Never on a Sunday, a Sunday

From The Salt Lake Tribune —

In less than two months, Utah will no longer allow capital defendants to choose to be shot to death and will not execute condemned inmates on certain days.

Gov. Olene Walker has signed two pieces of legislation passed by Utah lawmakers — one to end the state’s firing squad and another to prohibit executions on Sundays, Mondays and legal holidays. The first bill was signed Monday by the governor, and the second was signed Friday.

The reason for the execution-free days — to keep overtime costs down.

Read more.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

NewMexiKen is wearing the green today in honor of his Irish children and grandchildren.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you
In the palm of his hand.

The bald truth

From Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times —

Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune, after CBS’s Billy Packer drew the ire of Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli when he said the Hawks didn’t deserve a No. 1 seed: “If I were Martelli, I would have said that the only thing in need of reseeding is Packer’s scalp.”

Barack Obama

A Bright Hope in Illinois. A rather different politician, Barack Obama. Take a moment to read about the winner of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senator.

The article concludes:

If by “American” we mean that which is most distinctive about us and our ideals, if we mean it to refer to our status as a nation of immigrants that could yet become the world’s first great polyglot, miscegenistic meritocracy, then Barack Obama, if elected, would not only become the sole African American in the Senate: He would also be the most distinctly American of its members.

Link via Eschaton.

Update: Colorado Luis has some worthwhile commentary about Obama (Illinois) and Salazar (Colorado).

Bald is beautiful

From Wired News: Furthermore:

Thanks to advances in medical science, the virile, balding type may soon go the way of the dodo bird. Stem-cell research has resulted in the successful regrowing of hair on mice, leading to the real possibility that a cure for baldness is right around the corner. As science marches on, the world will be populated by tall, fit people with perfect teeth and a full head of hair. There won’t be a single interesting person left on the planet.

Hear, hear.

James Madison

was born on this date in 1751.

No government any more than an individual will long be respected without being truly respectable.

There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.

James Madison

Picture this

From This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow —

Pandagon makes a good catch, noting a buried paragraph in a Time article:

Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration’s efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month.

Homeland Security, working to keep you safe from terror–one photo op at a time.

We locked you up in jail for 25 years and you were innocent all along? That’ll be £80,000 please.

From the Sunday Herald —

What do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit?

An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in British prisons.

On Tuesday, Blunkett will fight in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the right to charge victims of miscarriages of justice more than £3000 for every year they spent in jail while wrongly convicted. The logic is that the innocent man shouldn’t have been in prison eating free porridge and sleeping for nothing under regulation grey blankets.

Blunkett’s fight has been described as “outrageous”, “morally repugnant” and the “sickest of sick jokes”, but his spokesmen in the Home Office say it’s a completely “reasonable course of action” as the innocent men and women would have spent the money anyway on food and lodgings if they weren’t in prison. The government deems the claw-back “Saved Living Expenses”.

Read more.

Please Mr. Custer, I don’t wanna go…

From Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times:

New England might never have won a Super Bowl, let alone two, had not Gen. George Custer decided to leave Felix Vinatieri — his bandleader and the great-great-grandfather of Pats kicker Adam — back at the fort with his band when the troops embarked for the battle of Little Big Horn.

Added Tom FitzGerald of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Those guys were the luckiest musicians in the world, not counting Ringo.”

Sweet 18

The Washington Post published an article Monday to the effect that the presidential election is “likely to turn on battles in fewer than 18 states.” Accordingly, those states will see all the action. Or, as Electablog* puts it, “More to the point, if you’re planning a summer trip, you may want to avoPOSTID: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.”

Smoke-filled room

The Denver Post reports:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation’s highest-ranking elected Hispanic official, threw his support Saturday behind Attorney General Ken Salazar – and Colorado Hispanics – vowing to funnel money into the state to increase Hispanic voter registration and turnout.

“As of today, Colorado will get financial support to turn out more Hispanics in November,” Richardson said in an interview.

The governor, who is also chairman of the Democratic National Convention, was the keynote speaker at the Colorado Democrats’ annual Jefferson Jackson dinner.

The emergence of Salazar as the Democrats’ highest profile candidate for U.S. Senate is a “thunderbolt” not only for the state but also for the nation, Richardson said.

“Colorado is now targeted as a possible pickup state for the Democrats in the presidential election,” Richardson said. …

Sitting back in an overstuffed chair in his hotel room, white smoke rising from his cigar, Richardson said he was flattered by being mentioned.

“But I have the best job I’ve ever had,” he said about being governor, noting that his first term doesn’t expire until 2006. “I’ve committed myself.”