Don’t you just love this time of year?

It’s the time when the Supreme Court reminds everyone which branch of the government is really in charge.

Last week, for instance, our judiciary gave constitutional rights to foreign terrorists.

And there’s already stuff to look forward to next year, when the Supreme Court will wade into matters of military training.

Which is to say that once again, as in its howler of a Guantanamo ruling, the court will be out of its depth.

Still, wade it must, because the reliably wacky 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco has sustained a lower-court ruling that within 12 miles of the California coast, U.S. Navy vessels cannot train crews in the use of active sonar unless it’s sure that all marine mammals are at least a mile and a quarter away.

It bothers the whales, you know.

In fact, the lower court found a “near certainty” that the use of active sonar had caused temporary hearing loss in up to 8,000 whales or dolphins and permanent injury to as many as 466.

We can only imagine how difficult it must have been to get all of them in for hearing tests.

“It’s clear both that high-intensity military sonar can injure and kill whales, dolphins and other marine life and that the Navy can reduce the risk of this harm by common-sense safeguards without compromising our military readiness,” says the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of five environmental organizations that sued to reduce the risk to whales by increasing the risk to sailors.

The Navy admits the likelihood of some harm to marine mammals, including temporary hearing loss, and says sonar use may have contributed to 37 whale deaths since 1996.

What the Navy knows for sure is that sonar has contributed to the continued lives of tens of thousands of American sailors for six-plus decades.

Anti-submarine ships and aircraft use active sonar – the kind that sends out a ping to see what the echo bounces off of under the water.

To do it well, they have to practice in waters of all sorts of depths and temperatures.

Better to try getting the hang of it in peacetime, 12 miles off Los Angeles, than under threat in hostile waters – off San Francisco, for example.

And if some passing humpback interprets PING! as, “OK, everybody out of the water,” that’s too bad, but it’s better than losing a carrier and 4,500 sailors.

The NRDC wants common-sense rules that result in an effective military? Well, there they are, already in place.

The Supreme Court should leave the green robes in the closet for this case. Military readiness and human lives are more important than whales. And when it comes to detecting enemy submarines, the United States may not be as ready as it ought to be.

Here’s Exhibit A:

Last October, while a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group was steaming along near Okinawa, a Chinese attack submarine surfaced less than five miles from the USS Kitty Hawk.

That’s well within torpedo or anti-ship-missile shooting distance.

The Kitty Hawk’s escort screen included at least one attack sub and a dozen or so surface ships, all responsible for keeping the carrier safe from harm. Not one detected the Chinese stalker until it was on the surface.

Submarines don’t show themselves for prank value, and it’s fair to assume this one was sending us a message. Military analysts took it to mean, “If we can get to you all the way out here, think how dangerous we can make the waters around Taiwan.”

The broader hint would be, “You’d better quit worrying about whales and work on your submarine detection.”

The Supreme Court needs to blow this case out of the water.