The uber-powerful pension fund California Public Employees' Retirement System said it will withhold its votes for Disney CEO Michael Eisner. This is a staggering blow to Eisner's efforts to retain control of the media giant.

Rap is corny. What once was a vital, interesting subgenre of music has become little more than, in the words of Slate?s Sasha Frere-Jones, ?a retread of Mafia clich?s, letters to Penthouse, or Rolex commercials.?

There are some buzz worthy exceptions, including the rising star Kayne West, whose stylings are anything but ?corny?.

?West is a comedian, social critic, hedonist, and Christian?, an earnest satirist who seems to enjoy poking fun at himself as much as he does rap conventions.

From the other side of the pond comes East London?s Dizzee Rascal. Widely successful and a genre buster Dizzee is leading the way with a style called Eskimo Dance (or Eski, or more commercially, Grime).

Dizzee and his peers are descended from the U.K. garage scene. But garage, a light, syncopated blend of house music with flashes of American R & B and Jamaican music, is suited to the sweet and sincere?Sweet and sincere do not describe Dizzee particularly well?The tempos are faster than hip-hop's. Jay-Z, for example, favors the 100 beats per minute range. Grime lives around 130 BPM, a zone of urgency and movement. 50 Cent sounds like Simon and Garfunkel next to Dizzee Rascal.

Dizzee and West may be interesting but they are clearly different from what?s going on in hip-hop in general. Is there a way out of the artistic and stylistic morass mainstream rap has found itself in? Maybe it needs to embrace the fact that for now, rap is pop.

You can spread some sunshine to couples waiting to get married outside of City Hall in San Francisco; send them flowers!

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.-Dr. Martin Luther King

Civil disobedience or just plain disobedience? San Franciso Mayor Gavin Newsom's stunning announcement to offer marriage licenses to same sex couples is causing some to wonder if he's not losing whatever moral high ground he held. His Hounour has made no bones about the fact that his intent is to force the legality of bans against same sex marriage, a law he clearly feels is unjust. While some argue that he's engaged in the sort of noble act that would make Dr. King proud others say he's actually usurping the will of the people he has sworn to uphold. Comparing Newsom to Roy Moore Rod Dreher wonders:

why was it wrong for Judge Roy Moore of Alabama to unilaterally declare federal law wrong, and defy it by installing a Ten Commandments monument in a courthouse rotunda ... but it's okay for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to unilaterally declare state law wrong in prohibiting same-sex marriage, and defy it by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples?

An Afghan boy who was at Guantanamo reports that he had a good time.

If this isn't the worst toy ever, I don't know what is.

Man dies from too much weed. Drug warriors rejoice!!

The World Economic Forum decides to chill as they plot world domination.

FIFA president suggests ways to raise interest in the women's game.

One of the most significant side effects of 9/11 is how international travel has been impacted. The ability for a variety of people around the word to meet, recreate, and conduct business was a vital and robust part of economic and cultural exchange. The delays and headaches of travel since that fateful day have been well documented, and the fallout continues.

The United States, in an effort to better track the comings and goings of foreign visitors recently implemented a program to fingerprint and photograph many who enter the country with a visa.

Despite significant concerns, the travel industry appears to be mollified that the system works well. Logistically most were pleased “the problems were minimal and that the procedure added perhaps a minute at most to immigration processing.”

As always in matters such as these, some wonder if the delicate balance between liberty and security was tipped in a dire direction. Also cause for concern is how this might impact America’s perception by other nations. Brazil recently began a retaliatory fingerprinting program aimed at American tourists entering their country. The program is being lobbied against heavily by Rio and other tourist-centric Brazilian cities. Ironically proving once again how desperately people thirst for unfettered travel.

America’s efforts to bring terror suspects to trial has suffered some embarrassing setbacks in recent weeks. The decision to try some suspects in special military tribunals and other’s in federal courtrooms has been perceived by some to be unfair or unjust and certainly has the taint of arbitrariness. The conundrum, as Thomas Powers writes, is that there is a need for openness and due process that is at odds with the premium placed on secrecy.

Ordinary criminal courts are not designed for trying terrorism suspects. As a practical matter, they do not routinely provide the kind of security for witnesses, judges, and jurors that is required where terrorist attack and reprisal are a concern. More important, they cannot meet the need for secrecy that may arise from the use of sensitive testimony derived from confidential sources.

He suggests that a third way should be embarked upon, federal terrorism courts.

To deal with terrorism cases that could be handled under the ordinary criminal law (as were, for example, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, and the case of Zacarias Moussaoui), Congress should create a new specialized court. This terrorism court would incorporate special security measures, protect the secrecy of sensitive information and sources, and make provision in its evidentiary rules for the peculiar situations arising from operations on a battlefield or its equivalent. Terror suspects should know the charges against them, have access to attorneys (specially trained, with the proper security clearances), and enjoy a right of appeal. To ensure independence from executive branch influence, federal judges with lifetime appointments should fill the bench. A terrorism court would provide a framework for the emergence of a body of precedent and the development of a cadre of specially trained expert judges and lawyers. There is some precedent for a roughly similar arrangement in the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, created in 1978 and expanded under the Patriot Act.

