Freeway Blogger has issued a challenge to those of us in Arizona, News Mexico and Colorado:

Here's My Offer: I'll match every sign you put up in your state with three of my own. If Arizona sends me pictures of 25 signs, I'll go there and put up 75. Same for you New Mexico. You too Colorado. This offer valid for hand-painted signs only.

As citizens of swing states, please bear in mind that the point here is to win people over, not put them off, so let's try and soft pedal the "Bush = Hitler" stuff, okay? (There'll be plenty of time for that after he cancels the election and declares martial law.)
Remember, the only difference between me and the rest of you is cardboard, paint, and a willingness to use them, and I think we can all agree that that's not very much of a difference. This offer expires October 15th.

Link via Colorado Luis who replies:

Considering the source is Newsweek, Plans: Next, War on Syria? is pretty frightening:

Deep in the Pentagon, admirals and generals are updating plans for possible U.S. military action in Syria and Iran. The Defense Department unit responsible for military planning for the two troublesome countries is "busier than ever," an administration official says.

While some Bush advisors say it's only routine updating in case another Iraq occurs, others say differently:

More skittish bureaucrats say the updates are accompanied by a revived campaign by administration conservatives and neocons for more hard-line U.S. policies toward the countries. (Syria is regarded as a major route for jihadis entering Iraq, and Iran appears to be actively pursuing nuclear weapons.)

Apparently, Bush's advisors agree that a preemptive attack is not on the horizon because we've expended our military wad in Iraq. Doesn't that just make a draft more likely? Not to Bush advisors, who say "covert action of some kind is the favored route for Washington hard-liners who want regime change in Damascus and Tehran."

One thing is pretty clear. With Bush, there's no end in sight to war and destruction. If it's not Iraq, it will be somewhere else. As he lies, our soldiers die. Boot Bush.

Say hello to What She Said...a new blog by and about women bloggers.

The next time some guy asks you where all the female bloggers are, tell them What She Said!

Check out their all-female blogroll, it's huge. Credit for the site goes to Morgaine Swann of The Goddess, who has been working very hard (with several helpers) for months building it. And Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul who has been writing about it--and from whom I learned about it.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article today on the fading number of jury trials. So many trials are settled these days, trial lawyering is becoming a lost art.

Fewer than 2 percent of all cases in federal courts are heard by juries, and available statistics suggest that fewer than 1 percent of cases in state courts are resolved by jury trial....Federal court statistics show that only 1.7 percent of all civil and criminal cases in U.S. District courts were tried before juries in 2002, compared with 6.6 percent in 1962. The volume of cases increased four-fold, but the number of jury trials was nearly the same in 2002 as 40 years earlier.

The reasons differ for civil and criminal trials. As to criminal trials:

On the criminal side, lawyers say jury trials are diminishing largely because sentencing guidelines in federal and state courts tacitly discourage trials. The guidelines can penalize a defendant who invokes his right to trial and is found guilty. Prosecutors can seek a tougher sentence arguing that the defendant - by denying guilt and asking for a trial in the first place - failed to take responsibility for his misdeeds. Most defendants don't take that chance. They cut a deal and plead guilty.

Money is also a factor, particularly for the middle-class defendant. The poor get appointed counsel, which (theoretically) includes costs of things such as scientific testing and expert witness fees. The defendant who makes too money to qualify for appointed counsel, usually has to foot the bill alone....without adequate funds, or not wanting to expend funds needed elsewhere in their lives, particularly in providing for their families, they feel pressured to take a deal.

For the rich, like Kobe and the Enron defendants, it's no sweat. Look at OJ though, while he won the criminal case,it wiped him out financially--before the civil judgment even hit the deck.

Billmon of Whiskey Bar has an op-ed in today's LA Times, Blogging Sells, and Sells Out. He argues that blogads and their financial gain to bloggers will result in them being controlled and co-opted by the same mainstream media from which they pride themselves on being different. As the money and media attention goes to a handful of top bloggers, the rest will get lost in the shuffle:

Even as it collectively achieves celebrity status for its anti-establishment views, blogging is already being domesticated by its success. What began as a spontaneous eruption of populist creativity is on the verge of being absorbed by the media-industrial complex it claims to despise.

In the process, a charmed circle of bloggers — those glib enough and ideologically safe enough to fit within the conventional media punditocracy — is gaining larger audiences and greater influence. But the passion and energy that made blogging such a potent alternative to the corporate-owned media are in danger of being lost, or driven back to the outer fringes of the Internet.

