Wish I had thought of that

My new favorite name for a band: Wes Niles and the Texas Skeeters. They are a cover band (you can find their set list for Saturday night's gig at Enchilada's here) which means their buzz is worse than their bite. It also means I will never go out of my way to see them live, but I really do like that name.

Supreme Court gets its facts wrong in child rape decision

The Supreme Court based its argument on banning capital punishment for child rapists on the fact that 30 states that had a death penalty did not impose it for child rape and neither did the federal government. Thus, the court said, the death penalty in these cases is unconstitutional because it is "unusual."

However, it turns out that fact is fiction.

Only two years ago, according to this story, Congress revised the Uniform Code of Military Justice to allow for the death penalty for child rape. However, according to the story, "Anyone in the federal government — or anywhere else, for that matter — who knew about these developments did not tell the court."

I'm not sure the Supreme Court can call a mulligan on a decision. But perhaps now is a good time for the justices to take a closer look at the "cruel" part of this whole "cruel and unusual" argument.