If the rule of law is to be used to combat the horrors of terrorism is there a way to balance the need for secrecy with the desire for justice?

Strike three, life sentence, for cheating on a driver's exam. Only in America.

While there is no shortage of threats to life and liberty -- from international terrorism to poverty-inducing trade barriers to the deadly war on drugs -- these are indeed high times for a magazine devoted to exploring the promises of "Free Minds and Free Markets." For all of its many problems, the world we live in is dizzying in its variety, breathtaking in its riches, and wide-ranging in its options. Malcontents on the right and left who diagnose modernity as suffering from "affluenza" or "options anxiety" will admit this much: These days we’ve even got a greater choice of ways to be unhappy. Which may be as close to a definition of utopia as we’re likely to come.

Reason loves freedom, and in that spirit they have created a list of the 35 people they feel have made significant contributions to the cause since 1968 (the date of Reason’s birth). As lists are intended to do, it’s fodder for controversy and discussion with a diverse group of honorees.

John Ashcroft, Jeff Bezos, Curt Flood, William Burroughs, Milton Friedman, Les Paul, and Ayn Rand all make the cut.

Since we are free to disagree, I ask who has been left off of the list and who should be cut?

The absolute abortion that is the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has committed its latest crime against humanity. Like a bad plot twist from T3, or a Matrix prequel, the computer that decides college football's championship game has decided that Ohio State is a better football team than USC. Both teams have one loss and are aiming to play Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl to decide the championship. Never mind that USC has absolutely destroyed their opponents and defending national champs Ohio State have barely eked by the competition regardless of ranking, the computer has decided that Ohio State is the second best team in all the land. (The "flawed" other polls which are based upon human assessments of talent have Ohio State as the 4th best team and USC the in their rightful place at number 2)

If there is one thing we know from the movies, the computers begin by corrupting the "small" things and continue until they reach their ultimate goal of destroying mankind. Be warned, if USC doesn't play in the Sugar Bowl this year, it will be the beginning of the End Times.

We've discussed the Simpsons a couple of times before, but like Iraq or Bush's IQ it's a topic that's never tiresome. The good news is that the Simpsons are back!

After too many seasons of lo-brow, over-the-top humor, John Bonne writes:

The show has finally evolved into a modern incarnation that retains its heart without feeling tired or bouncing from gag to gag like Homer tumbling down the side of Springfield Gorge.

Moving away from an all-Homer all the time format into one that allows other characters to shine and in the process offers more of the subtle satire and soul that infused earlier seasons. Part of the credit goes to Al Jean who has returned as executive producer.

So is this a renaissance of the Simpsons or a short-lived blip in the cartoon's inevitable creative demise? And for that matter are the Homer-heavy episodes of the recent past really so bad?

Kinsley on the incoherence of Bush's stem-cell stance:

It's not a complicated point. If stem-cell research is morally questionable, the procedures used in fertility clinics are worse. You cannot logically outlaw the one and praise the other. And surely logical coherence is a measure of moral sincerity.

Just in time for Christams. Ann Coulter dolls....

Dead Company Walking! How Skype may be the final nail in Verizon's coffin.

Rummy is bearish on the War on Terror. According to this memo.

Greg Easterbrook, an editor at The New Republic, was fired from ESPN.com for anti-semetic comments he made on his blog about the Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill. Easterbrook, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the best sportswriters in America, having entertained and informed millions with his weekly football column Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ). He is also a man of letters, having penned a well-regarded book about religion while also writing articles on a variety of subjects for The New Republic, The Atlantic, and others.

Easterbrook’s TMQ column ran on ESPN.com, which is owned, by Disney, the same company that owns Miramax, the company that released Kill Bill. He criticized Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Miramax Chairman Harvey Weinstein (both who are Jewish) for chasing profit at the expense of morals by releasing the hyper-violent Kill Bill. After pointing out that the two executives are Jewish, he went on:

Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice.

Some have said that his wording, awkward at best, out right disgusting at worst, shows the limits of blogging as a journalism tool. Revision, reflection, and editing being the tools of the writer’s craft, Easterbrook’s misstep was destined to strike the blogsphere. Others have expressed larger concerns. Once again media consolidation and the ability for a few people to silence smaller voices is a worry. As Lawrence Lessig wrote on his blog:

If ESPN fired Easterbrook because it overreacted to his comment, then that’s an injustice to Easterbrook, and a slight to society.

But it it fired Easterbrook because Easterbrook criticized the owner, that’s an offense to society, whatever the injustice to Easterbrook — at least when fewer and fewer control access to media. No doubt, anti-semitism has done infinitely greater harm than misused media mogul power. But if firing your critics becomes the norm in American media, then there will be much more than insensitivity to anti-semitism to worry about in the future.