Gentlemen: Let the Torturing Begin!

Remember habeus corpus?  Well, your kids won’t.  That’s because the detainee bill passed in the Senate 65-34.  And as David Greenberg notes over at The New Republic’s academic blog Open University, Senator Arlen Spector railed against this bill yesterday–and in numerous interviews–only to vote for it today.  I don’t think I need to tell you how Santorum voted.  Thanks Pennsylvania.

Yale Law professor Jack Balkin and Georgetown Law professor Marty Lederman (including notable others) having been vocal critics of the legistlation, blogging and breaking down the legal folly of it all for some time over at Balkinization. Read their posts for an in depth analysis of how the Republic fell into the Consitutional well.

For a good summary of the substantive provisions of the bill, read this Washinton Post article, which also contains a very pithy summary by Georgetown University law Professor Neal Katyal:

“If you’re an American citizen, you get the Cadillac system of justice. If you’re a foreigner or a green-card holder, you get this beat-up-Chevy version.”

Poem of the Week

Courtesy of Ed and Wade for the Poetry on Demand booth at George Mason’s Fall for the Book Festival, a poem about that special someone we’re all looking for, proabably on the high seas:

Shiver Me Timbers: A Pirate’s Life for Me

 

O’ buccaneer I’ve yet to meet

though now you ply the ocean blue

there is no treasure trove as sweet

as a hearty “a’hoy” from you.

I sit and wait to share your plunder

and caress the parrot on your shoulder.

Our outlaw love shan’t be torn asunder

in your midwestern cove we’ll grow older.

You’ll sing shanties on your guitar

while I budget out gold doubloons.

I’ll sigh and shiver at your “YAARRR”

as on stormed tossed seas we spoon.

 

Captain or First Mate, no matter what your rank,

as long as we are one, we’ll never walk the plank.

Your (Not So) Daily Poetry Fix: Keith Montesano…Again

Picking up the “promoting the work of people I know” theme and running with it, I give you three poems from Keith Montesano in the current issue of Story South.  Though you may not be published, at least you can bask in the literary splendor of Story South without actually having to live in the south, unlike Mr. Montesasno. 

New Fiction

 

Have you ordered your three copies of Kerry Neville Bakken’s Necessary Lies yet?  You can do so now at Amazon.  Its a small run from BkMk press, so there may be some lag time in your delivery.  Well worth the wait.

Want to read excerpts, reviews, or see where the author will be reading?  The book–of course–has its own blog. 

                                                                                                                

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