So I'm reading the new biography of Iggy Pop (Iggy and the Stooges) because I knew him a little back in Ann Arbor when I went to college and worked at the Discount Records where all the cool rockers stopped by on a regular basis (Iggy, Alice Cooper, the MC5, Commander Cody, Bob Seger and so on) and because drugs were so much a part of life back then (no surprise I later became a drug defense lawyer) as were protests against the Administration and the Vietnam War, and I spotted this passage, which was news to me.

A few days later, on Memorial Day weekend, Dave, Scott and Steve flew back to Detroit. Jim (Iggy) and Ron followed a few days later. When Jim returned, he looked healthier than anyone could remember, tanned and relaxed.

But according to several denizens of the Fun House, when Jim hit Ann Arbor, so had cocaine, almost as if it was planned. (In some respects it was; Nixon's Operation Intercept, launched in late September of 1969 to cut down the supply of marijuana, had inspired Michigan grass-smokers to seek out alternatives: at first, opiated hash from Canada, then cocaine and finally heroin.)

More....

John Edwards supports Reid-Feingold:

We support Reid-Feingold, but actually think we should go further. The Edwards plan calls for Congress to use funding power to force an immediate withdrawal of 40-50,000 troops to show we're serious about leaving, followed by an orderly withdrawal our combat troops that would be complete in about a year. Reid-Feingold uses funding to start withdrawing troops in four months and complete it by March 31, 2008 - not immediate. We're for the use of the funding power and support this bill as far as it goes, but we think we should go further and begin withdrawal immediately.

Edwards joins Senator Chris Dodd in supporting Reid-Feingold. Senator Clinton? Senator Obama? Senator Biden? Governor Richardson? Senator Gravel? Congressman Kucinich? Time to step up.

Setting a date certain for NOT funding the Iraq war is the only way to end this Bush/McCain/Lieberman/GOP Debacle. It is what the American People want. The American People support Reid-Feingold.

Richard Martin predicts that the erosion of privacy won't concern the residents of the crime-ridden Jordan Downs housing project in Watts. He may be right: many are willing to trade their civil liberties for a sense of security. And the limited intrusiveness of "seven cameras strategically mounted around the project and linked to a multi-screen command center inside the LAPD's Southeast Substation" promotes less anguish than sneak-and-peek searches or national security letters, which (unlike a camera) can't be avoided by retreating to a private place.

It should nonetheless make us uncomfortable to know that the government is recording our public movements. This is particularly true when the surveillance cameras target areas in which poor and nonwhite individuals are concentrated. The proliferation of video surveillance threatens to erode civil liberties while making a dubious contribution to public safety -- even if the cameras make Jordan Downs' residents feel better.

A punishment that has always been cruel is now cruel and unusual. Nebraska is the only death penalty State that offers no method of execution other than electrocution. Carey Dean Moore was spared that fate yesterday when the Nebraska Supreme Court agreed to review the constitutionality of the State's plan to use a lethal surge of electricity to end his life.

State Supreme Court Judge John Gerrard wrote that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions "at least raised the question whether electrocution is constitutional."

"Our constitutional responsibility to decide whether electrocution is lawful requires us to consider whether any convicted person should be electrocuted ...," Gerrard wrote.

The state's abandoned protocol called for a series of shocks, a prolonged process more consistent with torture than a humane approach to execution. Nebraska's new protocol, the one that the court will review, calls for a single jolt of electricity that, while massive, may not suffice to kill.

Under the protocol announced Wednesday, officials would wait 18 minutes to determine whether an inmate is dead and administer a second jolt if the heart is still beating.

And so the inmate, having miraculously survived a figurative lightning bolt, must wait 18 minutes before a second shock ends his life. By what definition is this not cruel?

Usually when I write about tv shows, they have something to do with crime, like the Sopranos or 24.

I have no excuse for writing about tonight's American Idol, which will feature Bon Jovi's music and Bon Jovi, except as I've mentioned a few times on TalkLeft, I really love looking at him.

Here's my you tube video of him that has gotten more than 12,000 views -- I grabbed it off of Larry King Live.

Ann Althouse blogged about Bon Jovi and last night's American Idol, so if you watch the show and have some thoughts, you can join in.

