I was about to ask if you were sick or something Monday; glad to know my fears (for your health, anyway... ) were groundless. At least, I think I am glad....

On a more serious note, I think it says something revealing and discouraging about America that we repudiated an international holiday commemorating Chicagos Haymarket Massacre, almost before the bodies were cold. A grand idea, American democracy; too bad the symbiotic development of industrialization and the nation strangled the dream in its cradle.

By the way, I saw something at Electoral Vote Predictor the other day that you may find interesting (you may have already seen it as well:) Apparently, the US has had federal public mandates since at least the Second Militia Act of 1792, which no one (not non-partisan President Washington, conservative Vice President Adams nor liberal Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson) thought remotely unconstitional.

It reminds me of people insisting secession is inherently unconstitional, conveniently ignoring it was first suggested by the Declaration of Independences author and Constitutions principal author (Madison penned the latter with no slight aid from the library of his mentor, who probably would have done it himself had he not been in France as an ambassador at the time.) People get misty-eyed (or did...) recalling the states only ratified the Constitution on the condition the Bill of Rights was included; most seem to forget assurances of the right to secede were every bit as vital.

That, of course, is a settled argument, for good or ill, as this latest one will soon be also; it is just a touch disillusioning (perhaps why it is so little discussed.) Again, Robamacare is AWFUL, but I have yet to see a plausible argument it is unconstitutional (Romney certainly did not mention any in 2009, when he insisted it be made federal law, which, of course, IS EXACTLY WHAT OBAMA DID. ) I think Taft-Hartley garbage, too, of a very destructive sort, but eminently constitutional. Fortunately, no new Switch in Time to Save Nine is likely, and Republicans can rest securely on the one seat SCOTUS majority ensuring them victory in debates no longer resolved by anything so trivial as law. The SCOTUS declaring a policy Washington, Adams and Jefferson enacted "unconstitional," while ignoring the "PATRIOT" ACT and Floridas right to regulate its own elections (as the US Constitution requires,) says all that is needed about the federal consitutions relevance.

The nice thing about OWS in the streets is we can see they are not in basements building bombs. It could still become another Haymarket—or Potemkin....

EDIT: Yeah, that got a lot longer and more serious than I initially intended; sorry. ' /> Mustn't post when sleep deprived, stupid....