Amnesty International is making a smart move. They are trying to place their anti-torture ad on 100 conservative blogs through Blogads. Here's the numbers so far:

To date, 62 blogs have accepted the ad, 21 have outright rejected it and 17 have yet to decide to run it or not. In the spirit of the free flow of information, we would like to thank those bloggers who have agreed to run our ad.

A few of them weigh in here. Personally, I think it's sleazy for a blog to accept an ad and then mock and trash the advertiser, as Junkyard Dog and Right Wing News have done. I wouldn't mind a reasoned debate on the issues raised in the ad, but to make statements like "So click on the ad. Laugh at the page it links to. Amnesty International is a joke" and "The ad is a lame little connect-the-dots video they really didn't put much effort into" makes it seem like they are only into blogging for the ad money and willing to compromise their principles for financial gain.

Update: Atrios and Crooks and Liars disagree and see nothing wrong with mocking the ads.

Update: Norton's office issued this press release. Her letter to the President is here (pdf).

******
The AP reports that Interior Secretary Gale Norton will resign. The Denver Post has a lot more, particularly about the ethical controversies surrounding her tenure. Via Raw Story:

Abramoff's tribal clients donated $50,000 to a conservative environmental group founded by Norton, hoping to win face time with the Secretary. They eventually did.

Former DeLay deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy helped Abramoff arrange a meeting with Norton, and within months, the lobbyist's clients were making huge contributions to the environmental group Norton started, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy.

From the newly released AP-Ipsos Poll:

• 80% of all Americans and 70% of Republicans think civil war will break out in Iraq
• 70% say the U.S. is on the wrong track
• Only 37% approve of Bush's overall performance

On issues, Bush's approval rating declined from 39 percent to 36 percent for his handling of domestic affairs and from 47 percent to 43 percent on foreign policy and terrorism. His approval ratings for dealing with the economy and Iraq held steady, but still hovered around 40 percent.

Personally, far fewer Americans consider Bush likable, honest, strong and dependable than they did just after his re-election campaign.

Raw Story has the transcript and audio link to the NPR segment this morning in which former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor attacks Republicans for threatening our constitutional freedoms and the judiciary.

In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O'Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms

O'Connor singled out Tom DeLay, although not by name, for his Justice Sunday diatribe against judges.

In trying to make sense of the Republican break from Bush over the Dubai Ports deal, I think the Washington Post gets it right: Bush has become such a liability that Republicans are seeking to distance themselves from him for the 2006 elections.

The bipartisan uprising in Congress in the face of a veto threat represented a singular defeat for Bush, who when it came to national security grew accustomed during his first five years in office to leading as he chose and having loyal lawmakers fall in line. Now, with his poll numbers in a political ditch, the port debacle has contributed to a perception of weakness that has liberated Republicans who once would never have dared cross Bush.

Is Rove losing his touch? Is denial the new modus operandi at the White House? The most ridiculous statement yesterday came from Scotty:

Jim Hoagland wrote yesterday in the Washington Post that a White House aide told him, in attempting to defend the NSA warrantless surveillance program, Guantanamo and secret renditions:

"The powers of the presidency have been eroded and usurped to the breaking point. We are engaged in a new kind of war that cannot be fought by old methods. It can only be directed by a strong executive who alone is not subject to the conflicting pressures that legislators or judges face. The public understands and supports that unpleasant reality, whatever the media and intellectuals say."

Federal judges are appointed for life. What kind of pressures do they face besides their view of the dictates of the Constitution? That's about the stupidest thing I've heard in years.

Dan Froomkin appears to be equally non-plussed by the aide's statement. So much so, that he offers to turn his Friday column over to "red-staters." Here are the questions he'd like answered:

Security and tech guru Bruce Schneier writes the definitive rebuttal of data mining as a counterterrorism tool.

Rule number one:

Data mining works best when there's a well-defined profile you're searching for, a reasonable number of attacks per year, and a low cost of false alarms.

Example: credit card fraud. By examining records of your transactions, credit card companies can spot a spending pattern that indicates something nefarious may be afoot. It's different with terrorism:

Terrorist plots are different. There is no well-defined profile, and attacks are very rare. Taken together, these facts mean that data mining systems won't uncover any terrorist plots until they are very accurate, and that even very accurate systems will be so flooded with false alarms that they will be useless.

I have never understood how the Government could get the death penalty for Moussaoui on the theory that he was responsible for the 9/11 deaths not through his participation in the plot but through his failure to tell authorities what he knew so it could be stopped.

It seems the Judge today had the same concern.

"I must warn the government it is treading on delicate legal ground here," U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said at the conclusion of the day's testimony, after the jury had left the courtroom. "I don't know of any case where a failure to act is sufficient for the death penalty as a matter of law."

More than 250 doctors around the world have joined a harshly worded criticism of the U.S. over the force-feeding of Guantanamo prisoners. Their letter has been published in the medical journal, The Lancet.

The open letter in the Lancet was signed by more than 250 top doctors from seven countries - the UK, the US, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands. "We urge the US government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the letter said.

The doctors said the World Medical Association - a world body representing physicians, including those in the US - specifically prohibited force-feeding. They also recommended that those participating in the Guantanamo force-feedings be disciplined by their professional organizations.

by TChris

Apart from the legal and moral objections to detainee abuse, the need to maintain credibility should have deterred the administration from mistreating prisoners. China announced today that it isn't interested in lectures on human rights from a government that wiretaps its citizens and detains uncharged prisoners indefinitely.

The Chinese government's report, issued a day after the State Department slammed China for "numerous and serious" human rights abuses, attacked the United States for failing its citizens.

And China isn't alone.

Tomorrow, at 10:30 am ET, Sen. Russ Feingold will hold a live text chat.

Senator Russ Feingold brings a "text chat" version of his trademark listening sessions to the World Wide Web on March 10, at 10:30 AM Eastern. The live, online session will be open to anyone with access to the Internet and a desire to ask questions of Senator Feingold live, in an online computer text chat session.

Sen. Feingold is still unhappy about the passage of the Patriot Act renewal legislation. From his statement today (received by e-mail):

by TChris

Do immigration authorities have nothing better to do than this?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to deport a 38-year-old Rochester Hills woman who fled Colombia 22 years ago. Returning to Colombia would endanger Rosa Rodriguez, a mortgage service representative, and her 6-year-old U.S.-born daughter. Government lawyers should drop these senseless proceedings.

The case against Rodriguez is flimsy. Immigration officials say she married under false pretenses 16 years ago to become a permanent U.S. resident. No agents testified about the accusations in immigration court. Conversely, the couple, along with nine witnesses called by Rodriguez's lawyer, William Dance, said the marriage was valid.

This is a woman who works, pays taxes, and raises her daughter (an American citizen by birth). Why is ICE wasting its limited resources on her?