Via Sideshow we learn that Zal Yanovsky, guitarist of the Lovin' Spoonful has died at 58. As this glowing recap of his life proclaims, he "worked [a] lifetime of magic."

In his later life, Zal, who was once known as "the Jewish Ringo Starr" (see the picture in the article and you will know why), lived in Kingston, Canada where he and his wife restored an 1880's livery stable into a very popular restaurant, Chez Piggy, that became widely known both as a gathering place and for its food. The couple were awarded a historic restoration award for their work.

Zal died suddenly of a heart attack on his farm on Dec. 13. He left the Lovin' Spoonful in 1967, and with a large cash settlement, was able to pursue his other dreams. For those of you too young to remember, and we assume that's most of you, their big hit was "Do You Believe In Magic?" If we had to compare the group to another, it would most likely be the Mamas and Papas. The lead singer was John Sebastian, who is still alive, touring and playing jug band music.

Are you stuck for that last minute gift? Check out what the feds have to offer at FirstGov -- Shopping and Auctions.

Our favorite: The DEA Gift Shop. How about this?

An African-American ex-White House staffer says the GOP is in denial about its race problem. We agree, but it seems the staffer is in denial as well--about what it is the Republican party stands for. She asserts, astonishingly to us,

"In its soul, and in its history, the GOP is a party of moderates. We are at our core a party of abolitionists, suffragists, civil rights supporters and fighters for the individual liberty of all people."

The author begs the GOP to reach out more to Black professionals like herself--the black middle class. What about the less fortunate African-Americans, what does the GOP offer them? The GOP has offered a solitary, ill-advised response to crime for decades: Build more prisons and increase penalties. Does the staffer really think it is okay that compassion is extended only to successful, productive members of society. Where does that leave these African-Americans:

1.4 million African American men, or 13% of black men, are disenfranchised, a rate seven times the national average. Given current rates of incarceration, three in ten of the next generation of black men can expect to be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40% of black men may permanently lose their right to vote.

Nearly one in seven (13.4%) black males aged 25-29 were in prison or jail in 2001, as were 1 in 24 (4.1%) Hispanic males and 1 in 55 (1.8%) white males in the same age group.

46% of prison inmates in 2001 were black and 16% were Hispanic.

Black males have a 29% chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives; Hispanic males have a 16% chance; white males have a 4% chance.

(Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics and The Sentencing Project)

As the ACLU reminds us:

The war on crime and drugs has disproportionately targeted people of color for arrest, prosecution and long, mandatory prison sentences so that today, one-third of all black men in their twenties are either behind bars, on probation or. Voting districts created to provide fair representation have been undermined by lawmakers and by the courts, and felony disenfranchisement laws have robbed hundreds of thousands of minorities of their right to vote. Segregation and discrimination in housing opportunity still exists, and a backlash against affirmative action in employment and education threatens to slam the door of opportunity in the faces of those who are most deserving. Anti-immigrant laws have stripped away basic civil rights for many of the nation’s ethnic minorities. We have come a long way since Jim Crow ruled the South, but deeply entrenched discrimination, subjugation, subordination, and racial violence are still with us and affect not only African-Americans, but Latinos, Asian Americans, American Indians, and Arab Americans as well."

Spare us the GOP "compassionate conservative" jingle.

Investigators in the sniper case report that all evidence points to juvenile John Lee Malvo as the triggerman in the shootings. They cannot link a single shot to John Muhammed.

This makes the case for a death sentence against Muhammed more problematic. The charge against Muhammed is in Prince William County and is a standard first degree murder count which requires the prosecution to prove Muhammed was the triggerman. And according to police, he wasn't.

Here's the evidence against 17 year old John Lee Malvo, according to investigators. (If this doesn't show the need for a gag order on the police in the case, we don't know what does:)

¶His own admissions to both Virginia shootings in which the men are being tried and to one in Maryland, made in conversations with Fairfax police detectives.

¶Hair linked by DNA to Mr. Malvo found in the trunk of the Caprice. A hole was carved in the trunk to create a sniper's nest.

¶A videotape recovered from a security camera near the Home Depot parking garage in Falls Church, Va., where Linda Franklin , an F.B.I. analyst, was killed on Oct 14. The videotape shows someone who appears to be Mr. Muhammad inside the driver's seat of the car.

¶Mr. Malvo's fingerprints found on a piece of paper near where investigators believe the shot was fired that wounded Iran Brown, 13, outside Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Md., on Oct. 7.

¶Saliva found on a grape stem on the hill where investigators contend someone fired the shot that killed Conrad E. Johnson, a bus driver, in Aspen Hill, Md., on Oct 22.

There's much more to the article, so read the whole thing--not for the leaks by the police, but for the legal problems the prosecution may encounter as a result of Ashcroft's decision to file the case in the jurisdiction where he believed the pair were most likely to face execution.

It takes a lot to surprise us these days, but this news articles about the Air Force providing combat pilots with speed certainly did.

"Not only is the Air Force making the amphetamines widely available to combat pilots, it also has informed them they could be considered unfit to fly certain missions if they don't voluntarily take the amphetamines."

It's not that we object to the pilots taking speed. It's the unbelievable hypocrisy of the goverment which on the one hand puts people in jail for taking amphetamines without a legitimate medical prescription, and now it appears, with the other hand, dispenses the pills for no reason other than to increase alertness and stamina--which is not a recognized medical use for the drug.

Terminally ill cancer patients can't smoke pot to relieve unbearable pain, but pilots can (must?) take an upper to do their job? Give us a break.

