The Central Asian nation Kyrgyzstan today ended the death penalty once and for all.

Kyrgyzstan's president effectively ended the use of the death penalty in this ex-Soviet republic by extending a moratorium on the punishment until its planned abolition, a presidential spokesman said Friday.

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed the decree Thursday aiming "to humanize and liberalize" the criminal code and urged parliament to support plans to do away with the death penalty, said presidential spokesman Dosali Esenaliyev.

A moratorium has been in place in Kyrgyzstan since 1998. Where is Kyrgyzstan? Right next to Uzbekistan (see this map.) There was a revolution in Kyrgyzstan in March, spurred by protests. Hopefully, it will spread to its authoritarian, torturous neighbor soon.

Bakiyev was elected president in July. The country has 5 million people, 75% of whom are Sunni Muslims. There is a 99% literacy rate for men, and 96% for women. (Stats here.)

You can read more about Krgyzstan here.

I haven't had time to read the news today. Is anything happening? This thread's for you. I'll be back here tonight.

The jail at Rikers Island in New York is closing its facility that houses gays and trans-genders.

For at least three decades, gay and trans-gender inmates had their own housing unit inside Rikers Island's sprawling jail complex. To be admitted, all a new inmate had to do was declare homosexuality, or appear to be trans gender, and ask to be kept out of Rikers's main jails.

The idea, city correction officials said, was to protect vulnerable inmates who might otherwise become victims of discrimination or sexual abuse in the rough world of the general inmate population. The only other metropolitan jail to separate gay and trans gender inmates is Los Angeles County Jail. Gay inmates there, however, are forced to live separately from other inmates.

Gays, trans-genders and our youngest inmates need protection. Putting them in isolation, where they spend 23 hours a day in lock-down is cruel. As a society, we have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us. Maybe those that endorsed the closure policy should be forced to spend a few days among the general population at Riker's. Maybe, it's the only way they will learn.

There are a million New Years' Resolutions I could make. But, I don't believe in them, unless I make them during Christmas week to get a head start. Who wants to be the person huffing and puffing at the gym on Jan. 2? At least if I start Dec. 26, I'll feel like an old-timer by the time the newbies roll in.

I've decided to forego all of the traditional resolutions this year. I lift however many pounds I can lift. I weigh what I weigh. No matter what resolution I make, I'll never have more money in the bank.

So, this year I'm making a resolution for TalkLeft. Last year I promised myself I would redesign the site, whether I could afford it or not. I'm very proud that I did it, albeit in December, with my own funds and without asking readers for help.

For 2006, I have a new goal. Again, it's one I will do without asking for contributions. It is learning graphic design, and I started the day after Christmas. Like most analytical lawyers, I am very left-brain and very right-brain challenged. Yet, I cringe with envy every time I visit Jane and Reddhedd at Firedoglake and see how they begin every post with an awesome graphic.

I have had Adobe Photoshop 6 for years but no one to teach me how to use it. This week I shelled out the bucks for Adobe CS-2 which comes with a video tutorial, and I promise, that by December 31, 2006, I will be able to make my own graphics.

Former PFC Lynndie England can't catch a break.

England works in the prison's kitchen, where she suffered second- and possibly third-degree burns from being splattered with grease over her chest as she removed chickens from a tall oven, her mother, Terrie England, said in an interview. "She was in severe pain," she said of the December 14 incident. "Everybody in the prison heard the scream."

Terrie England, who is caring for England's infant during her incarceration, faulted prison officials for not giving better treatment during a visit to the emergency room. "They gave her nothing," she said. "When this happened I was furious. ... To think they give you nothing for pain."

BlairWatch is asking bloggers to publish the memos from Craig Murray, Britain's former ambassador to Uzbekistan, detailing how the Uzbek Secret Forces passed intelligence obtained through torture to the U.K. The documents show complicity in Uzbek torture by both the British and US governments.

Britain has an Official Secrets Act, which bloggers there are concerned may be used to prosecute them for revealing the contents of the memos. The more the memos appear on non-UK sites, the less the likelihood that will happen. As to the documents:

The first document is a series of Telegrams that Craig sent to the Foreign Office, outlining his growing concern and disgust at our use of intelligence passed to the UK by the Uzbek security services.

