1. Michael Jackson is angry that GQ published an article about him and used an impersonator in the photos:
In one photo, a Jackson look-alike sits in a darkened movie theater amid a row of children. Another photo shows him standing in the desert draped in a black cloak and headscarf, with his trademark glittery white glove.
The statement said: "Mr. Jackson is furious that his image has been used in such a misleading way, and is demanding an apology from the editors of GQ, and its publisher, Conde Nast. Mr. Jackson is also demanding that the magazines be pulled from newsstands."
2. Per the New York Times, Valerie Plame just got a $2.5 million book deal.
3. In other CIA-related news, Porter Goss resigned as director.
4. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment -- apparently, lethal injection can sometimes go wrong:
[T]he execution was delayed about 90 minutes because technicians had trouble initially finding a site in Clark's arm for the intravenous line carrying the chemicals.
Then shortly after the poisons were supposed to have been pumping into his body, she said, he sat up saying, "It's not working. It's not working."
Officials determined that a vein had collapsed. Curtains were closed to block witnesses' view until technicians found a vein in his other arm. They were then parted to reveal him dying, witnesses said.
But consider the alternatives:
An early attempt at ensuring a merciful death—the garrote—used a similar mechanism. During the Spanish Inquisition, the garrote was reserved for heretics who converted to Christianity after being condemned to death. Rather than burning alive with the unrepentant, they were mercifully strangled with a sharp cord. . . . [A] later version of the same concept, consisting of an iron collar with a large metal screw in the back, was supposed to cause immediate death. The theory behind the garrote was that when the screw was tightened, it would crush the brain stem and kill the inmate instantly. However, if the screw missed the precise point where the brain meets the spinal column, it would simply bore into the inmate's neck while the iron collar strangled him.
In contrast to this unreliable contraption, Dr. Joseph Guillotin's "simple mechanism" for decapitation always worked as intended. The prisoner facing the guillotine was placed facedown on a large wooden plank, their head secured in a brace and steadied by an executioner's assistant known as "the Photographer," who held onto their hair (or, in the case of bald prisoners, their ears). When everything was in place, a 120-pound blade was dropped from 7 feet in the air, immediately severing the prisoner's head.
* * *
[T]he vast majority of today's executions occur in the People's Republic, and the majority of these executions are carried out with firearms. Chinese law calls for a rifleman to fire "a single shot from an assault rifle to the back of the head with a hollow point bullet." On impact, the "hollow point bullet" explodes, destroying the top half of the inmate's head. If instantaneous death means anything, it means instant brain death. The guillotine might not achieve this, but the Chinese method of execution certainly does.
Far more elaborate than the Chinese method, although also far less reliable, is the American firing squad. Still a valid method of execution on the books in Idaho, Oklahoma, and Utah, it consists of five riflemen—one with blanks to "spare the conscience of the executioners"—aiming at a cloth target over the hooded inmate's heart. Riflemen who've missed their target have hit everything from the condemned's shoulder to the ankle. While this might result in a lingering death, victims of bad aim have most often been "relieved" with a shot to the head. The advantage of the Chinese method over this is that it goes directly for the coup de grâce.
In any event, lethal injection is becoming quite controversial. Maybe they should just try poison. (And, on that topic, here's Slate's scintillating history of poison.)
5. Luckilly for Zacarias Moussaoui, he won't have to worry about the problems with the death penalty, since he was sentenced to life in prison.
6. President Clinton took on the soft drink industry and won:
But maybe Clinton shouldn't get so much credit.The nation's largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all sales of sodas to public schools — a step that will remove the sugary, caloric drinks from vending machines and cafeterias around the country. The agreement was announced Wednesday by the William J. Clinton Foundation. . . .
7. New meaning to the term finger food:
A kitchen manager at the TGI Friday's at College Mall injured himself Tuesday and no one immediately realized he had lost part of his finger while others rushed to help him, said Amy Freshwater, a spokeswoman for the chain.I sense an impending lawsuit.
* * *
Another staff member served the plate to a customer, who immediately spotted the piece of flesh.
8. Does the Supreme Court seem different? According to the Times:
"The tone has changed," Prof. Richard J. Lazarus of the Georgetown University Law Center, where he runs the Supreme Court Institute and teaches a course on Supreme Court advocacy, said on Tuesday. . . . "They're not stepping on each other," he said of the justices. "They take longer before someone asks the first question. They give the lawyers more time to answer."
But beware:
Carter G. Phillips, one of the most active current practitioners, said the change had been so abrupt as to be a trap for an unwary counsel. "You have to be ready now to make some kind of affirmative presentation" in the opening minutes of an argument, he said.
9. Politics and football do mix. It's not just Lynn Swann running for governor of Pennsylvania -- now former quarterback Heath Shuler won a congressional Democratic primary Tuesday in North Carolina.
10. And, finally, after crashing his car into a Capitol Hill barricade last night, U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy is going to rehab for addiction to prescription drugs.
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