Megan McCain's Terrible Twitter Tantrum

Yes, I know, it's hard to believe, but Megan is a chip off the old block. She swears, she blusters, she puffs up with her own delusions of relevance and gets her rage on in tweets. Andrew Malcome (my favorite LA times blogger and big time twitteratti) tells the tawdry details in yesterdays news. That's how I like this kind of news. Stale. And with a link about Megan not only going apeshit but prevaricating while doing it. See what I mean? She's a real chip off the old block.

For the actual transcript of the terrible twitter tantrum follow this trail to The Wonkette. For Andrew Malcome's blog and more of the little details see the excerpt below or check out my side bar. I have my morning coffee with Andrew.

Using her Twitter account, which limits users to 140-character messages, McCain produced a lengthy series of angry Tweets -- some using the #$%&!* word.

They detailed her numerous life activities starting with volunteer tutoring at 16 and helping receive flowers at a hospital desk and internships and moving up through writing a children's book and founding "my multi-award-winning website mccainblogette.com, which is officially the first blog in history to document a presidential campaign." (Her father's, of course.)

Because Andrew Gives Great News

The last thing any fun-loving politics blog would ever do would be to cheapen itself on a slow weekday by publishing a couple of color photographs of some hunky guy who works out every day and happens to be president of the United States, just to prompt thousands of readers -- all right, lookers -- to click on its pages.

Yeah, Andrew and my blog wouldn't stoop to stealing from your blog to link back to your blog so we can all drool about our very hot, hot, hot president, shirtless and ripped, oh yeah. I'm drooling on my keyboard.

Please Take Action Now!

Dear MoveOn member,
On Thursday, President Obama released memos that describe, in horrific detail, the torture techniques authorized by the Bush administration. The memos make clear that top Bush officials didn't just condone torture—they encouraged it.

So far there's been no accountability for the architects of Bush's torture program—the top officials who justified keeping detainees awake for 11 days straight, waterboarding them repeatedly, and forcing prisoners into coffin-like boxes with insects.1

We need real consequences for those responsible—it's the only way to keep this from happening again. Attorney General Holder can open an investigation into the torture program—but he most likely won't unless people everywhere speak up and demand it.

Can you sign our petition to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the torture program? If we can reach 200,000 signatures, we'll deliver the petition to Holder by the end of the week. Clicking here will sign your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/torture/o.pl?id=15951-8978383-qfr31Px&t=3

The petition says: "No one is above the law. It's time to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the architects of the Bush-era torture program."

Calls for action, from the United Nations, the ACLU, Amnesty International,2 Senators Leahy and Feingold, and others, are gathering steam. The New York Times made the case for accountability in an editorial:3


"...[Obama] has an obligation to pursue what is clear evidence of a government policy sanctioning the torture and abuse of prisoners—in violation of international law and the Constitution.
"

This isn't about retribution or politics. It's about accountability. If hundreds of thousands of us speak up, we can make sure Holder hears this loud and clear.
http://pol.moveon.org/torture/o.pl?id=15951-8978383-qfr31Px&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Kat, Peter, Ilyse, and the rest of the team

P.S. You can see all the Bush administration memos here.

Someone is Reading Me in Costa Rica

It must be Tom. Last time I talked to him, he was calling me from an Airport somewhere like Dallas or Miami sitting on the plane to Costa Rica. It was only the flight attendant's last announcement that got him to hang up. Oh the miracle of the Cell Phone! I may yet go to my grave never having owned one. I will be the last hold out. I do not want to be always available, always accessible, always on call. For awhile, when I was still hot as a talent, my agent insisted I needed either a cell phone or a pager. I opted for the pager.

When Tom last called he said he was going to Costa Rica for a month. That was at least six months ago or more. But with the birthday season approaching; if he's alive, he'll call. For two months, I'm older than he is. He seems to like that two month period when he is a younger old man. I hope the reason he's stayed so long in Costa Rica this time is Love with a capital L. Tom is a man who seems to need a woman in his life. It would be a shame if he chose to spend his time traipsing through the lives of the wives and lovers of his past. It's nice he still seems fond of us, but it would be better for him to actually live with a woman who loves him. I like to see him with another woman, one he really loves, one he can risk introducing to the rest of us.

My childhood seems to have made me immune to reciprocal romantic love. I might be in love, but I could never afford to weather the bad times and make it work. I ran at the slightest provocation. I left every man I ever loved.

But I Feel So Bla...

