Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy “Ten Commandments” Moore has been removed from office.

Justice, et. al., have insisted on a number of secret hearings and trials in the wake of 9/11. Some of these cases are finally headed to the Supremes for review, as the Christian Science Monitor reports. The primary case involves a man identified only as MKB, a waiter in south Florida detained by INS and questioned by the FBI. Secrecy is anathema to democracy, period. If you’re not scared yet, read this:

MKB v. Warden is the first indication that the Justice Department is extending its total secrecy policy to proceedings in federal courts dealing with habeas corpus – that is, an individual’s right to force the government to justify his or her detention.

Until somebody shows me different, I continue to view John Ashcroft and his Department of “Justice” as a far bigger threat to American freedoms than Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. Over two years after the towers fell, we’re still doing the terrorists’ work for them as we allow our freedoms to be dismantled in the name of “security.” Remember what Ben Franklin said about trading one for the other, right?

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.

A group of anti-war veterans were ejected from the Veteran’s Day parade despite being paid, registered participants. The stated reason? They’re anti-war. Wow. The parade organizer says the police wanted ’em out, but the cops deny it.

Way to go, Jacksonville. Please reread the First Amendment and get back to us; marginalizing dissent is just about the most UNpatriotic thing I can think of.

This can’t possibly be deliberate.

Can it?

Is it regressive taxation doing them in? Nope. How about all those jobs running off to China and wherever else they’re going? Nope, not that either.

No, the problem with good old American smut peddlin’ is that old print boys can’t seem to keep (it) up with the Internet, since the dirty bookstore is now effectively inside your computer. After 35 years, Al Goldstein’s Screw has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, figuring reorganization may allow him to stay a going concern. More famously, the elder Bob Guccione took those same steps recently, and Guccione himself has stepped down as CEO of Penthouse International (he remains the editor, natch). Their circulation has dropped by nearly half, down to 575k from nearly a million. Even stalwart Playboy is feeling the pinch, though they’re in better shape than these two.

That, at least, should be enough to keep the fundies irritated.

Sometimes, the skeletons in the closet may be literal.

The White House has proclaimed 26 October through 1 November Protection from Pornography Week 2003. Whether this has anything to do with Fox’s Skin isn’t clear, though it appears to be failing miserably on its own (Ron Silver should know better).

In celebration of defiance thereof, I offer the following not-safe-for-work links:

• Pornblography, a blog about the porn industry
• Some poorly written Smurf porn (Sample: “Oh, make me smurf, baby, make me smurf!”)
• JanesGuide.com, a previously linked site that’s sort of like Yahoo! for smut
• Furniture Porn. Nothing more need be said.
• Finally, some hard-core Prawnography.

Additionally, I’ll point out that I’m spending the weekend in New Orleans, and that strip clubs are almost certainly part of the plan (it being a bachelor party and all that). I’m just doing my part for family values, kids. No need to thank me.

Based on the evidence, though, it seems more likely that they did this long ago.

Bill O’Reilly, in what can only be viewed as self-parody, is attacking Walter Cronkite’s credibility in his current Talking Points column, as Cronkite had the temerity to oppose the war in an op-ed piece. Un-fucking-believable.

This isn’t debate. This is the stifling of debate. O’Reilly represents all those for whom actual thought and analysis — and nuance! — are simply too much trouble. His attack here boils down, essentially, to calling Cronkite a liberal, that overused-unto-meaninglessness all-purpose attack code word signaling to his followers that they need not bother reading or understanding Cronkite’s point of view. There was a time when a lesser broadcaster would have been ashamed of such a public display of ignorance; today, though, it’s an opportunity to further ingratiate oneself to the lowest common denominator that is Fox’s primary demographic.

. . . it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth)

A while back, Dave Barry ran a column about the Do Not Call law controversy, and in that column he included the telephone number for the American Teleservices Association, a direct-marketing trade group lobbying and fighting to get the law overturned. The ATA was deluged with phone calls, which turned out to be very inconvenient for them (a shame, that); they’ve since changed their phone number.

Today, his column includes a recap of what-has-gone-before, and (ahem) the ATA’s new phone number (which, by the way, appears to be 317-816-9336). As Dave says, even though you have a right to call these people, they don’t want to hear from you, so calling them would be rude. I provide the phone number he listed as a point of data only.

Yeah, right.

This gives you some idea who their demographic is. Of course, their ratings are still stellar, so unfortunately this also tells you something about the American people.

UPI: “Dead Pope Will Not Be Hammered“

The Kremlin’s attempt at “managed democracy” has become something featuring outright censorship of the press, as a new law forbids media outlets from reporting on political candidates’ personalities or background; it’s also now illegal to analyze their policies. Oh well.

