I can't wait to hear how Keith Olbermann comes out on this one.

Dear Congress,

What part of the Sixth Amendment do you not fucking understand?

Also, CNN: that is not a bill for detainee trials, that is a bill against detainee trials, and seeing as how the last time habeas corpus was suspended on anything remotely resembling this scale it was the Civil War, the rejected Specter amendment merits a metric shit-ton more than just a "highlight of this article". The fact that the Specter amendment even had to be proposed in the first place -- that Congress would propose and approve a bill that flat-out removes the Sixth Amendment rights of anyone even suspected of a certain class of crime -- is the real news here. You fucking traitors.

Much hatred,
Meredith

(I mean, seriously. The thing that's really fucking terrifying about this little maneuver is, how do you appeal on Constitutional grounds a decision that's made in a secret court where you don't even get told the evidence against you? Appeals happen because of procedural errors in the lower courts or inconsistencies in the law, but when both the laws in question (see Gilmore v. Gonzalez) and the court's operation and decisions are sequestered away from the public, there is no way to challenge these decisions, full stop, because you are not given anything that you can challenge.)

Art imitates life

I learned a few weeks ago that the Pet Shop Boys had released a new album, Fundamental, back in May. I hadn't gotten around to previewing it on iTunes until this morning, and while most of the clips didn't do a whole lot for me, both the music and the lyrics of one track, "Integral," got my ears pricking up. I quickly grabbed a copy, and a quick look at the Wikipedia entry for the album revealed that yes, it is indeed as political as it sounds, and not only that, it's a criticism of Britain's national ID card plans -- and an homage to Yevgeny Zamyatin's classic novel We. I could happily go on...

( But I'll let Neil Tennant do the talking for me. )