I worked myself into a frenzy, sweating enough to strip down to the wife-beater T shirt, yoga pants and Wellington's. I worked hard outside and in. I drank water as I worked. Now I ache in every bone and muscle. And though it's gorgeous outside I'm filled with lassitude. Is it me or is it bipolar disorder? It would be awful to slip into depression now, just when it's safe to go outside again. I'm just short of wanting to slip into a cottony sleep. And it just might be that the last three months of feeling sickish, are really the usual first symptoms of a mood swing. So many times after a long period of feeling good, I started feeling like I had a strength sucking virus. Tests would be done, even going so far as to an endocrinologist for a work up. And after months of tracking down the culprit, the final verdict would be depression. This is not the right season for depression. I don't want depression. I will not be depressed. But it creeps in on tiny cottony feet and saps your strength. It confuses you and makes you drift off course. I start one project and then notice another and am finally convinced before I do this big a job I will have to have a nap. But I yearn to be outside....

The Rat, The Cat, and the Dog

This is one of the many things I love about Santa Barbara. There are people and sights like this all along State Street. Not only are they allowed to entertain everyone on State Street as street entertainers, they are actually beloved members of the community even if they hail from Colorado.

Thanks YDG

Eizzy K Gave Me An Award For My Poetry!

What makes this especially important to me is that Eizzy K is a poet and a reader of my poetry. I write poetry so seldom that I have neglected the site. I don't know when I got this award exactly, but I'm really thrilled that it comes from a young poet to an old woman who hardly considers herself a poet. And Eizzy K, called me "Savage Queen" which makes me cry with this welcome elevation to royalty. It's one thing to write the occasional poem, but some of the poets in the blogosphere write a poem a day. That amazes me, since I only write poetry when a poem presents itself to me and gives me no choice. It's like having a vision or a little stroke or a mild seizure. So thank you Eizzy K.

One of the things I love about this award is the muscularity of it. It has an industrial, workman-like aspect that appeals to me esthetically and politically--it reminds me of my fondness for the labor movement. I love the wage earning working men and women of this world.

Now I have to think of ten things you don't yet know about me.

1. I fantasized a life as a labor organizer. I'm completely pro labor, and damn proud of it. I read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclaire when I was in my early teens. That was the beginning of my desire to be a labor organizer. Yet I have never been a member of a union.
2. Kindness makes me cry. I have toughened myself over a lifetime of cruelty from my family to be unmoved by the carelessly tossed off insult, but a kind and loving word brings tears I can't control.
3. I'm a socialist. I think the public utilities should be owned by the public. Water should not be sold. Nor should the oil and coal be owned by a company with a profit motive. If Alaska owns it's oil, why don't the rest of us own our oil? I'm not a fan of capitalism. Capitalism has given us a meltdown of the world's economies. What the financial services industries have done amounts to an enormous Ponzi scheme. Those responsible for the collapse should be prosecuted for gross malfeasance. I want single payer universal health care.
4. I would sell my soul to get my novel published. And yet I fear rejection so much I'm avoiding the edit on the first three chapters because then I will have no excuse for not finding another contest or opportunity to submit the manuscript. The most embarrassing thing about this procrastination is that MRMacrum has done the edit for me. All I have to do is print the copy of his editorial suggestions and get to work. I am sabotaging myself. I should be toughened to rejection--I spent my working life going to auditions. I did not get every job I auditioned for. The rejection was nothing I took personally, and yet the book is my baby.
5. I love the underdog, literally. I will take an animal no one else will, just to give it a bit of happiness and security before it dies. I'm sentimental for the person or animal who has been treated badly. I would love to be able to rescue all those needing rescue. But I can only rescue one creature at a time.
6. I care little for wealth and have never been ambitious enough to strive for money. It shows now. I worked in a industry where the pay is enormous for merely being pretty and showing up for a couple of hours of easy work and knowing how to move on a runway or pose for a photo. I was always embarrassed by this profession. Why so much money for something that is actually bad for society? I worked as little as possible.
7. I purposely avoided getting academic credentials as a way of pissing off my mother.
8. I married three men I did not love, and, if asked, would not have married the one man I always loved.
9. I do not like my fellow humans much. Oh I like a few people very much, but generally I avoid crowds. I have chosen the life of a recluse because I like being alone.
10. Poems take me like possession. Sadly that possession comes rarely.