I wonder how Bush feels about his “good friend” Putin now?

Some useless cracker held a gun to his own son’s head and damn near killed in in a tantrum over Alabama’s loss to Arkansas Saturday.

Kodak has announced that as of next summer (6/04), it will stop manufacturing slide projectors.

The BBC brings us this story: Meteorite wrecks houses in India.

The next time you’re at a rave — and I know how you heathen love them raves — if you see someone overdosing, as it turns out it’s probably not such a good idea to shove ice cubes up their ass. Who knew?

Sometimes, people have more than one set of DNA. (via jwz)

George Plimpton, famously the eponymous “Paper Lion,” but also a genuine giant of American letters, passed away at 76. He founded the highly respected Paris Review in 1953, and is famout — or infamous — for his contributions to “participatory journalism,” a school which we may probably blame for the aforementioned Dr. Thompson.

Today, too, singer Robert Palmer passed away, much younger at 54, of a heart attack. He had his largest success in the eighties, which is why I don’t need to explain aobut “Addicted to Love” or “Simply Irresistable,” or even the Power Station.

Them Cubans have been keeping these all to themselves.

So Comcast sucks, of courses. It’s axiomatic: they’re a large cable company, ergo they suck. The Comcasts of the world are the reason I bought a DirecTV system as soon as I bought a house, and they’re the reason I’ll never consider using a cable company for my TV feed again.

Still, it’s fun to read somebody rant about them, especially when the specific area of suck — Comcast’s privacy policy — is so topical.

The RIAA has been working overtime, what with suing a 12-year-old girl who lives in subsidized housing and everything, but they didn’t stop there.

They’ve actually tried to sue a 66 year old grandmother who doesn’t own a computer capable of USING Kazaa, and is confused by the whole idea of file sharing. No, she has no children or grandchildren who could’ve been using her connection. This means that an innocent woman had to get legal representation because of the RIAA’s hamfisted antics, and nobody has so much as apologized. In fact, the RIAA has reserved the right to bring action against her again. Beautiful, guys, just beautiful.

A pack of marauding dogs have killed Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s prized peacocks. Dr. Thompson’s reaction will doubtless be swift and savage: “Anything that kills four animals, four people or four of anything on my property is going to die one way or another.”

It’s a fashion shot for the bikini she’s wearing.

By that standard, Lara Flynn Boyle is a little chunky, and Twiggy was positively obese. This is just wrong, kids.

A Federal Court in Oklahoma has put a hold on the national telemarketing Do-Not-Call list. The ruling is a victory for the parasitic slime who brought the suit (the Direct Marketers Association), who presumably would prefer it if the 50 million folks who signed up for said list would just shut up and answer the phone. The FTC is expected to appeal the ruling, so there may be some hope yet.

Today, Galileo is scheduled to end its 14-year mission by plunging into Jupiter — deliberately. NASA believes that the massive subsurface ocean on Europa could harbor life, so pains must be taken to ensure there is no chance of contamination with Earthly bacteria.

Data will continue to arrive for about another hour — since that’s how long it takes for light to get from Jupiter’s neighborhood to us — but the craft is most likely breaking up as I type this at 2:00PM Central Time. Galileo showed us Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter in 1994; more tantalizingly, Galileo gave us evidence of the only other liquid water in the solar system (on Europa), which forces us to re-evaluate what a life-supporting planet might look like (heretofore, we assumed they’d need to look pretty much like Earth).

Have a drink to Galileo, the little-engine-that-could of space probes; it’s exceeded all reasonable expectations, particularly given its rocky beginnings.

An Oregon man crashed his car because, while singing along with Justin Timberlake, a bee flew into his mouth.

Okay, so it’s not really market research; it’s actually feedback from soldiers in the Iraq war on their equipment — weapons, vehicles, uniforms, etc. It’s oddly fascinating — in many cases, soldiers opted for aftermarket modifications or even nonstandard equipment (for example, Camelbacks instead of canteens) when something better than standard issue was available.

Note: if you’re at all squeamish, skip the (enthusiastic) paragraph about the XM-107 Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. Suffice it to say that the snipers were very, very pleased with its ability to lethally (and dramatically) “engage” both vehicular and human targets at 1,400 meters, though they felt that with better optics, targets as far as 2 kilometers would reasonable as well.

“Trapped Bear Springs Off Trampoline To Safety” (via jwz)

In this case, though, the country in question — i.e., the one offering strip club scholarships — is our neighbor to the north.