Interesting Stuff

The big news tonight is that Bush has commuted I. “Scooter” Libby’s sentence. That is to say, Bush has not pardoned him for his crimes (obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements), but he has completely removed his 30-month jail sentence, saying that it was “excessive.” It seems that Bush has tried to reward a loyal flunky who has obediently taken the fall for others in the administration without overtly raising anyone above the law itself. It’s really too bad to see this cronyism taking place.

In more heartening news, the Supreme Court has unexpectedly reversed their position and agreed to consider the constitutionality of holding enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. I hope they finally agree that all civilians have the right to be charged when arrested, and the right to a trial. We’ll see how this plays out.

Vice President Cheney has been pulling shenanigans recently, claiming that he does not need to comply with a law concerning the handling of classified information because he claims he is not in the executive branch. Outside of Bush and Cheney, I can’t find anyone who thinks this is anything but preposterous. I hope this ends soon and Cheney starts complying with the laws.

and speaking of the executive branch ignoring the law, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy has said that he may cite President Bush for contempt of Congress if he does not turn over documents relating to the firing of 9 attorneys (the ones that might have been fired for political reasons under Alberto Gonzales’ watch). I suspect nothing will come of this and the Democrats will complain a bit and then just roll over (the way they did with the war spending bill). We’ll see if they have the gumption to actually stand up for themselves.

Finally, this is so fantastic I had to post it: a high schooler takes Bill O’Reilly to task and shows how he is fabricating a story by taking quotes out of context. I’m really impressed by that guy; I wish more people had the wherewithal to expose Bill for the manipulative bastard he is.

On a random note, yesterday night there was a possum hanging out on the steps up to the LAC computer lab. It was pretty cool to see.

I know this is old hat in the blogosphere, but it turns out that the cartoons that the Muslims around the world are so incensed about were actually republished months ago in a major Egyptian newspaper, without anyone complaining. Why are they all protesting the republication of these in secular newspapers now? As far as I can tell, it’s due to propaganda put out by the various governments in the region, but I don’t see the goal of it all. What are these people trying to protest? I’m having difficulty finding a valid reason for anyone, particularly a religious group, to hate Denmark (unless you’re really anti-drugs, but that’s totally off-topic).

On another news topic, Sadam Hussein’s trial has broken down once more, with the defendants’ lawyers boycotting the trial, and the defendants refusing their substitute lawyers, forcing guards to drag them to the courthouse, and shouting through the whole thing. I can pretty much understand this – if you get caught for genocide/etc, you can’t really do anything except stall and make everyone else miserable while they try to bring you to justice.

Oh, and Cheney shot his friend while they were hunting, which I think is pretty funny.