The recipients I have chosen for this award are:
1. The Crow
2. Sarah's Dancing With The Waves of the Sea
3. Steve Emery
4. Pagan Sphinx
5. Watergate Summer
6. Alphaville
7. Naj
8. Mr E

These are the rules:
Then the instructions for the 'chosen ones' ;
1.You must brag about the award
2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger
3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. 4.Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.
5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself.
Then pass it on with the instructions!

Remember, I did not make the rules, I just pass them along.

Tortuous Logic

The first time it was verified for all of us that we were not who we thought we were, was when we saw those horrendous photos from Abu Ghraib snapped as if they were staged, so awful, so casual, so matter-of-factly snapped, little mementos, trophy photos to take home and brag about. And once leaked to the press, verification that we do indeed torture. Horrifying and undeniable evidence that we do torture. And we torture those who have not been charged, and who have not been found guilty of anything more than being young, male, and Iraqi living in Iraq. In the wrong place at the wrong time.

To say that we don't torture now is a good start, but to say we will not prosecute those who torture is wrong. We did prosecute the low level interrogators (thankfully) stupid enough to snap those photos. It is a fact. A precedent has been set. What we are now saying is that we will not prosecute the low level CIA or other intelligence agency's interrogators. That's a double standard and forgets that we have international treaties which require that we prosecute these crimes at all levels, even the judicial. We need to prosecute all the way to the top. Otherwise we remain a nation of torturers in the eyes of the world. Hypocrites, liars, torturers in our standing on the international stage. We need a soul cleansing bath in the bracing waters of truth and accountability.

Dick Cheney has been taunting President Obama. This does make President Obama look weak. If we are not a nation that tortures but we have an ex Vice President constantly jabbing President Obama with the taunt of weakness because he is unwilling to continue the policy of torturing prisoners of war, then President Obama's assertion that we no longer torture seems toothless and leaves the door open for future war crimes we will neither investigate nor prosecute. We need to have the soul cleansing that is the outcome of investigations and prosecutions from the top to the bottom.

Keith Olbermann Talks About The Bankers

I was ranting yesterday about the Credit Card Companies' Ads and how offensive they are to anyone who has been dunned into bankruptcy by medical expenses or other emergencies put on a card. When catastrophe strikes and you haven't the ready cash to deal with it, but you do have a credit card in you wallet you've keep up to date and payed off for years-- that's the time you load it up. And then you start getting the calls demanding that you pay your card off now! Well, all you banks that press credit cards on us through deceptive advertising that claim all it takes is a call to make arrangements for lowered payments; you are lying to us again through deceptive advertising. My voice is small and I don't reach that many people with my outrage, but Keith Olbermann does reach a huge audience. Here is one of his wonderful "Special Comments."

Credit Card Ads Are Making Me Furious

There is an ad running now about a woman who has to leave her home and her job to take care of her mother who has Alzheimer's. She gets behind in her credit card payments and starts getting notices from her card holders. And all she has to do to straighten this problem out is pick up the phone and talk to her credit card company. Have you ever tried to call your credit card company? It is an endless loop of voice mail hell. You will never get to talk to an actual person, unless they are calling you to tell you you need to sell you first born into slavery to make your damn payment.

I know because I had to fly to Santa Barbara (ticket on a credit card) rent a car (rental on a credit card) kidnap my crazy mother and drive her back to Salt Lake so I could take care of her since she had vascular dementia and was being evicted from her apartment. Then I had to get someone to watch her while I flew back to Santa Barbara (ticket on a credit card) rent a car (rental on a credit card) empty and clean her house and her storage unit and drive back to Salt Lake with her few salvageable possessions (her incontinence had left her clothing unsalvageable).

My mother required constant watching since every time I closed my eyes she ran away. She would go to the grocery store, gather up the crap she wanted and stand in line at the checkout counter. Then if someone behind her didn't offer to pay for her crap, the store would pay for her crap rather than have her pitch a fit in from of other people. I would then have to pay for her crap with a credit card. My mother started hitchhiking to another store, and got picked up by the cops. This resulted in my getting turned in for not keeping her safe. A charge just short of elder abuse. Then I had to get all the locks on the house changed so my mother couldn't run away, turning my house into a locked fortress to protect her from herself and me from the Ombudsman. And that was my last credit card charge.

