My apologies for the slowness of things around here for the past ten days or so. I had an unusual spate of travel which took me on seperate trips to the Washington D.C. area and Philadelphia. I don't have any immediate future travel plans, though, so hopefully I'll be back to daily posting again.

One brief note on the Roy Moore affair, which has unfolded quite a bit in my absence: It's sad to see how deeply even conservative evangelical Christians have imbibed the notion that the federal government has ultimate jurisdiction in every conceivable matter. I watched Richard Land on O'Reilly last night saying that Judge Moore is "hurting the cause" by "defying" the law. Of course, Judge Moore's position all along has been that the federal court has no jurisdiction in the matter. To say that he is defying the law by ignoring the federal court order is to assume the very premise being challenged. If the federal judge is not the rightful authority in this matter, than Judge Moore is certainly not defying the law.

We've become so brainwashed by the notion that the federal government is supreme in all matters that we a priori rule out even the possibility of ever challenging its jurisdiction in any specific case. Under Land's (and those like him) reasoning, all that is now required for a federal judge to have jurisdiction in a case is for that judge to decree that he has jurisdiction. At that point, the matter is closed, because any questioning of it would be "defiance."