Professor Says American Publisher Turned Him Down - "Most scholars, policymakers and journalists know that "the whole subject of the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is a third-rail issue," he said. "Publishers understand that if they publish a piece like ours it would cause them all sorts of problems.""
A balance sheet for America's Iraq - "Three years after the war, one should ask, who has benefited most from the fall of Saddam? Ironically, the answers prove the exact opposite of what the Americans believed in 2002-03. The first and ultimate victor is the Islamic Republic of Iran. What more could Iran want than the downfall of a dictator against whom it had fought for eight years in the 1980s, and his replacement with Shi'ite politicians who had been created by and in Iran in the 1980s? The mullahs of Iran once viewed Iraq as a dangerous and aggressive neighboring country, ruled by a hostile and brutal dictatorship. Today, Iraq is viewed as a friendly neighbor, ruled by loyal allies who want to advance Shi'ite nationalism, export the Islamic revolution and strengthen Iranian-Iraqi relations. ... Third on the victory list - much to the surprise of the Americans - are some of the Arab regimes that neighbor Iraq. These countries were expected to collapse, according to the domino theory, once the Iraqi Ba'athists were toppled and replaced by a true democracy. Had democracy been successful in Iraq, then these regimes would have faced the wrath of their own people, who would have aspired to create similar democracies in their own countries. But Iraq today is an ultimate failure, giving ammunition to Arab regimes that are telling activists in their own countries: "Look at what the Americans achieved in Iraq. Is this the democracy you want? It is a democracy where 30,000 people have been killed, by war and sectarian violence.""
Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Atrocity in Baghdad - "In the last month, hundreds of men have been kidnapped, tortured and executed in Baghdad. As Iraqi and American leaders struggle to avert a civil war, the bodies keep piling up. The city's homicide rate has tripled from 11 to 33 a day, military officials said. The period from March 7 to March 21 was typically brutal: at least 191 corpses, many mutilated, surfaced in garbage bins, drainage ditches, minibuses and pickup trucks. ... What frightens Iraqis most about these gangland-style killings is the impunity. According to reports filed by family members and more than a dozen interviews, many men were taken in daylight, in public, with witnesses all around. Few cases, if any, have been investigated. Part of the reason may be that most victims are Sunnis, and there is growing suspicion that they were killed by Shiite death squads backed by government forces in a cycle of sectarian revenge. This allegation has been circulating in Baghdad for months, and as more Sunnis turn up dead, more people are inclined to believe it." -- Ethnic cleansing?
Supreme Court justice said to slam detainee rights - ""War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Scalia said in the talk at the University of Freiberg, according to Newsweek. "Give me a break.""
Matthews: "They don't want the whole truth out and that's the fact." - "By the way, the president said this week that he wants the whole truth about what is going on in Iraq, the whole truth and that the media isn't telling the whole story. I'll tell you what we are not telling. We are not showing pictures of the twenty five hundred bodies coming back because they won't let us show the pictures. They don't want the whole truth out and that's the fact."
Pentagon stays the course with laser weapon - "The threat of cancellation no longer looms over the Pentagon's Airborne Laser effort, but senior program officials say they are taking nothing for granted as they prepare for a missile-intercept demonstration in 2008."
Be worried, be very worried - "No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us. ... So much environmental collapse has at last awakened much of the world, particularly the 141 nations that have ratified the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions. The Bush administration, however, has shown no willingness to address the warming crisis in a serious way and Congress has not been much more encouraging."
Rising seas raising alarms - "Roiling oceans would redraw coastlines from Cape Cod to New Orleans, threatening low-lying cities with rising sea levels. Arizona and the West would grow hotter and drier, with shorter winters that would produce less runoff and further stress water supplies."
Size of L.A. March Surprises Authorities - " More than 500,000 protesters _ demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border _ surprised police who estimated the crowd size using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said."
Colo. Police Use MySpace to ID Suspects - "Detectives used profiles posted on the MySpace social networking Web site to identify six suspects in a rape and robbery that began when a party turned violent, leaving blood "in almost every room of the house," officials said."
Scientists Find Skull of Human Ancestor - "Scientists in northeastern Ethiopia said Saturday that they have discovered the skull of a small human ancestor that could be a missing link between the extinct Homo erectus and modern man."
Lawmakers try to accommodate consensual teen sex - "A Senate committee has taken up a House-passed bill that seeks to decriminalize sex between consenting teenagers, so long as they're both at least 15 and within three years in age."
Gas tax on miles, not gallons, tested - "Oregon is testing the idea of collecting highway funds through a tax on miles driven, rather than gasoline consumed. ... The test program uses a global positioning system to track miles driven, using a black box to calculate how many miles are clocked in-state, out of state and during rush hour."
U.S. Planning Base on Moon To Prepare for Trip to Mars - "For the first time since 1972, the United States is planning to fly to the moon, but instead of a quick, Apollo-like visit, astronauts intend to build a permanent base and live there while they prepare what may be the most ambitious undertaking in history -- putting human beings on Mars."
Quote of the Day
"It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated."
~ Alec Bourne, A Doctor's Creed
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