Via the New York City Independent Media Center and the DMI blog:

These are some statistics from the Department of Justice reflecting data through 2005.

What they tell us: America continues to be a prison nation. The drug war doesn't work. Over-incarceration doesn't work. Our elected officials in Congress need to spend time addressing these issues in 2007.

• the prison population grew 1.9% over the past year
• the United States has 2,320,359 people incarcerated
• in 1995, America sentenced 411 people per 100,000 residents; today it is 491
• there are around 600,000 more people in jail today than 10 years ago
• since 1995, the total number of male prisoners has grown 34%; female prisoners have risen 57%

The BBC Reports:

He's out of appeals and under Iraqi law, his execution must occur within 30 days and could be "at any time."

The court rejected an appeal by Saddam Hussein's lawyers and confirmed that he would be hanged, court spokesman Raed Juhi told the BBC.

...."It cannot exceed 30 days. As from tomorrow [Wednesday] the sentence could be carried out at any time," appeals court judge Arif Shaheen told a news conference in Baghdad.

Saddam has asked for a firing squad but authorities say he may be hanged in his cell. Parts will be televised on Iraqi tv.

Steve Benen points us to an example of how NOT to demonstrate it:

A liberal-bashing book by a veteran St. Louis judge is to become available publicly this week, but it is already causing a stir in political and legal circles — and prompting some to say it could cost him his job.

Chapter 1 of Circuit Judge Robert H. Dierker Jr.'s book, "The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault," has circulated via e-mail since last month and been widely read in legal circles, lawyers and judges say.

The sentiments expressed in that chapter, which frequently uses the term "femifascists" and is titled "The Cloud Cuckooland of Radical Feminism," have already prompted a complaint with the state body that can reprimand or remove judges.

. . . The first chapter was heavily discussed at the recent holiday party for the Women Lawyers' Association of Greater St. Louis. One judge who attended noted, "Everyone's just pretty much shocked." Association President Lynn Ricci said, "I have read it. I find it disturbing." She also said, "I frankly think that it is a shame that this very smart man has lowered himself to name-calling."

Heh, yes that is a shame isn't it? I assume he is planning a careeer as a Right Wing radio talk show host but I could be wrong.

WaPo Columnist Richard Cohen names his person of the year: Gregory Thompson, a delusional death row inmate:

Thompson, 45, is delusional. He is also paranoid, schizophrenic and depressed. For these ailments, he receives daily doses of drugs and, twice a month, anti-psychotic injections. The state of Tennessee wants very much to put him to death for the horrendous 1985 murder of Brenda Blanton Lane, of which there is no doubt about his guilt.

There is grave doubt, though, about the constitutionality, not to mention the decency, of executing an insane man. Thus the 12 pills Thompson takes every day. The idea, according to a recent account of his case in the Wall Street Journal, is to make him sane enough to be put to death.

The wall between federal and state law enforcement agencies continues to crumble.

The Justice Department is building a massive database that allows state and local police officers around the country to search millions of case files from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies, according to Justice officials.

The system, known as "OneDOJ," already holds approximately 1 million case records and is projected to triple in size over the next three years, Justice officials said. The files include investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offenses, and the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets, officials said.

The Justice Department is preparing to take the breakdown of the wall even further:

In the new apple of the Left leaning eye, Bolivia, a black mark is given to left wing Bolivian President Evo Morales' professed commitment to progressive views. A Cuban dissident's criticism of Bolivia's close ties to Castro is met with a deportation order by the Bolivian government:

The Bolivian government has announced plans to deport a prominent Cuban dissident who publicly criticized President Evo Morales' close ties to Havana. Dr. Amauris Samartino, a Cuban who holds permanent residence status in Bolivia, will be expelled under a 1996 law forbidding immigrants to ''intervene in any form in internal politics or incite by any means the alteration of the social and political order,'' according to a government statement on Sunday. Samartino was arrested Saturday in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, a center of anti-Morales opposition, and later transferred to the Bolivian capital of La Paz. He will be flown home to Cuba once his case has been processed, the statement said.

