Category: The Dish

A report from a trial where two of Hicks’ three counsels were summarily thrown out of the courtroom. Hicks has pled guilty

to one of two specifications of his charge of ‘providing material support for terrorism’. The specification alleges that between December 2000 and December 2001, Hicks intentionally provided material support for al Qa’ida, and that this conduct took place in the context of an armed conflict. Yet the international armed conflict in Afghanistan only began in October 2001. The Military Commissions Act effectively backdates the ‘war on terror’ to make offences committed even before 11 September 2001 triable by military commission.

David Hicks pleaded not guilty to a second specification, namely that during the same time period, he provided material support or resources for an act of terrorism.

Hicks should have been detained for aiding al Qaeda. I don’t buy the "lost soul" argument. He was knowingly supporting a terrorist group that killed thousands of innocents. But being detained without due process or any process for a crime committed nearly seven years ago is not exactly a sign of a fair or adequately functioning system. The conduct of the court is also deeply suspect. More analysis later. Stay tuned.

"I support the First Amendment right to carry and bear arms," – Rudy Giuliani, on Sean Hannity’s radio show.

Germantown, Tennessee, 10 am.

They sell everything now, don’t they? Money drinker review:

"Delivered by the bronzed descendants of Roman Gods (dressed as postal workers) my Tuscan Milk arrived! Upon opening the container, the heavens opened and the angels sang! It was really quite a nuisance. My house is now littered with unemployed Romans and angels that won’t shut up. They drank all my Tuscan milk."

Read the other reviews. Priceless.

Jeffrey Goldberg has an alternately hilarious and chilling report on how Edelman’s $10 million image-refurbishment contract for Wal-Mart is going. If you think politicians know how to stay on message, you haven’t met a Wal-Mart executive. They’ve got the underlings under control as well. Here’s a stonewall worthy of Alberto Gonzales:

Clark suggested that I interview an employee about flexible scheduling, and she provided the name and number of one who would talk to me: Latoya Machato, a cashier at a Texas Supercenter. I called the store and asked for Machato, but was told that "cashiers can’t come to the phone during work." I called later and was told that Machato could speak to me on her break, but would not be allowed to call long-distance from a company phone. I asked Clark if Machato could talk to me after her shift, but Clark said that that would be impossible, because the store would have to put her "on the clock," and thus file the paperwork to get her paid an extra hour’s wage.

Almost as media-friendly as the Human Rights Campaign.

Non-carbon living in "an elegant prewar on the Lower Fifth Avenue." 

A chilling reminder of how D.H. Lawrence really felt about the weak, the maimed and the sick.

Chuck Norris makes a contribution to higher learning. Yes, Chuck Norris:

(Hat tip: Pharyngula.)

McDonalds goes to war with the Oxford English Dictionary to banish a word from the lexicon. C’mon guys. We’re not French.

A reader sends in this quote from Moby Dick, in the chapter called "The Fountain." He said the Harris blogalogue prompted him to email it to me. It’s a reminder of what prose can be at its best:

"And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor – as you will sometimes see it – glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye."

(Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty.)