Over and over and over again. We knew that the Bush Administration would twist Maliki's arm and try to get a walkback from him. Obama should refuse to accept it. Kevin Drum writes:

"Maliki Endorses Obama Withdrawal Plan is a headline everyone can understand." True enough, but only if that's the headline the U.S. media actually decides on. . . . This ought to be a pretty good foreign policy moment for Obama, but we won't know for sure until the media narrative takes shape. Stay tuned.

It is up to Obama to demand the narrative he thinks is correct. Drum's approach is entirely too passive for my tastes. Maliki said what he said. Obama should discuss it truthfully. He should not let the Media decide what "the truth" is.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only.

You all missed a great rock and roll photo exhibit at a Denver gallery tonight. Renowned photographer and artist Lynn Goldsmith was in town for three nights exhibiting her incomparable rock and roll photos from her collections of the 70's to her new Looking Glass series, which is something you just have to experience in person.

I was there with my pal Anita, who's in Denver again this weekend, and who also is good friends with Lynn, who spends much of the year in the Aspen Valley.

Below are some photos:

Didn't this happen on an episode of X-Files?

Inmate loses weight, escapes through jail vent

The vent was less than a foot wide. The Sheriff's explanation:

"We just found out he's been slimming down a lot recently"

Remember Diebold?

A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.

RawStory reports that a whistleblower became suspicious of this:

The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. ... The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Are these election results a coincidence? [more ...]

The Onion has its own perspective on the Supreme Court's death penalty jurisprudence. Content warning: don't watch if you're offended by the gratuitous use of four-letter words.

Thomas Jefferson described the right to a jury trial as "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." So important was the jury trial to Jefferson that he said: "Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the Legislative or Judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the Legislative."

We elect presidents and legislators but not federal judges. Juries bring democracy to the third branch of government. In a criminal case, only the jury -- not law enforcement, not a paid representative of the government, but twelve randomly chosen members of the community -- can decide the fact of guilt. As Jefferson pointed out, juries even have the power to decide the law (or at least to decide whether it's fair or reasonable to apply the law as the judge explained it), although judges don't like to tell juries that they have that right.

As the embodiment of democracy in the courtroom, it is unconscionable that reasonable members of the community who have no reason to be unfair to the government are summarily removed from death penalty juries because they are philosophically opposed to capital punishment. How representative of the community is a group of people who represent only one side of a controversy that sharply divides the nation? [more ...]

Al Gore's new project, We Can Solve the Climate Crisis.

“America must commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and other clean sources within 10 years.”

On a related note, Gore said today at Netroots Nation he will not accept a formal role in the next President's Administration: [More...]

Update [2008-7-19 18:18:24 by Big Tent Democrat]: A classic example of the "Creative Class" in action. Truly a funny panel, not intentionally of course.

Here is an interesting panel discussion at Netroots Nation:

Meta

Saturday, July 19th 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM

In this blogosphere-focused panel, moderator Chris Bowers will pose two questions—one about the Obama/Clinton conflict in the blogosphere community and the second looking at how blogs compare with other forms of social media. After a panel discussion, audience members will be given a chance to ask additional questions.

More . .

Schapelle Corby redux in Singapore....

Austrialian ABC Foreign Correspondent Peter Lloyd was busted in Sinagpore with one gram of meth. He faces 20 years in prison plus 15 whacks of the infamous cane.

He's charged with trafficking:

The ABC's South Asia correspondent was allegedly in possession of 0.8 grams of methamphetamine, or ice, a smoking pipe and six syringes when he was arrested by Singapore police on Wednesday. His urine tested positive to amphetamines.

More...

An amusing 60 seconds to brighten your weekend.

It's customary for criminal defense lawyers to tell new clients, "Don't do anything stupid while these charges are pending." The advice isn't always heeded. Now it seems necessary to be more specific: "If you're going to do something stupid, don't publicize it on your MySpace or Facebook page."

Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunken driving crash that seriously injured a woman, the 20-year-old college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner. Pictures from the party showed him in a black-and-white striped shirt and an orange jumpsuit labeled "Jail Bird."

In the age of the Internet, it might not be hard to guess what happened to those pictures: Someone posted them on the social networking site Facebook. And that offered remarkable evidence for Jay Sullivan, the prosecutor handling Lipton's drunken-driving case.

Sullivan used the pictures to paint Lipton as an unrepentant partier who lived it up while his victim recovered in the hospital. A judge agreed, calling the pictures depraved when sentencing Lipton to two years in prison.

Of course, social networking sites hold some benefit for defense lawyers as well. Young people who claim to be distraught victims of crimes have trouble explaining why they're posting pictures of their drunken parties, taken just days after they were supposedly traumatized by a criminal act. It's great evidence when you find it, and it's surprising how often you do.

Denver Post editor Stephen Keating is in Austin for Netroots Nation, one of a few hundred mainstream media observers on scene. From his live-blog this morning:

Nancy Pelosi talked about reaching out to evangelicals:

Speaker Pelosi describes global warming as an issue of the environment, the economy, national security - and as a moral issue. “It is a moral responsibility. We work with the evangelicals to protect God’s creation.”

Code Pink anti-war protesters showed up for Pelosi's speech. NN organizer Gina Cooper laid down the rules:[More...]