The second document is a copy of legal advice the Foreign Office sought, to see if they were operating within the Law in accepting torture intelligence, and according to Michael Wood the FCO legal adviser; it is fine, as long as it is not used as evidence.

Blairwatch has published the documents in full here, and ask that anyone who can do the same.

• http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/715
  
• http://www.blairwatch.co.uk/node/714
  
  

Daily Kos has posted the documents, as has Politics in the Zeros. As Markos reminds us:

Since Christmas day, the number of detainees at Guantanamo on a hunger strike has increased to 84.

Forty-six detainees at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, joined the protest on the key Christian holiday last Sunday, said Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin, a military spokesman.

...Medical personnel were force-feeding 32 of the hunger strikers with plastic tubes inserted into the stomach through the nose, the military said. Asked the purpose of the force-feeding, Martin said: "Because our policy is to preserve life."

If the policy is to preserve life, why is there a death penalty?

Of the approximately 500 inmates at the prison, only 9 have been charged with a crime.

Newsweek has posted an interview with Markos of Daily Kos in which he handicaps the 2006 races. Some tidbits:

• the hottest race will be in Pennsylvania, between Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr.
• Races in Rhode Island, Ohio, Missouri and Montana are next up.

On whether Dems will win in 2006:

I think Democrats will make gains, but it's 2008 we need to think about. I'm hoping that as we build our machine and repair the Democratic brand, people will start voting for Democrats because they want to vote for Democrats and not just because they want to vote against Republicans.

by TChris

Loyalty oaths were popular in the 1950’s, when conservatives were certain that anyone who disagreed with their political agenda was a communist. Today, conservatives are certain that those who disagree are terrorist-hugging traitors, but at least they’ve quit pressing the useless idea of loyalty oaths.

Except in Pennsylvania.

[Gerald] Massey, a Marine Corps veteran and retired philosophy professor, won a two-year seat on the Stoneboro council in November after a write-in campaign. He balked when borough officials told him to sign the Pennsylvania Loyalty Oath, signed into law in 1951 in an effort to keep communists out of government positions.

"I'm just a little write-in candidate in a small rural town. You might say, 'What does that (oath) matter?'" Massey said. "I think that's actually more important. Democracy starts with these grass-roots undertakings."

The 71-year-old Massey will be allowed to take office without signing an oath that affirms he isn’t “subversive.” A county solicitor confirmed that the outdated law (which likely violates the First Amendment) is no longer effective. Massey will instead take the standard oath to uphold the state and federal constitutions.

by TChris

Bryn Mawr College student Janet Lee invented an unusual method of stress relief. She filled condoms with flour, then squeezed them. Flying can be stressful, so she brought three flour-filled condoms with her to carry on a flight. This turned out to be an unfortunate idea, as airport screeners searched her luggage and found the condoms, which they assumed to be filled with cocaine -- an assumption Philadelphia police claim was confirmed by field tests. Lee spent three weeks behind bars on drug trafficking charges before the error was discovered.

How did flour test positive for opium, cocaine, and another drug, when later lab tests confirmed that the white powdery substance was exactly what it appeared to be: flour? The city has refused to release records that might reveal what went wrong.

Lee's lawyers, former prosecutors David Oh and Jeremy Ibrahim, say that either the field test was faulty or someone fixed the results.

Lee filed suit this week against the city for her wrongful arrest.

The National Security Agency has admitted keeping persistent cookies on visitors to its website. It will discontinue the illegal practice, and says it was a mistake.

Don Weber, an agency spokesman, said in a statement yesterday that the use of the so-called persistent cookies resulted from a recent software upgrade.

Normally, Mr. Weber said, the site uses temporary cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, which is legally permissible. But he said the software in use was shipped with the persistent cookies turned on. "After being tipped to the issue, we immediately disabled the cookies," Mr. Weber said.

The ACLU has a full page ad in today's New York Times calling for a special counsel to investigate Bush and the NSA warrantless electronic surveillance. This is an abridged version, minus most of the text, but you can view the full ad here.

In a press release, the ACLU says: