Month: October 2007

Another sign of some African-Americans’ hostility to Obama. This blow has got to hurt. Did Bill get to him?

From Newsweek:

Editor’s Note: In our print edition, several captions for the photographs accompanying this report were inadvertently transposed. Martin Kramer’s photograph is identified as Norman Podhoretz; Daniel Pipes’s photograph is identified as Kramer; Peter Berkowitz’s photograph is identified as Pipes; Nile Gardiner’s photograph is identified as Berkowitz’s and Podhoretz’s photograph is identified as Gardiner’s. NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.

I hear all sorts of stories of internal warfare at the CIA over the order to subject prisoners to treatment more suitable to the Soviet Union than the United States. Ken Silverstein adds this nugget:

[I]t turns out that a former senior CIA legal official quit in protest over the administration’s use of “enhanced interrogations.” This official, whose name I have promised not to publish, previously worked as a deputy IG for investigations under Frederick Hitz, who served as CIA IG between 1990 and 1998. From there, the official moved on the CIA’s Office of General Counsel.

What’s interesting is that this official was generally known as something of a hardliner. I haven’t been able to pin down the date of his departure, which may have occurred a year ago or more. However, the sources tell me he couldn’t stomach what he deemed to be abuses by the Bush Administration and stepped down from his post.

                                                                                                              

It may have been a hoax.

Marc Ambinder gives Clinton’s arguments a fair hearing.

A reader writes:

So, you doubt Man-Bear-Pig?

And yet, mankind has known of this menace since at least 13,000 BC. How do you explain THAT?

(OK, so it says he’s half-stag half-man –  same difference – MAN-BEAR-PIG!!!)

A fascinating study finds that poor urban kids do no better in private than in public high schools, when all other factors are taken into account. The exception? Catholic parochial schools, run by the Jesuits, with considerable autonomy. It doesn’t surprise me.

Well, the good news from the Shiite population has to be balanced by the grim UN report – delayed till after last month’s Congressional debate at the request of Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It’s grueling. The treatment of prisoners in Iraq is now almost as bad as under Saddam, and it is ultimately America’s responsibility:

Among the most serious issues raised in the report is the treatment of detainees. The U.N. agency found that as of June, 44,325 detainees were in Iraqi or U.S. custody, an increase of nearly 4,000 people since April. Many of them, it said, remained in detention for months without having their cases reviewed or with limited access to legal counsel. The report also expressed concerns about overcrowding and poor hygiene in detention centers, particularly pretrial holding cells run by the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. The agency said it "remained gravely concerned at continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees."

"In addition to routine beatings with hosepipes, cables and other implements, the methods cited included prolonged suspension from the limbs in contorted and painful positions for extended periods, sometimes resulting in dislocation of the joints; electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body; the breaking of limbs; forcing detainees to sit on sharp objects, causing serious injury and heightening the risk of infection; and severe burns to parts of the body through the application of heated implements," the report said.

If any of us who supported the war had been told this would be the result four years later, we would surely have said: not on these terms, not by these methods.

Har Homa Settlement, Jerusalem, 11 am.

In Russia, internet spammers get assassinated:

Who hated Tolstokozhev so much as to hire a hit man to assasinate him? Well, I guess you have about one billion e-mail users to suspect. Tolstokozhev was a famous spammer who sent millions of e-mail promoting viagra, cialis, penis enlargement pills and other medications. Links in these e-mails usually led to some pharmacy shop, which paid Tolstokozhev a share of its revenue. This is a well known affiliate scheme employed by spammers worldwide. Tolstokozhev is estimated to be responsible for up to 30% percent of all viagra and penis enlargement related spam. … How profitable is spam? Well, the authorities say that Tolstokozhev has likely made more than $2 million in 2007 alone. (In comparison: average russian monthly salary is $400).

Jealousy? In today’s mafia-run Russia, who knows? A rough translation of Tolstokozhev is "thick skin."