This kid was 19 when he started. A mere baby…….

A New York Times reporter was shot and killed today while working in Baghdad, just 24 hours after two Reuters staff were killed in the city.
Khalid Hassan, 23, was one of the longest’serving local journalists for the New York Times’ Baghdad bureau, working as a reporter and translator since 2003. He was of Palestinian descent.

Yesterday, Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh were killed by gunfire as they covered a clash between insurgents and the US military in eastern Baghdad.

Hassan was shot while driving to work this morning in the Seiydia district of the capital. In a phone call to his office, Hassan reported that a security checkpoint had been set up on his route to work and that he would find an alternative route.

Hassan later called his mother and said he had been shot, although the details of the incident are not known.

More at the Guardian

The bullshit just goes on and on and on and on……….. hearings hearings and more hearings and no consequences for these evil bastards.

WASHINGTON, July 13 (UPI) - A House committee will hold further hearings into the 2004 friendly-fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Friday the House Oversight Committee, which he chairs, will hold a hearing Aug. 1 into the Defense Departments handling of Tillmans death.

The committee heard testimony in April on the death of Tillman, who left the NFL Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. U.S. officials initially said Tillman died in a firefight with the enemy, but later conceded he was killed by his own men.

Waxman and Ranking Member Tom Davis, R-Va., sent a letter to the White House Friday objecting to the withholding of documents the committee requested after the April hearing.

The White House in June invoked executive privilege in notifying Waxman and Davis it was withholding some documents.

The main focus of the committee's investigation is to examine what the White House and the leadership of the Department of Defense knew about Cpl. Tillman's death and when they knew it, Waxman and Davis wrote. Unfortunately, the document production from the White House sheds virtually no light on these matters.

Source

from Earth Times . Org

Sydney - Australian police chased an army armored vehicle rampaging early Saturday through Sydney suburbs and have charged the 45-year-old driver with a range of offenses including destruction of mobile phone towers and an electricity substation. Police spotted the armored personnel carrier (APC) demolishing an electricity substation and then followed it for 90 minutes as it wrecked mobile telephone towers and telecommunications infrastructure.

The mayhem was not halted until the APC stalled and the driver was taken into custody.

It’s not known whether the man was a soldier and had commandeered the tank or whether it was stolen for a joy ride.

By BRENDAN LOWE
Time Magazine

The pending execution of Troy Anthony Davis, scheduled to take place on July 17, is raising serious questions about his guilt - and about the Newt Gingrich-era federal law that has limited his appeals options and prevented him, say his supporters, from getting a fair shake.

Davis, 38, a former coach in the Savannah Police Athletic League who had signed up for the Marines, was convicted in the 1989 murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, a Savannah, Ga., police officer. MacPhail was off-duty when he was shot dead in a Savannah parking lot while responding to an assault. Davis was at the scene of the crime, and an acquaintance who was there with him accused Davis of being the shooter. Since his conviction in 1991, Davis has seen each of his state and federal appeals fail. But in the court of public opinion, Davis presents a compelling argument. Seven of the nine main witnesses whose testimony led to his conviction have since recanted. The murder weapon has never been found, and there is no physical evidence linking the crime to Davis, who has asserted his innocence throughout.

Earlier this month, two of the jurors who sentenced Davis to death signed sworn affidavits saying that based on the recanted testimony, he should not be executed. “In light of this new evidence,” wrote one juror, “I have genuine concerns about the fairness of Mr. Davis’ death sentence.”

One of Davis’ major obstacles has been the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), legislation championed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as part of his Contract with America and signed by former president Bill Clinton. The act was passed in 1996 as a way of reforming what Gingrich called “the current interminable, frivolous appeals process.” Its major provisions reduced new trials for convicted criminals and sped up their sentences by restricting a federal court’s ability to judge whether a state court had correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

Remember this headline from last Tuesday?..

U.S. Senate panel moves to cut off funding for Cheney in flap with Dems over executive order

Nebraskan Democrat, Ben Nelson, decided today to pull a “one-eighty”…

In the Senate Appropriations Committee, the panel approved an amendment by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., to strike language in the Financial Services Appropriations bill that would have barred funding for Cheney’s office until he complies with an executive order Democrats argue compels him to provide information on classified data.

The vote was 15-14 after Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., switched his position from earlier in the week and backed Brownback after a letter from White House Counsel Fred Fielding Thursday clarified the administration’s position.

Brownback said that cutting off the vice president’s funding might set a precedent for cutting off Supreme Court funds when they made a decision lawmakers oppose.

“There is a separation of powers that has served us well, and this is a line we should not cross,” Brownback said.

(Peter Cohn, CongressDaily)

Full article, including today’s big win for the National Rifle Association, can be found at GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE

Rule used to be, your house payment or rent shouldn’t be more than 1/4 of your salary. Things are bad. And growing worse all the time.

WASHINGTON - Growing numbers of the nation’s poorest households are using more than half their earnings for rent while waiting years for federal housing assistance that may never come.

The phenomenon is largely playing out in urban and suburban locales, but has exploded recently in rural areas as coveted rental assistance becomes harder to get due to high demand and scant funding from Congress.

