Lots of bloggers are back at their keyboards. A few, like Avedon Carol at Sideshow, never left. In addition to her own insights on a wide variety of topics (today she rails against those who said we would make the women of Afganistan Iraq more free when in many ways the opposite has occurred), she is an excellent chronicler of what others are writing about.

Jerome at MyDD writes about the upcoming Iraqi elections. So does Steve Gilliard, who also covers Fallujans trying to return home.

Patridiot Watch writes about U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan.

Matt Yglesias names some underappreciated blogs on national security and foreign policy.

TBogg has another installment of America's Worst Mother.

Markos of Daily Kos hits the Republicans trying to ease ethical guidelines. Digby writes of his fear of tidal waves, which leads to....

For more of what the blogosphere is writing about today, check out the Daou Report and Memeorandum.

Last week we noted that few Americans ever see the inside of a prison. A new art exhibition by Fiona Tan at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago brings viewers one step closer.

The brochure that goes along with the exhibition says, "Tan is interested not in making political proclamations or judgments with this work but in making visible a distinct segment of society that becomes invisible." But Tan's visual confrontation does exactly what good political art should do: it holds the viewer accountable to his or her own humanity. There's no shame in that.

These moving portraits seem to ask, "Why have you forgotten me? Do I look too much like your neighbor? Do I look like you? And what if I do look like you? Does that mean there's something criminal about you too?" What makes these images particularly riveting at this moment in history is that they come from a world we're not supposed to see. The question they pose is: What might we see that makes us afraid to look?

Here's a description of the exhibit, which Tan made at two men's prisons and two women's facilities in Illinois and California. She filmed about 300 inmates and guards, all of whom volunteered to be in the project.

The Sunday New York Times Magazine has an article, Sentencing by the Numbers, discussing the junk science of predicting future criminality, and how some states, like Virginia, now are using crime statistics for the same purpose in deciding the length of sentences:

In 2002, the Commonwealth of Virginia began putting such data to use: the state encourages its judges to sentence nonviolent offenders the way insurance agents write policies, based on a short list of factors with a proven relationship to future risk. If a young, jobless man is convicted of shoplifting, the state is more likely to recommend prison time than when a middle-aged, employed woman commits the same crime.

....It's not a foregone conclusion that Virginia's method of sentencing is permissible under the Constitution, though no young male offender has brought a court challenge so far. Age and sex are what the law calls ''immutable characteristics,'' and it's a fundamental principle of antidiscrimination law that the government has to tread carefully when it treats people differently because of qualities that are beyond their control. (Being married or holding a job are different, but not entirely so, since these statuses reflect people's opportunities as well as their preferences.)

Grits for Breakfast has more criticism of the policy, warning it could violate equal protection guarantees.

If you only have time for one article today, please read the New York Times in-depth profile of Judge Jed Rakoff, the federal judge in the Southern District of New York, who believes the death penalty violates due process because prisoners cannot pursue innocence claims after they are dead.

In 2002, Judge Rakoff became the first federal judge to declare the death penalty unconstitutional on due process grounds, because our system is so fallible, but he was reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The article offers a rare opportunity to hear Judge Rakoff speak about his views and the issue:

In more than six hours of interviews, he offered a relatively rare and candid look at the private thinking of a federal judge taking on one of the most prominent and divisive legal issues of the day.

And among the things Judge Rakoff disclosed was that he himself had suffered the kind of devastating personal loss that many victims often accuse judges in death penalty cases of being insensitive to: the grisly murder of his older brother.

We need more federal Judges like Judge Rakoff. Instead, we are saddled with those George Bush is nominating. This is one of the more unfortunate consequences of the 2004 election.

Many of the detainees at Guantanamo have not been charged with a crime due to lack of evidence against them. One would think they would be released. But the U.S. has no plans to let them go. Instead, the military is working with the State Department, to come up with a plan to keep the men imprisoned indefinitely, perhaps for life.

One plan under disussion is to build prisons abroad where the men could be housed. The military says the U.S. would monitor the prisons to make sure the men were treated humanely. Another is to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison elsewhere.

What's astounding is that this article is talking about possible lifetime detention for those who will never be charged with a crime--those the U.S. cannot prove are terrorists. Those that have no access to courts to request an order of release.

