“As usual”:http://www.slate.com/id/2139458/, “Radley”:http://www.theagitator.com/archives/026693.php#026693 “Balko”:http://www.cato.org/new/pressrelease.php?id=34 is the man “to consult”:http://www.theagitator.com/archives/026686.php#026686 on the “Hudson vs Michigan”:http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05pdf/04-1360.pdf case, which concerns the constitutionality of no-knock police raids. (Balko is even cited on p.10 of “Breyer’s dissent”:http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/04-1360P.ZD.) Today’s decision basically says evidence obtained from no-knock raids is admissible in court. The broader implication, as Balko says, is that “there is now no effective penalty for police who conduct illegal no-knock raids.” By the by, Scalia, writing for the majority, is happy to set his originalism aside and argue that the growth of “public-interest law firms and lawyers who specialize in civil-rights grievances … [and] the increasing professionalism of police forces, including a new emphasis on internal police discipline … [and] the increasing use of various forms of citizen review can enhance police accountability” all mean that the fourth amendment can be reinterpreted.

Waiting for the England vs Trinidad & Tobago match to start (come on the Caribbean!), I came across “this story”:http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19340338-29277,00.html about a giant ocean vortex spinning off the coast of Australia. The article notes in passing that the vortex is “visible from space.” I think this expression needs to be retired. These days, the hosereel in my back yard is visible from space, and conveniently catalogued in an NSA database somewhere. (See: Potential WMD.) While I’m wasting your time, I want to complain about English (and Irish) football supporters who prissily correct Americans for using the word “soccer” and avoid that word themselves. I mean, it’s not as if the Americans invented the word — the Brits did, in the late 19th century, and the modern spelling was standardized around 1910. People used it interchangeably with “football” (and occasionally “Garrison Game”) when I was a kid.

OK, the game is starting. I predict Wayne Rooney will come on some time in the second half, and he will be so pumped with weeks of pent-up excitement that he’ll charge two-footed into his first tackle, breaking the leg of whoever is on the other end and tearing his own cruciate ligament to ribbons.

_Update_: Argh, so close for T&T — cleared off the line! Also: Peter Crouch could have cooked his dinner in the box and still had time and space to hit that cross properly. England fans must be apoplectic at this point.

_Update_: Rooney on for Owen. Let’s see how long it takes for someone to stamp on his foot.

_Update_: Oh well.

A link to “Harry Hutton”:http://chasemeladies.blogspot.com/ , who writes one of the funniest sites on the interwebs, and has been “hilariously misidentified by Daily Kos”:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/13/163821/037 as a Republican eliminationist stormtrooper. (Daily Kos also has Crooked Timber’s Daniel Davies down as a follower of Ann Coulter!)