Question: What do these people have (somewhat) in common?
William Hurt (74%)
Robert H. Grubbs (64%)
Billie Jean King (62%)
Daniel Kahneman (58%)
Hafez al-Assad (57%)
Kevin Costner (57%)
Peter O’Toole (55%)
Richard Gere (55%)
Linus Tovalds (54%)
Answer below…
Former General Karpinsky (demoted to Colonel) has an axe to grind: she was made into the scapegoat for Abu Ghraib. Circumstantial evidence is pretty strong that higher-ups who reported directly to Rumsfeld, notably Gen. Miller, were at least as much to blame, but they escaped all responsibility.
How reliable a witness is Karpinsky? Hard to say — but reliable enough to deserve a hearing. Or two: one in the House and one in the Senate, say.
Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general: MADRID (Reuters) – Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison’s former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.
Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain’s El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.
Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.
“The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: “Make sure this is accomplished”,” she told Saturday’s El Pais.
And, of course, Rumsfeld had better not plan any European travel any time soon.
Expect little or no blogging this extended vacation weekend as I try to sleep away this bug that just won’t quit…
This hits the nail on the head:
Racial Profiling at U.S. Airways – TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime Six imams attending a conference in Minneapolis took time to pray at the gate before boarding a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix. A passenger handed a note to a flight attendant pointing out the “6 suspicious Arabic men” on the plane. Disturbed by their “unsettling” behavior — which apparently consisted of praying and asking for seat belt extensions — the crew told the police that the imams needed to be removed. They were escorted from the plane in handcuffs and detained for five hours before authorities conceded that they posed no threat.
U.S. Airways refused to book the imams on another flight to Phoenix. According to the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslims (both passengers and airline employees) have more complaints about U.S. Airways than other airlines. The incident prompted the Council and the NAACP to ask for Congressional hearings on racial profiling in airports.
Can you imagine the outcry from the religious right if six Christian pastors were removed from a flight because they prayed together at the gate? U.S. Airways would be deservedly out of business in a week.
I don’t expect much sympathy for this, but it was so cold out today that I had to wear a sweater. And we’re running the heater in the house this evening. I’m told it could get down to to the low 40s (that’s a few degrees centigrade) tonight.
We do expect a brief annual cold snap, but never this early in the year.
The heirs to donors of a substantial gift to Princeton are suing, claiming that Princeton has misapproprpirated millions intended for the training of foreign service graduates and other activities supporiting the US Government. In fact, the heir allege, Princeton used the foundation to fund the general activities of the Woordrow Wilson School — and for some other things too.
The complaint also alleges various types of self-dealing, sloppy record keeping, and failure to observe the necessary formalities — some of which sound quite damning.
The plaintiffs are running a publicity campaign along side of the lawsuit, and they’ve built a web site to tell their side of the story. Unfortunately, their legal page is mostly one-sided and doesn’t list many of Princeton’s replies, which makes it much harder to form a judgment as to the strength of their case. A taste of the reply can be had in Princeton’s reply to a motion for summary judement, which basically suggests that the family’s own trustees were asleep at the switch, that the charges were mostly fair, and that if there were ways to calculate them that would have made the numbers even higher.
If there’s a moral to this story, it’s that it pays to observe legal formalities carefully? If either side had done so, this case might never have happened.
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