by TChris

If you need to be on time to your destination and you plan to fly, think about leaving a few days early. In this month of unwarranted panic, it's become common to hear about flights that return home, or land at the wrong destination, to investigate perceived threats.

Flights have been disturbed three times (so far) just today (update: there have been six reported incidents today) (second update: seven):

• A flight from England to Chicago was diverted to Bangor, Maine today to investigate a (so far unspecified) "security concern."

• A flight from Phoenix to North Carolina landed in Oklahoma City after "some kind of altercation between the passenger and a flight attendant." An air marshall subdued the passenger.

• A flight from New York to Dublin was evacuated after making a scheduled landing in Shannon as the result of a phone call that apparently conveyed a threat.

If this had happened to a parent of a small child, I bet felony neglect charges would be filed. A Merced, CA drug cop was searching a house and left his narcotics sniffing dog unattended in his vehicle for hours in 102 degree heat. The dog died from the heat.

Riley's handler, officer Jeff Horn, left her in the back seat of his patrol car outside the department's central station on M Street while he and other officers prepared paperwork to request a search warrant.

Horn reportedly left the car's engine and air conditioner running but found the engine stalled upon returning to the car. The outside temperature in Merced at the time Riley's body was found -- around 4 p.m. -- was 102 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The vehicle's windows were rolled up.

There may or may not be disciplinary charges filed against Horn. I never thought I'd feel sorry for a drug-sniffing dog, but this is so sad. What a slow, painful death it must have been.

Next week's Katrina anniversary poses a huge vulnerability for Republicans as they head into the November elections. The White House has already started a massive PR campaign to spin the facts. Don't be fooled. Think Progress has published a timeline laying them all out.

by TChris

Free speech doesn't extend to Hezbollah -- or to those who help Hezbollah speak. That's the lesson learned by a New Yorker who provides satellite broadcasts to customers. The broadcasts include Christian evangelists and, until recently, the Hezbollah station Al Manar.

Javed Iqbal's home and storefront were raided by federal agents, and now he's behind bars, held on a ridiculously high bail -- $250,000 -- for allegedly providing "material support for terrorism." Does "supporting terrorism" include rebroadcasting programming that's available in much of the rest of the world?

"It appears that the statute under which Mr. Iqbal is being prosecuted includes a First Amendment exemption that prevents the government from punishing people for importing news communications," Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. "Such an exemption is constitutionally necessary, and the fact that the government is proceeding with the prosecution in spite of it raises serious questions about how free our marketplace of idea is."

Cheers today to Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr, who has been actively using his pardon power to correct injustices.

Since taking office in 2003, Ehrlich ® has granted clemency to 190 former convicts, reversing a two-decade trend among state and national chief executives, who have largely shelved their power to issue pardons.

Some examples:

[T]he governor has also tackled cases that his predecessor wouldn't touch: a backlog of clemency appeals from lifers who had convinced state parole officials that they were ready to be released. "You have these situations where race may have played a part, insufficient counsel may have played a part, where the shooter is out and the accomplice is still in," Ehrlich said. "Those needed to be addressed."

The New York Times today has an 8 page online article on the Duke Lacrosse alleged rape case.

By disclosing pieces of evidence favorable to the defendants, the defense has created an image of a case heading for the rocks. But an examination of the entire 1,850 pages of evidence gathered by the prosecution in the four months after the accusation yields a more ambiguous picture. It shows that while there are big weaknesses in Mr. Nifong's case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury.

The commenters are analyzing it over at the Duke Forums. You can comment there or here.

My first question is just how did the New York Times get the entire discovery file? After that, I wonder about the accuracy of some of the police reports when I read this:

In the most ridiculous item of the day so far....

A seventh-grade geography teacher at Carmody Middle School was suspended with pay today when he refused to take down three foreign flags on display in his classroom. Eric Hamlin said the flags of China, Mexico and the United Nations were relevant to the unit on the fundamentals of geography he teaches during the first six weeks of the semester. He's used the same display for most of the nine years he's taught in Jefferson County, Hamlin said.

The foreign flags are in addition to the standard U.S. flag found in all classrooms.

Mr. Hamlin was escorted out of the building. Stupid is as stupid does, and Jefferson County apparently hasn't learned from Columbine yet that intolerance breeds hate and worse. I wonder if Tom Tancredo will praise the decision.

This is pretty shocking. Dateline, Coushatta, LA:

Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

The situation has outraged relatives of the black children who have filed a complaint with school officials. Superintendent Kay Easley will meet with the family members in her office this morning.

More on this here. So, is it an isolated instance?

Bruce Schneier writes about how the U.S. is giving the terrorists what they want by reacting with fear.

I'd like everyone to take a deep breath and listen for a minute. The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act. And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

I made a similar argument here when discussing the London attacks and proposed racial profiling programs as a response.

Why do we need terrorists to destroy the cornerstones of democracy with bombs when governments are willing to do it themselves out of fear? Isn't that a sign that the terrorists have won? First the U.S. with its Patriot Act and warrantless NSA surveillance and now Britain, which is considering a new racial profiling program aimed at Muslims based on behavior, ethnicity, and religion.

I'm just tuning into today's news, and Wolf Blitzer on CNN reported that Israel has nuclear weapons and may decide to try and take Iran out even if it has to go it alone.

A reporter from the Jerusalem Post said he has heard this too but that there has been no official confirmation from Israeli officials.

The reasoning seems to be that Israel wants to stop Iran's nuclear weapon development plans which it thinks will reach the R&D stage within six to 12 months. The U.S. may not have the military capability to fight Iran, given how stretched it has become in Iraq.

So, we lost more than 2,000 precious U.S. lives to take out a despot who had nothing to do with 9/11 or the war on terror, only to be impotent at taking out what could be a real threat not just to hundreds of millions of Americans but the whole world?

I realize there is a big issue as to whether Iran is 5 to 10 years away from having a viable nuclear weapons program or 6 to 12 months away from entering R&D, but either way, it just shows what a waste this war in Iraq has been.

by TChris

Republicans are complaining that intelligence agencies aren't doing enough to scare Americans with "ominous warnings" about Iran. Why is the GOP trying to terrorize the country? Why not a rational and calm review of the facts, rather than an endless series of dire warnings?

Now that President Bush has said we're no-way, no-how leaving Iraq, and the Marines are calling up reservists (the Individual Ready Reserve), ABC's Brian Ross reports an Iraq War Veteran's group says a military draft is coming. Why? Because our military is over-extended and Bush has neither a victory nor an exit plan.

"This move should serve as a wake-up call to America," said Jon Soltz, an Army captain who served in Iraq and heads the group VoteVets.org, which raises funds for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress. "Today's announcement that thousands of Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve will be called back to go to Iraq is proof that our military is overextended, and there is no plan for victory in Iraq."

"If this call-up directly fed into a plan for victory and bringing our troops home, we could take some solace. But there is no plan. We must demand a detailed, military victory strategy in Iraq, which will get our troops out of harm's way and relieve the strain on our active duty troops," said Stolz.

Also check out this article at Time: As the armed militias do their bloody work, neither U.S. nor Iraqi forces show any ability to curb them.

As more and more Americans come to understand that the war on terror is distinct from the war in Iraq, let's hope more people will voice their opinion at the polls in November.

[hat tip Raw Story.]