The Arizona Republic today points out one of the most critical reasons to vote this year--one that I think makes a vote for Kerry imperative over a vote for Bush. Our Supreme Court. For the next forty years.

A new justice has not been named to the U.S. Supreme Court for more than 10 years, the longest such period since 1823. But speculation that as many as four of the nine court members might retire during the next presidential term, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, means that whoever is elected president on Nov. 2 could have a profound impact on the high court for a generation or longer through his nominations of successors.

Among the issues the court likely will consider during the coming years:

As the elections get closer, more musicians are stepping up to the political plate, donating their time, energy and music to getting out the vote. Here's a wrap-up of rockers and singers for both sides. Look how smart the Bush partisans are:

The Republicans also boast support from Jessica Simpson, who, upon meeting Interior Secretary Gale Norton, told her "You've done a nice job decorating the White House," and Britney Spears, quoted in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" saying, "Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes."

Bush's favorite music is country, and it seems to like him, too. Although Toby Keith is a registered Democrat, he took the Bush-Cheney line with the post-9/11 rallying cry, "We'll put a boot in your a**, it's the American way."

On the other side, for the Democrats, here's Bruce:

These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years, I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out."

If you're wondering why you're not hearing your favorite protest songs on the radio, it's because of the corporate takeover of the airwaves by conservative Clear Channel. As Don Henley explains here,

Rob Warden, the Director of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, writes a compelling article in today's Chicago Sun Times on federal prosecutors' reliance on snitch testimony to convict and the resulting injustice from a practice which best is summed up as:

''Don't go to the pen -- send a friend'' and ''If you can't do the time, just drop a dime.''

As an example, he uses the upcoming bribery trial of former Illinois Governor George Ryan, who two years ago emptied the state's death row due to the number of factually innocent inmates placed there. Warden begins with:

The New York Times reports on new criticisms against the military commission trials at Guantanamo. A lot of the criticism is coming from military lawyers and judges. The predominant view: The commissions should be scrapped and courts-martial proceedings instituted in their place. Three of the main criticisms:

The military commission members serve as both judge and jury, and as the presiding officer is the only lawyer, the other members could defer to him on questions of law, giving him an unequal influence.

...there is no appeal to an independent judiciary as there is in courts-martial. Commission decisions may be appealed only within the military and not to federal courts.

Both the defense and, more recently, the prosecution have argued that most of the military officers serving on the five-member panel have personal conflicts and are unsuitable to sit in judgment.

What would Kerry-Edwards do?

Senator John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, in a speech after the August hearings, said that if Senator John Kerry and he were elected, they would see that any future trials were done along the lines of courts-martial.

Some international reaction:

Update: What are the odds? Jeanne hits landfall at Sewalls Point, the same place as Frances.(12:22 am. ET. Sun.)

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TalkLeft hurricane blogger Roger is ready to blog once again from Florida. He kept us up to date from Orlando on Frances and Ivan...here comes Jeanne.

Any other readers in Florida, please let us know how you are and what's going on.

Get your latest graphics on the advance of Hurricane Jeanne here and here. Advisory is here.

TV coverage: Anderson Cooper is back amidst the pine trees, this time in Melbourne, Florida, being blown around for CNN. He's the most watchable of those reporting so far tonight.

West Palm looks like it's getting massacred. The trees are taking a big beating. Winds over 50 mph at 8:45 pm ET.

Asylum-seekers. We treat them like dirt.

In jails and prisons across the United States, thousands of people are detained who have never been accused of crimes. The guards treat them like criminals, and the criminals they bunk with often abuse them. They are held for months, sometimes even years, but unlike the criminals, they do not know when their sentences will end. They receive this treatment because they are foreigners who arrived in the United States saying that they were fleeing persecution at home.

It wasn't always this way.

The United States did not always lock up the huddled masses. Until 1997, when security concerns began to rise, asylum seekers could live like normal people while awaiting their hearings. Today, thousands wait in detention. Some go to immigration centers that greatly resemble prisons, but more than half are sent to actual jails and prisons.

Contrast the U.S. (Ashcroft's) policy towards the Haitians and the Cubans:

An editorial in the New York Times today cheers California's "bold step" in treating drug addiction. First, the problem:

Intravenous-drug users who spread disease by sharing dirty needles and engaging in unprotected sex are responsible for more than a third of all the AIDS cases in the United States and more than half of the new cases of hepatitis C. Addicts will continue to drive these epidemics until the country takes a more enlightened approach to drug treatment. That means discarding the laws that criminalize needle possession because such laws encourage addicts to share needles.

California's response: Proposition 36