Chessani said he had concluded that insurgents had staged a "complex attack" that began with a roadside bomb, followed by a small-arms ambush intended to provoke the Marines to fire into houses where civilians were hiding.

Because of that conclusion, he said, he saw no reason to investigate, or ask how many women and children had been killed.

Marine officer saw Haditha deaths as normal: Post
Sat Aug 19, 2006 1:26 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Marine officer who commanded the battalion involved in the deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha in November did not consider the incident unusual and did not initiate an inquiry, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Black New York frets the changing face of Harlem
Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:00 AM ET
By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nick Bunning represents either the greatest threat or the greatest hope for Harlem, New York's famous, predominantly black neighborhood.

Bunning is an architect who restores Harlem townhouses to their former grandeur. His work is part of a construction boom that is remaking Harlem, now one of the more desirable places to live in New York's hot property market.

He's a threat.

For Bunning, 47 and white, however many wealthier people move in, Harlem will still retain its character.

I'm convinced the next nuclear explosion that kills people will be set off by Israel. At which point Red State America will lose it's goddamn mind as it realizes THEY are the ones who are Left Behind.

That's not a joke.

Israel seizes deputy Palestinian PM in W.Bank
Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:27 AM ET
By Wafa Amr

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel seized Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Naser al-Shaer, a top official of the Hamas militant group, at his home in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

Hours later, a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli soldier in a driveby shooting near the West Bank city of Nablus, the army and medics said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Reminds me of President Carter's attempt to get the hostages out of Iran...a failure. 

After the gunbattle, the Israelis pulled out under cover of fierce air strikes.

Sneaking in by helicopter isn't as easy as it looks, is it? And you didn't much like what happened when you didn't sneak...

Israel raid in Lebanon tests U.N. truce
Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:40 AM ET
By Nadim Ladki

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Helicopter-borne Israeli commandos raided a Hizbollah bastion in eastern Lebanon on Saturday in the first major attack since a U.N.-backed truce halted Israel's 34-day war with the Shi'ite Muslim group.

Mich. minority program in federal court
August 17, 2006

DETROIT --Witnesses testified in federal court Thursday that they were tricked into signing or collecting signatures on petitions to put a proposal to ban some affirmative action programs on the November ballot.

State courts so far have sided with the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, whose proposal to ban race and gender preferences in government hiring and public-university admissions is to be put to voters Nov. 7.

Joseph Reed of Detroit testified that when he applied as a petition circulator, "I was told it was for keeping affirmative action, that they were trying to get rid of it and this was a way to keep it."

The reaction to Mr. Jackson's particular phrasing of a particular state of affairs reminded me of a couple other presentations at the Conference of the Humanities Institute and the Human Rights Institute of the University of Connecticut that caught my eye. They are on the way the experiences of oppressed people are translated for consumption by the wealthier world.

Chinese ambassador says U.S. should 'shut up' over Beijing's arms spending
Updated 8/17/2006 9:58 PM ET

LONDON (AP) — The United States should "shut up" with its concerns about China's growing military spending because the increase is no threat, a Chinese ambassador said Thursday.

Sha Zukang, China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that American concerns about his country's growing military might were misguided.

"It's better for the U.S. to shut up," Sha said. "Keep quiet. It's much, much better."

Sha said the world need not worry about China's growing economic and military might because "China basically is a peace-loving nation."

Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb author: Nick Schou asin: 1560259302 binding: Paperback list price: $14.95 USD amazon price: $10.17 USD

Unlike the media pariahs who came after "Dark Alliance" — most notably fabulists Stephen Glass of the New Republic and Jayson Blair of the New York Times — Webb didn't invent facts. Contrary to the wholly discredited reporting on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction by New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Webb was the only victim of his mistakes. Nobody else died because of his work, and no one, either at the CIA or the Mercury News, is known to have lost so much as a paycheck. The editors involved with the story, including Managing Editor David Yarnold, survived the scandal to receive generous promotions.

