Who's going home on The X-Factor? Last night I thought the judges were done voting and it was just the viewers vote that count. Not so. The 10 contestants with the highest viewer votes are safe. The bottom 2 will sing again and the judges will decide which one stays and which one goes home. Kind of odd -- would any one of these judges vote off a contestant in his or her group? I think Leroy Bell will be in the bottom two. He's got a great voice, but he's 59 and I doubt his fans voted 50 times each for him.

Update: So glad I was wrong about the bottom two. I totally agree with the viewers' votes. I'll be back after the show has aired on the west coast (to not spoil it) as to why I think the bottom two got the lowest votes. I'm surprised I didn't think of it before, but I didn't. [More...]

Anonymous has changed course again and now its plan to release names of supporters of the Zetas cartel is back on. The Atlantic interviewed Barrett Brown, speaking for the group, who said:

After it was cancelled we got to talking about it, and the video got a whole lot of views. [Members of Anonymous] had a vote amongst themselves and decided to go ahead."

The group will release about 60 names on Nov. 5, including that of a District Attorney in the United States. [More...]

Busy day at work today. BTD - me too.

Closing arguments are today in the Dr. Conrad Murray manslaughter trial.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The X-Factor Live show tonight: Judge Nicole Sherzinger criticized singer Rachel Stow for changing, at Simon's request, the line in the song she sang, Katrina and the Waves' "Walkin' on Sunshine," to "You're My Sunshine." Nicole ssid she preferred the original version.

But the judges didn't say a word when Malanie Amparo not only changed a few words of the Eagles' Desperado, but sang verses out of order, combined lines from different verses and left lines out of a verse. She sounded great, but she butchered the lyrics and no one said a word. [More...]

Occupy Oakland is the news tonight. There are 4,500 protesters at the Port, which is effectively shut down. Police are being called in from other jurisdictions.

The action is part of the general strike called by Occupy Oakland, which intended to shut down the city for the day in a rally cry against corporate greed, widespread unemployment and wage inequality. The general strike is the first event of its kind in Oakland since 1946.

...Several businesses, including Tullys, the Men's Wearhouse and the Grand Lake Theater, closed to support the general strike to protest the inequality of wealth and power.

Reuters has more here. You can watch live here at CNN. Is anyone keeping lists of these supporting businesses, so people can show appreciation by choosing them over competitors when they shop?

The ACLU has released a downloadable guide explaining the legal rights of protesters. It's available here.

Smart move by Anonymous: They are backing off plans to name and publish details about supporters and associates of the Zetas cartel (Details here.).

According to Stratfor Intelligence Group (which automatically plays a video when you click, I hate that):

Since we have seen evidence of cartels employing their own computer scientists to engage in cybercrime, it is logical to conclude that the cartels likely have individuals working to track anti-cartel bloggers and hackers. Those individuals involved thus face the risk of abduction, injury and death — judging by how Los Zetas have dealt with threats in the past.

Anonymous is no match for the Zetas or any cartel. [More...]

A California judge has ordered 30 days more jail time for Lindsay Lohan. She has to report Nov. 9. It's expected that she will serve about 6 days due to jail over-crowding issues. [More...]

The jury has returned a guilty verdict in the case of Russian businessman Viktor Bout.

A jury reached the verdict in the case against Viktor Bout after deliberating since Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan. He was convicted of conspiracy to kill Americans and US officials, deliver anti-aircraft missiles and aid a terrorist organization.

He will be sentenced in February and faces up to life in prison. The New York Times reports on the verdict here.

Here's the verdict form the jury had to complete. My recent lengthy post on the trial is here. All of our coverage is available here.

An appeals court in Great Britain has refused to invalidate Sweden's extradition warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He now has two weeks to appeal to the country's highest court.

Here is the ruling.

I'm swamped still. But read this:

I don't think it's too strident to demand at this point that David Brooks be hauled up before a jury consisting of everyone else in America and forced to defend himself against several million counts of being an insufferable twat in a public place. In today's episode of Missing the Point So I Don't Miss a Meal, Our Mr. Brooks informs us that he once again has placed us all under close inspection beneath his monocle and discovered that some of us are very angry, not because some thieves in nice suits pillaged the national economy and then held the scraps for ransom. Oh, no, that isn't it at all, and he's got some wholly arbitrary ad hoc sociological categories to prove it.

Yep. Charles Pierce.

Open Thread.

Antwain Black was the first inmate freed from federal prison yesterday, the day the new retroactive U.S. sentencing guidelines went into effect, implementing the lower penalties for crack cocaine offenses in the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. (The act reduced the ratio of crack/powder cocaine penalties from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1.)

Hopefully, Mr. Black will be the first of thousands. It is estimated that about 12,000 prisoners will see a reduction of about three years in their sentences. The Courts have been planning for the motions for months. Here's how it will work in the District of Colorado.

Not every inmate sentenced for crack will get a reduction. FAMM has this handy FAQ outlining the requirements.