The Devil in Justice Roberts. Also, in which I unsuccessfully try to avoid potty humor.

On the one hand, he opposed measures to make voting rights violations easier to prove (not activist at all, eh?) but on the other hand, donated help to gay rights case. And oops, he forgot to tell us about his lobbyist work.

My take? Eh, confirm him. This isn't to say we shouldn't ask tough questions of Roberts. It is a lifetime appointment after all, and any judicial nomination requires serious vetting and grilling. And to have debates about the Supreme Court every now and then is healthy (and what's better than getting both the left and right wings riled up?). But ultimately, Roberts is going to be just fine. The fact is, almost every competent justice (that is to say, not Clarence Thomas) is smart enough to handle the challenges of the jobs and respectful of the Constitution.

Better yet, Justices nominated by Conservatives end up drifting to the left, not the least bit because the political discourse has shifted so far to the right, that by staying in place, our system of government has become liberal by today's standards.

I'm sure the right wing would prefer to nominate a more decisively conservative Justice, but can a competent SCOTUS Justice really be a radical right winger? I doubt it. I won't say we have nothing to worry about with Roberts. But if history is any indication, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over him.

Good news? Tracks off the new Dave Matthews Band CD won't play on your iPod. The bad news? Neither will other copy-protected CDs.

So ConEd wants LESers to not use so much power. Fair enough. I won't use my AC or washer or.. oh, right. But what's this?

Two Con Edison workers hosing down an overheated transformer on the Lower East Side were taken to the hospital Wednesday night after the transformer ignited, according to Con Edison and the fire department.

Now, I'm no expert on running power plants or nothing but something tells me water and high-voltage transformers don't play so well together. Oh, what do I know?

Fun with Santorum the Senator, not the brown stuff (mp3) [via Productshop]

Is there anything more sensual than the scent of Cumming? I'll just have to spray some Cumming on myself to find out, I guess.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was a wee bit disappointed by Songs for Silverman but I'll always appreciate Ben Folds' approach to music making. He's straight gangsta, apparently:

"When the opportunity comes up and I think this is a good musical, interesting thing to do, then the last thing I want is to worry if it's cool," Folds says. "The need to do cool stuff has just been so oppressive over our lifetime in the music industry."

Believe it or not, Folds' refusal to adhere to conventional expectations is inspired in part by early gangsta rap.

"That music is just made for themselves, for their friends," he says. "There's no grandiose attempt to write 'We Are the World.' It's very honest...

"People almost marginalize the singer by saying, 'He's just a gangsta rapper so he can say anything he wants and we're not going to listen to him because he's talking about hos and fucking and shooting.' But if some nerdy white guy says all those things, then how seriously do you have to take it? Maybe you do have to take it seriously. Or maybe it's just a joke. I don't really know."