I'm just getting online today -- way too busy with work -- so I have nothing for you. It will be the same tomorrow and Wednesday it's a week filled with hearings, jail visits, motions and conferences. I'm about to skim the 300 plus emails in my in box.

So the owner of the Times Square SUV sold it to a stranger a few weeks ago. He's not under suspicion. Authorities say the stranger is Pakistani and a CT resident who paid cash, and recently traveled to Pakistan. How do they know that? Was the car owner able to discern nationality? Did he view a drivers' license showing a CT residence? It doesn't sound like the buyer ever registered the vehicle. The "Pakistani" man is now a person of interest.

Have there been any photos of this bomb? Was it even assembled? Or was it just a bunch of potentially dangerous components? Sounds like the latter. And the fertilizer was not the kind that explodes.

Our last open thread is getting cumbersome, here's another one, all topics welcome.

Busy. Anyone know if Joe Arpaio is going to run for Governor in Arizona? He is supposed to announce today.

Open Thread.

At Firedoglake, Karen Russell, the daughter of basketball all-time great and pioneer Bill Russell, urges a boycott of Arizona:

Happy that the Major League Baseball Player’s Association condemned Arizona’s misguided, mean-spirited new immigration law. Racial profiling is important to baseball, where 27% of the players are Latino. I urge the NFL, NHL and NBA unions and all the Major Leagues to join them.

[. . .] We all must work to end Juan Crow now. Let Commissioner Selig know how you feel. Ask him to Boycott Arizona and pull the All-Star Game[.]

Boycott Arizona!

On the ESPN Radio show, Mike and Mike in the morning, a question being debated is 'should MLB involve itself in the Arizona immigration debate?' To me, this is an astounding question. When the NFL pulled the Super Bowl out of Arizona over the rescinding of the Martin Luther King holiday, did anyone question whether it was "appropriate" for the NFL to do that? If they did, I do not recall it.

But to put this in a historic perspective, can you imagine the idea of asking whether Branch Rickey should have "injected" baseball into the political question of segregation when he signed Jackie Robinson? Certainly not today. So how come this is even a question?

Speaking for me only

The most troubling aspect of Elena Kagan's record, in my view, was her hiring record as Dean of Harvard Law School. Guy-Uriel Charles wrote:

One of Kagan's purported qualifications for the Supreme Court is that she is a consensus builder. The chief evidence for that contention is that she broke the hiring logjam at Harvard and made it possible for Harvard to hire conservatives. It might sound absurd to some, but I will accept the point that one of Kagan's chief selling points is that she assured that Harvard did not discriminate ideologically. I am personally gratified that Harvard Law School is not closed to conservative faculty members. I support ideological diversity and would not want to see qualified individuals discriminated against on the basis of ideology.

But what about people of color? How could she have brokered a deal that permitted the hiring of conservatives but resulted in the hiring of only white faculty? Moreover, of the 29 new hires, only six were women. So, she hired 23 white men, 5 white women, and one Asian American woman. Please do not tell me that there were not enough qualified women and people of color. That's a racist and sexist statement. It cannot be the case that there was not a single qualified black, Latino or Native-American legal academic that would qualify for tenure at Harvard Law School during Elena Kagan's tenure. To believe otherwise is to harbor troubling racist views.

Third, what is the justification for putting someone on the Supreme Court without a demonstrated commitment to opening barriers for women and people of color? Kagan's performance as Dean at Harvard raises doubts about her commitment to equality for traditionally disadvantaged groups. I am eager to be convinced that she is committed to full equality for marginalized groups, but I'd like to see the evidence.

(Emphasis supplied.) My thoughts on the flip.

Charles Graner, the prison guard from hell, convicted and serving 10 years, is having his appeal of his conviction heard today by the top military appeals court in the U.S.

If there is anyone I won't lose sleep over being incarcerated 10 years, it's him. He's still claiming he acted at the behest of higher ups.

Spc. Charles Graner, of Uniontown, Pa., is serving a 10-year sentence for stacking naked prisoners into a pyramid, knocking one of them out with a punch and ordering prisoners to masturbate while other soldiers took pictures.

Newsweek has a copy of the March, 2010 draft of the much delayed National Drug Control Strategy (available here.) It makes a strong statement against legalizing marijuana.

Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them. That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug. Legalizing drugs would increase accessibility and encourage promotion and acceptance of use. Diagnostic, laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological studies clearly indicate that marijuana use is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects , and legalization would only exacerbate these problems. (my emphasis.)

[More...]

Celebrity Apprentice continues. No one got fired last week, and Donald Trump says two people may be fired tonight. Another Trump son, Eric, makes his debut as a set of "eyes and ears" for Trump. It's good to see Bret Michaels, especially with the news he's expected to make a full recovery. I hope he doesn't get fired tonight.

There's also Pacific, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. What are you watching?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Police are seeking a white male in his 40's in connection with yesterday's foiled Times Square car bomb.

Police investigating a failed car bomb left in Times Square have videotape of a possible suspect shedding clothing in an alley and putting it in a bag and found a substance that resembled fertilizer in the parked SUV, Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Sunday. The surveillance video shows a white man in his 40s taking off one shirt, revealing another underneath.

It was an "amateurish" device, according to New York's Mayor. The reports on the car's plates, which didn't match the vehicle, are conflicting. Some say the car's owner, who is apparently not a suspect, sent the plates to the junkyard. (Then wouldn't he still have the car or did he sell it? Did the driver steal the plates from the yard and put them on the Pathfinder he just bought, and if so, it shouldn't be hard to find the buyer. If he put plates on a stolen car, that's a bit trickier.) Others say the vehicle the plates were registered to was at the junkyard in the past few weeks. It's a bit confusing. Also not known: the motive or target of the Pathfinder driver.

I wrote last Tuesday that efforts to boycott AriZona Iced Tea were springing up on Twitter, and that they were misguided because the company is based in New York and has nothing to do with Arizona.

According to today's New York Times, the mainstream media caught it on Wednesday, the same day AriZona Iced Tea issued a statement attesting to its New York Roots.

Last year, AriZona Iced Tea participated in a tea sampling event in Arizona on May 5, to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Sounds like their principles are in the right place.

Good thing for them they had people reading Twitter. Considering they are a privately held company, if this hadn't been caught in the bud, they could have faced some damage. Re-tweets would have spread the word to boycott like wildfire.

Bottom Line: Boycott Arizona but not AriZona.

Roman Polanski has broken his silence and issued a statement concerning his extradition. It's published in French in a magazine called La Regle du Jeu. The English translation is here. I've uploaded it here.

A hearing will be held Monday on whether to unseal the sworn statement of the former DA on the case, Roger Gunson, now retired. [More...]

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon here, too nice to stay at the computer. What haven't we written about that you'd like to discuss? Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.