While we are still in New York City, we thought we'd pass along this article we saw in the New York Post: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that three New York jails have been serving vermin along with food to its 6,000 prisoners:

Three of the biggest jails on Rikers Island served up vermin-contaminated food to inmates, the New York federal appeals court ruled yesterday.
The three-judge panel found food sanitation to be "constitutionally inadequate" at the Anna M. Kross Center, the George Motchan Detention Center and the Adolescent Reception and Detention Center.

The record is replete with evidence of high levels of vermin activity in the food-storage and service areas," the judges said. Nearly 6,000 prisoners are housed at the three pretrial facilities.

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We are on a last-minute, unexpected assignment in Manhattan, after having spent the morning in court in Colorado, afternoon on a plane and evening at dinner with our son. So, posting will be light until we get back on Thursday.

The plane ride ended unusually. After landing, the pilot came on to tell us that we wouldn't be deplaning for a while as the police were coming on board to "meet someone." Sure enough, some uniformed cops accompanied by someone who looked to us like a federal agent came on board and headed into the coach section. (We had snagged a last minute upgrade to first.) A young man, early 20's, dark hair, dressed more like a student than a terror suspect, strode up the aisle and left with the police. The pilot then said the first class section could deplane but those on coach had to stay on board a little longer. As we deplaned, there were lots more uniformed police lining the jetway.

We never did find out why the young man was arrested. The flight attendant told us that it was not a surrender-- that the young man did not know he was going to be arrested before the plane landed. We asked a policeman on the way out if the young man had a lawyer, but he just laughed.

We can't help but wonder whether the arrest was the product of the Government's new passenger screening program --and if so, what is in the program that would cause the police to board a plane to publicly remove a passenger that way. It was creepy.

P.S. There were 150 emails waiting when we logged on tonight. The hotel's high speed connection is down, so it's unlikely we will read most of them before tomorrow evening. If you sent a submission or comment, and we haven't responded as quickly as usual, please understand.

Following a 2002 Supreme Court decision that ruled only juries, not judges, can decide to sentence a defendant to death, the 9th Circuit Tuesday invalidatead the death sentences of upwards of 100 inmates in California, Montana and Arizona, by finding the Supreme Court's decision applied retroactively to those on death row when the case was decided.

In an 8-3 vote, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said all condemned inmates sentenced by a judge should have their sentences commuted to life in prison.

...."By deciding that judges are not constitutionally permitted to decide whether defendants are eligible for the death penalty, the Supreme Court altered the fundamental bedrock principles applicable to capital murder trials," Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas wrote for the court.

Defense attorneys hailed the verdict.

Oliver at Liquid List has this to say about the decision:

Add this ruling to the Pledge decision, the Citizens For Better Forestry decision, the Lo v. Ashcroft decision, and many other recent rulings, and you have a court that actually cares about civil rights, the Constitution, the environment, and other ideals that some call progressive or liberal, but I deign to call simply American.

Update: The Christian Science Monitor reports that 3,500 remain on death row....after the 100 plus 9th Circuit reprieves.

Another drug raid gone bad may have some severe consequences for the town of Bethlehem, PA. In a wrongful death case set for trial next week, the plaintiffs are seeking $1 billion in damages.

The civil trial is set to begin more than six years after Bethlehem police killed 21-year-old John Hirko Jr. during a drug raid of his South Side Bethlehem home at 629 Christian St.

bq. The plaintiffs say an 11-man special operations team recklessly attacked the home April 23, 1997, and left Hirko's body to burn in a fire after Hirko was shot 11 times in the back. The home went up in flames after police tossed a "flash-bang" concussion grenade into the living room.

"There was a conspiracy to assault this property in a fashion that was totally improper, and the conspiracy also is how they covered it up afterward," said John P. Karoly Jr., the plaintiffs' attorney.

Hirko's fiancée, Kristin Fodi, barely escaped by jumping out a second-floor window after police refused to assist her, Karoly said. The suit seeks $905 million in damages for Fodi, Hirko's parents and property owner Tuan Hoang. Karoly said he would settle for $20 million.

