Birmingham Blues

In the Southern hamlet of Valdosta, Georgia, a Muslim woman was apparently barred from entering a courtroom to contest a speeding ticket because she had on a head scarf. The story was in my morning paper and probably is on al.com, but I like this Pravda link because it has a picture, so you can see just whut [...]

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Human rights?  What human rights?  If W says you’re an enemy combatant, your ass is off to Gitmo.  Do not pass GO, do not collect $200, and do not expect to see the light of day again.  No appeals, no recourse.  And the definition of “enemy combatant” has been expanded to mean pretty much anything [...]

Bush (”I’m a uniter, not a divider”) used his prime time 9/11 speech last night to try to justify the war with Iraq.  Even though he admits Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.  Except when he claims that it does.  In related news, Americans report increased incidence of whiplash.

CNN reports four attackers killed, one wounded, no one in the embassy injured.  Not a very effective effort, apparently.  Thank God.

A federal judge ruled today that the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered that it end immediately.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency’s program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation [...]

Just turned on MSNBC. British authorities have foiled a plot to blow up planes flying from Great Britain to the US. The plan, apparently, was to bring liquid explosives onto planes in soft drink bottles and detonate them with iPods. Well, and other things too, but basically it was that simple. [...]

You know, before those Abu Ghraib pictures, I might have tended to doubt a detainee’s story that he had been tortured by being thrust inside a cage of lions. Donald Rumsfeld says the account “seems quite farfetched”, surely one of the more straightforward pronouncements he has made in recent years.
“They took me behind the [...]

AP has the story, as do all the TV news channels. CNN is reporting that the police have two individuals in custody and that one has claimed to have planted a device in his car. I’m so far off the scale for cynicism that my first thought was, “Hmmm — I wonder if [...]

Here we go again.
UPDATE: The tunnels are reopening. CNN still doesn’t know anything, and neither do we.