Brain hits 4 Mice

The two pieces of news I tracked down for a little stain commentary today are so far apart that the post title is the only thing I could think of to connect them.

The Bong Hits 4 Jesus decision came down today. When all is said and done I'm not a fan of the decision and enjoy Stevens' dissent, "This case began with a silly nonsensical banner, (and) ends with the court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs, so long as someone could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug message." I see the schools point that kids can't be shouting at the top of their lungs or unfurling huge banners all the time in the classroom, but this decision isn't the right way to address it.

Oh yeah, in other news, the Supreme Court and protected the free speech rights of issue advocates who want to buy advertising spots for attack ads against politicians right before the election. I haven't read the decisions but on its face, they seem to have opposite messages.

Souter stepped up and read his dissent from the bench and called out the majority for altering precedent without a substantive change in the facts. Were someone able to change the nominees so there was a liberal majority and flip the decision, Bush would hold a press conference to decry "judicial activism." Oddly, he has been silent on this. Regardless of my own thoughts on the case, I think judicial activism is one of the most illogical arguments in politics today. The easy solution to this case, people need to stop trusting political ads. Especially the ones on TV.

After reading the news on both, I began to wonder if students could circumvent the Bong Hits decision by buying advertising space advocating "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" on their high school television channels. Not sure if it would change the legal ramifications, but it would be hilarious.

Now for the totally unrelated second article. In summation, the article details the increasingly common practice of growing human tissue inside of animals and then testing drugs and chemicals on the animals. There's a great discussion on the ethics of this practice and also goes to show how incredible modern science is. Despite all that, I think many people will be left uneasy about the prospect of growing human brain cells in a mouse. Something to think about for sure.