The lack of affordable homes for poor families is the nation’s No. 1 housing problem and undermines the stability and security of families and communities nationwide.

A new report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development describes the startling growth of the problem since 2003. It found that 6 million impoverished households used most of their monthly earnings for housing or lived in substandard conditions in 2005. That’s an increase of 16 percent, or 817,000 families, since 2003.

The number of rural families facing this dilemma grew by 51 percent to nearly 1 million households over the same two-year span.

More at McClatchy

MIAMI, Florida (AP) — For a star defendant whose name is known around the world, Jose Padilla has become almost a bit player in his terrorism support trial — and some observers say the federal government may not have proved its case against him.

Former Chicago gang member Jose Padilla is accused of providing material support to al Qaeda.

Prosecutors rested their case Friday after nine weeks, 22 witnesses and dozens of FBI wiretap intercepts played at trial, most of them in Arabic with written translations for jurors.

Defense lawyers for Padilla and his two co-defendants begin presenting their case next week.

Much is at stake for the government, which once heralded Padilla’s arrest as a success in the country’s war on terror, accused him in an al Qaeda “dirty bomb” plot, and held him for 3½ years as an enemy combatant.

Padilla’s voice was heard on only seven intercepts, a tiny fraction of the 300,000 collected by the FBI during the nearly decade-long investigation.

Padilla was never linked to any specific acts of terrorism or murder and, unlike his co-defendants, he was not accused of using purported code words like “tourism” for “jihad” or “eggplant” for “rocket-propelled grenade.”

“Although everyone has been referring to this case as the Padilla trial, the government’s case against Padilla has been pretty thin,” said David O. Markus, a Miami defense attorney who has frequently written about the case on his legal blog. “I’m sure the government lawyers are sweating quite a bit right now.”

More at CNN

I don’t know how it will happen, but bet me it will be the Republicans who get us out of Iraq. They will be the heroes when it’s all said and done….prior to the 08 election.

The surge has moved us backwards. From the article:

By ANNE FLAHERTY and PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush by mid-October to come up with a plan to dramatically narrow the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq.

The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Bush, was put forward Friday by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar and it came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops.

“Given continuing high levels of violence in Iraq and few manifestations of political compromise among Iraq’s factions, the optimal outcome in Iraq of a unified, pluralist, democratic government that is able to police itself, protect its borders, and achieve economic development is not likely to be achieved in the near future,” the Warner-Lugar proposal said.

Bush has asked Congress to hold off on demanding a change in the course of the war until September, when the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, delivers a fresh assessment of its progress.

Warner, R-Va., and Lugar, R-Ind., are well regarded within Congress on defense issues. Warner was the longtime chairman of the Armed Services Committee before stepping down last year, while Lugar is the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

The Warner-Lugar proposal states that “American military and diplomatic strategy in Iraq must adjust to the reality that sectarian factionalism is not likely to abate anytime soon and probably cannot be controlled from the top.”

Accordingly, Warner and Lugar say Bush must draft a plan for U.S. troops that would keep them from “policing the civil strife or sectarian violence in Iraq” and focus them instead on protecting Iraq’s borders, targeting terrorists and defending U.S. assets.

More at the AP

By Aly Adair
Associated Content

Myths, legends, and folklore…where would Harry Potter be without them? I wonder if Harry suffers from paraskavedekatriaphobia. What is that?!? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of phobias, and coiner of the term “paraskevidekatriaphobia”, it describes people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th - and according to Dossey, there are about 21 million of us in America. Roughly 8% of our population wants to stay in bed for fear of bad luck on Friday the 13th. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won’t go to work on Friday the 13th; some won’t eat in restaurants; many wouldn’t think of setting a wedding on the date.

Why do we have a fear of Friday the 13th anyway? What started all of the devilish discussion about the freaky Friday, bad luck day? There is a history actually, and according to Jeannie Banks Thomas, director of the folklore program at Utah State University, these kinds of myths and legends were essentially created by one religion demonizing another. One story about Fridays is from as early as the sixth century. Christian missionaries from England traveled to Germany or Russia to stamp out other religions like the Norse goddess Frigg (or Freyja), goddess of sky, love, fertility, and motherhood. As Christianity gained popularity throughout Europe, missionaries demonized her and demoted her to a witch. But, there were some who still believed in the power of Frigg and wanted to remain as her followers. As the Christians continued to shun Frigg even more strongly, her followers started meeting secretly in caves to worship her. This only added to society fearing Frigg and the speculation is that followers gathered in the caves on Fridays. Later, her name was linked to the derivative of the word Friday, which became known as the day of worshiping the witch. The belief that Friday was an evil day followed.

Another story about Friday the 13th comes from the Christian tradition that the number 13 is unlucky. Dan Brown’s, The Da Vinci Code, made it popular to believe that Friday the 13th was the day the Knights Templar were arrested and killed by King Phillip IV. Other’s believe Friday the 13th is unlucky because Judas was the 13th person to attend the Last Supper and Christ was crucified on Friday shortly after the gathering. Some believe if you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil’s luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).

read more at Associated Content