The Army investigation report on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison is about to be released. It finds that 24 senior commanders are at fault for negligently supervision--but that they did not order the abuse.

In addition to the military intelligence personnel who are a key focus of the investigation report, the Army found that military medical personnel became aware of abuse at Abu Ghraib while treating injured prisoners but failed to report it to their command superiors....The New York Times, which first reported the finding on the medical personnel, said in its Thursday editions that it obtained medical records showing that medics had been in the area of the prison where the abuse occurred several times to treat suspicious wounds.

This seems a little excessive. I'm not familiar with the case, but I received an e-mail asking to help raise public consciousness on it, and given the draconian penalties, ask you all to take a look and see what you think. Trial is set for September 27. More information is available at this Free Dhafir website.

On February 26, 2003 Dr. Rafil Dhafir of Manlius (a suburb of Syracuse) New York and 3 individuals involved with the charity Help the Needy were arrested and charged with breaking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (Iraqi Sanctions), and with 12 counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. For that very same act of compassion (providing humanitarian aid to Iraq) Dr. Dhafir was placed on Saddam's Hit list, marked for death should he ever go back to Iraq. .... Dr.Dhafir is the only person to be arrested for breaking the sanctions.

In the interest of justice, we demand that the government drop immediately the original charges of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and various money laundering charges against Dr. Rafil Dhafir. It is our contention that these charges are prompted by his humanitarian aid to Iraq, which does not constitute a threat to the security of the United States of America. We demand that the government makes every effort to help him re-constitute his life and medical practice. We demand that the government issue an apology to Dr. Dhafir and to the 150 predominantly Muslim families that were inappropriately interrogated on February 26th 2003."

A few days ago, Biltbud at Salon Talk wrote about a series of correlations between past terror alerts and political events unfavorable to the Bush administration. Julius Blog takes it one step further:

I also added additional news items and other instances that I found out, detailing the terror alerts over the last few years, and located the original sources for many of these news articles. Soon, Biltud and I started to research together all these occurrences, and more interesting "coincidences" started to appear. We finally built this timeline of terror alerts and how they relate to the news headlines of the days immediately prior to that very alert. I think it's very easy to see a pattern recurring.

Very interesting. Coincidence? How many times can we buy into that? [link via Cursor.]

Alaskans will vote on whether to legalize marijuana for those over 21. Alaska would be the first state in the nation to fully legalize pot.

If approved, Alaska's Cannabis Decriminalization and Regulation Act would mandate that "persons 21 years or older shall not be prosecuted, be denied any right or privilege, nor be subject to criminal or civil penalties for the possession, cultivation, distribution, or consumption" of marijuana for medicinal, industrial or recreational purposes. The proposal also encourages the state legislature to establish a system to regulate pot "in a manner similar to alcohol or tobacco."

Fox News is reporting that U.S. warplanes are bombing Najaf according to Fox ews, after al-Sadr rejected a final appeal to disarm. He is vowing to seek martyrdom or victory.

Update: A reporter on Greta's show Thursday night has as good a guess on the delay as I've heard: Geragos wanted to play more of the Amber tapes, the prosecution objected, and the Judge said he has to listen to all the tapes Geragos wants to introduce before ruling. Hence, a three day delay.

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Update: The delay may be related to recorded conversations from police wiretaps rather than those Amber recorded. It may be that when the prosecution learned Geragos sought to play them in court during his cross, the prosecution objected and said it needed more time to investigate. Geragos was seen meeting with DA investigators at the courthouse today.

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Original Post: 8/18, 9:20 pm

Instead of listening to a cross-examination of Amber Frey, the jury in the Scott Peterson trial today was told by the Judge there was a "potential new development" and Amber would not be back on the stand until Monday. He initially said other witnesses would testify Thursday, and then canceled all proceeding until Monday.

Mark Geragos had his projector and powerpoint ready to go this morning. His brother had flown in to hear his cross. Gloria Allred, Amber's lawyer, expressed total surprise at the delay.

So what happened? Hard to say. My best guess:

Ted Rall writes a very funny article about New Yorkers' reactions to the Republican invasion of their city next week--and their intended plans to ensure the delegates get lost as much as possible:

Rejecting ex-mayor Ed Koch's call to "make nice" with the party that used the deaths of 2,801 New Yorkers--most of them Democrats--for everything from tax cuts for the rich to building concentration camps at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib to invading Iraq to enrich Dick Cheney and his fellow Halliburton execs, some groups are encouraging liberal-minded New Yorkers to volunteer for the city's squad of official greeters.

