Update: The photos.

Bump and Update: Please welcome to the planet earth, Elisandra Elexy Zuniga-Battista:

Markos has phoned in the following report:

Mother and daughter are doing great. Baby weighed in at 8 lbs, 15 ounces, born at 5:01 PM. She's 20.5 inches, and Dad reports, "She looks just like us! With dark, curly hair!"

Elisa's labor was about six hours, things went smoothly and -- needless to say -- both parents are ecstatic.

Original Post: Markos Baby Watch and Open Thread

Markos of Daily Kos and Elisa are off to the hospital. Contractions are six minutes apart.

I can't wait to be a tia again.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Via a lot of people (check the trackback), Mark Thoma hosts a discussion on economics that includes comments from Paul Krugman, Bruce Bartlett and a lot of people who seem to know what they are talking about and seem to have honest differences of opinion while trying to stick to the facts.

Very refreshing. I hope we law types can emulate this.

"God does not play dice." -Albert Einstein

In the most recent issue of Time, Walter Isaacson publishes an excerpt of his new book "Einstein and Faith" - a very interesting piece on Einstein's thinking on faith and science. One of the most interesting aspects of Einstein's faith was his belief in predestination and an uncaring God:

Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein sen[t Einstein] a very direct telegram: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid. 50 words." Einstein used only about half his allotted number of words. It became the most famous version of an answer he gave often: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

This is a disgusting story on so many levels.

Mercy was in short supply the night of Oct. 5, 2006, at Theo Lacy jail. Someone – perhaps a deputy – had inaccurately fingered inmate John Derek Chamberlain as a child molester. And that mistake became a death sentence.

Chamberlain, a 41 year old software engineer, was in custody because he couldn't make bail on a $2,500.00 misdemeanor child porn charge. A deputy inaccurately told other inmates he was a child molester. Prison-style vigilantism took over and as the guard watched television, later saying he wasn't aware anything was going on, Chamberlain was brutally murdered by a gang of inmates.

In the days prior to his murder, Chamberlain had called his ex-girlfriend and his public defender to say he was afraid and being threatened. The public defender called the jail and asked if he should be moved. He wasn't moved.

The details of the grisly murder.

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Meet Marco Allen Chapman. Charged in Kentucky with murdering two children and leaving another child and their mother for dead, and facing a potential death penalty if convicted, he waived his right to a trial and pleaded guilty before the Court. He asked the Court to sentence him to death. The Judge complied.

His case is different from defendants who have waived appeals of death sentences. Chapman never had a trial.

His court appointed lawyers say this is state-assisted suicide. The Kentucky Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Monday. All death penalty sentences are appealed automatically.

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The Pentagon is notifying 14,000 National Guard troops they may be heading to Iraq.

The Pentagon has identified some 14,000 National Guard soldiers who may go to Iraq as part of planning for deployments stretching as far as 2010, a senior U.S. defense official said on Friday.

Some of the Guard soldiers, part of the U.S. military's reserve component, may face deployment far sooner than the Pentagon's goal of five years at home for every year they are mobilized, the official said.

This is in addition to the redeployment of 4,500 active troops announced earlier this week.

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John McCain will run for President based on his record on Iraq. I kid you not:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will launch a high-profile effort next week to convince Americans that the Iraq war is winnable, embracing the unpopular conflict with renewed vigor as he attempts to reignite his stalling bid for the presidency. With the Virginia Military Institute as a backdrop, McCain plans to argue in a speech on Wednesday that victory in Iraq is essential to American security and that President Bush's war machine is finally getting on track after four years, aides and advisers said.

I think John McCain will be the GOP nominee if he promises that as President he will continue to prosecute the Iraq Debacle. And I think this is a political loser in the General Election. But will the Dem nominee recognize this? I have my doubts.

Via TPM, the Gonzo Justice Department is at it again, this time smearing the Minneapolis prosecutors who self-demoted themselves:

Ms. Paulose’s defenders at Justice Department headquarters said the criticism of her was unwarranted. They said older lawyers had difficulty dealing with a young, aggressive woman who had tried to put into place policies important to Mr. Gonzales like programs to combat child exploitation.

Yes, these older, sexist lawyers were in favor of child exploitation you see. That is why they don't like Ms Paulose.

Michelle Malkin must be eating this up.

Note to the Media, the new political center is the Democratic Party. Just ask Chris Shays:

“Democrats basically grabbed the center and ran with it politically,” Mr. Shays said, adding that he would continue working with the Democrats provided they did not veer from the political center.

This lesson is one the Media needs to take to heart, so they stop acting like fools (see Lauer, Matt) whenever Matt Drudge tells them some nonsense.

Radio talk show host Don Imus joined the ranks of Mel Gibson and Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington yesterday with his comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team which has 8 black members:

Imus was speaking with producer Bernard McGurk when the NCAA title game between Rutgers and Tennessee came up.

''That's some rough girls from Rutgers,'' Imus said. ''Man, they got tattoos ...''

''Some hardcore hos,'' said McGurk.

''That's some nappy headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that,'' Imus said.

Rehab, anyone? There's lots of calls for his firing, despite his apology.

''It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry.''

It wasn't just thoughtless and stupid. It was racist. MSNBC which airs his show in the morning provided this weak statement:

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I tend to get a lot of e-mails from people who have found themselves on the wrong side of the justice system. This one I received today from a woman about to begin serving a 9 year federal sentence for selling 8 pain pills to an undercover operative (snitch) really typifies to me what is wrong with the war on drugs.

In 2 months I have to self-surrender to prison for 9 years, for Conspiracy to distribute drugs, near a school. (You cannot even see the school from my house..) I am a 46 year old single mother of 4, grandmother of 4. I have no prior record. I was a successful business owner and very active in my community for 20 years. I hurt my back, working hard to support my children. The doctor gave me prescribed pain medication and I got addicted. I was entrapped into a drug deal for buying and selling 8 pills, to a snitch. They raided my home and locked me up. I spent a horrible week detoxing in jail. The judge sent me to addiction treatment center, suggested by the prosecution, and I have over 1 year clean.

More....

Took a while:

A top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales abruptly quit Friday, almost two weeks after telling Congress she would not testify about her role in the firings of federal prosecutors. There was no immediate reason given, but Monica M. Goodling's refusal to face Congress had intensified a controversy that threatens Gonzales' job.

She resigned in a three-sentence letter to Gonzales, calling her five-year stint at Justice an honor and telling him, "May God bless you richly as you continue your service to America."

. . . "While Monica Goodling had no choice but to resign, this is the third Justice Department official involved in the U.S attorney firings who has stepped down," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who was among the first senators to question the firings and the first to call for Gonzales' resignation. "Attorney General Gonzales' hold on the department gets more tenuous each day," Schumer said in a statement.