We wrote the other day questioning how the British controlled U.S. Navy base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean escaped damage by the Tsunami. There were so many comments, we closed the thread. Readers continue to contribute to the discussion:

The official US Navy website for Diego Garcia says the avg height above sea level is 4' and that the wave surged to a 6' height but operations were not affected. Really? Gonna be a lot of drowned detainees if they were housed in the same conditions as Gitmo. Sure hope the nuclear weapons bunker entrances were higher than 6'. We'll never know. We'll just trust the Navy to be truthful. LOL.

Another reader who served at Diego Garcia writes:

Shereef Akeel is an attorney based in Michigan who just got back from Jordan interviewing released Iraqi prisoners as part of a legal team formed for that purpose. He says more than 100 of the former prisoners allege being subjected to torture and he expects the number to grow to 300, "after sorting out survivors' statements and coordinating them with witnesses' accounts."

On Sumatra:

Desperate, homeless villagers on the tsunami-ravaged island of Sumatra mobbed American helicopters carrying aid Saturday as the U.S. military launched its largest operation in the region since the Vietnam War, ferrying food and other emergency relief to survivors across the disaster zone. From dawn until sunset on New Year's Day, 12 Seahawk helicopters shuttled supplies and advance teams from offshore naval vessels while reconnaissance aircraft brought back stark images of wave-wrecked coastal landscapes and their hungry, traumatized inhabitants.

"They came from all directions, crawling under the craft, knocking on the pilot's door, pushing to get into the cabin," said Petty Officer First Class Brennan Zwack. "But when they saw we had no more food inside, they backed away, saying 'Thank you, thank you.'" "The mob decided how we distributed the food. There were so many hands outstretched I don't think any package touched the ground," added Zwack, of Sioux Falls, S.D.

Elsewhere, Sri Lanka victims got hit again--this time by flooding.

The United Arab Emirates has sentenced two women to be flogged for becoming pregnant outside of marriage. Their names are Rad Zemah Mohammed and Wasini bint Sarjan. Flogging is torture. It is also a cruel and inhuman punishment. See Amnesty International's action alert and weigh in. Here's more:

Both women were working in the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah as domestic servants. According to reports in a local Ras al-Khaimah paper, police arrested them after their sponsors (either their employers or employment agency) reported that they were pregnant. After pregnancy tests confirmed the allegation, they were referred to the emirate's Shari'a court, where Rad Zemah Sinyai Mohammed reportedly confessed to having a sexual relationship outside wedlock. Wasini bint Sarjan allegedly made a similar confession, but later denied the charge. Neither woman is believed to be married.

....The UAE became a state party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, or the Women's Convention) in October 2004. Article 7 of the Convention expressly prohibits gender-based violence which violates "the right not to be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Send your letter to:

Lots of blogging happening over the New Year's holiday ....

Was that really Judd Nelson blogging over at Protein Wisdom the last week of 2004?

Politics in the Zeros notes that the animals seemed to escape the Tsunami disaster and wonders if they have a special warning system.

Skippy has added a co-blogger, Cookie Jill, and she fits right in. Welocme, Cookie Jill.

Mark at Norwegianity has the top politically correct words for 2004.

Roger Ailes (no not that one) has a year in review quiz.

Tom Burka of Opinions You Should Have has a satirical 2004 wrap-up.

Where is Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul? Her last post is December 20. Jeanne, come back.

There is an excellent seven page (internet length) article in the New York Times, How Scientists and Victims Watched Helplessly. A snippet:

For those on the shores of the affected countries, the reckoning with the tsunami's power came all but out of the blue, and cost them their lives.....For the scientists in Hawaii, at the planet's main tsunami center, who managed to send out one of the rare formal warnings, there was intense frustration. They had useful information; they were trained to get word out; but they were stymied by limitations, including a lack of telephone numbers for counterparts in other countries.

What makes the article so compelling is that it is personalized. It is a recounting of what individual scientists around the world have said when interviewed.

New Year's Eve is a stressful time for many. You can tell by the increased numbers of sirens wailing. It reminds me of the line in Don Henley's New York Minute, "Somebody going to emergency, somebody's going to jail."

Sometimes, you don't know which. Around 8:00 Friday night, New Year's Eve, a 16 year old threatened to jump from an overpass on Denver's Interstate 25. Police blocked off the highway, an almost unprecedented move for the city. It caused a bunch of accidents and motorists were yelling at the teen, shouting "loser" or curses.

Anyway, the teen didn't speak English, he was from Juarez, Mexico and reportedly upset about family problems. He stayed up on the bridge for 2 hours. Denver Police brought in two Spanish speaking negotiators --and counselors--and a team of police, and they eventually brought him down in a bucket.

The teen was taken to the hospital and police haven't decided whether to file charges.