What we're reading today:

Agonist:

UK Government to scale back emergency laws under pressure from civil liberties groups. The United Kingdom's plans to give the police and the Army sweeping emergency powers to ban street demonstrations and seize property were diluted by the Government yesterday in the face of a civil liberties outcry. The Civil Contingencies Bill, the biggest shake-up of emergency laws since early last century, will cover terrorist attack, natural disasters and epidemics. But the Government backed off from an earlier proposal that the powers could be triggered by an event that threatened "political, administrative or economic stability", which critics claimed could have been used to outlaw marches against the Iraq war or to combat the fuel protests of 2000. The text of said bill, courtesy the UK government.

Warblogging:

Mr. Ashcroft belongs to a sect of religious extremists that believe that dancing is immoral. Mr. Ashcroft is scared of calico cats because he feels they are associated with the devil. Mr. Ashcroft feels that gambling is the height of immorality, and that sex outside of marriage is evil. Mr. Ashcroft truly stands as the polar opposite of Las Vegas.

Pandagon:

They are ex-felons. In that they are free. In that they have served their time. In that whatever transgression, they made, they have paid their debt to society, and as such their very basic rights as American citizens are due them.

One can argue that ex-felons who committed violent crimes shouldn't be able to own guns. But what is the argument that those who aren't imprisoned any longer should no longer be allowed the franchise?