The CIA-Contra-Crack Connection, 10 Years Later
Reporter Gary Webb was the victim of his own hyperbole, but he never got credit for what he got right.
By Nick Schou

The 'Real World' of Sen. Allen
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, August 18, 2006; A21

Okay, I'm willing to believe the senator is ignorant of primate taxonomy and Belgian slang -- he's all about good-ol'-boy bonhomie, not Renaissance-man erudition. I don't buy the rest of his explanation, though -- that he was trying to refer to Sidarth's haircut, which he thought was a mohawk. I also don't buy his claim that he meant no offense.

I think he was playing to the crowd by singling out the one person who didn't belong there, not because he was a spy from a rival campaign -- shadowing is standard campaign practice these days -- but because he looked "foreign" (my word, not his). I think he came up with "Macaca" as a kind of generic name for a foreigner who appeared to be from the Indian subcontinent, or someplace over there where people have dark skin and straight black hair. Why else would he add the "welcome to America" bit if not to emphasize Sidarth's apparent foreignness?

Ah, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew...

In the interview, published yesterday in The Los Angeles Sentinel, a weekly, Mr. Young said that Wal-Mart “should” displace mom-and-pop stores in urban neighborhoods.

“You see those are the people who have been overcharging us,” he said of the owners of the small stores, “and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs.”

The state of things being what it is, you had to resign. I understand. But let's be real.

Winning the Peace with Hammer and Nails
Now that the shooting has stopped, Hizballah is moving fast to help rebuild southern Lebanon
By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS/BEIRUT

For the past two days, Ali Al Tawil has been trudging around the rubble of Haret Hreik, a Shia neighborhood in southern Beirut, wearing a Hizballah yellow vest and matching baseball cap that says "Jihad of Construction." Armed with only a clipboard, Al Tawil is one of about 1,500 Hizballah civil engineers who have fanned out across the country to survey the damage from over a month of war with Israel. For now, they are simply recording which buildings have been damaged, slightly damaged, or obliterated. More detailed surveys will soon follow to determine what repairs need to be done and what buildings need to be torn down. "Your mind can't comprehend the destruction," said Al Tawil.

Nevermind the headline... 

Bombs Aimed at G.I.’s in Iraq Are Increasing

“Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,” said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.

“Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect,” the expert said, “but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.”

 

...because there's a whole lot on the other side of the link.

...a federal court in Michigan -- the first to rule on the legality of the President's NSA program -- just rejected all of the administration's defenses for eavesdropping in violation of FISA, effectively finding that the administration has been engaged in deliberate criminal acts by eavesdropping without judicial approval. And as I documented previously, Hamdan itself independently compels rejection of the administration's only defenses to its violations of FISA. Eavesdropping in violation of FISA is a federal crime, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine (50 U.S.C. 1809).

Thus, judicial decisions are starting to emerge which come close to branding the conduct of Bush officials as criminal. FISA is a criminal law. The administration has been violating that law on purpose, with no good excuse. Government officials who violate the criminal law deserve to be -- and are required to be -- held accountable just like any other citizens who violate the law. That is a basic, and critically important, principle in our system of government. These are not abstract legalistic questions being decided. They amount to rulings that our highest government officials have been systematically breaking the law -- criminal laws -- in numerous ways. And no country which lives under the rule of law can allow that to happen with impunity.

in re: Breaking Through Adoption’s Racial Barriers I said:

You have to wonder what made them say they specifically want a Black child. 'What do these people think they are doing?' is exactly the question that occurs to me, but it's an honest inquiry...not a challenge.

EL at My Amusement Park answered.

Conservatives Without Conscience author: John Dean asin: 0670037745 binding: Hardcover list price: $25.95 USD amazon price: $17.13 USD

I doubt John Dean needs the money, but I picked up a copy of this book onthe way home from the comic store.

I was really wondering what was up with Sensenbrenner...who could take a question (see the previous post) like that seriously...but of course his constituents do. Rep. Sensenbrenner is no fool, no matter how foolish his questions.

Then I remembered the book mentioned some research on authoritarian personalities. I want to find that stuff. Actually tried finding it on the basis of info Mr. Dean dropped on Keith Olbermann. Failed miserably.

I read most of the introduction on the ferry and bus. Nasty little fuckers, those Movement Conservatives...

I got caught earlier today by, of all things, the House Judiciary Committee's immigration hearings. I hadn't seen any before.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is took no prisoners. Cool. I should post some video of the sister.

