Yes, I blog about the Oscars. Every year. I'm just as interested in the clothes and the red carpet goings-on as I am in the movies.

But this year, I'm also into the music. There will be performances by James Taylor, Beyonce, Jennifer Hudson, Randy Newman, Melissa Etheridge and more.

More viewers are expected this year because many of the awards, including Best Picture, are up in the air. Babel or The Departed?

Predictions anyone?

We're lucky we have celebrities. Without people like Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, and Tim Hardaway, the popular media might never pay attention to the country's most serious and enduring social problem: intolerance.

An incident this offensive deserves as much attention as the Gibson, Richards, and Hardaway rants. Will it receive comparable coverage? No celebrities were involved, so don't bet on it.

A Catholic school principal has organized sensitivity training for students who shouted "We love Jesus" during a basketball game against a school with Jewish students. The word "Jew" also was painted on a gym wall behind the seats of Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School students attending the Feb. 2 game at Norfolk Academy, said Dennis W. Price, principal of the Virginia Beach school.

Price who also watched the game, said the rivals exchanged chants, "Then, at some point, our students were chanting, 'We love Jesus.'"

"It was obviously in reference to the Jewish population of Norfolk Academy; that's the only way you can take that," he added.

For whom would Jesus vote? "Influential Christian conservatives" are having trouble deciding, according to a David Kirkpatrick article in the NY Times.

Many of the conservatives who attended [a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform], held at the beginning of the month at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island, Fla., said they were dismayed at the absence of a champion to carry their banner in the next election.

We can only hope that religious extremists have cause to "worry that they may find themselves on the sidelines of the presidential race" in 2008.

Jason Leopold has reviewed Patrick Fitzgerald's closing argument in the Scooter Libby trial, and points out these comments:

Rebutting the defense's assertion that Cheney was not behind the leak, Fitzgerald told jurors, "You know what? [Wells] said something here that we're trying to put a cloud on the vice president. We'll talk straight. There is a cloud over the vice president. He sent Libby off to [meet with former New York Times reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting, the two hour meeting, the defendant talked about the wife [Plame]. We didn't put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice and lied about what happened."

More...

Northern light:

Canada’s highest court on Friday unanimously struck down a law that allows the Canadian government to detain foreign-born terrorism suspects indefinitely using secret evidence and without charges while their deportations are being reviewed.

....“The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the ruling.

Margaret Chiara of the Western District of Michigan is the latest U.S. Attorney to get the ax from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Chiara was praised by the Judges of the District.

"This is a very classy, distinguished, highly regarded public servant," said Bell, who was appointed to the bench during the Reagan administration. "She's one of the best United States attorneys we've had in this district, and all of my colleagues agree. . . . To have her suddenly disappear without warning catches us all flat-footed."

So, why are these U.S. Attorneys being fired?

Nearly all of the dismissed prosecutors had positive job reviews, but many had run into political trouble with Washington over immigration, capital punishment or other issues, according to prosecutors and others. At least four also were presiding over high-profile public corruption investigations when they were dismissed.

The prosecutors' views on the death penalty may be a factor:

Iraqi blogger Riverbend is back after a few months hiatus. She's livid about the rape of Sabrine and the attempt to cast it as a Shia - Sunni issue. Her final paragraphs from the first linked post:

As the situation continues to deteriorate both for Iraqis inside and outside of Iraq, and for Americans inside Iraq, Americans in America are still debating on the state of the war and occupation- are they winning or losing? Is it better or worse.

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile.

Law professor Ellen Podgor had a very thoughtful article, Throwing Away the Key, 116 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 279 (2007, about the need to rethink the draconian sentences being meted out to white collar criminals.

These modern changes in sentencing and parole law have caused the debate to shift: the question is no longer whether white-collar offenders should do less time than street offenders, but whether they should really be treated more harshly than international terrorists and violent criminals.

The sentences given to white-collar offenders seem oddly imbalanced when compared to those given to international terrorists and violent criminals. For example, eighty-year-old Adelphia founder John Rigas received a fifteen-year sentence, and his son Timothy Rigas, the CFO of the company, received a twenty-year sentence. The white-collar sentencing figures also seem out of line when compared with many state sentences for murder, rape, robbery, and burglary, crimes that find themselves federalized when serving as predicate acts of RICO.

Podgor uses Skilling, Milliken, Ebbers and others as examples, and concludes:

What a great headline for the Administration. One of the soldiers who raped an Iraqi girl and killed her and her family (background here) is sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Read the fine print. He's eligible for parole in ten years.

The soldier, Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, also was given a dishonorable discharge. Sergeant Cortez will be eligible for parole in 10 years under the terms of his plea agreement.

...In his plea agreement, he said he had conspired with three other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to rape a 14-year-old girl, who was then killed with her parents and a younger sister.

The case made Last Night in Little Rock recall My Lai. TChris said it's an example of why the U.S. will never win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

It's good that the soldier was held accountable. This was an atrocity. And it's not certain he will be paroled in ten years. But a life sentence, it is not. Yet, four people died, including a young girl who was gang-raped.

I'm not feeling sorry for Sgt. Cortez.

Many parents reasonably believe that appropriate methods of parental discipline should ordinarily be decided by parents, not by the government. And while there is widespread agreement that child abuse does not fall within the realm of appropriate discipline and should be criminalized, there is widespread disagreement whether spanking, without more, constitutes abuse.

A California legislator learned that lesson when she introduced a bill to criminalize the spanking of a child who hasn't reached the age of 4.

That proposal would have covered even a swat on the rear and made offenses punishable by up to a year in jail.

The bill found little support among other legislators, who reasonably believe that a quick paddling of an infant shouldn't subject a parent to a jail term.

The legislator's new proposal "would criminalize parental discipline involving a closed fist, belt, electrical cord, shoe or other objects." She denies that the new bill is a face-saving measure, but since California already has a variety of statutes criminalizing child abuse, it isn't clear that this one is really necessary.

Senate Republicans blocked a nonbinding resolution opposing the president's escalation of the war in Iraq. Senate Democrats have turned their attention to legislation that takes a more direct approach:

Key lawmakers, backed by party leaders, are drafting legislation that would effectively revoke the broad authority granted to the president in the days Saddam Hussein was in power, and leave U.S. troops with a limited mission as they prepare to withdraw.

Officials said Thursday the precise wording of the measure remains unsettled. One version would restrict American troops in Iraq to fighting al-Qaeda, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.

The legislation would probably suffer a death by filibuster, and if it passed, would certainly be vetoed. Keeping pressure on Republicans and the White House to change the course of the failed, costly, and unpopular war is nonetheless a worthy end in itself. Senate obstructionists who face reelection in 2008 will have difficulty explaining why they should keep their jobs.

The field of Democrats seeking the presidency in 2008 has been narrowed by one.

Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor, is pulling out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, news to which many American voters will respond “Who?” And that’s precisely the problem. Vilsack was getting very little traction, which means no buzz and not enough money.