Holiday week blog linkage

As Grits' posting and blog reading has been light during the holiday season, I find myself today playing catch up. Rather than reinvent the wheel on several important stories, let me refer readers to recent posts at these blogs that merit your attention:

• The Back Gate
• Texas Prison Bidness
• Sentencing Law & Policy
• Simple Justice

More important stuff there, certainly, than I have time to write about. Finally, I should link in particular to I Was The State, if only in thanks for the joy I derived from the excellent C.S. Lewis quote Robert scrounged up for the holidays on the tyranny of good intentions:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Amen. May we all resolve in the new year to resist both brands of tyranny.