But the post is made in honor of Rep. James Sensenbrenner. He got silly, and I don't think it turned out quite as well as he hoped.

Let's be REAL clear and drop a transcipt, because baby bitch-slapped Nonsensenbrenner.

You know what? Shannon reminds me of my daughter.

On blackfolk, we learn that Harry Potter fandom has a lot of annoying plagiarists. I have this to say to them: DON'T DO FANFIC IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO WRITE YOUR OWN CRAP. If you need to copy and paste from someone else, you don't need to have your story on the internet. Borrow a copy of Writing Down the Bones from the library so you can learn how to write your own stuff(learning to write ideas from your own head into your computer helps, people!). Try the famous Strunk and White and the dictionary as well because everyone likes correctly spelled and grammatically correct stories better than stories typed like this: sAILOR cUTEY WAS like OMG, WTF!!3!1

George shipped me a copy of this press release. I just emailed the guys to see if I can get one of those pre-release copies of the article.

NOLA is being treated much like Iraq in that its seen as fertile ground for any number of experiments. I really want to see what's going on.

LATER: Damn, that was quick...give me a couple of days with this thing.

After Katrina, School Reforms Make New Orleans Most Chartered City in U.S.

STANFORD--One year after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has become one of the most chartered cities in America, with nearly 70 percent of its public school students in schools of choice, according to a new report in the forthcoming issue of Education Next, on newsstands September 1.

This is The New Republic. 

A defense of Ann Coulter: Weenie Roast. by Elspeth Reeve

Don't click through...it's a subscriber-only link anyway. 

The unmourned end of libertarian politics
Published: August 16 2006 19:40 | Last updated: August 16 2006 19:40

The most epochal event in world politics since the cold war has occurred – and few people have noticed. I am not referring to the conflict in Iraq or Lebanon or the campaign against terrorism.

It is the utter and final defeat of the movement that has shaped the politics of the US and other western democracies for several decades: the libertarian counter-revolution...

For nearly a decade, the Republican party has controlled Washington and most state legislatures. And yet every big proposal of the libertarians has been rejected by the public and their elected representatives. Their only temporary achievement has been tax cuts, which are likely to be rolled back at least in part to reduce the deficit in the years ahead. With the disappearance as a significant force of the libertarian right, the centre of gravity inevitably will shift somewhat left in matters of political economy. But we will not see a restoration of the mid-20th century pattern because there will be no revival of the socialist left. The demise of both socialism and libertarianism pretty much limits the field to moderate social democracy and big-government conservatism. The limitation of options on the horizontal left-right spectrum is accompanied, however, by a growing vertical, top-bottom divide between an elite committed to globalisation and mass immigration and a populist, nationalist majority. If this replaces the older horizontal left-right divide, then we may see a third, “third way” – one which positions itself between the crudest forms of populism and utopian forms of transnationalism.

The NY Times does Breaking Through Adoption’s Racial Barriers, three pages worth of a touchy topic.

When Martina Brockway and Mike Timble, a white couple in Chicago, decided to adopt a child, Ms. Brockway went to an adoption agency presentation at a black church to make it clear they wanted an African-American baby.

Their biological daughter, Rumeur, 3, is accumulating black dolls in preparation for her new brother or sister. Black-themed children’s books like “Please, Baby, Please” by the filmmaker Spike Lee and his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, share shelf space with Elmo and Dr. Seuss.

But the couple’s decision provoked some uneasy responses. One of Mr. Timble’s white friends asked, “Aren’t there any white kids available?”

Ms. Brockway’s black friends were supportive. “But,” she said, “I also sensed that there was maybe something they weren’t saying.”

Mr. Timble cut in. “Like maybe they were thinking, ‘What do these people think they are doing?’ ”

My personal position on this is, stay da hell out of it. But this quote does touch on just about every issue I considered before backing away.

Two years ago, Walker said, while giving a lecture to 500 AIDS physicians from around the country, he asked if any had a patient who fit that definition.

"Over half the hands went up. So I thought, 'It has to be true,' " he recalled Wednesday.