Walter in Denver has more details and justly concludes:

Hopefully cases like this will cause police departments around the nation to carefully consider the way they conduct drug raids. The potential for innocents to be hurt is very high, and police departments should be held accountable.

We taxpayers should be very concerned that ultimately we will be paying for any screw-ups by our drug warriors.

Congress is back in session, starting today.

One of the first items scheduled for a vote may be the Victim's Rights Amendment which we adamantly oppose--see here and here. The New York Times opposes it, as does the Washington Post. Republican, self-described "law-and-order-type" Law Professor Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy opposes it -- read his letter to Congress, co-signed by several other law professors, here. The bill has many detractors in Congress.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the Victims' Rights Amendment in April. It was approved 5-4 by the Constitution Subcommittee on June 12. The next step is a vote of the full Judiciary Committee, perhaps as soon as Thursday, September 4.

The proposed Amendment would hinder effective prosecution of crime in several ways, among them:

Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to participate in one debate --but its not the one being held this Wednesday. This week's debate will feature:

Bustamante, Republicans Tom McClintock and Ueberroth, independent Arianna Huffington and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo.

Arnold will debate the third week in September in a match sponsored by the California Broadcaster's Association.

It looks like Arnold will have his hands full this week even without prepping for a debate. An old body-building crony-turned-journalist is about to hit the airwaves with an allegation that Arnold made racist comments to him many years back about blacks in South Africa. The other candidates are taking pot shots at him. The trade union activists have begun a big and expensive campaign to oppose the recall, focusing on Pete Wilson, who is now advising Arnold.

Hollywood celebrities, for the most part, have stayed silent so far and refrained from attacks on Arnold. Arianna is doing pretty well with the celeb crowd though.

As of Saturday, independent candidate Arianna Huffington had received the most celebrity and industry donations, including $21,200 from producer Lawrence Bender ("Pulp Fiction" and "Good Will Hunting"), $21,000 from "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David and $5,000 each from actor Noah Wyle (NBC's "ER) and writer Aaron Sorkin (NBC's "The West Wing").

We wish everyone would concentrate on opposing the recall rather than on who to support as a replacement. That way, the Republicans --all of them--lose. Bustamante and Arnold can duke it out in 2006 if they want -- and by then, there should be some more worthy democratic contenders joining the fray.

We're glad to report that skippy is back from his Alaska vacation and sounds just like, well, Skippy. And Howard Bashman of How Appealing is back from his week at the shore and blogging away. We missed both of them and found ourselves checking in to read some of their older stuff.

We're still waiting for Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review to return from his labor day weekend break, and Lisa English of Ruminate This to come back after getting her kids settled into their first week of the new school year, and then we'll feel like things are right side up in the blogosphere.

Elsewhere around the hood, Kevin of Reach M High Cowboy has an interesting post about Bernard Henri Levy's book on the murder of Daniel Pearl, which is about to be published in English. Kevin says the book will be controversial, and likely cause more French-bashing but that Levy is "not so easily pigeonholed." In an interview, Levy says, "I am alarmed by the way anti-Americanism is becoming globalized. Through Danny Pearl's experience, I had the feeling that the idea of America as a magnet for the worst was becoming a global phenomenon."

In other globalization news, check out the blog Earth Info.net which has the latest on the The World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference taking place in Cancun, Mexico from September 10th-14th.

Nathan Newman has the first post in a new series on the importance of labor unions and on unionization as the key to progressive social change. Today's entry is Nathan's personal story of how he became so committed to unionism.

Liberal Oasis has an interview with Paul Krugman, about his new book, The Great Unraveling.

And Buzzflash was on the job all through this holiday weekend, so if you took a few days off from the computer, you can catch up there in no time.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has taken his Patriot Act road show to Norway. On the last day of his four day visit, he warns about a suspected terrorist in Norway, and suggests if he's extradited, the death penalty can be avoided:

Ashcroft said a ban by European nations including Norway on extraditing suspects to countries such as the United States where they might risk the death penalty for their alleged crimes could be skirted round if necessary.

