With much fanfare, the government indicted Derrick Shareef, described here as "a black Muslim convert accused of plotting alone to set off hand grenades inside a Rockford, Illinois shopping mall a few days before Christmas."

Shareef had no connection to any terrorist organization. He had no hand grenades. He had no cash with which to buy hand grenades, although he had a couple of stereo speakers he hoped to swap for some. Not the most sophisticated of terrorist plots.

Shareef talked of jihad, a word that can describe violent or nonviolent intentions. Shareef's may have been violent, but he seems to have had little ability to carry out his plan.

So Shareef fits a pattern of indicted "wanna be" terrorists with big ideas but no apparent means or backing from our real enemies.

Much about this story, including the state of Shareef's mental health, is unknown. Many of the unanswered questions are explored here.

The Drug Czar's web page trumpets the administration's commitment to effective drug treatment.

Director Walters has overseen the creation and implementation of the "Access to Recovery" treatment initiative announced by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address. This innovative approach to drug treatment funding provides vouchers for hundreds of thousands of Americans struggling with addiction.

The program doesn't seem to be helping Travis County, Texas, where probationers wait months to enter underfunded treatment programs.

"It's imperative to get them into treatment early," [pobation officer Julie Vasquez-Martinez] said. "It's imperative so they don't continue to make the wrong decisions. They need these tools and techniques to stay clean and sober." But department statistics show that hundreds of newly sentenced probationers in Travis County are waiting to get into court-ordered substance abuse treatment.

Judges send some offenders to county jails to wait for a treatment slot to open up, exacerbating the county's ongoing jail crowding problem. Others are released into the community to fight their addiction on their own.

As Donald Rumsfeld makes one last secret trip to Iraq (a final desperate search for WMD's?), he is surely comforted to know that his life is at less risk than the troops who served under his watch. At least 2,930 of them have died in Iraq -- so far.

larger version here.

I'm headed back to Telluride today to prepare for a court hearing on Monday. The courthouse is the building with the clock in the picture.

I won't have time to ski, but if you've ever wondered what the slopes there look like, check out these pictures.

For those of you online this weekend, here's a space to chat.

TalkLeft is nominated in the "Best of the Top 250 Blogs." If you'd like to vote for us, we'd appreciate it. Just click here.

Here is another example of the Media marginalizing the views of the American People:

Americans are not necessarily intent on getting all U.S. troops out right away, the poll indicated. The survey found strong support for a two-year timetable if that's what it took to get U.S. troops out. Seventy-one percent said they would favor a two-year timeline from now until sometime in 2008, but when people are asked instead about a six-month timeline for withdrawal that number drops to 60 percent. Public opinion expert Karlyn Bowman of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said stronger support for the longer timetable could reflect a realization that it takes time to change strategy.

60% say out in 6 months and a so called expert says this reflects a realization that it takes time to change strategy (read stay longer). I mean, this is just false. If 60% said stay the course, they would not be rationalizing it away like this.

More.

Today, in federal court, the ACLU and Human Rights First argued its case that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should be held accountable for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody.

Today’s hearing marked the first time a federal court has considered whether top U.S. officials can be held legally accountable for the torture scandal in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Background:

The ACLU and Human Rights First filed the lawsuit in March 2005 on behalf of nine innocent civilians who were detained by the United States military in Iraq and Afghanistan. While in U.S. custody, the men were subjected to abuse, torture and other cruel and degrading treatment, including severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions, death threats, and restraint in contorted and excruciating positions. All of the men were released without charge.

26 years ago, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment building on the upper West Side of New York. I heard about it while laying in bed in Denver that night while my then-spouse was watching Monday Night Football. Howard Cosell interrupted the program to announce "An unspeakable tragedy tonight in New York City."

I was nine months and three weeks pregnant -- way overdue -- and had just returned from the hospital where they tried to induce labor but failed. Immediately after hearing Cosell's announcement, I heard a loud pop. My water had finally broken. I rushed to the hospital and a few hours later, at 1:00 am MT, the TL kid was born. I tell more about the events of that night here, and how for the past 26 years, I have told the TL kid that when John Lennon's spirit left his body, it must have entered his.

Talk about intemperate, this may take the cake.

A judge who jailed 11 people because they were late for traffic court after being directed to the wrong courtroom lost his job Thursday, as the state Supreme Court ruled he was unfit to remain on the bench.

In a unanimous decision, the court said the jailing and strip-searching of the 11 motorists capped a series of conduct complaints against Seminole County Judge John Sloop, 57.

"Judge Sloop's indifference to the anxiety, humiliation and hardship imposed upon these 11 citizens reflects a callous disregard for others that is among the most egregious examples we have seen of abuse of judicial authority and lack of proper judicial temperament," the high court wrote in an unsigned opinion.

It's not the Koufax Awards but the 2006 Weblog Awards by WizbangTech.

TalkLeft is nominated in the "Best of the Top 250 Blogs." If you'd like to vote for us, we'd appreciate it. Just click here.

You can vote once a day for the next 8 or so days. It's got real time calculations, so you can see after your vote how the blogs are doing in the vote count.

The voting skews right because Wizbang, which sponsors it, is mainly a right-wing blog. There are several left-leaning blogs nominated however.

This form of voting is intended to level the playing field for the smaller blogs. The reasoning:

Hard to believe that a message board for the Texas District Attorneys' Association is public, but it is. It's also revealing in its revelation of tactics prosecutors use for minor offenses.

Via Grits for Breakfast, here's the thread. Grits says:

Be careful who you agree to let become one of your MySpace friends - what you blog can and will be used against you if they turn out to be a police investigator.

I'm going to reprint much of the thread below in case it's taken down.

Jose Padilla's defense lawyers have subpoenaed Department of Defense officials and records pertaining to his treatment during his three years in the South Carolina brig.

Today, the feds moved to quash the subpoenas in an effort to prevent the defense from introducing evidence of his treatment and conditions of confinement at trial.

What the defense asked for:

Defense attorneys have issued subpoenas for at least four military officials, including a security officer and technical official at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., where Padilla was jailed. They have also subpoenaed Maj. Gen. D.D. Thiessen, commander of U.S. Marine forces in Japan, about treatment of other enemy combatants, according to court documents.

A federal judge in Michigan has found the state's the DOC in contempt of court. He ordered DOC to provide more prison doctors and nurses within four months. He's threatened the DOC with a $2 million fine.

He said a prisoner deserves to serve his sentence, not face delays in treatment.

"What he does not deserve is a de facto and unauthorized death penalty at the hands of a callous and dysfunctional health care system that regularly fails to treat life-threatening illness," Enslen wrote.

This isn't the Judge's first ruling taking the DOC to task.