If he is true to form, Justice Thomas will spend the arguments as he always does: leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, rubbing his eyes, whispering to Justice Stephen G. Breyer, consulting papers and looking a little irritated and a little bored.
Justice Stephen Breyer, for his part, spent the oral argument fretting over how best to split the difference between the parties and keep the ruling narrow.
In fact, if the post is to be so nakedly politicised, there is surely an argument for spending the chairman's £110,000 on a few reporters, and handing the propaganda remit straight to Sajid Javid.
The economic argument against spending the surplus has not been much heeded in Washington anyway, but a faltering economy would provide lawmakers with a justification for some old-style Keynesian pump-priming.
A good deal of the time was spent parsing the argument put forward last spring in an enthusiastic op-ed that came, surprisingly enough, from the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, whose Frank Schirrmacher argued that if you just separate Hacks's writings from his politics, you'll find literary achievements worth celebrating.
Measure this spending properly, the argument runs, and America's true economic health would be revealed.
Staten Island environmentalists have spent the last two years marshaling arguments -- and lawsuits -- to save the woods.
As the world rediscovers Keynesian deficit-spending, so the argument goes, Malaysia should revisit the sort of mega-projects that are among Dr Mahathir's enduring legacies, such as Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Twin Towers, which were, fleetingly, the world's tallest buildings.The opposition is discovering that politics in Malaysia is as murky and ruthless as it was in Dr Mahathir's day.
Conrad Murray chose to spend the day before closing arguments at a very public beach with his girlfriend and his 7th child.
