I’m not particularly shocked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s statements in a USA Today story today about how her own colleagues sometimes don’t pay her the respect she deserves, but I am disappointed.

USA Today Supreme Court reporter Joan Biskupic writes:

Ginsburg, 76, a former women’s rights advocate whom President Clinton named to the high court in 1993, recalled that as a young, female lawyer her voice often was ignored by male peers. “I don’t know how many meetings I attended in the ’60s and the ’70s, where I would say something, and I thought it was a pretty good idea. … Then somebody else would say exactly what I said. Then people would become alert to it, respond to it.”

Even after 16 years as a justice, she said, that still sometimes occurs. “It can happen even in the conferences in the court. When I will say something — and I don’t think I’m a confused speaker — and it isn’t until somebody else says it that everyone will focus on the point.”

Sad.

In the interviews for the story, conducted before Ginsburg’s colleague David Souter announced his retirement, Ginsburg also says:

“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. I don’t say (the split) should be 50-50. It could be 60% men, 40% women, or the other way around. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.”

So here’s my question: most court-watchers seem to be convinced that the president will nominate a woman to replace Souter. And if Ginsburg leaves the court during Obama’s presidency (the 76-year-old justice has pancreatic cancer but wants to continue to serve), I’d guess Obama would nominate another woman to fill her seat. (Otherwise, we’d be right back at 1 of 9.) But what if Obama gets the chance to nominate a replacement for one of the sitting male justices? We’ve already had 2 of 9 when Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor were both on the court. Shall we go for 3 of 9?

What are the odds?

HT: How Appealing

I had a bit of a flashback while watching “60 Minutes” the other night. Scott Pelley reported on residents suing an oil company over groundwater contimation, with alleged damages in the billions.

But this wasn’t Jacksonville — and it wasn’t ExxonMobil Corp. Rather, it was Amazon residents in east Ecuador suing Chevron Corp. for $27 billion for damages incurred during more than 20 years of oil drilling. Residents through a New York-based trial lawyer allege Texaco, now a Chevron subsidiary, didn’t clean up hundreds of pits filled with the byproducts of the drilling. Many of the pits have sat untouched for years.

The case, which has been going on for 16 years, will soon be decided by an Ecuadoran judge whose courtroom sits on the third floor of a shopping mall. How the case reached that point was the most interesting part of the story, as producers used old news footage to chart the lawsuit’s course.

The story has been criticized as a “PR job” for the plaintiffs. I wouldn’t go that far, but the video at the end of the story showing oil floating on top of an Amazon River tributary is pretty compelling.