I dallied until way too late last night at a book event for author and fellow Benningtonite, Ellen Graf, to celebrate the publication of her beautifully written and very funny memoir about an unlikely marriage, The Natural Laws of Good Luck—so am bringing you just a few short takes this morning.
CAN AMERICAN EX-DETAINEES SUE EX-BUSH OFFICIALS?
On Tuesday, NPR’s Morning Edition did a feature on the issue of whether ex-Bush officials are legally liable for some of their post-9/11 actions. Here’s how it opens.
Eight years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many legal theories that the Bush administration relied on to detain people remain controversial and legally murky.
Now some former detainees are trying to hold Bush administration officials personally accountable — and clarify the legality of the government’s more creative anti-terrorism policies — through civil lawsuits against people who held senior positions at the Justice Department and other parts of the federal government. The results of the suits have been mixed, with judges throwing some out and letting others proceed.The most recent such decision came down in California, against former Attorney General John Ashcroft. After Sept. 11, 2001, Ashcroft ordered that some Americans be held without charge as material witnesses to terrorism. In a 2-1 ruling, the court said the imprisonment violated the detainees’ rights. The two Bush-appointed judges in the majority called Ashcroft’s behavior “repugnant to the Constitution,” and they said Ashcroft could be held personally liable.
The actual ruling may be found here.
BOTCHING THE EXECUTION
In Ohio, a gruesomely botched execution by lethal injection has bought a death row inmate a week’s reprieve—and maybe, say some, it will also produce a hard look at Ohio’s execution methods.
Here are the details.
A BIT OF FUTURE-OF-NEWS…..NEWS
THE MULTIMEDIA DIVIDE
British hotshot Tech-Media-Journo Commentator, Adam Westbrook, says that all the best pieces of multimedia journalism right now are coming from the U.S. . (Cool. Fine. We’ll take the compliment.) His examples of the kind of work he thinks illustrates his point are a lot of fun to check out.
AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT
….Digital business strategist, Joshua-Michele Ross, says that newspapers can’t and won’t use the suggestions that cyber-strategists keep helpfully lobbing their direction—and he explains why.
It’s an interesting read.
SHERIFF BACA SPEEDS INVESTIGATION OF DEPUTY INVOLVED SHOOTING
See, this is where Lee Baca is sometimes very, very smart in his strategy.
A deputy-involved shooting occurred on Monday night [Here are some details from LA NOW]. The community nearest the shooting se By Tuesday afternoon Baca had announced that he was speeding up the investigation and that it would be completed within 90 days—instead of the usual year it takes much too often.
Whatever the outcome of the investigation, Baca is wisely signaling to LA’s communities that he takes their concerns seriously.
Why doesn’t Baca take my gang rape serious? Maybe because I enjoyed it so much, hehe
Celeste, is it true that liberals get most of their news from NPR, 60 Minutes,and the Comedy Channel?
Hey hey, we’re the monkeys.
Wow! That Ellen Graf book looks pretty amazing – also, not to put too fine a point on it – remarkably weird (which isn’t necessarily bad.) I think a “Don’t try this at home!” sticker should be on the cover or the last page or somewhere in the text.
Not to sound cynical or second-guessing motives (I’m actually a romantic, in a very subdued sense), but the only person I’d recommend taking that kind of marital leap is someone who had the talent and inclination to get an engaging, unlikely book out of it, no matter what direction the relationship took.
I’m not reading that “botched execution” link…just can’t.
republicans get their news from Elmer Fudd. A dee ba dee dee dee dee ba de ba dee ba deee dee dee birth certificate!
Woody – add “The Huffington Post”, Josh Marshall’s TPM, the New York Times, The New Yorker and “Youtube” and the answer is “Yes!” – and even against those (IMHO) not terribly impressive odds we’re still better informed than the morons on the Right who read “Newsbusters”, “Town Hall”, Boortz, Malkin and watch the Goebbels Gang at FOX.
Actually, scratch “60 Minutes.” Nobody I know watches that unless Obama is on…which is only every couple of weeks.
I get my news from the bible. I pray for you, Reg.
Woody, are you single? Is it true those southerners are gentle-men?
Al Gore regards the Earth’s carrying capacity for our species to be overtaxed on the order of several billion souls, which will trigger a corrective and unprecedented culling by one means or another as early as next year if Obama’ medical death squads are permitted to organize. Hey Gava Joe , I read the bible too. I go to church every week and I’m good to my mother.
“I’m not reading that “botched execution†link…just can’t.”