Does the Air Force give the pilots Xanax after the mission to calm down?

We have some holiday and family stuff to attend to today, so we thought we'd throw the blog open to readers for the rest of the day (we'll be back tonight). Post what you want, start a discussion, argue or agree with each other, just don't kill each other. As my grandmother used to say, you catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.

Via Skippy, who's been on a John Aschroft tear recently, a link to Lott's a Racist but Ashcroft's Okay? by John Aravosis. Among the criticisms of Ashcroft--his relations with Bob Jones University, Council of Conservative Citizens, Pat Robertson, Reggie White, Southern Partisan Magazine and Gun Owners of America.

We do our own tear of Ashcroft almost weekly--our latest, a long one, is here.

A report is due out shortly about a proposal by the Bush Administration for a system to monitor internet use.

"Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer who represents some of the nation's largest Internet providers, said, "Internet service providers are concerned about the privacy implications of this as well as liability," since providing access to live feeds of network activity could be interpreted as a wiretap or as the "pen register" and "trap and trace" systems used on phones without a judicial order. Mr. Baker said the issue would need to be resolved before the proposal could move forward."

This is a giant monitoring system that Bush is proposing.

Internet service providers argue that its data-monitoring functions could be used to track the activities of individuals using the network.

An official with a major data services company who has been briefed on several aspects of the government's plans said it was hard to see how such capabilities could be provided to government without the potential for real-time monitoring, even of individuals.

"Part of monitoring the Internet and doing real-time analysis is to be able to track incidents while they are occurring," the official said.

The official compared the system to Carnivore, the Internet wiretap system used by the F.B.I., saying: "Am I analogizing this to Carnivore? Absolutely. But in fact, it's 10 times worse. Carnivore was working on much smaller feeds and could not scale. This is looking at the whole Internet."

The proposal is part of a final version of a report, "The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," set for release early next year.

The New York Times is thinking a step ahead today in its editorial Judicial Selection After Trent Lott:

"Now that Trent Lott has reminded the nation that ugly, antiquated racial attitudes still exist in this country, even in the highest ranks of government, the Bush administration needs to pay even more attention to civil rights concerns regarding several of its judicial nominees. It seems clearer than ever that the White House and the Senate should conduct a more rigorous review of current and future judicial nominees' records on race, and disqualify any whose commitment to equal rights is at all in doubt."

According to a new CNN poll,

"With Al Gore now out of the race, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the top choice of Democrats for the 2004 presidential nomination if she chooses to run, according to a new CNN/Time magazine poll."

Our view: Run, Hillary, Run!

Instpundit's view (via e-mail): I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans said "run, Hillary, run" too.

Atrios and Ampersand (Alas A Blog) get it exactly right on the recent mass arrests of middleastern men in California --arrests that occurred when the men appeared as required to register in accordance with a new government regulation.

From Atrios:

"I know this is hard for many people to understand, but most violations of immigration law are actually no different than violations of traffic law. I don't mean violations of the "sneaking over the border" type, I'm talking about violations of the "line 17 on Form XV3-342-234-vv3-1 was incorrectly filled out" type or of the "the INS didn't send me my goddamn paperwork AGAIN" type. If the government wants to treat those things seriously, they have to first start doing their part.

Look, I've traveled and worked in other countries. And, when I did so at various times I was probably in violation of the equivalent types of things. Frankly, it's almost impossible to not be if some bureaucrat decides you are. I'm glad those governments didn't decide to arrest me."

Ampersand has a great wrap-up of what the other blogs are saying on this, inlcuding Long Story, Short Pier and E-Riposte.

Our prior post is here. We also reported on the origins of Ashcroft's foreigner registration program here.

Let's not overlook the surveillance these middle-eastern men are under. We want to prevent another terrorist attack as much as the next person, but round-the-clock surveillance without accountability or reporting on anything but the number of persons surveilled? Since it's being conducted under secret FISA court orders, there's no requirement the Government demonstrate the surveillance has been effective. P.S. no wonder the economy is in the tanks, can you imagine what this round-the-clock surveillance costs?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson examines the civil rights records of Lott, Nickles, McConnell and Frist in a commentary in the LA Times, The Grand (Dragon's) Old Party. He finds Nickles more frightening than Lott (he not only voted against Martin Luther King Day, but suggested it be an unpaid holiday celebrated only on a Sunday) and astutely notes,

"These men are not shoot-from-the-lip, bellicose, confrontational race-baiters like Lott. They are quiet, respectable, gray-flannel opponents of civil rights. And this makes them even more terrifying than Lott."

"Yet what's even more frightening is that such men are a big reason the Republicans have resuscitated the party from its century of near extinction in the Deep South."

Hutchinson provides an interesting post-1964 history of the Republicans in the South. As to President Bush, he says:

"President Bush has also subtly stoked the racial fires. He spoke at racially archaic Bob Jones University, ducked the Confederate flag fight and the racial profiling issue and refused to support tougher hate-crimes legislation."

"Then there is his handling of the Lott debacle. When Lott attended a second Strom Thurmond birthday bash at the White House, there is no indication that Bush rebuked Lott for his remarks. It took nearly a week, and a firestorm of public outrage, before Bush finally condemned him."

Hutchinson's conclusion on the future of the Republican Right?

"Lott apologists worry that with him out as Senate leader, the GOP conservative agenda will go to pot. With Nickles, McConnell or Frist, and Bush as gatekeeper of that agenda, there's no danger of that."

He's right about that.