Three days off means catching up on four days of work. For those of you not so hamstrung today, here's a space for you to keep us up to date.

Ok, there's not much news in the Duke case but it's time for a new thread. Here's an article on how defense lawyers are presenting a unified defense. Dave Evans' lawyer Joe Cheshire says:

Unindicted players and their lawyers would not be sticking together unless "every single one of them knows that they're innocent."

by TChris

The Supreme Court has long held that public employees do not have an unfettered First Amendment right to speak freely without fear of losing their jobs. In the past, the Court has protected employees who speak out on a matter of public concern (including blowing the whistle on governmental misconduct), but not when the employee speaks about private concerns. If the employee's speech addresses a public concern, the Court balances the employee's interest in speaking freely against the government's interest in avoiding disruption of the workplace. (Note: this is a simplified and necessarily incomplete summary of a complex body of law. To understand the two tests more fully, read Connick v. Myers and Pickering v. Board of Ed.)

The Court today added a new wrinkle to its analysis. In a 5-4 decision, the Court denied First Amendment protection to Los Angeles prosecutor Richard Ceballos, who "wrote a memo questioning whether a county sheriff's deputy had lied in a search warrant affidavit." Ceballos argued that he was "demoted and denied a promotion for trying to expose the lie." While this would seem to be a classic instance of whistleblowing -- the kind of speech by public officials that should be encouraged -- the Court held that Ceballos was discharging his official duties when he wrote the memo, and that he was not entitled to the same protections he would have had if he had been speaking out against the lie as a private citizen.

Steve Silberman at Wired: Don't Try This at Home:

Garage chemistry used to be a rite of passage for geeky kids. But in their search for terrorist cells and meth labs, authorities are making a federal case out of DIY science.

What's the problem with stifling home-grown chemists?

The lure of do-it-yourself chemistry has always been the most potent recruiting tool science has to offer. Many kids attracted by the promise of filling the garage with clouds of ammonium sulfide - the proverbial stink bomb - went on to brilliant careers in mathematics, biology, programming, and medicine.

Marines Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, and Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 21 were sent into Haditha to recover the bodies of those killed by fellow marines. According to their families, both suffered severe trauma as a result.

Briones' best friend, Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas, had been killed the day of the attack by the roadside bomb, his mother said. He was still grieving when he was sent in to clean up the bodies of the Iraqi civilians.

One was a little girl who had been shot in the head, Susie Briones said. "He had to carry that little girl's body," she said, "and her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."

There's been some great blogging this holiday weekend. Many thanks to TalkLeft commenter Squeaky for assembling the first, and I hope not the last, edition of Squeaky's Sightings:

• Jane's Sunday Syllogism. (I'll add: Also check out Jane's tribute to Duane Allman and this rare 1970 footage of the Allman Brothers performing Whipping Post.)

• Atrios on Timmeh

• Empty Wheels awesome two-part Plame Story narrative.

• Crooks and Liars' Late Night Music Club with Wes Montgomery and Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa. (I'll add John's link to Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Prince performing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps.")

Check out this terrific video promotion by Ava Lowery for Yearly Kos.

Here's another , which Yearly Kos writes is by actor Will Keenan.

Thanks to Hoverground for sending them -- a great Will Keenan video is here.

Yearly Kos, June 8 to 11, Las Vegas. My thoughts on the event are here.

From Financial Times:

The internet will this year overtake national newspapers to become the third biggest advertising medium by spend, according to authoritative forecasts.

By the end of 2007, internet advertising will close the gap on regional newspapers, the number two medium, but will still be well short of television, the biggest outlet in the £12bn-a-year media advertising market.

No wonder --the prices are much more reasonable. Check out Advertising Liberally and The Law Blog Ad Network.

Al Gore continues to make the news as people ponder whether he should run again for President, should he run and can he win if he runs.

Raw Story has quotes from Frank Rich's New York Times column in which he says Gore may be in the right place at the right time.

"If Hillary Clinton is the Antichrist, might not it be time for a resurrected messiah to inherit (and save) the earth?" asks Frank. "Enter Gore, celebrated by New York magazine on its cover as 'The Un-Hillary.'"

Rich calls "Gore's non-denial denials" whenever asked if he has "plans" to run for president again "Clintonesque." "If 'An Inconvenient Truth' isn't actually a test drive for a presidential run, it's the biggest tease since Colin Powell encouraged speculation about his political aspirations during his 1995 book tour," writes Rich.

Nora Ephron at Huffpo compares him to an old boyfriend who starts looking good after forty bad dates.

The number of hunger striking detainees at Guantanamo has grown to 75.

It's way past time we closed Guantanamo and sent the detainees home.

What awful news. A CBS cameraman, Paul Douglas and sound tech, James Brolan, both based in London, were killed by a roadside bomb in an attack on their convoy in Iraq. CBS reporter Kimberly Dozier is in critical condition.

The CBS team -- which was embedded with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division -- was reporting from outside their Humvee and they were believed to have been wearing protective gear when the blast went off, according to CBS.

More than 50 people in all were killed today in Iraq.

by TChris

Congressman James Oberstar argues that the best way to remember those in the military who sacrified their lives is to "keep our promises to those still with us."

The U.S. government must once again fulfill our moral obligation to those who have fought for freedom and democracy. ... The comprehensive New GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century will strengthen benefits for our men and women in uniform today, and it will provide long overdue benefits for the veterans and military retirees who have already served. For those returning from the front lines - 18,000 troops have been wounded in Iraq alone - we are continuing our efforts to invest adequately in veterans' health care. Our New GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century focuses on improving veterans' health care, including mental health care, to meet the needs of our returning troops. More than 30,000 veterans are waiting in line for their first appointment with the Veterans Administration (VA), and that problem will only worsen with the growing numbers of returning service men and women.

Rep. Allen Boyd shares that goal. Instead of moving forward, Republicans this month approved a budget resolution that would underfund veterans' health care in the future, despite evidence that veterans' access to health care is already severely underfunded.