Taking care of her full time meant I was unable to work. As I started missing payments (time gets away from you when you can't ever sleep or work or take a bath because something might happen to your mother) the credit card company started an aggressive debt collection campaign. I kept trying to explain my situation, but I guess everyone's got a sob story when they are unable to pay their credit cards. It was only when they called me to dun me, to call me an irresponsible idiot, that I was able to talk to a "real" person. They were in no way helpful. They suggested I sell my ten year old Jetta to pay my credit card bill. Eventually I was forced into bankruptcy.

One of my best friends has had the same credit card for thirty years and has never missed a payment. She was one day late with a payment a couple of years ago and they hiked her interest rate from 7% to 40% without notification to her. It was not until her next bill that she noticed the enormous change in interest charges. She spent a month trying to talk to a real person about her situation. The person she finally got to talk to said, "It's right there in the small print. If you read your statement you would know that we have the legal right to do whatever we deem necessary to protect ourselves from the irresponsibility of card holders like you who think it's fine to pay late or skip payments without consequences." This practice amounts to loan sharking. Now neither of us has a card we ever use to make purchases. We each have a debit card from our credit unions. I never use mine, but if I had to fly or rent a car, I'd need a card.

Fuck you Citibank. Take this card and shove it.

Hello Quizzy Gets It Wrong

Your result for What Do Others See You As Test...

41 to 50 Points

You've scored 43 Points!

Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical, and always interesting, someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding, someone who'll always cheer them up and help them out.

Take What Do Others See You As Test at HelloQuizzy

Now I could go back and answer all ten of those questions differently and we'd get the real way others see me. Because this is not how others see me, I can assure you. I'd get a more accurate take on who I am by taking a quiz based on my astrological sign. I will not always cheer you up. And I might wish I could help you out, but if skill or money or physical activity is involved in helping you out, you're out of luck. I am not always cheery. Ask the manager at the grocery store. He hides when he sees me coming. Ten questions to get a take on me? Sure.

Awards Season Is My Favorite Time Of The Year

I got an award! Yea! Thank you, you Attentive Aphorist!

TheMom is one very smart and generous blogger. And she's a good mom as well, just ask me. If you don't believe me ask her, her daughter, son, and TheGrandkids, they will confirm my assertion. Because I never make assertions I can't back up as absolute fact, unless it's just my opinion. But even then you'll have to prove to me I'm wrong because, well, just because.

When I became a blogger I had no idea what a blog was. It had to be explained to me several times before I got the concept. At first I only posted essays about things that pissed me off, like, lets say Barbie for instance. Man I hate that bitch. That doll is responsible for everything that's wrong with us, from anorexia to pornography, from breast implants to the plastic surgery of the pussy, or a pussy tuneup, or whatever you want to call turning a well-used pussy into something resembling the pussy of a twelve year old. Barbie is responsible for Reality TV, and the lowered IQ of the general population. On no, now I'm really wound up and could just go on an enormous rant, but that's not what we're here to do. No, we're here to thank TheMom and pass the love along. We're here to bless the ones who got us started and sent us out into the world to rant and rave as we feel we must about the things that are important to us.

The ones who got me started are a young couple who live in New York and were visiting. They insisted that the blog was just the thing I needed and the world needed another ranting, raving lunatic with a bad attitude and the hutzpah to speak her mind. Well, world, what do you think now. Now I even twitter. Take that all you smartasses who never thought I had it in me. Actually I'd have none of these outlets without the computing expertise I receive from my blogmate Sitenoise, my favorite reviewer of off beat movies. So thanks for the start, Rachel and David. And thanks for the help Phillip. Without the three of you there would be no Utah Savage. Bless you my children for getting me going. Without you I'd still be sitting here scribbling on paper.

I hereby bestow this lovely award on:
Susan at Phantsythat
Boarder Explorer
Wee Mousie's Cinema Burlesque
Non, Je Ne Regrette Rienes

There are so many others who I'd love to give this award to, but knowing how beloved they are, I'm sure this award will make it's way to them all.

The aims of this award:

As a dedication for those who love blogging and love to encourage friendships through blogging.
To seek the reasons why we all love blogging.
Put the award in one post as soon as you receive it.
Don't forget to mention the person who gives you the award.
Answer the award's question by writing the reason why you love blogging.
Tag and distribute the award to as many people as you like.
Don't forget to notify the award receivers and put their links in your post.

Tax Protesters Take This Pledge

If you are a small government fanatic and believe that you should pay no taxes, I've got a deal for you. There just might be a way for you to get what you want--a government that does not govern.

