Oh, yes. He's right there in the center of it, isn't he?

Let's touch base tomorrow! Fingers crossed (and guts in a knot)!

Let's not forget that Alito did the same thing to President Obama not so long ago . . .

No joke! But, you know, Roberts, Alito, Thomas — they're just umpires, calling balls and strikes. No activists among 'em!

Thoughts / predictions on Shelby County? Windsor-Perry?

That's not quite right.

This, again, is why you should be the real pope.

All of that seems right to me — or at least possible, in a Brek Shea-friendly world.

But two things:

(1) I didn't say Shea was "washed up." I say he may have squandered his best chance, which is still quite true, and which was also the lead-in to a very, very funny joke. (No?)

(2) There's a World Cup in 12 months. …

Absolutely. And that makes it all the stranger that Breyer and Sotomayor signed on without a word of caution or clarification, though perhaps that was the price of getting this punt.

Thanks, Dweeze. I appreciate it.

And I get all of that. (I also should preface all of this by saying that I think Justice Ginsburg's dissent is right.) But two things:

(1) Doesn't Grutter also say that, good faith presumed or not, strict scrutiny still applies? And, if so, shouldn't the Circuit (and, I imagine,…

You mean "playing" on the training ground, right? Because that's the only place he's been much of a Stoke player . . . .

And you mean "only 23" compared to those old farts Romelu Lukaku and Edin Hazard and Kevin de Bruyne, right? Because they're so much older . . . .

How did the Court make it harder? Didn't Justice Kennedy's opinion just tell the Circuit court to do what Grutter required it to do already?

Brek Shea may be a fool. He may also have squandered his best chance to develop as a player and to make a name for himself in European soccer.

But he apparently lives in a house that still gets television reception from an antenna. That's fantastic, and that's America.

I think it says good things about you. Really. It suggests that you've shed that nasty human inclination to genderize everything. To me, it's a woman dumping a man — though saying far too little about her opinions on mermaids. To you, it's just two people breaking up. I think that's healthy.

But I still think the…

I hear you. But be fair: Every entry does start with a precious little hand-drawn bullet point.

That counts for something, no?

(Full disclosure: I thought, at first, that you caught me in a list-making faux pas. Yikes!)

Could be, but I doubt it.

A question: Do those options have to be mutually exclusive? Do we need all of those ORs? I have a lot to learn from you.

And I like you.

Let's say our friend here has only one pair of leather pants.

And let's say those pants are red — red red bright powerful red.

Doesn't that make it even *more* likely he'd wear them to a funeral? Nothing says Rest In Peace than blindingly bright leather pants, especially if there are lots of zippers.

Is it fair to…

I'm calling fake.

There's no way that this guy, if real, wouldn't wear his leather pants to the funeral. No way at all.

Also: Wouldn't it be even stranger if he had "one-too-many posters" of Michael Phelps *not* in a Speedo?

(1) "Do we have to turn in these hats? All of 'em? I must confess that I'm sort of attached to the gold brocade . . . . Cardinal Dolan and Cardinal Burke told me that I'd get a nice apartment. Not true?"

(2) Mine too. I think the lines are hard to draw at the margins, but there's nothing uncertain about this or…

By "victimless," do you mean something like possession of a small amount of pot?

Also: I wish you were the real pope. I really do.