Let it Begin Here has a dire prediction on next week's U.N. Meeting in The Danger of Appeasement

"Frightened heads of state, blustering but in the end unwilling to oppose an aggressive and powerful country, capitulate and with a fig leaf of protocol, condone agression."

"This is really happening. It is not Munich 1938, but New York, 2002, at the upcoming session of the U.N. general assembly. Appeasement is a real danger, and many countries, from China and Russia to the European Union, are preparing to appease the U.S. by withdrawing their objections to a war of agression against Iraq."

Sometimes words have more impact with a visual. Don't miss Blah3's "Question Mark#15"--nothing brings the point of what we've lost (rights-wise) home as well as this does.

Departing U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson provides a bleak assessment of the state of human rights. She accuses governments, including the United States, Russia and China, of "hiding behind the ongoing war on terrorism to trample civil liberties and crush troublesome opponents."

"Robinson argued that the Bush administration set the tone by holding detainees from Afghanistan without charges at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She also criticized Washington's opposition to the new International Criminal Court. "The world needs leadership in human rights, and the United States could give great leadership. It's not giving it at the moment, unfortunately."

Illinois governor George Ryan may commute all death sentences before he leaves office.

"Since Illinois resumed capital punishment in 1977, 12 people have been executed and 13 other death sentences were overturned. In some cases, evidence showed they were innocent; in others, courts ruled that they received unfair trials. "

If he does, he has good cause. After declaring a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, he commissioned a study as to what went wrong with the death penalty in Illinois and how it could corrected. The report was issued in April, 2002 and contained 85 specific recommendations to remedy the problems. Yet none have been implemented.

Governor Ryan is quoted in the article as saying, "I don't know how I could pick and choose. That's why I have to determine whether it's going to be for everybody or for nobody."

Reading between the lines, we think Governor Ryan is saying he will commute all the death sentences in Illinois unless the legislature first enacts a meaningful number of the recommended reforms. That's not unfair. What's the point of having a fact-finding commission if its conclusions and recommendations are just going to be ignored?

We don't know where we'll be by the time you read this, but right now on Saturday, 9/7/02, for the first time we are aware of, TalkLeft has made the list of the Top-100 Links from Weblogs.

Instapundit is No. 55, we are 57, Media Whores Online is 62 and Altercation is 76.

In recognition of the new year holiday, the return of Congress and the upcoming elections, we think this is a good time to post our relatively short list of our top legislative priorities:

Passage of the Innocence Protection Act.

A moratorium on the death penalty now, abolition in the future.

Eliminating mandatory minimum sentences.

Greater protections for non-citizens.

Fair treatment of juvenile offenders.

Blocking passage of the Victims Rights Amendment and other attempts to treat the Constitution as a “rough draft.”

Preventing more anti-terrorism laws passed in haste, without adequate opportunity for review.

Ensuring our laws reflect a balance between our need for security and the cherished individual freedoms that distinguish our nation and make it the beacon of liberty.

For more information about these issues, use the searchbox to the right or visit the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' excellent Legislation page.

Daily Kos has started a "War Watch" list on the left-hand column of his site. He says:

"A couple of caveats: Note that I write "lean", since positions may shift in the coming weeks. Also, for my tally, a vote against war means a vote against a unilateral invasion of Iraq without U.N. backing. There's no way the US gets UN backing, thus if the Senate insists on international authorization before any invasion, that position effectively is a "no" vote on war."

A new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & Press shows that Bush's approval rating has dropped to 60 percent.

That's one point lower than Bill Clinton's approval rating in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

His support among Republicans has dropped from 95% to 83% since January. Overall his approval rating in January was 80%.

Scott Peterson in the Christian Science Monitor warns that in war, some facts are less factual. Peterson says some of the government's assertions from the last war on Iraq "still appear dubious."

"Past cases of bad intelligence or outright disinformation used to justify war are making experts wary. The questions they are raising, some based on examples from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, highlight the importance of accurate information when a democracy considers military action."

Peterson backs this up with specific examples. And these comments by others:

"John MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine and author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, says that considering the number of senior officials shared by both Bush administrations, the American public should bear in mind the lessons of Gulf War propaganda."

"These are all the same people who were running it more than 10 years ago," Mr. MacArthur says. "They'll make up just about anything ... to get their way."

Peterson says that analysts "note that little evidence so far of an imminent threat from Mr. Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has been made public."

An unnamed government source with twenty years intelligence experience had this to say:

"This administration is capable of any lie ... in order to advance its war goal in Iraq....It is one of the reasons it doesn't want to have UN weapons inspectors go back in, because they might actually show that the probability of Iraq having [threatening illicit weapons] is much lower than they want us to believe."

According to former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton from Indiana, who has received medals from both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, "I'm always skeptical about intelligence. It's not as pure as the driven snow."

Peterson's point: Keep all this in mind when listening to and evaluating the President's upcoming pitch in his speech to the U.N. next week on why we should go to war.

The ballot initiative to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana in Nevada is gaining support. Polls are showing the measure now has 50% support from the voters.

"The furor over Question 9 will intensify soon. [White House Drug Czar] Walters said that he plans to travel to Nevada to speak against the measure. But its backers are planning television ads and say they have volunteers ready to go door to door to campaign for its passage."

"Known as Question 9, Nevadans will decide whether to allow adults 21 and older to possess and smoke as much as three ounces of marijuana, simply because they feel like it, with no threat of criminal penalty. Under current state law, anyone caught with that much marijuana -- which authorities say makes roughly 100 joints -- could face four years in prison."

"The November ballot proposal forbids pot smoking in public, or while driving. It also bans marijuana advertising and import of the drug. Nevada would have to grow and distribute its own marijuana through state-licensed outlets, and could tax every sale. Some officials say such a move could be a jackpot worth millions of dollars for the state every year. To become law, voters will have to approve it twice, first in November, then again in 2004."

For more information, visit the Marijuana Policy Project and Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement.

We hear the tv ads will be terrific and are likely to push the measure over the top on election day.

More on the possible Saddam/OKC/WTC terrorism conspiracy theory that Instapundit came across today and about which he says, "I'd call this case not proven, but worthy of further investigation."

Well, there does seem to be a rather striking resemblence between sketches of John Doe II and Padilla as we've pointed out before, and we will continue to report on any further developments. We doubt we'll take sides on this one though, at least not here, for reasons we hope are fairly obvious.

For those of you wondering what happened to Eric Alterman's new bookmarked links on Altercation (the old ones are showing as we write this), MSNBC is on top of it. They are busy working on the problem and the new list will be restored as soon as possible. Just a technical snafu, no one has been deleted.

While you are waiting, we recommend you read Eric's new Nation column Devil in the Blue Dress (about she who recently wrote a best-selling book) here's one quote:

"Is looking like an anorexic Farrah Fawcett and wearing skirts so short they lack the dignity and reserve of Monica Lewinsky's thong enough to insure the embrace of the national entertainment state no matter what you say, just so long as your murderous bile is directed at "liberals"? Would it have worked for Saddam if he wore a size 6?"

and weigh in on the debate on Altercation between Eric and Instapundit over Sweden, Holland and Mississippi--

and check the "Slacker Friday" mail--it has the responses to the battle last week between Eric and Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch.

Update: It looks to us like Eric's Altercation page has been fixed. Please let us know if your page was there earlier in the week and now seems to be gone. Or if you are having other troubles with a link.