Matthew Yglesias, affectionately referred to in the blogosphere as "Big Media Matt" will be getting even bigger. He's closing down his extraordinarily popular blog, which I've been reading and praising since he was blogging out of his college dorm room (okay, apartment) and moving to the new Scoop blogging venture about to be launched by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.

TPM will be changing to a Scoop format (like Daily Kos) called TPM Cafe, and Matt will have his own blog there. This is a great move for Matt. I've really enjoyed watching him grow, and I have no doubt someday he will be editor of American Prospect or The Nation or even Newsweek.

I don't mean to sound immodest, but I've been pretty good at spotting emerging talent in the blogosphere. Besides Matt, I've been a big fan of Eric Hananoki, aka The Hamster. Eric was a freshman at GW when we began corresponding through our blogs. He just graduated and you can find him now writing Al Franken's Air America Radio blog.

If you'd like to know who will be next to move from college blogger to big liberal media, here's my bet: Ezra Klein. Formerly half of Pandagon (not to take anything away from Jesse who is equally exceptional, but like Oliver, he's not in college anymore --Jesse moved on to Springer on the Radio and Oliver to Media Matters,) Ezra is destined for the big time. He's about to graduate, and my prediction is, he'll be the next Big Media Matt.

Another kid you should be watching: August J. Pollack Xoverboard.

It's a privilege to know them all. Update your bookmarks. These kids are the future and they will make us proud.

I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. It's mind-boggling. Prosecutors in the Schapelle Corby case have announced they will appeal her 20 year sentence for bringing 9 pounds of pot into Bali on the grounds that it is not severe enough. They contend she should have received a life sentence.

Prosecutor Ida Bagus Wiswantanu said he believed the judge had erred and should have given Corby a life sentence.

"For us justice is life for anyone who imports that much marijuana,'' he told reporters.

An Australian expert on Indonesia's legal system agreed the sentence was unusually light by Indonesian standards.

[link via 12th Harmonic, whose author also blogs at the offical Schapelle Corby blog, Innocent Without a Doubt. Thanks also to 12th Harmonic for praising and quoting TalkLeft's live verdict blogging post. ]

More here.

After deliberating three hours, a military jury found Lt. Andrew K. Ledford not guilty of charges related to the beating death of an Iraqi "ghost detainee." Ledford will now be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

This sounds to me like it would have been the correct result had Leford been charged with murder. He wasn't. He was charged with poor leadership and lying to officials. It's a little surprising he wasn't convicted on any of those charges. Perhaps because the jury was persuaded that the real culprits were the CIA agents who allegedly suspended al-Jamadi from his wrists, handcuffed behind his back in a "Palestinean hanging" mode. As we've pointed out a few times,

A government report obtained by the Associated Press said that [Manadel]Jamadi died an hour after his arrival at Abu Ghraib in early November 2003. The report said he had been beaten while in CIA custody and then hung by his wrists, with his arms crossed across his back -- treatment described as "torture" by international organizations. The prisoner reportedly died before CIA interrogators extracted information from him. U.S. Army guards at the prison then packed his body in ice and posed with the corpse in mocking photographs.

Daily Kos turned three yesterday. At that time, Markos was lucky to get 100 visitors a day. Today, Daily Kos is the most amazing phenomenon in the blogosphere, averaging 500,000 visitors a day. It is a community of voices, but as Armando, another major contributor to the blog explains, it all really goes back to Markos.

Markos is the magic here. Yes the Community is the heart. But Markos created the space, created the conditions and created the spark that has made dailykos what it is today.

So lift your virtual glass, a toast to Markos.

Indeed. Congrats and many, many more, Markos.

From the newest crop of documents the Defense Department has turned over to the ACLU and made available on their website is this e-mail, spotted by this astute Democatic Underground reader: [hat tip Crooks and Liars.]

DETAINEES-2797B

E-mail (from CTD employee to Frankie Battle) noting that sender is forwarding this EC up the chain of command, concerning alleged impersonation of FBI Agents at GTMO

12/05/03

Same document as Detainee-2797 with the following unredacted: "Of concern, DOD interrogators impersonating Supervisory Special Agents of the FBI told a detainee that the FBI…" and "These tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date and CITF believes that techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee." and "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done (by) the "FBI" interrogators. The FBI will (be) left holding the bag before the public." (emphasis supplied)

A loss for the Justice Department. A jury has found David Rosen, HillaryClinton's chief fundraiser, not guilty of campaign finance violations.

The charges grew out of a campaign fund-raising event in August 2000 called the Hollywood Gala Salute to President William Jefferson Clinton. Mr. Rosen told campaign officials in Washington that the event cost about $400,000; the government says expenses for the gala topped $1.1 million, although the total cost of the extravaganza remains unknown to this day.

Much of the testimony in the course of the three-week trial concerned the arcane rules of the Federal Election Commission during 2000, rules that Judge A. Howard Matz at one point described as even more incomprehensible than the federal tax code.

Schapelle's address:
Schapelle Corby
LPM Kerobokan
Jl. Tangkuban Perahu
Kerobokan, Denpasar 80117
Bali, INDONESIA

Schapelle will serve her 20 year sentence at Kerobokan prion in Bali, where she has been held for the past seven months. Here's what she faces.

Abanana, some pawpaw, five slices of white bread and a half-bowl of vegetables is the daily ration for Schapelle Corby and each of the other 20 or so Westerners serving time in Bali's Kerobokan jail.

...The jail .... provides almost nothing to its more than 600 inmates - no drinking water, coffee or tea, bedding, toiletries, clothes, medicine, amenities or work.

...The women are locked in from about 5pm until 9am and Corby's cell is so small that the bodies of the seven women she shares with touch as they rest. With no beds, they sleep on mats, and with no fan, they sweat. Each woman gets a bucket of water a day to wash herself with.

That being said, apparently this prison has some benefits. Everything and everyone is for sale, beginning with the guards. So if Schapelle gets donations, she can live like this:

Check out this editorial in the Los Angeles Times today calling on Senator Bill Frist to resign.

The longer he tries to run the Senate, the more he looks like a bungler whose only principle is personal advancement.

Ouch. But so true. [hat tip Huffington Post.]

Indonesia says no to a transfer to Australia.

Update: Jeff Seaman for Congress and Swing State Project join the boycott.

Raw Story has the details of the bill Democrats plan to introduce that will cause a committee to be formed to investigate claims of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo and in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article has the text of Rep. Henry Waxman's press release, with a list of sponsors. Is your Representative on there? If not, give them a call and thell them you'd like them to sign on as a co-sponsor of this legislation when it's introduced.

Via AmericaBlog....show some Heart for Kraft Foods for this courageous stand. Call them at 1-800-323-0768 and go buy some Mac and Cheese.

Read Kraft's letter, via Kos:

The true test of any commitment is how you respond when challenged. Kraft is experiencing this to a degree right now, as a result of our decision to be one of several contributors to the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago. The games will bring together thousands of athletes in a competition that will take place in our corporate hometown....

by TChris

Schools can't teach the value of free speech by suppressing speech. The only lesson students at El Camino Real High School have learned is that even mild cricitism of a Republican president will be met with censorship.

Theater students designed posters to advertise their play, "The Complete History of America (Abridged)," which takes a satirical view of U.S. history. The posters depicted President Bush as Groucho Marx. A student supporter of the president complained, and the principal responded by tearing down the posters.

Undaunted, the theater students -- who have a better grasp of the Constitution than their principal -- put up new posters.

The new designs all feature a silhouette of Bush and a burning cigar, along with inscriptions such as "Free Expression for All (unless you are in high school)" and "What First Amendment?"

Good for them.