douglas paul and professor holm, thank you both very much. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> brown: now, in a weak economy, what may be a ticking time bomb for many states, cities and towns. hundreds of billions in pension liabilities that are currently underfunded. in california, governor arnold schwarzenegger warned just this week that his state will need billions more from the federal government for basic operations, even as longer-term pension requirements loom. "newshour" correspondent spencer michels reports. >> reporter: when 86-year-old john canfield retired from his california state job, he was making about $50,000 a year. as a senior engineer, he had designed highway bridges used by thousands of californians. >> destructed all over the state of california and i take pride in that. >> reporter: today with yearly increases for cost of living, his state pension totals about $63,000. that's more than the average for state workers because canfield was one of the higher paid employees. >> i feel that i earned that retirement pay. i considered it a contract b

organization huma ghts in chine aa long-time pressor at the city university of new york school of law,nd douglas paul, ce president for studies at the carnee endowment for ternational peace, he seed as an asia expert and a directoon the national secury council staff during the reagan and gege h.w. bush administratis. welcome to you both. miss holm, how big a deal this? how significana development? to have a leading chinese intellectual like thiset this kind of convicti and sentence. >> it's an extreme significant case botdomestically and internationally, oneecause it's not theirst chinese intellectual or lawyer o journali or activist who has been charged, convicted and sentenced for this crime o incitement to bvert state power, and sadly, he won'te e last, so it's extremely significt as what's really on trial is the chinese constitutional rights that a supposedly procting and the man rights amendment and chinesea's willingness to respect internatiol human rights includingreedom of expression, so the signicance of the case is whait's really denstrated is that the chinese governme cannot and will not a

then what extensively reright, as this john paul stevens, but the last, i think the last two justices who did their own work were hugo black and william o. douglas, and i think it would be far better to see judges doing the work. i'm not quite interested in what a 27-year-old thinks about a problem. the where near as interested as i was 40 years ago. [laughter] >> yes, sir. >> mr. powe one of the conventional wisdom is the supreme court justices once there political considerations could go off their own way and become mavericks and justice souter's the most recent example of that, in your review of the history of the court is that actually a very common phenomenon? >> no. you get what you appoint. and, you may not understand who you have a pointed, and that may move somebody come up but fundamental changes and was the justice thinks about the issues facing the united states do not occur on the court. tendencies will move. some judges, byron white, became more conservative as he aged, and i think it is fair to say that john paul stevens became more liberal as he aged, but there are bits of this-- white may have been moving with the country and st