Flown back to Cuba? Well, so much for the freedom loving Bolivian government. This is disgraceful.

This is a Christmas shout-out to all those who are spending the holidays behind bars, and to the friends, families, and lawyers who visit them.

John Prine:

The search light in the big yard
swings round with the gun
and spotlights the snowflakes
like the dust in the sun.
It's Christmas in prison
there'll be music tonight
I'll probably get homesick
I love you. Goodnight.

James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul" has died at 73.

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.

The TL kid is with friends watching the Bronco game. He'll be back soon, we've got fresh tamales and homemade chicken enchilladas and green chile for dinner, with margaritas to accompany them.

The fireplace is turned on, it just started snowing heavily (again) and I'm glad to be warm and safe in my humble abode.

Best wishes to all of you for a happy holiday and let's hope next year at this time, our soldiers will be home from Iraq.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke his leg skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho yesterday.

The 59-year-old former movie star broke the femur bone in his right leg and was taken to a local hospital for X-rays and later discharged, Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's deputy chief of staff for communications, said in a statement.

"When the governor returns to Los Angeles from his scheduled Christmas trip, he will have surgery to repair his femur. No one else was involved in the skiing accident," Mendelsohn's statement said.

Congratulations to Monica Lewinsky, who just graduated from the London School of Economics with a master of science degree in social psychology. Her thesis topic was: In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third Person Effect and Pre-Trial Publicity."

You Go. Girl. More power to you. I spent years on tv night after night sticking up for you (and trashing Linda Tripp) and I'm glad it turned out so well for you. Your mother may have gotten the rawest deal of all, getting called to a grand jury to disclose mother-daughter secrets, but she was there for you. Your parents got you good lawyers, once you got past the Ginsberg guy who wanted to be on every sunday news show every Sunday.

You came out of this classy and rose above it and came out in tact. If you are pondering what to do next, let me suggest law school.

I expect we'll be reading more about you in the years to come. Kudos for rising above the media nastiness and going to a better place with a stronger sense of self. Good luck to you in the future.

Frank Rich has been a very good columnist of late. But he was not always so. And it is columns like his most recent that remind us that he is still capaable of extreme fatuousness:

[I]n Time’s defense, let me say that the more I reflected on its 2006 Person of the Year — or perhaps the more that Mylar cover reflected back at me — the more I realized that the magazine wasn’t as out of touch as it first seemed. Time made the right choice, albeit for the wrong reasons. As our country sinks deeper into a quagmire — and even a conclusive Election Day repudiation of the war proves powerless to stop it — we the people, and that includes, yes, you, will seek out any escape hatch we can find. In the Iraq era, the dropout nostrums of choice are not the drugs and drug culture of Vietnam but the equally masturbatory and narcissistic (if less psychedelic) pastimes of the Internet. Why not spend hour upon hour passionately venting in the blogosphere, as Time suggests, about our “state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street”? Or an afternoon surfing from video to video on YouTube, where short-attention-span fluff is infinite? It’s more fun than the nightly news, which, as Laura Bush reminded us this month, has been criminally lax in unearthing all those “good things that are happening” in Baghdad.

Who does Rich think he is describing there? His Johnny Come Lateliness to understanding what Bush is is great and all, but he was part of the problem when Bush was [s]elected. Bob Somerby has documented it and asked this:

Why has a “liberal” like Rich been so tough on Gore through the years? Why did he invent Love Story in 1997? Throughout the course of Campaign 2000, why did he keep pretending that Bush and Gore were a perfectly-matched pair of bumblers? When Gore spoke out on Iraq in 2002, why did Rich attack him again (inventing his facts as he went)? And in his new column, just two weeks ago, why did he nit-pick those ludicrous complaints about Gore? For example, why did he pretend—in that pathetic example—that Gore “waffled” on creationism in 1999? For the most part, readers have no way to evaluate such claims. Why does Rich just keep making them up?

So we DO know the blogs are good for calling exhalted columnists on their hypocritical nonsense at the least. You won't get THAT in the MSM, Frank.