Update below:

Sen. Patrick Leahy issued a subpoena to the Justice Department today for all of Karl Rove's e-mails relating to the the U.S. Attorney firings.

“Attached please find a subpoena compelling the Department by May 15 to produce any and all emails and attachments to emails to, from, or copied to Karl Rove related to the Committee’s investigation into the preservation of prosecutorial independence and the Department of Justice’s politicization of the hiring and firing and decision-making of United States Attorneys, from any (1) White House account, (2) Republican National Committee account, or (3) other account, in the possession, custody or control of the Department of Justice,” Leahy said in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The deadline is May 15.

Dan Eggan at the Washington Post has a new example of Alberto Gonzales' misstatements, this time to a federal judge in Montana. Andrew Cohen at Bench Conference has the analysis.

A former member of Robert Kennedy's Organized Crime Strike Force weighs in. His last line is the best:

Ashcroft supermoralistically draped the body of the department's statue of justice to hide her contours; Gonzales amoralistically tore off her blindfold. Both diminished the prestige of an important government agency.

Remember this story?

Sign on to www.gwbush.com and an altered, obviously fake image appears of a gleeful-looking Texas Gov. George W. Bush with a straw up his nose, inhaling white lines. Www.gwbush.com is not, needless to say, the official Bush campaign Web site (which is www.georgewbush.com).

And that's exactly the point, says the site's creator, Zack Exley, a 29-year-old computer programmer from Boston. Www.gwbush.com is so outlandish that anyone would spot it as a parody site, he says. . . . Bush's lawyers had warned Exley that he faced a lawsuit for his Web site's use of photos lifted from the copyrighted official Bush campaign site.

. . . Exley said Bush's intent is to intimidate and shut him down--a charge the Bush campaign denies. And Internet enthusiasts and free-speech advocates are closely monitoring the case because of its First Amendment implications.

In somewhat different circumstances, Barack Obama has, apparently, found control by someone not himself of the much renowned MySpace site, the one with the 160,000 "friends of Obama," objectionable. But unlike in the Bush situation, there is no question of cybersquatting, MySpace invoked its user agreement with Joe Anthony, the creator of the MySpace profile, and at the request of Obama, took the profile url away from Anthony and granted to it Obama.

First lesson of this episode? Don't build MySpace profiles of celebrities. MySpace will take them away from you at the request of said celebrities.

More lessons on the flip.

In his veto message to Congress, President Bush claims the Iraq Supplemental is unconstitutional:

[T]his legislation is unconstitutional because it purports to direct the conduct of the operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the Presidency by the Constitution, including as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

Nonsense. Here is the Iraq language in the bill. Nothing contained therein "purports to direct the conduct of the operations of the war." It purports to condition the deployment of troops in the conduct of the war by requiring the President certify that certain conditions are being met.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution provides among Congress' powers, the power:

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years

This appropriation is a direct and express exercise of that power. It clearly is constitutional.

According to the NYTimes:

The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, said yesterday that the evidence of what is wrong with FISA was too secret to share with all Americans.

Don Imus isn't slinking off into obscurity as many hoped. Nor does it seem he has a new gig yet.

Instead, he's hired First Amendment Lawyer Martin Garbus to sue for him.

I'd rather watch Garbus on TV defending him than Imus pal Bo Dietl, but my main feeling is Imus is so last week.

Grounds for the suit seem to be contract provisions...although one would think CBS poured over them before taking decisive action.

Prediction: This will never see a trial. There will be a settlement.

In the wake of the London Bombings, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is leaning on Britain to restrict access to the U.S. for its citizens of Pakistani descent.

American officials, citing the number of terror plots in Britain involving Britons with ties to Pakistan, expressed concern over the visa loophole. In recent months, the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has opened talks with the government here on how to curb the access of British citizens of Pakistani origin to the United States.

The proposals Chertoff is said to be considering:

Among the options that have been put on the table, according to British officials, was the most onerous option to Britain, that of canceling the entire visa waiver program that allows all Britons entry to the United States without a visa. Another option, politically fraught as it is, would be to single out Britons of Pakistani origin, requiring them to make visa applications for the United States.

Just what we need, more ethnic profiling. We should be working to eliminate racial and ethnic profiling, not coming up with new ways to embrace it.