4th Circuit Court? The AP article yesterday, Court Rules in Favor of Enemy Combatant, is a misnomer. The Court basically said that someone here legally isn't an Enemy Combatant and has to be given the same set of rights as the rest of us. They went on to say:

" ...legal U.S. resident and the only suspected enemy combatant on American soil, or release him from military custody. The federal Military Commissions Act doesn't strip al-Marri of his constitutional right to challenge his accusers in court, the judges found in Monday's 2-1 decision. Put simply, the Constitution does not allow the President to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and then detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them 'enemy combatants".

Of course the justice Department right away said it would appeal the matter to the entire 4th Court and then to the Supreme Court if it had to (and it will).

I see Irony here. Irony because the bush43 Administration has purposefully chosen traditionally conservative Circuit Courts to judge it's cases. Here we have a very conservative court saying that what the Adminstration is doing:

"Such detention would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country,"

Now that's Irony. Having conservatives (real ones, not the lil fascists calling themselves conservatives) defend a Constitutional protection against an unAmerican Administration. I had to appreciate the sweetness.

No fair Googling either.

"When Paris Hilton was going to jail last week, more people knew about that than knew that we were sending people into space that day. It has replaced what is real news. There was always a place for it, but it was (gossip writer) Rona Barrett. Now it is the equivalent of Edward R. Murrow reporting it today."

the practice of suing private companies that assist in facilitating torture . I linked over from SadlyNo. I wasn't surprised to see the WSJ saying that a business making money off of extraordinary renditions that result in torture is completely OK. My question to the WSJ then is "What income generating practice is out of bounds for corporations?". I mean, if making money on torture (which is still against the law here in the US) is OK, well what about murder? What about mass murder? Why doesn't the WSJ & the American Chamber of Commerce nominate the Government of Darfur for a Nobel Prize for fighting malnutrition and population expansion?

this in an interview:

"How many Americans would say that it is a greater dereliction of duty as President of the United States to have a consensual sexual affair or to take the country to war under manipulated, fabricated, and largely untruthful representations which the President knew or should have known"

Additionally, he says that Senator Leiberman is nutz. I can't fault the guy on either count.

Pete Seeger, America's most successful communist.

As evidenced by the popularity of Pete Seeger and how the music culture reflects the unending swerve to liberalism (communism).

This article is a fascinating peek into how the 'other side' views the history of American music as a precurser to the loss of war in vietnam, to the decline of western culture, the rise of the dirty f*cking hippies.

It took a while for the Popular Front’s strategy to get results in popular music—and Pete Seeger was the catalyst. Many critics mark Elvis Presley’s arrival in the 1950s as a turning point in postwar American popular culture, not just because he injected a more overt sexual energy into entertainment, but also, they claim, because his rebellious spirit anticipated the political upheavals of the 1960s. But neither Presley nor the newfangled thing called rock ‘n’ roll had any explicit politics at the time (and Elvis would one day endorse Richard Nixon). A better leading indicator of the politicization of pop was the first appearance of a Seeger composition on the hit parade.

Though I don't agree with this articles point of view, it is a well written and worth reading and provides well researched history of protest music, including the lyrics.

The beginning of the 'end' of culture was Pete Seeger's hit song, 'Where have all the flowers gone'.

On the impact of low-paid illegal work force on prices.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003265139_imprices19.html

More than 7 million illegal immigrants work in the United States. They build houses, pick crops, slaughter cattle, stitch clothes, mow lawns, clean hotel rooms, cook restaurant meals and wash the dishes that come back.

You might assume that the plentiful supply of low-wage illegal workers would translate into significantly lower prices for the goods and services they produce. In fact, their impact on consumer prices — call it the "illegal-worker discount" — is surprisingly small.

Something I’ve always suspected but have never seen data on... Bravo, Seattle Times business reporter Drew DeSilver Bravo!

Suspected al-Qaida insurgents on Wednesday destroyed the two minarets of the Askariya Shiite shrine in Samarra, authorities reported, in a repeat of a 2006 bombing that shattered its famous Golden Dome and unleashed a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that still bloodies Iraq.

Police said the attack at about 9 a.m. involved explosives and brought down the two minarets, which had flanked the dome's ruins. No casualties were reported.

The attack immediately stirred fears of a new explosion of Sunni-Shiite bloodshed. State television said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki quickly imposed an indefinite curfew on vehicle traffic and large gatherings in Baghdad as of 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Link