For Larisa Alexandrovna and Alan Dershowitz.

You gotta love a good blog fight and there's a big one tonight about torture between Alan Dershowitz and Larisa Alexandrovna on Huffington Post. Even Huffpo weighs in, at the bottom of Dershowitz's post.

Here's Larisa's post that started it all, criticizing Dershowitz's op-ed in the Wall St. Journal on waterboarding and torture.

Throw in (on Dershowitz's part) a little "ticking time bomb theory," the assertion that Nazi torture was sometimes effective, a little praise for Rudy and some bashing of the Dems, liberals and (some) blogs -- and from Larisa, some thoughts on torture, morality, Israel, the Holocaust and Jews.

The gloves are off, let's see where you weigh in. As for me, with all due respect to Professor Dershowitz, I'm with Larisa.

Newsweek has selected Karl Rove to be the counterpoint to Markos of Daily Kos as a political contributor for the 2008 elections.

Their new columns are up now:

Markos: Make the Bush Record the Issue

Rove: How to Beat Hillary (Next November)

There's nothing that Republicans would like more than to see than some down and dirty infighting among Democrats.

Robert Novak is stirring the pot.

Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

Sen. Obama is striking back, not at Novak, but at Hillary, whose campaign has said they have no idea what Novak's talking about.

Obama accused Clinton of "Swift boat' politics" and vowed he will not be intimidated.

More...

Matt Yglesias writes:

It's worth considering that in January 2009, Americans will probably have a president elected on a platform of universal health care and robust action to curb carbon emissions, a House Speaker who backs both of those things, and a Senate Majority Leader who backs both of those things, and nevertheless the odds for either of those things happening aren't especially good and the reason is the filibuster.

In January 2005, Americans had as President a buffoon, who decided he was going to privatize Social Security. He had a House and Senate under GOP control. If not for the power of the filibuster, George Bush probably would have rammed through his plan to privatize significant parts of Social Security.

Funny how anti-filibuster folks on our side NEVER mention that.

Remember Dr. Alan R. Doerhoff of Jefferson City, Mo? He's the dyslexic physician who administered the doses of chemicals during state executions and previously admitted "sometimes giving inmates smaller amounts of anesthesia than the state had said was its policy."

Turns out Dr. Doerhoff has also been working on federal executions at the Death House in Terre Haute, IN.

The doctor barred by a federal judge from performing executions in Missouri is part of the federal government's secret execution team at its death chamber in Indiana, according to court documents filed in a death penalty appeal.

When Dr. Doerhoff testified before the federal court that banned his participation in state executions in June, 2006, the media didn't report his name. That changed a month later.

The Post-Dispatch reported his name the following month and revealed that he had been sued for malpractice more than 20 times, denied staff privileges by two hospitals and reprimanded by the state Board of Healing Arts for failing to disclose the lawsuits to a hospital where he was treating patients.

A lawsuit filed by six federal death row inmates two months ago alleges Dr. Doerhoff is now a member of the Terre Haute execution team:

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In the debate the other night, Campbell Brown seemed to not know what Hillary Clinton was referring to when she referred to "a boys club". Maybe thsde reactions from her male Media colleagues might help Mrs. Dan Senor understand what Hillary is talking about.

Roger Simon:

Politico chief political columnist Roger Simon began his November 16 column by asserting, "The (rhymes with rich) is back."

Mike Allen:

ALLEN: All right. But what Republican voter hasn't thought that? What voter in general hasn't thought that? And what people like about McCain is his straight talk, his candor, and if he had folded or buckled under that question, that would have looked ridiculous...But Kiran, this was just a funny moment on the campaign trail. CHETRY: Well, it's only funny unless you're offended by somebody calling a woman the b-word.

Dana Milbank:

The other night, talking with my man Olbermann, greasily hiding behind what was the living definition of a s**t-eating grin, Milbank explained his take on the "How do we beat the bitch?" controversy currently plaguing John McCain, who is not, Milbank was quick to point out, running for "knighthood in some order of chivalry." He further explained that McCain was smart enough to realize that it would "be suicide to quarrel with this phraseology." So now it is not only politically permissible -- but the very essence of shrewd politics -- to go along with calling Senator Hillary Clinton almost anything. Why stop here? Why not just call her a "c**t"? . . .

