The good news is that the United Nations passed a non-binding resolution to put an end to capital punishment by an overwhelming vote of 104 to 54 with 29 abstentions:

(Cross-posted from ExecutedToday.com)

Forty-five years ago today, two men linked by nothing but fate stood back to back on the gallows of Toronto's Don Jail and became the last hanged in Canada.

Today, Executed Today interviews author Robert Hoshowsky, whose new book The Last to Die explores how this day's events came to pass.

If you have somehow gotten the impression that I'd be giving up on defunding, you've obviously been reading the wrong newspaper. Today I suggest you take a look at the  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's editorial page:

What the Congress must do now, if Mr. Bush continues to refuse the $50 billion with conditions, is simply to pass no bill, leaving the Pentagon to finance its activities with the $482 billion it has already been authorized. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and the contractors behind the scenes will undoubtedly squawk, and the Republicans will posture politically, but the Democrats in the Congress, whom the electorate has counted on since November 2006 to bring the war to an end, will just have to take the heat. [Emphasis mine]

More.

The State of Para in the North of Brazil has a deservedly ugly reputation. It is notoriously corrupt, infamous for incidents of modern-day slavery, the vicious murder of the landless by the police, and the murder of American-born Maryknoll sister, Dorothy Stang. This, however, may rank among the most horrific things to have occurred that I can recall:

There have been two recent articles that have come out recently that illustrate the shameful way that the Bush administration has treated our Iraq and Afghanistan vets.

On this date in 1915, songwriter, poet and labor activist Joe Hill was shot in Utah for the murder of a local butcher.

Even before his execution, the Swedish immigrant was widely thought to have been railroaded for his IWW affiliation.

Though state authorities had little use for the worldwide clemency bid whose backers included U.S. President Woodrow Wilson -- powerless to intervene officially, since the execution was a state matter -- Hill walked spryly into his martyrdom.

In Saturday's New York Times, in an article about the Krongard brothers, one of whom is the Inspector General for the Department of State and the other of whom is on an advisory panel for Blackwater, Scott Shane makes the following comment regarding Congressman Henry Waxman:

As Kagro X often explains, there is a split between those who believe that motions to recommit are purely procedural and those who believe that they carry all of the meaning of a proper amendment. In this Congress, they have mostly been given the latter meaning.

In that context, the vote on the motion to recommit on tonight's Iraq supplemental funding appropriation seems especially important to me. 223 Democrats voted no on that motion, which would have given the President $50B, no questions asked. They were joined by 8 Republicans.

To me it seems obvious that the Presidednt could be in dangerous territory: the House could actually have the votes to defeat ANY clean funding bill. We might, against all odds and predictions, actually be able to end the war during this Congress.

So we all know that David Brooks is an idiot. We also know that he's a liar. But it's unusual to hear about it from "serious" figures in the SCLM. Paul Krugman is actually a serious person--in that his brain hasn't decomposed into lima bean paste. He's been in a back-and-forth with the the adjacent liar, Brooks, over the question of whether or not Ronald Reagan used racist campaign tactics. Krugman's smack down response? It was all just an innocent mistake:

Petrobras, Brazil's state-owned oil company has discovered a major  location of oil reserves 180 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro that, under ideal circumstances, could launch Brazil as a petroleum exporter. As the article notes, it appears to be light oil, which is easier and cheaper to refine than heavier oil found in Venezuela. While this oil is deep below the surface of the ocean, Petrobras is an innovator in deep water drilling:

Morocco is very upset with the government of Spain because, for the first time since they have been King and Queen, Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia are visiting Spain's North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which lie entirely within Morocco. They have been Spanish territory for about 400 years and remain a source of contention between the two nations.

Alok Bansal, Research Fellow at New Delhi's Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.
Musharraf's last gamble

The decision by Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf to declare emergency is the desperate attempt of an autocrat to cling to power. In the process he has irreparably damaged the foundations of constitutionalism in Pakistan, which were never strong to begin with. His actions will not only erode Pakistani state's authority but may sound the death knell for the Islamic Republic.