Turkish religious scholars are pouring over the Hadith -- a collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, and the second-most sacred text in Islam after the Koran -- with an eye towards a radical modernization.

From the NYT:

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.

The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 adult Hispanic men is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 adult black men is, too, as is one in nine black men ages 20 to 34.

China has 1.5 million people in prison -- and with 1.3 billion people, slightly more than four times the population of the U.S.

When you're out-incarcerating an authoritarian country like China, I can only say, "wow."

From The Globe and Mail:

An attempt to seize a Toronto freelance writer's notes has erupted into a court battle pitting journalistic principle against the fate of a man accused of first-degree murder.

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I was in St. Lawrence Market earlier this afternoon where I heard some 20-something woman tell her friend that she thought of Alberta as a separate country.

I shaketh my head.

CBC Radio's Mike Hornbrook reported this morning that the normally e-loquacious Conrad Black is not responding to e-mails these days.

And Black appears to be taking efforts to avoid being photographed in the waning days of his pre-incarceration freedom.

Black's lawyers were in court in Chicago on Wednesday. They are arguing for him to allow to remain free on bail awaiting his appeal rather than commence serving his sentence on Monday as scheduled. Black may hear the outcome of that application today.

Sadly, Black wasnt' successful, so the big house looms ever closer.

The Star's David Olive passed along this observation on Feb. 25:

And now, an irony within a paradox wrapped in an enigma:

Journalist Doug Bell, who blogged impartially on the Conrad Black trial last year for Toronto Life, has come upon a recent, resigned observation by Himself in the Irish press: "The place [prison] I have been assigned to is relatively good and if I do go there, they will ask me to teach, but I guess it's an elite occupation in a prison," Black said. "It's like back to boarding school, without, one dares to assume, the tedium and indignity of corporal punishment." As he made clear in his mid-1990s memoir, Black regarded many of his Upper Canada College instructors as kapos.

Not sure what's more retch-worthy here: that Black always places himself on the most elite plane that circumstances allow; or his implication that outside of prison, teaching – a vocation of more critical importance to a healthy society than, say, investment banking – is very much sub-elite.