Creatively altered maps of streets and subways will be handed out to button-clad stupid white men. Other saboteurs wearing fake RNC T-shirts will direct them to parts of town where Bush's policies have hit hardest. Rumor has it that prostitutes suffering from sexually transmitted diseases will discourage the use of condoms with Republican customers.

Given that New York City is so predominantly Democratic, you have to wonder why the Republicans chose it in the first place for their convention. The last time the Repubs convened in New York was 150 years ago. Here's the explanation:

The New York Times writes about the abysmal treatment accorded those arrested on material witness warrants in terror cases.

About 60 other men have been held in terrorism investigations under the federal material witness law since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a coming report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. Such laws, meant to ensure that people with important information do not disappear before testifying, have been used to hold people briefly since the early days of the republic.

But scholars and critics say the government has radically reinterpreted what it means to be a material witness in recent years. These days, people held as material witnesses in terrorism investigations are often not called to testify against others; instead, frequently they are charged with crimes themselves. They lack constitutional protections like the requirement that criminal suspects in custody be informed of their Miranda rights. Moreover, they are often held for long periods in the same harsh conditions as those suspected of very serious crimes.

Abdullah al Kidd is one of them. As a result of his arrest and prolonged detention, he lost his marriage, his scholarship and almost his sanity:

Interesting article in the New York Times about teachers who are increasingly using weblogs as a teaching device--with students from the second grade up. It's a tool that already has moved far beyond the individual classroom:

Some social studies classes at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, for instance, are using a blog to study the Holocaust with high school students in Krakow, Poland.

The murder jury that included Oprah Winfrey took only two hours today to convict a defendant of first-degree murder. Oprah has never been an advocate for the rights of the criminally accused. As a talk show host, American success story and role model, she's terrific. As a juror....

Your tax dollars at work. Ashcroft's latest "terror" prosecution in Albany, New York appears to be coming apart at the seams.

While the government presented no evidence during a bail hearing in Albany last week that Mr. Hossain had any ties with extremist groups, prosecutors did tell the judge that they had reason to believe Mr. Aref might be connected with a terrorist group known as Ansar al-Islam. Prosecutors said they were given information from the Defense Department that a notebook with Mr. Aref's name and address had been found in what they said was a terrorist training camp in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border. They also said that a word in the notebook, written in Arabic, had referred to Mr. Aref as "commander."

As it turns out, the word is Kurdish, albeit written using the Arabic alphabet, and the translation may be incorrect. "Commander" could be translated as "brother," according to federal prosecutors. Nijyar Shemdin, the United States representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Washington, reviewed a copy of the page at the request of The New York Times and said he did not see how a translation would have come up with the word "commander."

Mr. Aref's defense lawyer, Terry Kindlon, called the prosecution "shabby."

"It looks to me to be a two-bit frame-up," Mr. Kindlon said. "In 30 years of practicing law, I have come to expect high standards from government prosecutors. This thing is just shabby. I suspect that there is something political driving this."

As the Republican Convention in New York approaches, so does worry over the planned protests. Liberals, TalkLeft included, hope the protesters avoid violence. It will only help Bush. Altercation reprints this normally subscription-only article in The Nation by Todd Gitlin and John Passacantando that explains why violent protests will hurt the Democrats' chances of success:

The Bush Administration plainly flunks. The Bloomberg administration has proved its small-mindedness. But we who oppose Bush face our own tests. If, as the whole world watches, rioters hijack the protest, the fine intentions of millions will have been canceled by the behavior of a few. Let dissent with dignity win the day and let us get on with a more perfect chapter of American history.

Liberal bloggers will be plentiful in New York during the convention, providing coverage of the protesters. I'm hoping it won't turn into a re-run of Chicago, 1968. But I also want to make sure the media doesn't over-emphasize a few bad apples and ignore the mostly peaceful protestors. That's reason enough to go.

Check out the official New York Convention page--welcoming peaceful protesters. There's even a list of planned protests and anti-Republican parties and performances. [links via e-mail from KBand.] The message to protesters, according to the Washington Post, is shop 'til you drop.