
While the dispute grew out of a narrow and novel legal question — whether brief “pro forma” sessions by the Senate could prevent the president from making recess appointments during a lengthy winter break by lawmakers — the appeals court blew past that issue and called into question nearly two centuries of recess appointments by presidents of both parties.
The three-judge panel of the appeals court in Washington ruled that presidents may bypass the confirmation process only during the sort of recess that occurs between formal sessions of Congress, rather than other breaks throughout the year. The gaps between formal sessions generally arise just once a year and sometimes — as in 2012, when the Senate had not formally adjourned before the next session began — are skipped entirely.
This is judicial activism taken to extremes. None of the matters on which the court ruled were even before the court.
From The New Yorker: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) was jubilant today after his newly unveiled budget plan picked up a key endorsement from the novelist Ayn Rand.
It was a rare public utterance for the late Ms. Rand, who has been damned to eternal torment in Satan’s lake of fire since 1982.
“This is a budget I wish I had written,” said Ms. Rand, pausing to scream as white-hot flames licked her face. “Paul Ryan is a great man and I look forward to meeting him someday.”
To be sure, if that’s where she is, they will get to have a very long chat. 
From The Star-Telegram: George Prescott Bush filed the paperwork Tuesday to run for Texas land commissioner next year, hoping to use a little-known but powerful post to continue his family’s political dynasty in one of the country’s most conservative states.
That’s too high a post for a Republican let alone a Bush!
Cartoon:
