In the "you can't make this stuff up" department: A four year old Texas pre-kindergartner hugged his teacher and then rubbed his face against her chest.

He was suspended for ""inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment."

The kid's father filed a complaint with the school district. Their response?

...a subsequent letter from the district said the offense had been changed to "inappropriate physical contact" and removed references of sexual contact or sexual harassment from the boy's file.

Memo to school district: Give it up now, apologize, reinstate the kid and save yourselves a boatload of money.

Sen. John McCain doesn't know how to quit while he is ahead. He has just introduced a really dumb bill that ought to have those with interactive websites up in arms.

Millions of commercial Web sites and personal blogs would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000, if a new proposal in the U.S. Senate came into law.

The legislation, drafted by Sen. John McCain and obtained by CNET News.com, would also require Web sites that offer user profiles to delete pages posted by sex offenders.

Current law already mandates reporting by internet service providers. This legislation would extend the requirement to others, including bloggers.

For months, the Duke lacrosse players alleged rape case has been a train wreck waiting to happen. I hope with this news, it finally derails for good.

A private laboratory hired by the prosecution in the Duke lacrosse case failed to report that it found DNA from multiple males in the accuser's body and underwear, according to a defense motion filed today.

The lab, DNA Security of Burlington, found that the DNA did not match the three defendants, their lacrosse teammates or anyone else who submitted their DNA to police, including the accuser's boyfriend.

You can read the motion filed by the defense today here.

Bump and Update: A right wing site named Stop the ACLU is catching up to TalkLeft. Please vote again today.

If you haven't voted yet today in the 2006 Weblog Awards, here's the link. All votes are very much appreciated.

You can vote once a day until December 15.

Actor Peter Boyle has died at age 71.

I will remember him most for the 1970 movie Joe, in which he plays an Archie Bunker type workingman who hates the counterculture.

It was Susan Sarandon's first movie role.

RIP Mr. Boyle.

That is my prediction - Bush will increase troop levels in Iraq. This story buttresses my belief:

As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to "double down" in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government. The Joint Chiefs of Staff will present their assessment and recommendations to Bush at the Pentagon today. Military officials, including some advising the chiefs, have argued that an intensified effort may be the only way to get the counterinsurgency strategy right and provide a chance for victory. The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). But the Pentagon proposals add several features, including the confrontation with Sadr, a possible renewed offensive in the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province, a large Iraqi jobs program and a proposal for a long-term increase in the size of the military. Such an option would appear to satisfy Bush's demand for a strategy focused on victory rather than disengagement. . .

The Bush/McCain/Lieberman Iraq Debacle. Sad.

Richard Cohen on Iraq:

[T]he ending is inevitable. We will get out, and the only question that remains is whether we get out with 3,000 dead or 4,000 or 5,000. At some point the American people will not countenance, and Congress will not support, a war that cannot be won. Just how many lives will be wasted in what we all know is a wasted effort is about the only question still left on the table.

The threat of a lawsuit has been removed and the Christmas trees have been restored to the Sea-Tac airport.

At Chabad-Lubavitch in Seattle, the Jewish Orthodox educational group that had asked the airport to add the menorah, hate messages soon flooded e-mail inboxes. The group, which had never asked for the trees to be removed, was accused by some of trying to steal Christmas. It quickly dropped its talk of a lawsuit and joined those asking the airport to bring back the trees. That, the airport said, freed it to put them back up.

“By no means did we want to take away any religious symbols or trees from any other culture,” said Elazar Bogomilsky, the Chabad rabbi who is listed as the lead plaintiff on a draft lawsuit that has not been filed....Mr. Reis said, “The rabbi never said, ‘We want to take the trees down.’ That was purely our reaction when we felt we’d been put in an untenable position.”

Don't blame the rabbi. Blame the Port of Seattle for the fiasco.

Can it really take 1,000 federal agents to arrest undocumented workers at one meat-packing plant? According to the Washington Post, the answer is yes:

About 1,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with search warrants entered plants owned by Swift & Co., of Greeley, Colo., charging that "large numbers" of workers illegally assumed the identities of U.S. citizens or legal residents by using their Social Security numbers to get work, ICE officials said.

Company and union officials said agents, some dressed in riot gear, locked down six beef and pork processing plants early in the morning, segregating workers into groups of citizens and non-citizens after questioning. Some illegal workers were bused to detention facilities hours away, labor officials said.

This was big news in Colorado today. 9News (KUSA) set up a hotline for families of those seized so they could find out if their loved one was among those herded up like cattle and whisked off to detention facilities.

Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, and forget about collecting $200. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals took one day after yesterday's stay order to deliver that message to Enron's Jeffrey Skilling today.

Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in his two-page order that "Skilling raises no substantial question that is likely to result in the reversal of his convictions on all of the charged counts."

As a result, Higginbotham denied Skilling's request for bail pending his appeal and vacated an earlier order staying his prison report date.

Skilling must now report to the low security level federal prison at Waseca, MN to begin serving his 24 year sentence. Ouch. But the Judge gave Skilling a glimmer of hope for his appeal:

Buy The Ticket, Take the Ride....tonight at 10pm ET on the Starz channel.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." These are the immortal words from Hunter Stockton Thompson, a.k.a. Doctor Gonzo and Raoul Duke. Principal photography is nearing completion on Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film, Starz Entertainment’s insightful look at the man whose last wish was to have his ashes blown out of a giant cannon. The special is set to air on Starz, December 12 at 10:00 p.m. (et/pt).

Interviewees Include Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Bill Murray, John Cusack, Benicio Del Toro, Tom Wolfe, George McGovern, Ed Bradley, William F. Buckley and Many Others

Narrated By Nick Nolte
December 12 at 10:00 p.m. on STARZ

You Tube video clips here.

Dennis Kucinich, whom I think has just about the best stand on criminal justice issues of any of the presidential contenders, has announced he will run for President again in 2008.

A long shot? Very. But his voice is an important one and I'm glad it's going to be heard again...provided the national press decides to include him in their coverage.