5 AM. Suburban New Jersey. 2000 people lined up at Best Buy.

Go. Go now. You're already late. Buy, buy, buy, people. Don't stop. Shop til you sweat. Shop til you drop. Don't even wait until morning, in fact. Go, as "a growing number of shoppers like Sean Humphreys" did, straight from Turkey Dinner.

No pie for you.

We Americans sure are religious, but no one lines up at 5 AM to meet with the Lord.

Macy's, on the other hand? I'm there. Got my coffee mug, my thermos, a warm blanket and my VISA.

Fighting with others to get me a Playstation?

Priceless...

Buy, people. Buy. It makes you happy. It makes you better. How else to measure the worth of a person than by what he buys you? Support the war. Support the economy. America's depending on you, people.

It's the alter of Wal-Mart. Of K-Mart. Martha says, "Step right up." It's a good thing...

It's the Spectacle of Shopping. The "permanent opium war." (That's not me; that's DeBord. But what does he know? He's a damn Marxist.) Gotta have it. You're deficient. You need it. Skin cream, face cream. Scrape it, scrub it, fix it, blend it, hide it. Download it, upload it. Show it off to your friends. Don't fix -- buy new. Don't wash -- buy new. You're outdated, remember.

Outdated? Can't have that. Now, where did I put that charge card...?

Here's an idea: Buy Nothing today.

Enjoy your turkey. Talk to your kids. Read a book.

Unpatriotic, for sure. Subversive? Yep.

Priceless, in fact...

OK, who's cooking? Whatcha making?

How about stuffing -- Bread? Rice? Sausage? What's the best?

And how come so many people like the canned cranberry sauce more than the real thing???

National Public Radio recently managed to get tapes of Combatant Status Review Tribunals from the government; here is a story summarizing what they heard.

The story indicates that the reviews proceed by no formal procedures, suspects are provided no representation, and while they may call witnesses, no apparent effort is made to locate and bring anyone, so that the few witnesses called are other detainees. One detainee requested that the panel examine the trail transcript from a Bosnian court that found them not guilty of the terrorism allegations that led to his capture and transfer from Bosnia to Guantánamo Bay; there is no indication that the request was honored.

The tapes also showed what was already suspected, that the tribunals are relying on secret evidence that detainees cannot review. Says Mark Denbeaux, a Seton Hall Law Professor who reviewed the tapes:

 

"They relied instead on secret evidence that was classified," Denbeaux says. "And the government's procedure was, anything in that secret evidence was presumed to be valuable and valid. And then the detainee was given the opportunity to rebut the secret evidence. But he was never told what the secret evidence was."

This presents a rather rich dilemma: detainees are allowed to rebut evidence that they are given no knowledge of; depending on the specific facts in evidence, being in a position to meaningfully rebut the evidence could be taken to indicate sufficient knowledge of the alleged acts or plot to indicate participation in them. Trying to prove your innocence: the ultimate indication of a guilty man.

Shorter New York Times --

Marshall Wittmann: Whore.