So if I have this straight, you think all government is bad government. Right? Well in that case you could do a couple of things. You could move to one of the countries that are failed states and essentially have no government, like say, Somalia. Or you could pledge to never ever receive any of the services provided by the federal or state governments.

So, no taxes, no tax supported services. Sounds fair to me. But for you this means, no roads will be open to you and your Hummer. No police or fire departments will respond to a 911 call from you since these first responders are tax supported. They would only arrive to protect your tax paying neighbors houses from the flames of yours. No schools receiving either state or federal moneys would be open to your children--but you probably home school them anyway, right? No garbage pick up, and if you get caught putting you trash in your tax paying neighbor's garbage cans, you would be jailed. No water flowing from you taps. No electricity, no gas. Yes, I know, the utilities are privately held, but subsidized by... you guessed it, taxes. And on and on it goes. If you are willing to abide by the rules, maybe you can keep your house and car, but only if you pay your property taxes. You won't be able to drive your car since road construction and maintenance is paid for by taxes. But you will have to register the car, which is a tax. In Utah, you wouldn't be able to buy food since food is taxed in this neanderthal state. Tax on food is the most regressive of all taxes--it disproportionately punishes the poor. And so it goes.

The one thing you probably approve of is also tax supported and that's the pentagon, the military, and arms dealers. But thanks to your stance on taxes we won't be paying for wars you actually support but the rest of us could do without. Oh well, a loss for you is a win for us.

You must also take the pledge to forego Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. I could go on and on, but it bores me to do so, since I think you won't keep you word, you'd find a way to cheat and use tax supported services in an emergency. But to make it a little simpler for you to understand where taxes come from and where they go, here is a little teaching aid.

Would I Marry Me?

Hell no, I would not marry myself. I'd be awful and have expectations. I'd be critical and impatient. I'd bitch and moan that I was not doing my share of the work. I'd criticize myself about my poor skills as a cook and housekeeper. I'd want me to be better with money, to own and know how to use a chain saw, to be able to install another outlet in the bathroom and fix the drippy faucet in the kitchen sink. I'd say things like, "It was nice you finally decided to do the laundry, but couldn't you have taken the few extra minutes to fold it and put it away?" I'd eventually divorce myself.

So what made me think about the prospect of being married to myself? It was Lisa. It's her fault.

File This Under Fabulous

I am not a fan of... I don't even know the name of the show. I don't watch any "reality" shows on general principle. I was an actor with an agent. Why would I be in favor of "reality" shows? I've been furious at fashion magazines for using "celebrities" as models. It just cuts the professionals out of the paycheck loop. And the whole "reality" thing has lowered the national I.Q. in my opinion. We seem to be a nation getting dumber by the day. But I am fortunate to be on YellowDogGranny's email update list. And today she sent me this.

It was so lovely I watched in stunned, and goose bumped wonder. Do yourself a favor and see if I'm right. Granted this comes to us from the UK, but I may have to rethink my disdain for Idol.

The Great Teabagging Party of 2009

And then there is this segment of the Rachel Maddow Show. Ignore the brief commercial, the segment is worth the wait, believe me. And Anna Marie Cox has become my new favorite twitterer.

P.S. YellowDogGranny suggested we send Tucks to the teabagging idiots. I'm thinking that's a great idea. However these idiots and their teabagging parties obviously have no idea that teabagging is anything other than dipping a teabag in a cup of hot water. You can lead a wingnut to knowledge, but you can't make him learn.

If There is God

If there is god
In this she shapes
A humble kindness

A small brown box reveals these gifts
One large moist spicy pumpkin loaf
Heavy like honey with generosity
An old slim book of poetry
In each word upon the page a mans longing
And new to me
A card sacred for such touching humility

These gifts sent to a woman never met
Who writes her secrets on a disappearing page
Perhaps to never know if they are understood
Light sent into a void and answered like a prayer

And yet here is proof: a loaf, a book of poetry, a card

2009 Peggy Pendleton

Blog Against Theoracy

Are You In Favor of Theocracy? Move To Utah. Utah is a Theocracy. I know of no other state that can make that claim. I could be wrong, but if I am I'm sure you'll let me know. The Mormon Church has a strangle hold on Utah. And the group of wise old white men on your left is the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Oh yes, we have living, breathing, Apostles. Notice the pasty faces on these very clean cut, well connected men. Men rule everything in Utah. You'll like it here if feminism gets your goat. Uppity women are few and far between. And homosexuals? What homosexuals? According to a lot of Mormons, we have none. Oh yeah, Utah is the State of Denial.

