OnStar service, with 5M subscribers, will be able to stop cars so equipped by slowing the engine starting with the 2009 models. OnStar from General Motors is seeking to sell its service to other manufacturers. The GPS system of OnStar already tracks 800-900 cars a month that are stolen. This is reported in today's New York Times.

Where else can this go? [More...]

The New York Times reports on the sad fact of extreme prejudice against gays in nursing homes.

Elderly gay people... living in nursing homes or assisted-living centers or receiving home care, increasingly report that they have been disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide.

Some have seen their partners and friends insulted or isolated. Others live in fear of the day when they are dependent on strangers for the most personal care. That dread alone can be damaging, physically and emotionally, say geriatric doctors, psychiatrists and social workers.

To combat the discrimination, L.G.B.T. Aging Projects are becoming more frequent:

If I were currently raising a teen, the last place I'd live is Texas.

Read this sad tale. While the article breaks it down along racial lines, the truth is that Texas is over-incarcerating its youth with disastrous consequences.

Grits for Breakfast has been following this and other stories of abuse at the Texas Youth Prisons.

The Democrats will introduce their FISA wiretap bill tomorrow.

The Justice Department would have to reveal to Congress the details of all electronic surveillance conducted without court orders since Sept. 11, 2001, including the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, if a new Democratic wiretapping bill is approved.

The draft bill, scheduled to be introduced to Congress Tuesday, would also require the Justice Department to maintain a database of all Americans subjected to government eavesdropping without a court order, including whether their names have been revealed to other government agencies.

This is the rewrite bill Dems promised before the August recess:

More...

Here's a brief synopsis of death penalty issues in North Carolina. The bottom line:

In short, not only does North Carolina need a thoughtful and comprehensive review by state policymakers at how it puts people to death, it is also in desperate need of a closer look at whether it is truly capable of avoiding the ultimate injustice – the wrongful execution of an innocent human being. It will be a serious error if state legislators fail to undertake either of these reviews before another person is put to death in all of our names.

I'm still working on my taxes which need to get to the accountant tomorrow, and it's a gorgeous day outside so here's an open thread.

Some things to read:

• Sentencing Law and Policy on Sex Offender Ghettos

• Via Norwegianity, take the Online Candidate Quiz.

• The Washington Post reports the Dems are poised to introduce new electronic surveillance legislation./li>

House Democrats plan to introduce a bill this week that would let a secret court issue one-year "umbrella" warrants to allow the government to intercept e-mails and phone calls of foreign targets and would not require that surveillance of each person be approved individually.

• Marcy at Next Hurrah adds her thoughts.

• Law Prof and blogger Ann Althouse has been posting great photos of New York and Brooklyn. Turns out, she's re-located there for the year as a visiting professor at Brooklyn Law.

More...

The show not to miss tonight is Ted Koppel's special on the Discovery Channel: Inside Our Prisons on the broken prison system in California. (9PM ET)

While shooting, Koppel spent a number of days among the general population at Solano. His reporting focuses on the inhabitants of H Dorm, where inmates are stacked in triple-deck bunk beds on an old indoor basketball court. Correctional officers are so badly outnumbered that prison officials keep inmates segregated by race and gang affiliation in a desperate effort to avoid friction and maintain control. Even so, Solano still sees three to four race riots a year. Using smuggled cell phones, gang bosses continue running criminal operations on the street from behind prison walls. At the same time, they’re running drug and prostitution rings inside Solano.

If California doesn't come up with a long-term solution, the federal courts likely will begin ordering the release of prisoners.

It costs as much to house a prisoner in California for a year as it does to send a kid to Harvard. The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country.

The two hour show is about California, but the same problems exist across the country.

America, Prison Nation.

The big issue on the John Edwards segment of Meet the Press was leaving residual troops in Iraq.

Bill Richardson says he won't leave any. John Edwards says he'll leave non-combat troops there to protect the embassy workers and he'll put combat troops in Kuwait in case they're needed to fight al- Qaeda.

Edwards says Hillary will leave combat-ready troops inside Iraq while he'll leave them across the Kuwait border.

I don't know Obama's position since there were no Obama questions during the interview.

Personally, I tend to think Richardson's position is best, just get out and get out now.

Via Think Progress:

Not clear what Novak means by "weird conduct." But this does demonstrate the conundrum the GOP is in regarding Larry Craig. On the record, there is a conviction for disorderly conduct. Clearly that is not the problem. The problem is the suggestion of homosexuality. Is that the "weird conduct" Novak is talking about? Is it the seeking of anonymous sex in public places? Or is it something else? Something Foley-like? Remember Craig's unsolicited denial of involvement in the Congressional page scandal of the early 1980s? What did the GOP know and when did it know it?

The New York Times has three good reads today:

• Their editorial blasting Bush over torture.
• Frank Rich on Clarence Thomas' "high tech lynching" which has earned him a Supreme Court justice position and surely must have him laughing all the way to bank to collect the royalties on his newly published book comparing the prejudice he's endured to that endured by other African-Americans at the hands of the Klu Klux Klan.

It's useful to watch Mr. Thomas at this moment, 16 years after his riveting confirmation circus. He is a barometer of what has and has not changed since then because he hasn't changed at all. He still preaches against black self-pity even as he hyperbolically tries to cast his Senate cross-examination by Joe Biden as tantamount to the Ku Klux Klan assassination of Medgar Evers. He still denies that he is the beneficiary of the very race-based preferences he deplores. He still has a dubious relationship with the whole truth and nothing but, and not merely in the matter of Anita Hill.

• Maureen Dean takes the acerbic route and writes a nasty article about Thomas, yet it too, has a ring of truth.

Aside from the ridiculous cost and a State Department report saying the U.S. will pay an additional $144 million because the workmanship done so far is shoddy, can someone explain why the U.S. is building the largest U.S. embassy in the world in Iraq?

The embassy, which will be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, was budgeted at $592 million. The core project was supposed to have been completed by last month, but the timetable has slipped so much that the State Department has sought and received permission from the Iraqi government to allow about 2,000 non-Iraqi construction employees to stay in the country until March.

Do we really need a $736 million, 21 building embassy in Iraq?

It was a pretty boring game with a electrical blackout early on, but it got better in the 8th and 9th innings.

The crowd is electrified right now. It's 2 out in the bottom of the 9th inning.

The Rockies win. This town will be crazy for the next week.

Congratulations, Rcckies. You came out of nowhere and put us on the map.