These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. ~~~ Thomas Paine, 1776

Tipping The Scales: New American "Justice" On Display In Mississippi


It may be the first time a majority of the justices voted to prohibit a colleague from publishing a dissent in a case.

you can read more here or comment below.

"Collateral" Women And Children: Airstrike Kills 76 Civilians In Afghanistan

Military spokesmen call it "collateral damage", which is sufficiently vague to cover all manner of atrocities. And I use the word "cover" advisedly.

Since the dead people were not legitimate military targets, it would have been a war crime to obliterate them on purpose. So the word "collateral" -- literally: "off to the side" -- in this instance is probably supposed to mean "unintended". And the implication is meant to be, "Oops!" In other words, that's how they keep the killers out of prison.

you can read more here or comment below.

Stack Of Reports Proves It: Office Furnishings Killed Building 7

In a press conference yesterday, Shyam Sunder, who represents the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] as Lead Investigator of the World Trade Center Disaster, [...] said:
Our take-home message today is that the reason for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is no longer a mystery. WTC 7 collapsed because of fires fueled by office furnishings. It did not collapse from explosives or from diesel fuel fires.
No kidding. Office furnishings!

you can read more here or comment below.

Good News: Feds Are Tracking Your Border Crossings!

If you travel internationally and return by land, you'll be pleased to know about a newly announced federal weapon in the war on terror -- a program which has already begun recording (and will continue to record) all your land entrances into the US in a database designed to protect the nation from people like you.
...

By keeping this data over a long period of time and mining it aggressively, the government will be able to identify the dangerous people who cross the border often, or seldom, or at the same time every day, or at different times every day. This sort of analysis works best with a massive collection of data, so you will be very happy to hear that this is exactly what they're building.

You can read more here, or comment below:

Pakistan After Musharraf: Same As It Ever Was, Only A Bit More So; Kinda Like What We Have Here, But Different

Celebrations were widespread and general in the wake of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation -- but they were cut short by a bomb and a bombshell.
You can read more here, or comment below:

Flip-Flop: Musharraf Resigns

Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has resigned in the face of impending impeachment, just a few minutes after his spokesman told the press for the final time that Musharraf was not about to resign.
I have three new posts about Musharraf's sudden resignation at my main blog:

"Spokesman Says Embattled Musharraf Will Soldier On; AP Twirls",

"Musharraf Resigns!", and

"Panic And Jubilation In The Wake Of Musharraf's Resignation"

but we don't need three separate threads here.

We can comment on the whole situation on just one thread. And here it is.

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