Democrats live, for the most part, in Salt Lake City. Why is that? The University of Utah is a bastion of Moderation. Not liberal exactly, but moderate. In Utah, if you are a moderate, you are more than likely a Democrat.

And what do our Republican Representatives look like and how do they sound? Chris Butters is my favorite:



Come one, come all, bring your religious fundamentalist republican wingnutty selves to Utah, a state that welcomes you in all your nutty nuttiness, so long as you aren't gay.

And if I haven't convinced you yet that Utah is the place to bring your Theocratic selves check out these statistics.


If all you theocrats came to Utah, the rest of us could live in a country that might have a chance of being tolerant, inclusive, and free. Ah yes, let freedom ring for the rest of us. You theocrats can have your very own state with really strange liquor laws--heck, you could make it dry again.

"Because hate is legislated... "

This gift was sent to me by LeeAnn. It also came with a lovely large and delicious home made pumpkin bread and a card. I had never heard of Walter Benton, but I opened the book to the first entry, dated April 28, and it says this:

Because hate is legislated...written into
the primer and the testament,
shot into our blood and brain like vaccine or vitamins

Because our day is of time--and the clock-hand turns,
closes the circle upon us: and black timeless night
sucks us in like quicksand, receives us totally--
without a raincheck or a parachute, a key to heaven or the last long look

I need love more than ever now...I need your love,
I need love more than hope or money, wisdom or a drink

Because slow negative death withers the world--and only yes
can turn the tide
Because love has your face and body...and your hands are tender
and your mouth is sweet--and God has made no other eyes like yours.

Hello Quizzy Says I'm Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Your result for Which Supreme Court Justice Are You Test...

You are Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You agreed with Ginsburg 88% of the time.

Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg (born March 15, 1933) is an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. She was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton with the support of Republican Judiciary Chairman Senator Orrin Hatch in 1993 and generally votes with the liberal wing of the court. She is the second female Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor being the first, and the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court, Ginsburg served as a federal judge for 13 years on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In practice, she spent a considerable portion of her career as an advocate for the equal citizenship status of women and men as a constitutional principle. She engaged in advocacy as a volunteer lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, and was a member of the ACLU's Board and one of its General Counsel in the 1970s. She served as a professor at Rutgers School of Law in Newark and Columbia Law School.

Ginsburg characterizes her performance on the court as a cautious approach to adjudication, and argued in a speech shortly before her nomination to the Supreme Court that "[m]easured motions seem to me right, in the main, for constitutional as well as common law adjudication. Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable." Ginsburg has urged that the Supreme Court allow for dialogue with elected branches, while others argue that would inevitably lead to politicizing the court.

Though Ginsburg has consistently supported abortion rights and joined in the Supreme Court's opinion striking down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), she has criticized the court's ruling in Roe v. Wade as terminating a nascent, democratic movement to liberalize abortion laws which might have built a more durable consensus in support of abortion rights. She has also been an advocate for using foreign law and norms to shape U.S. law in judicial opinions, in contrast to the textualist views of her colleagues Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito. Despite their fundamental differences, Ginsburg considers Scalia her closest colleague in the Court, and they often dine and attend the opera together.

Ginsburg is part of the "liberal wing" in the current court and has a Segal-Cover score of 0.680 placing her as the most liberal (by that measure, which takes no account of judicial actions post-confirmation) of current justices, although more moderate than those of many other post-World War II justices. In a 2003 statistical analysis of Supreme Court voting patterns, Ginsburg emerged the second most liberal member of the Court (behind Justice Stevens).

Ginsburg was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 1999 and underwent surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments. During the process, she did not miss a single day on the bench. However, during a routine health checkup in late January 2009, a CAT scan revealed a cancerous tumor in the center of her pancreas, measuring approximately one centimeter in width. On February 5, 2009, she underwent surgery related to pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer has an extremely high mortality rate, but doctors are optimistic due to the fact that Ginsburg's tumor was discovered at an early stage. On February 13, 2009, Justice Ginsburg was released from a New York hospital, 8 days after the surgery. Justice Ginsburg returned to work on February 22, where she proceeded to hear oral arguments for the rest of the day. On February 24, she attended President Obama's speech before the joint session of Congress, and received a warm welcome from both President Obama and the Congressional attendees.

Take Which Supreme Court Justice Are You Test at HelloQuizzy