Learned a little history today about The Supreme Court

ON A RELATED TOPIC, this week's Slate magazine is making a case for having Scalia as a Chief Justice while the Democrats bargain for a more moderate associate justice to take his place. Not a bad idea, but I think the selfish and bible-banging Republicans are not going to allow any deals and any nonPro-life judges because of that huge 'moral mandate' they have with the 2004 election results. We'll see I guess. Rehnquist should be stepping down soon. I have read some talk about a O'Connor Chief Justice-ship... now that would be interesting, but I don't think it will happen.

The whole reason this issue caught my eye today, is that the book I'm currently reading, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, makes a mention about just where this third branch appeared from and how James Wilson--who embraced Philosopher Thomas Reid's notion of "common sense" and man's innate ability to observe and realize his surroundings using this common sense, had put it up the idea of a Supreme Court ("a jury to the counry") to James Madison and other members of the 1787 Continental Congress. And here we are today, 217 years after a Scot gave life to the idea, debating about the make up of that jury to the country. Interesting.