AIDS Study Focuses on 'Elite Controllers'
In Unusual Cases, People Are Infected With the Virus but Do Not Become Ill
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 17, 2006; A08

...Elite controllers are people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) whose bodies have kept the microbe at undetectable levels in their bloodstreams without treatment. They probably account for about 1 out of 300 people infected with HIV but have been largely invisible to AIDS researchers because they do not get sick, do not qualify for clinical studies and in many cases have very little contact with the health-care system.

"In the insurance coverage debate over wind versus water, Judge Senter's ruling has taken much of the wind, literally and figuratively out of the plaintiff attorney's argument," Ernie Csiszar, president of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, said in a prepared statement. "Judge Senter has made it very clear that the flood exclusion applies to storm surge."

...If upheld, it could save the industry -- and cost policyholders -- tens of billions of dollars in unpaid claims.

Storm Surge Is Flood, Judge Says
Standard Insurance Won't Cover Damage
By Kathleen Day
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 16, 2006; D01

A federal judge sided with the insurance industry yesterday and against water-battered victims of Hurricane Katrina by ruling that storm-induced surges are floods and therefore not covered by standard homeowner policies.

Card Facts
From late fees to interest rates, ten things you should know about your credit card—and may not find in the fine print.

Read it.

Declaring you're the competition doesn't mean you're really in the game. 

Promises, even the best-intentioned, can’t compete with the visible aid Hezbollah is already delivering, in some cases house to house. Washington’s pledges must be quickly translated into tangible on-the-ground help or Hezbollah will clinch the battle for Lebanese hearts and minds even before the peacekeepers arrive. The American aid bureaucracy proved that it can move quickly after the Asian tsunami of 2004. The same sense of urgency needs to be brought to bear now.

Already Falling Behind

The home page of the Conference of the Humanities Institute and the Human Rights Institute of the University of Connecticut has each conference speaker's abstract .

Peter Balakian is the author of Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past which I will likely not read. But he faced a challenge that sounds familiar.

How can a family memoir that deals with the memory of genocide create an "an appealing idea of common humanity”? (The phrase is from the conference description).

How, indeed. And it's even more difficult when that ill is assumed by all and sundry to be entirely your fault.

What would Israel do if, in order to get all the troops they need for the international force to patrol Lebanon, roughly 4/5th of that force is Arab?

Suspect held overseas in JonBenet Ramsey slaying
Associated Press
Published on: 08/17/06

WASHINGTON — A man arrested in Thailand is being held in connection with the slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, U.S. law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Federal officials familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the man was being held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges.

The girl was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family's home in Boulder, Colo., on Dec. 26, 1996.

Law enforcement officials from Boulder were flying to Bangkok to present Thai authorities with documents in the slaying of the 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant, officials in Washington said. They asked to remain anonymous pending an announcement in Colorado.

According to congressional testimony, the CIA sees Gates' intention to bring improvements in health and learning to the poorest corners of the world as the most serious threat to American foreign interests since the wave of independence-granting that plagued Africa in the 1960s and '70s.

U.S. Dedicates $64 Billion To Undermining Gates Foundation Efforts
August 15, 2006 | Issue 42•33

WASHINGTON, DC—The Bush Administration unveiled a new $64 billion spending package Monday for a joint CIA–Pentagon program aimed at neutralizing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's global humanitarian network.

"The fight against Gates will not be easy, will not be quick, and will not be without enormous cost," said Director Of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte of the new program, which calls for the creation of a new $20 billion counter-philanthropy unit aimed at punishing those countries that accept or use, directly or indirectly, any financial support from the Gates Foundation.

Humanitarian Responses to Narratives of Inflicted Suffering
October 13-15, 2006
Conference of the Humanities Institute and the Human Rights Institute of the University of Connecticut

Conference Organizers: Richard D. Brown, Humanities Institute and
Richard A. Wilson, Human Rights Institute

Introduction

This international conference will analyze humanitarian responses to private and public narratives of politicized suffering that has been inflicted by states, private political groups and also by more structural causes such as apartheid, colonialism, and social conflict. The main themes of this conference are: first, to understand the character, form and voice of the narratives themselves; and second, to explain how and why some narratives of suffering become part of political movements of solidarity, whereas others do not.