farewell to runnymede

I haven't been paying as much attention as I should, and neither have a lot of other people, but I am at least awake enough to notice that today appears to be a historic day. If I'm understanding correctly, today is the day that 791 years of Anglo-American tradition -- that the head of state cannot simply imprison people at whim, but must either charge and try them, or release them -- is interrupted. For Congress is giving Our Leader the power to imprison anyone he wants, U.S. citizen or not, at his whim and for as long as he wishes, simply by deciding that the person has been aiding terrorism in some way. If the person (or anyone else on their behalf) disagrees, tough shit. Nobody gets to second-guess The Decider. Unless something is done to overturn this bill later, the history of the USA might be all downhill from here. That's without even getting into the part in the bill about torture.

I can't completely believe this. Fine, the House has been taken over, but I thought there were more Senators left with some sense. Obviously not. And McCain is a complete poser. Why is nobody even trying to filibuster this? If I were in there, they'd have to physically drag me from the podium; at least that way maybe a few more people might passingly notice the situation. No, I'm probably still being too optimistic.

Anyway, go read Glenn Greenwald linked up there in the title; he's got the rundown.

IN style

Driving home last night I found myself following an Indiana license plate of recent vintage. On top it said "Indiana," and along the bottom it said www.IN.gov.

Thought 1: Welcome to the 21st century.
Thought 2: Wait. Why wasn't California, home of Silicon Valley, the one to do this first?

7. What's the last CD you bought?

hrm. I have never been a music junkie, in the sense of buying up lots of music, although music in certain contexts (e.g., film scores) is important to me. And now we're in the era of MP3s and iPods. I honestly can't say for sure, but I think it might have been the spoken-word album put out around last Christmas by Sarah Bunting of Tomato Nation, collecting her phone-conversation-with-a-friend essays into audio form.

(I've got all the honeymoon pics back now, but I still have to sift for the best ones and scan them.)