British author Alan Shadrake, whose book Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice on the Dock, was recently released, has been detained in Singapore on charges including criminal defamation and contempt of court.

His book contained an interview with Darshan Singh, pictured above, the now retired head executioner at Singapore's Changi Prison.

The book also features interviews with local human rights activists, lawyers and former police officers on various cases involving capital punishment in the city-state, which carries out the death penalty by hanging.

[More..]

From news reports, Linsday Lohan sounds ready for jail tomorrow. In a tweet about her father, who is urging an appeal of her sentence, she writes: "I am in a great place and he only brings negativity in my world."

Where will she go? The media consensus seems to be Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, CA, where Paris Hilton served her sentence. Her 90 days, according to some sources, could be cut to 25% with good time or early release.

She is set to be housed in a 12-foot-by-8-foot cell in the 2,200-bed facility's special needs unit, where she would live in isolation for her own safety. Inmates must wear orange jumpsuits with no jewelry and are given a minimal set of toiletries. Lohan will be served her meals in her cell and will be allowed outside the 12-foot-by-8-foot space for at least an hour each day. She will not be allowed to use a computer or a cellphone.

[More...]

Paul Krugman writes about the topic de jour - why are Obama and Dems in political trouble? The answer is, as Krugman notes, as it always is, the economy. But Krugman repeats a point that has been made by him, by Matt Yglesias, by me and many others, that the best politics is good governance. And here is where Obama and the Democrats failed in the first hundred days of the Obama Administration - their policies were inadequate to the problem. Krugman explains:

The best way for Mr. Obama to have avoided an electoral setback this fall would have been enacting a stimulus that matched the scale of the economic crisis. Obviously, he didn’t do that. Maybe he couldn’t have passed an adequate-sized plan, but the fact is that he didn’t even try. True, senior economic officials reportedly downplayed the need for a really big effort, in effect overruling their staff; but it’s also clear that political advisers believed that a smaller package would get more friendly headlines, and that the administration would look better if it won its first big Congressional test.

In short, it looks as if the administration itself was taken in by the pundit delusion, focusing on how its policies would play in the news rather than on their actual impact on the economy.

The seeds of the Democrats' political problems next November were sown by their timid action in the first hundred days of the Obama Administration. The price will be high - probably the loss of the Congress. It may have been different if bolder economic policies had been enacted. The election day poll, the one that matters, would have been better for Dems.

Speaking for me only

The New York Times reports:

Normally on the opposite side of political issues backed by the Obama White House, [evangelical]leaders are aligning with the president to support an overhaul that would include some path to legalization for illegal immigrants already here. They are preaching from pulpits, conducting conference calls with pastors and testifying in Washington....

Could it make a difference?

Although other religious leaders have long favored immigration overhaul — including Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Jews and Muslims — the evangelicals are crucial because they have the relationships and the pull with Republicans.

So, if all those groups are for it, who is against it? The people they are preaching to? Can they convert their choirs?[More...]

The Washington Post presents Top Secret America, containing its findings following a two year report on the U.S. intelligence system

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

A few other findings:

I'm not seeing any interesting news to write about so far today.

I did figure out why I still need my iPod touch even though I have the iPhone 4 -- the treadmills and bikes at the gym that have tv screens attached and let you hook up your iPod or MP3 players aren't updated for the iPhone 4 and I got a warning that it wouldn't play right and there would be sound interference. Good thing I brought both this morning.

It's only 2:00 and I'm already thinking about dinner, not a good sign. Anyone have some good ideas? I think this spicy quinoa, cucumber and tomato salad in the New York Times looks pretty good.

I'll be working the rest of the afternoon, so here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Still working.

Open thread.

Has anyone noticed Comcast just added dozens of new HD channels, including, finally, news channels like CNN, Fox and MSNBC? Also lots of the smaller cable channels. Mine went live yesterday, and they didn't even announce it, they just showed up in my channel guide. I feel a little bit better now about how much I pay them. A very welcome change.

Another good move by New York Governor David Paterson today: He signed a law preventing cops from storing information gained from their notorious "stop and frisks" when no charges are filed.

Last year alone, the New York Police Department stopped 575,304 people, mostly black and Hispanic men, and recorded their names, addresses and descriptions into an electronic database. The stops are based on a standard of reasonable suspicion, lower than the standard of probable cause needed to justify an arrest. Only about 6 percent of those stopped are arrested.

For those of you indoors and online tonight, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Actor Wesley Snipes lost his appeal of his 3 year sentence for tax crimes today. The 11th Circuit opinion is here. The factual part -- with Snipes arguments against filing returns for five years on more than $37 million of income, is interesting. (He was convicted for three of those years and the amount of taxes he owes is $17 million.)

Although Snipes earned more than thirty-seven million dollars in gross income from 1999 to 2004, he did not file individual federal income tax returns for any of those years.

Among the reasons he claimed he didn't have to pay taxes:

Snipes also claimed that as a “fiduciary of God, who is a ‘nontaxpayer,’” he was a “‘foreign diplomat’” who was not obliged to pay taxes.

[More...]

Attorney Robert Shapiro confirmed today he's now representing Lindsay Lohan. But, he says, he agreed to represent her only if she does her jail time and complies with her other probation terms, which includes a 3 month rehab stint after jail.

So what's Shapiro going to do for her?

Shapiro told The Associated Press on Friday he had agreed to represent Lohan only if she does her jail time and complies with the terms of her probation. He said he would help the actress get treatment to accomplish long-term recovery and sobriety.

"Ms. Lohan is suffering from a disease that I am all too familiar with," said Shapiro, whose son Brent died in 2005. "Hopefully I can be of assistance."

Sounds like he's going to be her drug counselor, not her lawyer. And how is this different than what Shawn Chapman Holley proposed? I can't imagine he's not going to try to at least postpone her jail sentence until she's out of her current rehab facility. If he's not, then why does she need a lawyer at this point at all?

Who should Aaron Sorkin pick to play John Edwards in the movie based on Andrew Young's book? Tom Cruise?

The prosecution has rested in the Blagojevich trial. Brother and co-defendant Rob may be the first witness Monday. Ex-Governor Rod is also expected to testify next week. The Judge is giving Blago a hard time about which tapes he will be allowed to play. The Chicago Tribune profiles the cooperators in the trial today here.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Apple made its big announcement today. It's offering a free case or a full refund to purchasers of the iPhone 4.

An application form will go live on Apple's website next week, where iPhone 4 owners will be able to choose a free bumper case from a variety of vendors.

Here's a live blog of the conference and q and a. It says yesterday Apple updated iOS4 to 4.0.1, which addressed some of the problems with the antenna algorithm. And that Steve Jobs says the iPhone 4 does drop more calls than the 3GS but it's only one more call per hundred.