Update: My review of tonight's finale is here. Almost all my predictions were wrong.

Only 10 minutes until the season finale of Breaking Bad. It's airing at the same time on the East Coast and in Central and Mountain Time zones. Only the west coast has to wait. So if you are on the west coast, don't read the comments here until after you have seen the show.

Will it live up to expectations with OMG moments that leave us on the edge of our seats and a final screen shot that renders us speechless? I'll recap when the show is over. [More...]

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, said today the committee will subpoena Eric Holder over the ATF's Fast and Furious program.

This is typical Republican grandstanding. If we're going to complain about Holder, let's discuss the targeting of medical marijuana businesses or the policy on targeted killings of U.S. citizens, not guns that ended up in Mexico.

The New York Times has an article with more details on the secret Office of Legal Counsel memo on targeted killings. Dated June, 2010, after Anwar al-Awlaki was put on the capture or kill list, ran some 50 pages, and was principally authored by Marty Lederman and David Barron. According to the Times,

The memo, however, was narrowly drawn to the specifics of Mr. Awlaki’s case and did not establish a broad new legal doctrine to permit the targeted killing of any Americans believed to pose a terrorist threat....The memorandum is said to declare that in the case of a citizen, it is legally required to capture the militant if feasible — raising a question: was capturing Mr. Awlaki in fact feasible?

Good read: Glenn Greenwald on Steve Jobs and America's drug policy, focusing on Steve Jobs' use of LSD and DOJ's ramped up war on Calfornia dispensaries.

October 10 is the 9th annual World Day Against the Death Penalty. There are 3,200 people on death row in the U.S.

There is no humane way to kill a human being, and this practice of killing to set an example that killing is wrong must end.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Update: Almost all my predictions below were wrong. My recap of the finale and thoughts on next season are here. But don't read until after you've watched the show.

I've read 100 predictions of tonight's season finale for Breaking Bad. The only thing everyone seems to agree on, including blogs, message boards and the MSM, is that nobody knows. [More...]

Atone!

But, Go Gators!

Update (TL): We've got snow!

Open Thread.

Yom Kippur begins at sundown. It is the holiest day of the Jewish year, a time of atonement and forgiveness. It's a time to make peace with other people and with G-d. Observant Jews fast for 24 hours. It's a time to wipe the moral slate clean for a new year. No work is allowed.

If you're feeling bad you aren't at a temple, here's a live online service, beginning at 6:15 pm PT. If you're at Occupy Wall St, there's a service there.

For everyone else, here's an open thread, all topics welcome. [More...]

Here is the press release issued by the Department of Justice (Eastern District of California) today on the new federal crackdown on medical marijuana businesses: (Received by e-mail, no link yet.)

SACRAMENTO, Calif.October 7, 2011 – The four California-based United States Attorneys today announced coordinated enforcement actions targeting the illegal operations of the commercial marijuana industry in California. The statewide enforcement effort is aimed at curtailing the large, for-profit marijuana industry that has developed since the passage of California's Proposition 215 in 1996. That industry has swelled to include numerous drug-trafficking enterprises that operate commercial grow operations, intricate distribution systems and hundreds of marijuana stores across the state — even though the federal Controlled Substances Act makes illegal the sale and distribution of marijuana.

[More...]

Discussing the outbreak of concern about the supposed dearth of "innovation," Kevin Drum writes:

Give some thought to just what innovation and productivity gains are for. Initially, of course, they help provide a better basic standard of living. But what happens after that? Once you have a certain level of food, shelter, sanitation, and so forth, you start adding nonessentials. Basically, luxuries, whether you call them that or not. Entertainment. Vacations. Restaurant meals. Fancier clothes, faster cars, and bigger houses. That's what the first half of the 20th century brought to the developed economies of the world.

So what is happening now? Drum notes:

Senate Dems' strange decision to change an arcane rule (one of many) that makes the Senate utterly dysfunctional is not being met with cheers by the "reform the Senate" crowd. Ezra Klein wrote:

Here’s what happened: Mitch McConnell wanted to bring up the president’s jobs bill, which Harry Reid is still modifying in an effort to win more Democratic votes. He wanted to do so for a simple reason: Sans modifications, the bill would fail and the Democrats would be embarrassed. McConnell tried a legal but arcane maneuver to suspend the rules after cloture and force a vote. [. . .] Reid objected [and] forced a majority vote on the parliamentarian’s ruling. The vote succeeded, and the rules were changed to outlaw McConnell’s maneuver.

This is known in the Senate as the nuclear option. It is a way to change the rules with a simple majority. [. . .] It was, in truth, an odd issue over which to go nuclear. [. . .] Democrats changed a rule because the Republicans were annoying them.

Senate Dems did not go nuclear to pass a stimulus or jobs bill when they controlled the Congress. Senate Dems did not go nuclear to pass the public option. They did it to stop the GOP from annoying them with a pointless political grandstand vote that no one will remember in a week. Just dumb.

Speaking for me only

In his column today, Paul Krugman writes:

[E]xperience has made it painfully clear that men in suits not only don’t have any monopoly on wisdom, they have very little wisdom to offer. When talking heads on, say, CNBC mock the protesters as unserious, remember how many serious people assured us that there was no housing bubble, that Alan Greenspan was an oracle and that budget deficits would send interest rates soaring.

A better critique of the protests is the absence of specific policy demands. [. . .] But we shouldn’t make too much of the lack of specifics. It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details.

(Emphasis supplied.) I think the notion of "policy intellectuals and politicians fill[ing] in the details" is very problematic. What policy intellectuals? What politicians? Krugman writes "Democrats are being given what amounts to a second chance." This gets at the problem it seems to me. Beltway Dems and wonks also failed. That Tim Geithner remains Treasury Secretary seems to me to be the ultimate indictment of Democratic "policy intellectuals and politicians." I think Krugman underestimates the breadth of the expression of discontent the Occupy movement represents.

Speaking for me only

In 2004, Barack Obama said the drug war was "an utter failure" and we need to rethink it.

In New Hampshire in 2007, he said he would not have the Justice Department prosecute medical marijuana.

Obama during the presidential campaign: He won't use Justice Department resources to circumvent state laws. He wants them to focus on violent crime and terrorism.

The Department of Justice has sent a threatening letter to marijuana dispensaries in California. The Associated Press has obtained the letter and reports:

Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state's 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

There will be a press conference tomorrow at which California U.S. Attorneys announce the new crackdown. At least 16 dispensaries and landlords got the letter which says they are violating federal drug laws, regardless of whether they are in compliance with California law. [More...]