Bear-baiting Scalia

Steven Poole performs a handy little rhetorical spanking of some of the dissenting opinions in yesterday's Hamden decision:

Scalia begins the peroration of his dissent by peering into the future:

A final but powerful indication of the fact that the Court has made a mess of this statute is the nature of the consequences that ensue. [p117]

What are these consequences? Why, that habeas petitions on behalf of hundreds of Guantánamo detainees will have to be heard. This, Scalia predicts darkly, will "keep the courts busy for years to come". Decrying a judgment because it will "keep the courts busy", presumably where they should be oases of sunny idleness, does at least have the virtue of economy.