Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of Kim Jong-il, who died this weekend, will be his successor. His son has been being groomed for the job since at least 2010 when he was made a four-star general:

Mr. Kim’s s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, was promoted on Sept. 28 to the rank of four-star general, a prerequisite for his ascendancy to power. The elder Mr. Kim, who is said to be in poor health after apparently suffering a stroke in 2008, has hurried the succession of his son in recent weeks.

Here is North Korea's official statement of Kim Jong-il's death. Reuters has this timeline of his rule.

The media is full of articles about Kim Jong-il and how he turned North Korea into a communist state. The BBC reports citizens of North Korea are mourning his death. [More...]

Heeeernaaaaandeeeeeezzzzz!!!!!(and brady)

Open Thread.

The last soldiers left Iraq last night. The price tag of the nine year war in human terms: 4,500 American lives and the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis.

At the height of the war, more than 170,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq at more than 500 bases. By Saturday, there were fewer than 3,000 troops, and one base.

The death toll:

Since the US invasion in March 2003, at least 126,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the war, according to Boston University professor Neta Crawford. In addition, another 20,000 Iraqi soldiers and police were killed, along with more than 19,000 insurgents. British group IraqBodyCount.org puts the number of documented Iraqi civilian deaths from violence at 104,035 to 113,680.

The financial cost to the U.S. for operations from 2003 until now: $670 Billion to $1 Trillion.

Was it worth it?

Nicholas Pert is about to graduate from the Borough of Manhattan Community College. He's also been stopped, frisked and searched more than five time. He relates his account in a New York Times Op-Ed today. He's also going to be a witness for the Center of Constitutional Rights in its lawsuit seeking to prevent the NYPD from making racially motivated stops.

For young people in my neighborhood, getting stopped and frisked is a rite of passage. We expect the police to jump us at any moment. We know the rules: don’t run and don’t try to explain, because speaking up for yourself might get you arrested or worse. And we all feel the same way — degraded, harassed, violated and criminalized because we’re black or Latino. Have I been stopped more than the average young black person? I don’t know, but I look like a zillion other people on the street. And we’re all just trying to live our lives.

As to why he decided to testify: [More...]

New York Times:

In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said Friday that it would not define a single uniform set of “essential health benefits” that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories.

Florida v Texas A&M hoops starts now.

Go Gators!

Open Thread.

I forgot Newt Gingrich is a converted Catholic (disclosure - I am a lapsed Catholic):

Newt Gingrich sat beneath the soaring dome in the largest Roman Catholic church in North America, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, and listened as a choir that included his wife sang at an evening vespers service for Pope Benedict XVI and 300 American bishops.

That is the moment, three years ago, that Mr. Gingrich says he decided to become a Roman Catholic, after having been born a Lutheran and joining the Southern Baptist Church in college. [. . .] Mr. Gingrich represents a new kind of Catholic [. . .] To a Kennedy-era Catholic, divorce was a sin [. . .] Mr. Gingrich is a culture wars Catholic for whom the church seems a logical home for conservative Republicans.

(Emphasis supplied.) It's really weird that Gingrich, whose personal life does not really shout out Christian virtue, is the darling of the Evangelical Right. I mean it's nothing to me, who lives in a glass house on this, but:

Gingrich is on his third marriage — this one to Callista Bisek, a former Hill staff member 22 years his junior who had been his mistress for six years.

The article does not say, but I assume Gingrich is not married in the eyes of the Catholic Church, unless he annulled his first 2 marriages (NOTE: this apparently occurred. Nice of the Church ay?) The article says "[l]ike many recent converts to the church, Mr. Gingrich is what Catholics call a “John Paul II Catholic,” those inspired by that pope to embrace traditional church teaching, eschewing calls to liberalize or modernize the faith[.]"

Except on divorce one presumes.

speaking for me only

Bump and Update: Lori Berenson and her son were prevented from leaving Peru at the airport. The prosecutor says he filed a motion to nullify her travel order on the grounds that parolees may not leave Peru. He didn't know if it had been granted. (A three judge panel had granted her permission, overruling a lower court which had denied it in October.) Berenson says Peruvian airport officials are falsely stating she arrived late.

Original Post below: [More...]

Good call by Time Magazine. The 2011 person of the year is The Protester.

The weekend has arrived, just in time for an open thread. All topics welcome.

Marin County Superior Court Judge Faye D'Opal has invalidated California's new execution protocol for multiple failures to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act, including a consideration of the alternative one drug method used elsewhere (and proposed in public comments to the changes.) Six years ago, a federal court in California invalidated the three drug protocol, finding it could constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The state decided to come up with new protocols, for which it had to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act.

D'Opal said...that the state's failure to consider replacing the former execution practice with a single-injection method violated state law and ignored the courts' and public criticism of the previous protocols.

The case is Mitchell Sims vs California Department of Corrections Rehabilitation, et al, case number CIV 1004019. I've uploaded the ruling here. [More...]

A state court in Pennsylvania held a preliminary hearing today for Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, the two Penn State officals charged with perjury before the grand jury investigating sexual assault allegations against Jerry Sandusky and failing to report child abuse.

Mike McQueary testified, and Joe Paterno's grand jury testimony was read into the record, as was that of the two officials.

Other witnesses were Thomas Harmon, a former director of Penn State's university police and John McQueary, Mr. McQueary's father.

The court found there was probable cause the officials committed the charged crimes and they were bound over for trial. [More...]