Michael Newdow, the plaintiff in the "under God" fiasco that had been in the Ninth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court in the last few years, is back at it. Not phased at all by the Supreme Court's decision that he did not have standing to litigate his interests as a parent of a school-age child to protect her from religious references, Newdow will now file suit to challenge the words "In God We Trust" on currency.

This is an extremely premature analysis, but my best guess is that this suit will go down in flames in the Supreme Court if it makes it that far and is heard on the merits; there are probably six justices that will feel that this wording is a historical exercise permitted under the Constitution.

These posters have been all over the New York City subways and buses for quite a while now, in both English and Spanish (Si ve algo, dice algo).

But soon, if the application goes through, the Metropolitan Transit Authority will have a trademark in the phrase. The MTA is pretty aggressive on intellectual property, especially considering that they are a municipal organization. I can't help but wonder if trademark attorneys' fees aren't 50 cents of every $2 fare.

Post Office officials say "That's just absolute rubbish." But USPS has also come under attack for its executive relocation bonuses, viewed by many as excessive:

After criticism in May by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the Postal Service has drastically curtailed a moving-expense bonus program for senior executives, ending payments of up to $25,000 that allowed officials to pocket thousands of unspent dollars.

The bonuses, which supplement government payments for housing assistance and shipment of household goods, will be capped at two weeks' salary. For senior executives earning about $165,000, the limit would slightly exceed $6,300.

Thomas G. Day, the Postal Service's senior vice president for government relations, revealed the bonus change in a letter last month to Grassley, who had questioned whether they had anything to do with rate increases for stamps. Day said the program and the rate increases were unrelated, adding that the mail agency has been reviewing the moving-expense policy for some time and modified it effective Oct. 11.

... One senior vice president received $75,000 -- $25,000 each for three moves from June 1998 to February 2001. The mail service gave 265 executives $10,000 each and 10 others $25,000 each in the past two years, according to information gathered by Finance Committee investigators.

Just keep this in mind as you lick those new stamps in a few months. [Of course, almost nobody actually licks stamps anymore, as almost all are self-adhesive now, but "keep this in mind as you affix your self-adhesive stamps" just doesn't sound right.]

So there's been no substantive talk of Alito here as yet. I don't really know anything about him, save that he is vastly more qualified than Miers. No doubt plenty more will come out in the next few days and weeks. Tentatively, though, I think Jonathan Adler's comments in his Tuesday Wall Street Journal opinion piece are probably right on the mark:

We may not all agree with all of their decisions, but we will respect their judgment, appreciate their analyses, and admire their commitment to the law. As a law professor, I look forward to the opportunity to study Justice Alito's future opinions with my students, as I am confident a Justice Alito would contribute well to a Supreme Court of which we can all be proud.

In an article about a pair of recent United Methodist Church Judicial Council decisions about homosexuals in the pulpit and as members, the N.Y. Times seems a little confused over church polity and politics, apparently thinking the latter determines the former:

Some Methodists had voiced concerns that the debate over gay men and women could rupture their church, the country's third-largest denomination, and cause conservatives to leave. The rulings will most likely assuage conservatives, church experts said. But the experts also said they did not expect those who want the inclusion of gay men and lesbians in the ministry to back down, even if chances of a reversal in church policy remain remote.

One decision defrocked a lesbian minister, the other reinstated a minister that refused to allow a gay man to become a member, although he had been welcomed to worship at the church. The latter decision, especially, seems to not take a very strong stance on homosexuality per se, but instead allows individual pastors discretion.

Only in the last paragraph is the actual underlying issue -- the one which was effectively localized to individual pastors in the recent decisions -- addressed:

At the heart of the disputes, several clerics said, is a profound conflict among Methodists over the nature of homosexuality. "Is it something you can't control," Mr. Phillips [a Methodist minister and associate professor of the practice of Christian worship at Duke University Divinity School] said, "or something sinful and that should be repented of?"

Not everything is a political issue.