And this is the "sophisticated" part of the Beltway. You can just imagine how overt misogynists like Tweet Matthews and Tucker Carlson, not to mention Faux News, reacted. Maybe Campbell gets it a little more now. Probably not.

A taser death captured on video at the Vancouver airport has caused an uproar in Canada.

The shocking death of a Polish traveler who was confronted by policemen with stun guns at the Vancouver airport last month has shamed Canada and its federal police, editorials said Friday.

A bystander's video released late Wednesday showed Robert Dziekanski dying after a bizarre series of events that culminated in police approaching him on October 14 and, in less than one minute, zapping him repeatedly with a Taser stun gun. The 40-year-old immigrant had traveled to Canada to live with his mother.

The Globe and Mail accuses the RMCP of conducting a disinformation campaign and calls the incident a "summary execution of an innocent man for the crime of being disoriented, for not understanding, for being a stranger."

How long did the police wait before tasering the man, who did not speak English? 24 seconds. He was not a threat to anyone else and was not resisting arrest. They needed an interpreter, not a a taser gun.

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A provision of the UCC, as a point of illustration, not necessarily an expression of the governing law in this case (this is not a contract for goods):

Unless otherwise unambiguously indicated by the language of the offer or the circumstances: An offer to make a contract invites acceptance in any manner and by any medium reasonable under the circumstances. . . . a definite and seasonable expression of acceptance may . . . create a binding obligation . . .

It has been reported that T. Boone Pickens made this offer:

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' offer of $1 million to anyone who can disprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Presuming Pickens did make such an offer to "anyone," his response to John Kerry's acceptance of Pickens' offer seems at material variance to Pickens' original offer. You see, Pickens now is demanding:

Pickens wrote Friday in a letter faxed to Kerry, "I am certainly open to your challenge," but he said he would not pay Kerry unless the senator first provided him with copies of his wartime journals, as well as movies he shot while on patrol and his complete military records for 1971 to 1978.

Obviously only John Kerry could provide such documents. But Pickens' offer was to "anyone." I believe that Pickens has now made John Kerry a second offer for $1 million.

It would be interesting if Kerry also accepted Pickens' second offer. One would expect that Pickens will welch on that one too of course. But it would be fun to watch him squirm.

Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey fled to Canada to avoid being shipped to Iraq. The Canadian Supreme Court yesterday denied their appeal for asylum.

Desertions are at their highest since 2001 and growing steadily.

More disturbingly, the pace of Army desertions appears to have increased even during fiscal 2007: 63.6 percent of the year’s 4,698 desertions were recorded from April through September, according to Army data.

The desertion rate is up 80% since the Iraq war began in 2003.

A CBS investigation has found a suicide epidemic among veterans. The suicide rate is 120 per week.

At least 6,256 US veterans committed suicide in 2005 -- an average of 17 a day -- the network reported, with veterans overall more than twice as likely to take their own lives as the rest of the general population.

As to why Canada shut the door:

A light at the end of the tunnel?

In a joint statement, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said both sides had agreed to return to formal negotiations. The statement said no other details would be released.

Newsweek's newest political contributor, Markos of Daily Kos, has his first column up about the war funding bills and how Democrats so far have failed to keep their promise.

It's the second most widely read article on Newsweek's site. Go on over and read it. Besides being really good, it'd be great to push him to Number One. A snippet:

If Reid and Pelosi stand firm they will finally fulfill one of their key 2006 campaign promises, proving they have the courage to stand tough for what they believe, while giving the vast majority of the American people what they want.

If they yield they will reinforce perceptions of Democratic weakness. Worse, they will be siding with an unpopular president and an unpopular Republican Party over an unpopular war, and their own popularity will suffer as a result.

The options to those of us outside of the Beltway are so obvious it's truly unfathomable that we are still left wondering which path the Democrats will take.

Congress is now on a two week break. The Senate returns December 3 and the House on December 4.