Reg, you are sissy man. I will talk to you.
http://www.crocopuffs.com/soundboard/arnold.html
Reg, weirdly the marriage seems to be working out—with a few…um… glitches. But, yeah, I think it’s a definite dont-try-this-at-home thang in general. On the other hand, the book definitely illustrates the old principle of Sometimes You Just Gotta Say WTF…
Ellen’s a wonderful writer and the book’s a blast to read. Plus she’s a totally lovely person as well. When not marrying non-English-speaking Chinese men she’s barely met and then writing about it, she works with a program that provides independent living set ups for mentally ill people. She’s basically a sort of case manager. We were talking about it last night and it was so interesting and strangely heartening to hear a few of the details.
Woody, about our hideously slanted liberal news outlets, I believe reg has the right list. (And, as he says, 60 Minutes ain’t what it once was so we have mostly abandoned it in favor of the comedy channel.)
Your personal list for news would be….?
PS: RobThomas, nothing wrong with the ongoing flaming gay persona. But could you at least tell some new jokes? Thanks in advance.
Arnold, I LOVE the soundboard link. Brilliant!
I’m also not reading the botched execution link, but notice you write, Celeste, that it was to have been “by legal injection.” I’m sure bad legal work has been lethal, however.
Yeah, Baca’s “smart” when it comes to anything that makes him look good to the peeps, he can claim how concerned he is. But when his massive multi-billion-dollar budget was cut by some $12 million, he got all prima-dona-ish and refused to continue testing DNA rape kits in protest, until ordered to by the Supervisors. Who are his nominal bosses, but since he and above all his buddy the DA have dossiers on them all, they tend to NOT critique them at all, unless Baca provokes a public confrontation like on the DNA issue. Especially after the LAPD had famously just gotten on track in that area, going from a national bad example (vis-a-vis the most larger and better-funded NYD especially) to a national model. (A legacy of Jack Weiss, who got the Council to commit to ongoing funding before he left office: wonder if they’ll be able to keep their word. Especially with the tripled trash fees being swept into the general fund; will anyone else be pushing for it?)
As for your friend marrying a Chinese guy who speaks no English and she no Chinese, hmmm… Well, since she’s written a book about it, sounds like she has enough words for the both of them.
Celeste, I don’t have a standard set of news sources. Generally, I follow various conservative news sources to get the complete news, but I also follow liberal news sources to see just how stupid liberals can get. You know that the wonderful articles that I send to you come from all over the place.
– – –
I read the “driving Miss Graff” section of your friend’s book. I can confirm that Asian (I still don’t know what’s wrong with saying Oriental) drivers are terrible. John Rocker got that one right. As a gentleman, I wouldn’t yell out the window at her husband but would complain to my friends that we need stricter immigration laws.
“Legal injection.”
Arrrgghhh. That’s pretty funny. It’s fixed now. (And was likely very Freudian slippish, combined with the strong need to go to sleep.)
Woody, I know you do read widely, actually.
On the “botched execution,” it’s not as bad as some of you think. I know it doesn’t feel good, but nurses often have trouble finding veins.
Maybe if they made the prisoner run around the prison yard before they killed him a vein would pop up. Since Broom was convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl, I’m not terribly sympathetic to his slight discomfort.
Thanks anyone and everyone who totally ignores Rob Thomas’ consistantly boring use of my monicker for his own onanistic pleasures. What a cad!
Celeste, to tag on to your friend’s book and the botched execution stories, here’s one that includes an Asian defense against a just released prisoner. There was no problem finding a vein in this case, and justice was served faster than a Texas court.
That guy has lost his status a repeat offender.
It’s reminiscent of this – VIDEO.
Celeste, I even keep up with fashion news. Find THAT in the Huffington Post.
Two men were killed by the assassination strike team ordered by Obama on September 14 in Somalia. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was the man that Obama ordered killed, who is suspected of various terrorists crimes.
No courts were involved; no torture was involved, no lawyers were involved, just a quick execution and no messy prisoners to worry about.
This execution was not botched – Well done Obama!
i am gald to hear that pokey.
Good point, Pokey.
On the other hand, now admittedly I’m no expert, but I’m guessing that assassination strike teams invading southern Ohio could be potentially problematic.
(And I have no sympathy for the guy either.)
Why are these fashionable, humane executioners so obsessed with criteria? An RN or PA could perform a “cutdown” in the condemned’s artery if necessary, install a port and get on with the procedure.
I am glad that Celeste is coming around on the capital punishment issue as long as it is people suspected of terrorism and as long as they are not living in Ohio.
Reg works for ACORN
What does a Somalian Pirate and Patrick Swayze have in common? I’m not sure either, so let’s guess switch topics and guess who is posting the “joto” comments?