"European countries do extradite individuals to the United States. They sometimes require in specific cases that there won't be the likelihood or the possibility of the death penalty," he said. "It could be an option in any (legal) case that we would negotiate extradition based on those kinds of considerations," he said, referring to demands that the death penalty not be applied.

The U.S. has not yet sought the extradition of Mullah Krekar, an ex-Kurd leader and founder of the Ansar al-Islam group in northern Iraq, who is currently living in Norway.

On Friday, Ashcroft talked to reporters in Oslo about weapons of mass destruction:

US Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Friday it was likely that components of Saddam Hussein’s alleged nuclear weapons programme would eventually be found in Iraq.

“We’ve already found a number of things which are troublesome, things that relate to the development of the evil chemistry and evil biology that could be very dangerous to the human kind,” Ashcroft told reporters during a visit to Oslo.

Despite urgings from Norway's Justice Minister, Ashcroft also pledged that the U.S. would not change its mind about refusing to provide P.O.W. status to the detainees at Guanatanamo:

Back in April, we wrote about Green Card Troops, the 37,000 non-citizen, green card holders in the military. A major incentive for them to join is that they receive a shortcut to citizenship.

The Al Jazeera English website is back up today and has this report on British MP George Galloway's criticism of the U.S. over the policy:

Galloway went on to attack the US policy of putting its poor minorities and non-citizens in the frontline of its foreign wars. In an exclusive interview he told Aljazeera.net that it was part of a long US tradition of using its underclass as cannon fodder.

The statistics, buried by White House spin doctors, reveal that a significant minority of troops fighting under the US banner are not in fact US citizens but residents hoping to speed up their citizenship.

Galloway said that this was typical of a government used to having the marginalised fight its battles. "Nothing has changed since that last failed attempt to invade and determine the future of another country, Vietnam," he told Aljazeera.net from his holiday villa in Portugal.

"Of course the underclass has now become increasingly more Hispanic than black." This explains why a disproportionate number of the so-called US casualties in the invasion and occupation of Iraq have borne Latino names.

U.S. military officials confirm the shortcut:

"The military services have processes and programmes in place to help service members expedite their citizenship," says a US Department of Defence spokesperson. "The estimated time for the application is about six months."

There is a serious downside: Advancing the process only helps if the soldier comes home alive. Given the number of deaths in Iraq, it appears to us to be more and more like a proposition of Russian Roulette.

Well, he admitted he smoked pot in the past. Nothing wrong with that. From the look on his face in this decades-old photo , he really enjoyed it. [Source: Grow a Brain]

What he could say now, but undoubtedly won't:

It was long ago and it was far away
And it was so much better than it is today

[Meatloaf, Paradise By The Dashboard Light]

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Labor Day. It has us thinking about the many political and social justice bloggers--on the left and right--who toil long and hard hours in front of their computer screens to keep their readers as up to date as possible on issues and events.

We suggest visiting your favorite bloggers today and dropping a few bucks in their tip jars. In appreciation of their work--and recognition that their blogs are the fruit of their labor. Nothing big, just something that says, "Hey, thanks for the time and effort you spend writing, I enjoy reading you."

The Netherlands this week will become the first country to make marijuana available in pharmacies, by prescription.

The Netherlands will this week become the world's first country to make cannabis available as a prescription drug in pharmacies to treat chronically ill patients, a top Dutch health official said on Sunday.

The Dutch government has given the country's 1,650 pharmacies the green light to sell cannabis to sufferers of cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis (MS) and Tourette's Syndrome in a ground-breaking acceptance of the drug's medicinal use.

"It's a historic step. What is unique is that we are making it available on a prescription only basis through pharmacies," said Willem Scholten, head of the Office of Medicinal Cannabis at the Dutch Health Ministry.

The Netherlands, where prostitution and the sale of cannabis in coffee shops are regulated by the government, has a history of pioneering social reforms. It was also the first country to legalise euthanasia.