this is not my justice department…
A guns-drawn raid at a high school last year did not violate civil rights laws and the case is closed, the U.S. Justice Department said.
…
Fifteen officers entered Stratford High School’s main hallway and ordered 130 students to the floor Nov. 5 of last year. They used plastic ties to handcuff 18 students and school officials opened and searched 17 book bags using a drug dog.
Police found no drugs or weapons, but the raid frightened children, provoked marches and lawsuits and brought national media attention and the resignation of the school’s longtime principal.
the original story is covered here with video. the memory hole has more, including an unidentified person in what appears to be a military uniform.
at least these high school students are getting comfortable with our new security state.
posted by roj at 6:27 am
as the acknowledged sole superpower, the united states is left with a curious burden when it comes to international relations. we get emulated.
Iran might launch pre-emptive strikes to protect its nuclear facilities if they are threatened, Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said in remarks broadcast on Friday.
“We won’t sit with our hands tied and wait until someone does something to us,” Shamkhani told Arabic channel Al Jazeera when asked what Iran would do if the United States or Israel attacked its atomic facilities.
“Some military leaders in Iran are convinced that the pre-emptive measures that America is talking about are not their right alone,” he added in Persian. His comments were dubbed into Arabic.
well, there you have it, the first official statement from an “axis of evil” country that proves that they do pay attention to what the united states does (and not just what it says). so the bush doctrine has come to the islamic world, and now we all live under the threat of pre-emptive attack for any perceived threat.
don’t make any suddent moves. don’t look them in the eye. don’t make any loud noises.
no, i do not feel safer now.
posted by roj at 6:16 am
i just realized i didn’t actually write this, so forgive me for picking up an old piece….
several days ago, a hurricane came through florida. shortly thereafter, the local urban search and rescue task force was activated to go to florida, and the local tv news covered the item with photos of bags lined up in a parking lot near what appeared to be a fire station.
now, before i go any further, i should say that i don’t have any clue what the operational plans are for an urban search and rescue task force. and i don’t know what was in the bags. and i don’t know how long they were in the parking lot.
but now that i’ve said all that, when i saw the image on the screen, my first thought was “you mean they aren’t even packed yet?”
posted by roj at 6:08 am
i’m just compelled to say something about the last couple rounds from the bush campaign… both of which got a “wtf?” reaction from me.
the first was the ad where bush pondered, out loud, the personal crisis of being a parent on september 11:
president george w. bush “solemn duty” campaign ad
My most solemn duty is to lead our nation to protect ourselves. I can’t imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September 11
in the second, bush doesn’t do the talking…
voiceover “victory” campaign ad
In 1972…there were 40 democracies in the world.
Today…120.
Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise.
And this Olympics… there will be two more free nations…
And two fewer terrorist regimes.
With strength, resolve and courage, democracy will triumph over terror.
And, hope will defeat hatred.
the bush team really thought it was a good idea to invoke the olympics? i hope this doesn’t become the latest “reason” to go into iraq. maybe i’m just too cynical to see this the way it was intended, but i’m guessing the 12,000 dead iraqi civilians and [about] 1000 dead american soldiers weren’t thinking of the olympics during the firefights.
personally, i think these two subjects should be beyond campaign ads, and using them will generate more negatives than positives, but i’m not the genius campaign strategist that’s signing off on this stuff.
posted by roj at 5:45 am
it seems that the medical staff at abu ghraib were complicit in at least some of the abuse that’s been documented to date.
no links from me, since all the source material seems to be locked up behind registration things, and there’s plenty of coverage for this story elsewhere.
go looking for stories from dr. stephen miles about the prison, and you’ll find everything you need to know.
my two cents is something i’ve said since this story broke. i doubt this is substantially different than abuse in american prisons, but that story isn’t being told much. i just don’t think you can have that many people in prison, with that big an industry supporting it, and run a “clean” system.
posted by roj at 5:25 am
congratulations eff. mgm v. grokster.
posted by roj at 5:16 am
i’m shocked. shocked, i say.
A 76-year-old man who spent nearly every day of the last four decades in prison walked free after a judge found that deputies extracted his confession to a 1962 robbery by crushing his fingers between cell bars.
they didn’t have digital cameras back in 1962, or it might not’ve taken four decades. then again, the whistleblower might not need protective custody for doing the right thing.
this probably isn’t technically prison abuse, but “crushing finges between cell bars” fits the pattern.
posted by roj at 5:07 am
to follow up on the bad air, i thought a story about bad water was in order….
3,4,4′-trichlorocarbanilide, also known as triclocarban or tcc is one of those antibacterial things they put in soap. the tricky part is that the local scientist folks around here found this stuff in every stream they tested. they think it probably bioaccumulates, but nobody really knows, and these people had to cook up a whole new test just to find it.
“It’s somewhat unsettling that we’ve been using this persistent disinfectant for almost half a century at rates approaching 1 million pounds per year and still have essentially no idea of what exactly happens to the compound after we flush it down the drain. Further studies are needed to determine the effect of triclocarban on aquatic life and potential pathways of unwanted human exposure,” said Dr. Halden.
tip of the day: don’t eat the soap.
posted by roj at 4:50 am
Smoke from giant Siberian forest fires pushed one measure of Seattle’s air quality past federal limits in the summer of 2003
well, blame the russian forrest fires anyway. i guess this is a pretty big hint that we are all on the same planet.
posted by roj at 4:44 am
