The results are in from Iraq's Jan. 30 election: The United Arab Alliance, backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, got the most votes with 47.6%, but fell short of a majority.

A coalition of largely Shiite parties tacitly backed by the country's most influential religious leader won the largest number of votes in election results released Sunday, but fell short of the majority that many of its leaders had expected.

The U.S. had backed a secular Shiite party led by Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. It received 13.6 of the vote. As predicted, the Sunnis were the big loser, with the two major Sunni candidates getting less than 2 and 0.1%, respectively.

Give us your poor, your sick and your disabled, and if they ever committed a bad act in the past, or if they didn't but we think they did, we will hunt them down and put them in jail.

Say hello to the Fugitive Felon program, now targeting retirees to take their social security and disability benefits from them.

Thousands of unsuspecting retirees could lose their Social Security (news - web sites) checks in the months ahead, some over false or unproven allegations, minor infractions or long-dormant arrest warrants.

The risk is a consequence of the Fugitive Felon Project, a little-known law-and-order measure created by Congress in 1996 to help apprehend suspects and to prevent fleeing criminals from using government benefits to elude arrest.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to win our praise by giving felons a second chance.

Through a series of recent steps, the governor who personified toughness on the movie screen has emphasized education, job training, drug treatment and counseling for inmates to improve the odds that they would get out and go straight.

He also has freed 83 murderers who had done their time and won the endorsement of the parole board.

The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, having just gone through a major scandal over sexual assaults, is about to face another crisis --over ethics:

Prohibited conduct — academic cheating, intoxication on and off academy grounds, leaving the academy without permission and sex in dormitories — occurs "with enough frequency and impunity to indicate a serious likelihood that future incidents will subject the (academy) to public embarrassment and criticism," said the report by the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics.

Who's in charge? Doesn't the responsibility for choosing the head of a military Academy fall to the Defense Department? Maybe Rumsfeld needs to pay more attention to what's happening under his nose than on the other side of the world.

Great reads: Jane Mayer in the New Yorker on Outsourcing Torture, a history of the U.S. "extraordinary rendition" program and Billmon's collection of quotes on torture.

[hat tip to Mark at Norwegianity, who made an extensive list of great reads today while home recovering from the flu]

Update: The New York Times has a lengthy article Sunday about Mamdouh Habib, a detainee who sued to stop the U.S. from sending him back to Egypt:

Someone should send this to this article to Terry Schiavo's husband. Not that it would change his mind, but still....

I'm surprised at Dave Kopel's Rocky Mountain News column today on media coverage of the Ward Churchill controversy. It is such a misnomer. It's about coverage of media-bashing of Churchill, as I explain at 5280, it's not about media coverage in general. How can you represent an article as being about media reaction to or coverage of an event if you only present one side?

Rumsfeld catches a break in the war-crimes lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of those abused at Abu Ghraib. It had named Rumsfeld as a defendant and sought to have the German prosecutor file criminal charges against him. Focus English News reports:

It's official, Howard Dean is the new Chair of the DNC.

The former Vermont governor and presidential candidate had promised to rebuild the state parties, take the offensive against Republicans, and better explain party positions on issues....House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, not always a Dean supporter, said Friday, "He has used the power of technology, the force of his personality and the depth of his ideals to bring new people into the party."

Congratulations, Dr. Dean. Let's give him the ammunition he needs to successfully reform our party. Here's a blogosphere-wide contribution page. Show some heart, give some applause.

Thanks to Daily Kos for setting it up and Atrios for spreading the word.

[Comments now closed, thread hijacked, it's about Howard Dean.]

In Indonesia, a 27-year-old Australian woman is facing death by firing squad for allegedly bringing marijuana into the country.

On October 8, 2004, airport authorities found 4.2 kilograms of
marijuana in Schapelle Leigh Corby's luggage. Corby says the marijuana was not hers, and her supporters suspect it was planted there. Local police acknowledge it is highly unusual for marijuana to be smuggled into Bali rather than out of it (as marijuana prices are much lower in Bali than in Australia).

If found guilty, Corby will be shot to death by a firing squad of 12 men. Saudi Arabia is even worse - it conducts public beheadings of drug offenders by sword:

Bump and Update: Balloon Juice explains why tracking kids is so wrong.

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2/11/05

If a school ever did this to my kid, I'd be livid. So why aren't more of the parents at Brittan elementary school, north of Sacramento, making a fuss? Tracking kids through radio frequncies and making them wear badges is a practice that should be nipped in the bud....before it spreads.

The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will take away their children's privacy.

The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory. Similar devices have recently been used to monitor youngsters in some parts of Japan.

This very ominous article by Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman in next week's issue of the London Review of Books on Bush's potential stealth Supreme Court nominees is one all progressives should read. Once it happens, there's very little anyone can do--perhaps for the next 40 years. [hat tip Balkanization]