What is the value of a life of an Iraqi civilian gunned down by US Marines? Apparently, it is $2,500.
The U.S. Marines paid at least $38,000 to the families of Iraqi civilians killed in a November clash in Haditha. The payments were made in December, according to a report in The Denver Post that was confirmed by NPR.
Ok, so those of you that know me know that George Will is not my most favorite commentator. However, this piece in this week’s Newsweek caught my attention. I am making no judgements on its merits. That is for you to decide. Enjoy!
The dehumanizing denial that blacks have sovereignty over their lives became national policy in 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson said: “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line in a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others’.” This, Steele writes, enunciated a new social morality: No black problem could be defined as largely a black responsibility. If you were black, you could not be expected to carry responsibilities equal to others’.
When the government snoops on your phone calls and records without warrants, lawmakers barely kick up a fuss. But when the target is a fellow Congressman - one under investigation for taking a bribe, no less - they’re ready to rumble - Editorial in USA Today on May 25, 2006
I know I can live happily now. I can get back to just simply ogling her.
Police ringed the hospital with tight security Sunday, refusing to admit journalists and photographers into the building. Pitt’s publicist Cindy Guagenti announced the birth Saturday night, but said no other information or photographs would be released.
Apparently the rules don’t apply to the Vice President. Must be nice.
For the third year in a row the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to disclose data on its classification and declassification activity, in an apparent violation of an executive order issued by President Bush.
“The Office of the Vice President (OVP), the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), and the Homeland Security Council (HSC) failed to report their data to ISOO this year,” the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) noted in its new 2005 Annual Report to the President (pdf) (at page 9, footnote 1).
The Office of the Vice President has declined to report such data since 2002. Yet it is clear that disclosure is not optional.
O Canada! I need to start learning the words to this song soon.
From secret detention centers to warrantless wiretapping, Bush and Co. give free rein to their totalitarian impulses
I know. I am shocked as well. Whatever shall we do?
The Bush administration’s voluntary programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by industry have yet to deliver promised results, according to a report issued yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.
VA Inspector General George Opfer detailed a series of missteps leading to one of the nation’s largest information security breaches. He noted that his office only became aware of the May 3 burglary through office gossip.
“We were never notified,” Opfer told Senate and House panels investigating the breach, explaining that one of his employees first heard about a burglary—and that VA electronic records may have been stolen—while attending a routine meeting on May 10
Former Enron Corp. chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history.
The verdict put the blame for the 2001 demise of the high-profile energy trader, once the nation’s seventh-largest company, squarely on its top two executives. It came in the sixth day of deliberations following a federal criminal trial that lasted nearly four months.
Lay was also convicted of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate, non-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Sim Lake related to Lay’s personal banking.
The charges for which Lay was convicted carry a maximum penalty in prison of 45 years in the corporate trial and 120 years in the personal banking trial. The charges for which Skilling was convicted carry a maximum penalty of 185 years in prison.
This is an interesting turn of events.
Palestinian rulers have been given 10 days to recognize Israel implicitly or face a territory-wide referendum on whether to accept the effective existence of the Jewish state.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the Hamas-led government on Thursday to accept the national goal of establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank alongside Israel.
Thanks Andy!
Yikes! Remind me not to piss off grandma when she starts asking questions about my life insurance situation. Geesh.
Two elderly women devised a complex plot in which they befriended homeless men, took out life insurance policies on them, and then killed the men in hit-and-run accidents in alleys around Los Angeles to collect $2.2 million in payments, police said Monday.
The women are linked to two deaths, one in 1999 and one last year. Los Angeles police are reviewing other hit-and-run accidents involving transients in a search for more possible victims.
The women were arrested last week after police investigating them began to fear for a third man’s life, police said. The women, who remain jailed, were arraigned on eight counts of mail fraud, and the FBI froze more than $2 million in assets between them. They have yet to enter a plea.
Olga Rutterschmidt, 73, and Helen Golay, 75, took out 19 life insurance policies on the two victims and tried to take out more, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. They offered to help the men get off the streets in exchange for the men signing a life insurance policy. Then the women had rubber stamps made from the signatures and used the stamps to acquire more insurance, court records show.
And who says the elderly have no “Get-up-and-Go!” LOL!
