SUPREME COURT VOTER'S GUIDE
Who are the candidates running for election to your Alabama Supreme Court? What are their judicial philosophies, and what do they think is the greatest area of need in the Alabama judicial system? The candidates were recently asked to provide their background information, campaign contact information, and answers to seven nonpartisan questions. Read their responses.
(LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF ALABAMA)

SUGGESTED READING: FIVE GERMANYS I HAVE KNOWN
Emeritus professor of European history at Columbia University Fritz Stern has compared the similarities between the path taken by Germany in the years leading up to Hitler and the path being taken by the United States today. While not suggesting an equivalence between President Bush and Hitler, Stern's more subtle critique is that contemporary American politics exhibit something like the strident militancy and political ineptitude of the Kaiser’s pre-1914 imperial Germany.
(NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW)

DEM DEMS DEM DEMS DEM DAM DEMS
Faster than a Swift boat, the race is on to make getting caught with their pants down a nefarious Democratic plot. While The Hill report states that the source who revealed Foley's suspect e-mails to the former House page "says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide" and that the "aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote," conservative media figures and outlets are perpetuating the notion that Democrats are behind the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL).
(MEDIA MATTERS)

FIELD OF QUEENS
Eric Merfalen tried to combine the boy he had been with the gay man he had become. He found rugby.
(VILLAGE VOICE)

"MARK FOLEY BREAKS THE EDWIN EDWARDS CANON
It's always so juicy to see the mighty fall but when you add to that that it's the Prig Party, it - as we say in Alabama - don't get no better than that. Former Governor (and felon) Edwin Edwards once bragged that the only way he could lose an election in Louisiana was to get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy, something GOP Rep Mark Foley should have kept in mind. The leaks, denial, and corrections in the Republican text-message sex scandal have become so convoluted in their elaborations and contradictions that Greg Sargent at TMP Cafe is maintaining a flow chart of events HERE
(TRM CAFE, unearthed by David Lowe)

"MARK FOLEY BREAKS THE EDWIN EDWARDS CANON It's always so juicy to see the mighty fall but when you add to that that it's the Prig Party, it - as we say in Alabama - don't get no better than that. Former Governor (and felon) Edwin Edwards once bragged that the only way he could lose an election in Louisiana was to get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy, something GOP Rep Mark Foley should have kept in mind. The leaks, denial, and corrections in the Republican text-message sex scandal have become so convoluted in their elaborations and contradictions that Greg Sargent at TMP Cafe is maintaining a flow chart of events HERE
(TRM CAFE, unearthed by David Lowe)

"COMPROMISE" ON TRIBUNALS MAKES THEM EVEN MORE DRACONIAN
Three months ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court said the way we're prosecuting terrorism suspects is illegal, the Seattle lawyers who helped bring that case were jubilant. To them, the ruling meant no less than that we are still a civilized country, willing to give a fair trial to anyone — even the enemy. 'It reaffirms your faith in the system,' Joe McMillan, one of four Perkins Coie attorneys who worked on the case, said then.
(SEATTLE TIMES)

HELP STOP THIS BILL!
This week Congress will vote on The Military Commissions Act, a bill that would let the President and the Secretary of Defense label anyone - even a U.S. citizen inside the United States - an "unlawful enemy combatant" and detain them without charge or trial. Republican Senator Arlen Specter called this provision "inexplicable." It is also unconstitutional and un-American. Why should Congress reject the Military Commissions Act? Here are just a few reasons:

It strips courts of jurisdiction to hear claims of unlawful detention and detainee abuses.

It sets up an inferior system of justice that the world is likely to reject.

It risks endangering Americans abroad who our enemies could now designate as “combatants.”

It prevents courts from reviewing the government’s compliance with the Geneva Conventions and provides immunity to those who engaged in abuse in the past.

CLICK THIS LINK TO SEND A MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

DAVID TRIMMIER EXHIBITION SLATED
Apparitions a display of photographic images by David Trimmier will be showing at the Mobile Arts Council, 318 Dauphin Street from October 2 to 31, Mondays through Fridays, 9 am - 5 pm. There will be an artist reception on Friday, October 13 from 6-9 PM. Or, you can meet attend the Meet The Artist Discussion & Demonstration on October 16 at noon. For more info call 432.9796 or go their website at www.mobilearts.org or David's website at www.davidtrimmier.com

SISTINE CHAPEL FRESCO TRANSLATED INTO GRAFFITI
Lying on industrial scaffolding, his legs dangling high above the ground, graffiti artist Paco Rosic reaches for a can of Leather Brown paint. With a quick, rattling shake, he squeezes the nozzle and adds subtle highlights to the hand of God reaching for Adam, as he attempts to recreate Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel frescoes in his own street style.
(From a Seattle Times Story)

INSULTED TURKEYS
All caught up in issues like rendition, wiretaps and secret tribunals, we tend to forget that things are really screwed up elsewhere. Turkish novelist Elif Shafak has been acquitted in the case against her which was for, get this, "insulting Turkishness", a case stemming from remarks in her latest novel. She had faced up to three years imprisonment. Here's the best part of this: Shafak, who gave birth to her first child on Saturday, was unable to attend the trial and it was not postponed."
(CIHAN NEWS AGENCY, unearthed by Zaman Online)

RENTAL FEES FOR ROTARY PHONE WERE $14,000
Relatives of an elderly woman in Ohio are outraged. They say that over the past 42 years she has paid approximately $14,000 U.S. in rental fees for her two landline rotary dial phones.
(NEWS.COM, unearthed by infopackets)

"SORRY" SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD
"A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Mr. Arar before transporting him to Syria.
(NEW YORK TIMES)

14,000 ARABS IN LIMBO
In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law. Defenders of the system say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action. But many say that the detention system often is unjust and hurts the war on terror by inflaming anti-Americanism in Iraq and elsewhere.
(AP, unearthed by Common Dreams)

POWELL LETTER TO MCCAIN
"Here is a link to a letter sent by former Secretary of Defense and General Colin L. Powell to Senator John McCain expressing opposition to President Bush's expressed interest in having Congress pass legislation to circumvent the Geneva Convention.

SEE ALSO THIS LETTER FROM 29 RETIRED MILITARY LEADERS URGING CONGRESS TO REJECT THE PROPOSAL
(FINDLAW)