I am really upset with all the homophobic comments, the vitriol must stop !!!! Maybe a menudo enema is the cure.
Having an active STD doesn’t make you a “romantic” Reg, and yes I plan on taking shots at you in every post I write.
A relative of mine has been collecting medieval weaponry since his teen years. He has a working guillotine. He would happily loan it to the state if they’d start executing, on a daily basis, all the convicted murderers on death row.
It’s guaranteed to work each and every time and the pain to these poor wretched souls would be minimal. What could be more humane and show what a caring state we are?
Or the state could hire this guy, the ideal roommate.
Police: Md. student swordsman didn’t mean to kill
By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 17, 2009
(09-17) 09:23 PDT BALTIMORE (AP) —
Baltimore homicide detectives don’t believe a Johns Hopkins University student had “the intent to kill” when he used a samurai sword to confront an intruder behind his home, a police spokesman said Thursday.
John Pontolillo, 20, a junior chemistry major from New Jersey, killed the man with a single blow early Tuesday after police said the suspected burglar lunged at him.
Pontolillo has not been charged in the death of Donald D. Rice, 49, who had a long rap sheet of burglary arrests and was released from jail just two days before the altercation. Prosecutors will determine whether charges are appropriate after consulting with police, a process that could take weeks.
“We do not believe he went down there with the intent to kill somebody,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said of Pontolillo. “We’re looking to see if he was the aggressor, and so far the evidence doesn’t suggest that.”
When Pontolillo saw Rice, he raised the sword and yelled for his roommates to call police, Guglielmi said. Rice lunged at the student, who backed up against a wall. At that point, Pontolillo struck Rice once with the sword, nearly severing Rice’s left hand and causing a severe wound to his upper body. Rice died at the scene.
Guglielmi said Thursday that when the student found Rice, he was was hiding in the small, fenced courtyard between the back porch and the detached garage behind Pontolillo’s off-campus home. Police had initially said Rice was hiding inside the garage.
Police also revealed that Pontolillo and his three roommates, all Hopkins students, had been warned by a city officer and a campus security officer late Monday about a suspicious person in the neighborhood just east of campus.
At that point, the students told the officers that Pontolillo’s XBox video game console and two laptop computers had been stolen from their home earlier that night. Police investigated and found no signs of forced entry, according to police reports about the thefts.
After the officers left, Pontolillo retrieved the sword and decided to perform a more thorough search, including the garage and his car, Guglielmi said. The officers heard the screams during the encounter with Rice and rushed back to the scene, he said.
Pontolillo has not returned calls seeking comment. A man who answered the phone at the home of John A. Pontolillo of Belmar, N.J., said he had no comment.
Rice’s sister, Peggy Rice, told WJZ-TV in Baltimore Wednesday that her brother did not deserve to die and that the student should be charged.
“Having an active STD doesn’t make you a “romantic†Reg, and yes I plan on taking shots at you in every post I write.”
Sounds like someone has a “romantic” obsession of his own.
That’s the proper response for Reg whose talked about my manlihood more than once Joey.
Whatever, “Sure Fire”. You’re obviously a bit on the obsessed side, and it’s kind of creepy. Reg is a friend of Celeste’s, and has been here since the blog started. You, on the other hand, are an unknown troll obsessed with reg. That’s weird. I think you should stay the equivalent of 50 cyber-feet away at all times.
First of all Joey, you should go back and read when I first started posting at all the crap Reg threw at me from day one, even when I was talking to others. Since you’re an obvious idiot your bs won’t get any play from me. I’m not obsessed with anyone, seems you are now.
I’m not a troll, post only under one name and where people might not like my stances I don’t make up anything or take anything from a human stain like Reg or Rob or anyone else. Wasn’t raised that way. Reg needs to calm his rhetoric down or just ignore me, I can get just as nasty as him if need be.
Yes, you are indeed a troll: you persistently hurl ad homina and insults and obsess about a single long-term commenter. That’s called being a troll. Grow up.
No, being a troll is sticking your nose into business that’s not yours just to hear yourself talk Joey. You Reg’s big brother? Is there a seniority list I wasn’t told about when I first started posting? You the hall monitor of the board Joey? You’re a phoney whiner just like your pal.
Get a grip.
End of conversation.
No, being a troll is sticking your nose into business that’s not yours just to hear yourself talk Joey.
Actually, no. It comes from the term to troll for comments and means to make a provocative comment with the intention of generating an emotional response or veering the subject into an off-topic area.
It has nothing to do with using different names (that’s sock-puppetry). Woody, for example could easily fit the definition of troll and he posts under his own name.