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The latest rage in health and fitness nutrition seems to be acai berries. These days you can’t walk through a grocery store or check your email without seeing all kinds of products being marketed as containing this new “superfood” ingredient. But is the acai berry any better for you than other berries and fruits? I did a little research and discovered that the jury is still out on this question.

Studies show that the acai berry is indeed very high in antioxidants, higher in fact than most other fruits and berries that are routinely marketed as being high in antioxidants. This is probably a good thing, but according to the website WebMD, the jury is still out about any increased health benefits from the acai berry in this regard.

Dramatic weight loss is another benefit being claimed by the purveyors of acai products, but apparently there have been relatively few studies in this area, and most of the ones that were completed were rather inconclusive. Again, the jury is still out.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if the acai berry is really as beneficial as a nutrition supplement as the claims of acai product sellers are making it sound. Most of the “experts” seem to agree that using it likely won’t cause you any harm, but they also agree that the claims that it is a true superfood might not be very accurate either.

As the end of George W. Bush’s presidency drew near, many of us here in America began to speculate about the possible retirement of at least one Supreme Court justice once Barack Obama took office as his successor. And it didn’t take long for that to happen. Just a few short months after Obama was sworn in, Justice David Souter announced his plan to retire from the high court.

Of course we all expect the new President to choose a liberal to replace Souter, and that’s fine. After all, every sitting President is more or less expected to choose a nominee who shares his judicial and political philosophy. But as the selection process trudged along, Mr. Obama made a statement that sent chills down the spine of us conservatives. He said that he intended to pick someone who expresses “empathy” for others.

On the surface, an attribute such as empathy might sound like a good thing for a judge to have, but in reality that isn’t the case at all. A judge (or Supreme Court justice in this case) is morally and constitutionally bound to decide the cases brought before him/her in accordance with the law of the land, not his/her own “feelings” about a particular case. Empathy and sympathy have no place in the decision making process in regards to the outcome of a court case. Which party should prevail is supposed to depend entirely upon the applicable laws, not on which party the judge thinks should win. Empathy and sympathy do have a place in the courtroom, but only during the penalty phase (which takes place after the case has been decided on the legal merits).

Sometimes the proper decision in a case can appear to be unfair when viewed through the lens of emotion, but it is still the right decision as long as it is in accordance with the laws in force at the time. Yes, some laws are inherently flawed or unfair in my opinion, and they need to be changed. But it cannot be left to a judge (or Supreme Court justice) to make a decision that goes against the law or the Constitution, no matter how unfair it might seem. The legislature is responsible for “making law”, not the judiciary. Think about it for a moment. If judges were allowed to ignore the law and the Constitution when making their rulings, our society would be in a perpetual state of chaos!

No judge should legislate from the bench, especially the ones who sit on the Supreme Court. By using empathy as a criterion for a Supreme Court nominee, President Obama demonstrated either a complete lack of understanding of the constitutional role of the Supreme Court, or a complete willingness to ignore it. And both of those possibilities are quite chilling indeed.

Nowadays when you walk down the aisles of any grocery store you’ll have to choose between several variations of the same product. Take cereal for instance. When I was a kid I could probably count all the different varieties of cereal for sale at the local Piggly Wiggly and not have to use all of my fingers. But now the stores have an entire aisle devoted just to cereal. In addition to the old tried and true Cheerios, you can now buy Frosted Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Banana Nut Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Multigrain Cheerios, Fruity Cheerios, Berry Burst Cheerios, Yogurt Burst Cheerios…well, you get the point.
 
Cheerios is just an example of course. There are numerous varieties of cereals from Kellogg and Post as well. It seems to me that the cereal companies would enjoy higher profits if they didn’t have to spend a gazillion dollars advertising a hundred different varieties of their products. And from the customer’s viewpoint, why should it take an hour and a half just to look through all the different cereals on the shelves to find the one I’m looking for? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for having multiple choices, but do we really need a dozen different types of Cheerios?
 
Of course this “consumer overload” phenomenon isn’t limited to just groceries. Have you been down a laundry detergent aisle lately? How about shampoo? I guess I’m old-fashioned as they say, but I think shopping should be a pleasant task, not one that’s gonna keep me in the store from dawn till dusk and cause me a major headache every time I venture out to buy a can of pork and beans or a bar of soap. I suppose that “progress” always results in change, but sometimes I long for the good ole days when you could fill a shopping cart to the brim in about 15 minutes because you knew exactly what you wanted and exactly where to find it.