This is an interesting take on the concept of hate crimes:

Former death row inmate Gordon “Randy” Steidl addressed a crowd at Illinois College’s Sibert Theatre sporting a pin on his lapel, stating “The death penalty is a hate crime.” ... Mr. Steidl hopes those listening to his speech “come away with the idea that capital punishment is not punishment,” he said in a Journal-Courier interview before the event. “The death penalty is nothing more than a hate crime. It’s a form of revenge.

Steidl should know. Twelve of the 17 years he wrongfully served in prison were on death row. TalkLeft told Steidl's story here.

In California, two men have been sentenced to 20 and 22 years for dispensing medical pot. Federal prosecutors had asked for 24 and 30 years.

The case was closely watched because of the clash between state and federal marijuana laws. To federal authorities, it was simple. Though California voters legalized the medical use of marijuana in 1996 under Proposition 215, federal law trumps state law and federal law views the drug -- even when used for medical purposes -- as illegal.

.... Friday, Scarmazzo cast himself and Montes as crusaders who went to trial rather than cut a plea deal with authorities because they are fighting for the rights of medical-marijuana users.

President-Elect Barack Obama pledged to stop federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries -- although he was the last of the ten Democratic candidates to do so. We need him to hold Attorney General Eric Holder to it. Anyone taking bets?

In other Modesto, CA news, a man got 35 years for stealing a purse. No wonder California prisons are bursting at the seams.

More cracks in the ceiling:

The vampire romance "Twilight" drained the box office in its opening weekend, taking in $70.6 million. Catherine Hardwicke's film also enjoyed the biggest opening ever for a female director, blowing away the previous standard of $41.1 million set by Mimi Leder 's " Deep Impact " in 1998.

While the naming of Robert Gibbs as Obama White House Press Secretary was an expected move, the naming of the EMILY's List Executive Director as President-Elect Obama's Director Of Communications was a positive surprise:

Ellen Moran w[ill] serve as director of communications. . . . Moran . . . is currently the executive director of EMILY’s List, an abortion rights advocacy organization that seeks to elect female candidates to office.

This is a great appointment by President-Elect Obama.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Changes are coming to Guantanamo and closure isn't one of them yet. The detainees will be provided culture classes for intellectual stimulation, movie nights and more.

Prison camp staff will soon start offering art and geology classes to long-held war-on-terrorism detainees....Plans include hand-held Game Boy-like electronic games to circulate through the cells, newspapers from Cairo, more ''movie nights'' featuring videotaped sports and expanded lessons in English as a second language.

....''We want to keep their brains stimulated. We're not here to give degrees,'' says Zak, an Arab American who serves as the prison camps' cultural advisor, a secular job. ``Once they are engaged and busy, they leave the guards alone.''

"Redemption," the two hour prequel to Season 7 of "24" airs tonight. It takes place in Africa, America's president-elect is a woman and, the review says, while there's torture, it's not being done by Americans. (Does that make it more acceptable for us to watch?) Season 7, which starts in January, will take place in America.

Audrey (Jack's old girlfriend who was the daughter of the William DeVane character) is listed as being in the Season 7 cast. I've gotten so used to watching her as Nico in this season's Lipstick Jungle, I wonder if she will still seem real as Audrey.

In other tv news, I was really sorry to see Bachelorette Deanna Pappas and snowboarder Jesse from Breckenridge have broken up. [More...]

John Cole (yes, we agree on occasion) and Steve Benen are. like me, Joss Whedon-philes (read my "famous" diary attacking Freddie Prinze, Jr.) On Dollhouse, I am, like Benen, a complete pessimist (Fox will destroy it):

Fox made Whedon scrap the pilot (just as the network did with "Firefly," probably my favorite show of all time). Then, after several episodes had already been shot, Whedon stopped production because the scripts were deemed inadequate. And just to ruin any hopes we had about the show's future, Fox announced earlier this month that "Dollhouse" would air on Friday nights at 9 -- the same slot it gave "Firefly," and a notorious black hole on the schedule where the network dumps shows it doesn't intend to keep.

I'm an embarrassingly big fan of Whedon's work, so months before the first episode even airs, I'm already preparing myself to be disappointed -- not with the show, but with its likely demise.

Ditto. I am anticipatorily pi**ed about it. Let's make this an Open Thread.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

I wonder if Greenwald and Digby (See also blog star and "concern troll" Jane Hamsher) will be called morons for this:

Digby explained perfectly why this reaction is so mystifying (re-printed with her consent):

Liberals took cultural signifiers as a sign of solidarity and didn't ask for anything. So, we have the great symbolic victory of the first black president (and that's not nothing, by the way) who is also a bipartisan, centrist technocrat. Surprise. . . . Obama said repeatedly that he wasn't ideological, that he cared about "what works." I don't know why people didn't believe that. He's a technocrat who wants to "solve problems" and "change politics." The first may actually end up producing the kind of ideological shift liberals desire simply because of the dire set of circumstances greeting the new administration. (Hooray for the new depression!) The second was always an empty fantasy --- politics is just another word for human nature, and that hasn't changed since we were dancing around the fire outside our caves.

[MORE . . .]

From the No Kidding File, though Halperin must have been asleep during the 2000 election:

Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.

No one can doubt that Obama was the Media Darling. But for Halperin to pretend that he and his cohorts were not disgustingly bad, indeed they turned in the worst political journalistic performance in history (see Somerby, Bob), during the 2000 election is just shameful of him. The difference is that their 2000 performance had perhaps the most devastating consequences in the history of the nation.

But Mark Halperin was, is and always will be a hack.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Back in the day, one of the reasons Matt Yglesias gave for preferring Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton was that Obama was perceived as being more Centrist than he actually was while Hillary was perceived as more progressive than she actually was. Of course Yglesias was wrong - Obama was actually perceived as more Leftist than he actually is and Clinton was perceived as more Centrist than she actually is. My preference for Obama was simpler - the Media loved him and hated Hillary (there is not a dime's worth of difference between them on policy.) Indeed, I think Yglesias suffered (suffers?) from CDS himself (thus his self delusion on how Obama was perceived.)

Now Yglesias uses the same theory, but in correct fashion this time imo:

Another Sunday of bloviating on TV, and on this blog too. Give us your thoughts.

This is an Open Thread.