by TChris

It's hard to believe, but there are still judges who think that only male lawyers should wear pants in court. They don't say it as often as they used to because ... well, when they do, it makes the news. Particularly if the lawyer is pregnant.

Pamela M. Roberson was eight months' pregnant when she appeared before Superior Court Judge Thomas N. Thrasher Sr., 67, in a Santa Ana courtroom. Roberson, 39, of Los Angeles, was dressed in an oversized white shirt and black pants, according to a photo that her husband said showed Roberson shortly after her run-in with the judge.

"Well, your appearance, Miss Roberson," Thrasher told her, according to court transcripts, "leaves a lot to be desired, as far as your clothing is concerned."

Roberson was understandably upset when she left the courtroom. The next day, she had an emergency Caesarean section, delivering her son a month early.

According to the court's spokesperson, Judge Thrasher "felt his remark may have been inappropriate." No kidding. The Robersons haven't seen a promised apology letter, but the spokesperson says it's on the way.

by TChris

Ahmad Chalabi (a man of doubtful credibility, as Talkleft discussed here and here) finally said something that's undeniably true:

"The Iraqi people will not accept limited, questionable sovereignty.... That means they should have complete control over their armed forces and over Iraqi revenues and be able to dispose of them according to the decisions of the provisional government."

Chalabi wants the Bush administration to give the interim Iraqi government control over its oil revenues and its military when power is transferred on June 30. Without that autonomy, Chalabi says that the notion of sovereignty will be meaningless. He's right, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

The revenues are now deposited in a Federal Reserve Bank of New York account, which is controlled by the United States. Iraqis are expected to have control of expenditures after June, but U.S. officials want a U.S.-authorized international board, which monitors the accounts, to remain in place.

While the Bush administration has long denied its intent to install a puppet government in Iraq, it wants to control Iraq's oil revenue through a puppet board. That isn't sovereignty.

Colin Powell says the U.S. military will leave if asked to do so on July 1 by the interim government. Maybe he's confident that the U.S. won't install an interim government that would make that request. Maybe he sees such a request as an exit strategy for the Bush administration.

Or maybe he's just not on the same page as others in the administration. Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp, testifying before Congress on Thursday, contradicted a state department official who advanced the Powell view. Sharp asserted that only an elected government could kick the U.S. military out of the country.

Chalabi points out that U.S. forces killed 1,500 Iraqis last month. While the U.S. may argue that its military presence is needed to assure security for the new Iraqi government, it's easy to see why Iraqis might think it's time to take care of their own business.

by TChris

Will Texas Gov. Rick Perry follow the lead of Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry by sparing the life of a man who wasn't given access to his government's consulate after his arrest, as the Vienna Convention requires? The government of Honduras wants Texas Gov. Rick Perry to commute the death sentences of two Hondurans who were denied their right to help from consular officials at the time of their arrest.

Gov. Perry recently pardoned Josiah Sutton, but DNA evidence established Sutton's innocence. Shortly after the International Court of Justice asked the United States to review the death setnences imposed on 51 Mexicans who were denied access to their consulates, Perry said that the court had no jurisdiction in Texas. Although his spokesperson denies that he's changed his view, she says that Perry expects law enforcement officials to obey all laws, including the Vienna Convention's requirement of consular notification, and promises that he "will continue to review death penalty cases on an individual basis as they reach his desk and look at the individual merits in each case in making a determination." Whether Gov. Perry will conclude that the failure to comply with the Vienna Convention affects the "individual merits" of either case remains to be seen.

If Gov. Perry follows the lead of Gov. Henry, it's likely that the Hondurans won't be the only inmates saved from execution. There are 26 foreign nationals on death row in Texas.

Even Wolfowitz disagrees with Rumsfeld on what constitutes excessive interrogation techniques:

Mr. Rumsfeld has said that the American military in Iraq was abiding by the Geneva Conventions, and that the mistreatment was the work of a terrible few. But at a Senate hearing on Thursday, Mr. Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, acknowledged that hooding prisoners or forcing them to crouch naked for 45 minutes — tactics available to interrogators with General Sanchez's approval under the old policy — was inhumane. The International Red Cross had warned American officials for months that Iraqi prisoners were being abused in American-run prisons.

Friday, changes were announced, likely the result of increased attention to the interrogation methods used by the U.S. against prisoners :

Under a barrage of international and domestic criticism, the top American commander in Iraq has barred virtually all coercive interrogation practices, like forcing prisoners to crouch for long periods or depriving them of sleep, the Pentagon said Friday. The commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, will still consider requests to hold prisoners in isolation for more than 30 days, according to a senior Central Command official who briefed reporters on Friday. The general has approved 25 such requests since October, the official said. But the official said that General Sanchez would deny requests to use other harsh methods. "Simply, we will not even entertain a request, so don't even send it up for a review," the Central Command official said.

....Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who clashed with Mr. Wolfowitz at Thursday's hearing, said in a telephone interview, "I'm glad they're changing them, but it's like closing the barn door after the herd is out. Why were these regulations promulgated in the first place?"

Unfortunately, the changes only apply to prisoners in Iraq, not Guantanamo or Afghanistan. Once again, here's the chart of interrogation techniques (pdf) currently being employed.

Someone at Google apparently has a sense of humor. We received this by email, try it soon, before someone at Google fixes it:

1) Go to www.Google.com

2) Type in (but don't hit enter): "weapons of mass destruction"

3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button instead of the normal "Google search" button.

4) READ CAREFULLY what appears to be a normal ERROR message.
MAKE SURE YOU READ THE WHOLE ERROR MESSAGE!!!.

A Santa Barbara dentist is making serious misconduct allegations against Tom Sneddon, the DA in charge of the Michael Jackson prosecution:

Sundaram's allegations against Sneddon were serious, in that he also claimed to have heard, first-hand, statements by Sneddon and others in the DA's office that suggest that Santa Barbara police persecution of innocent citizens is planned, common, and often racially motivated. Sundaram said that in 1994, he attended a fund-raising event with Tom Sneddon and other city officials, where ways to "get Michael Jackson out of the county" were discussed. Racist remarks were allegedly made on that occasion. According to Sundaram, other alleged vendettas were discussed as well, to the extent where he said it resembled a Mafia planning session.

Sundaram's allegations are not an isolated instance. There have been many complaints and law-suits against the Santa Barbara DA's office. The new counts against Jackson may be consistent with a pattern that Santa Barbara defense attorney Gary Dunlap has called "stacking charges."

Back in November, we published a sampling of quotes issued by Sneddon about Jackson over the past ten years, which we got from doing a Lexis query that turned up 100 entries for "Tom Sneddon" and "Michael Jackson" between 1994 and 2001. Sneddon still denies he's a man on a mission to get Michael Jackson.

We can't keep track of all the articles and commentary coming out about prisoner abuse in the U.S. since the Abu Ghraib photos . Here's one that caught our attention, about the Los Angeles County Jail:

I don't mean to diminish the suffering and humiliation of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but they're lucky they weren't locked up in L.A. County Jail. Five inmates have been murdered in downtown L.A. detention facilities since October. In one case, an accused murderer managed to leave his cell and wander around like he owned the place. I don't know if guards were watching "Survivor," making popcorn, or playing Parcheesi. But this inmate roamed the killing fields for hours until he eventually tracked down a witness against him — a witness who was supposed to be enjoying the benefits of protective custody.

This LA Times Editorial calls jail security an oxymoron:

Twenty-three-year-old Santiago Pineda allegedly was able to sneak out of his cell in the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail last month and strangle another inmate partly because, county officials said, he possessed the diabolical mind and skills of a Hannibal Lecter. However, Pineda's success in allegedly finding and killing Raul Tinajero — who testified last month that he saw Pineda drive his car over another man last year — illustrates profound problems in the county jail system, from lax rules and inadequate guard training to archaic inmate tracking systems.

Juliusblog has photos of the demonstrators from the 'US Out' organization protesting at Donald Rumseld's house yesterday. The protestors reenacted the Abu Ghraib abuse photos. Go take a look. (link via Skippy)

The UK's Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has been fired because the photos he published of British soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners turned out to be a hoax.

"The Daily Mirror published in good faith photographs which it absolutely believed were genuine images of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner," the newspaper said. "However there is now sufficient evidence to suggest that these pictures are fakes and that the Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax. The Daily Mirror therefore apologises unreservedly for publishing the pictures and deeply regrets the reputational damage done to the QLR and the army in Iraq."

Morgan remained defiant:

"All I want to say is we published the truth," he told the ITV News Channel. "We have revealed a can of worms. If the government chooses to ignore that, it is entirely a matter for them."

Guy Womack, the lawyer for accused Iraqi prison guard Charles Graner, says this photo supports his defense that Graner and the other guards at Abu Ghraib were acting on orders from above. Womack says Graner will not plea bargain and that he plans to call several Generals in Graner's defense (WSJ, subscription only):

Spc. Charles Graner etched numbers into this photo in order to identify himself and others at Abu Ghraib prison. Spc. Graner is labeled No. 1 in the photo, which shows Iraqi prisoners bound together. According to Spc. Graner, No. 2 is a civilian contractor for military intelligence, Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 8 are military-intelligence soldiers, and Nos. 3 and 6 are military police. No. 9 is not identified.....If Spc. Graner's identifications are accurate, the photo is one of the few made public so far that depict intelligence personnel with naked Iraqis and not just military police. It could be key to determining who was in charge.

Charges against Graner were announced Friday.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the seven charges against Graner included conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty for woefully failing to protect detainees from abuse, maltreatment of detainees, assaulting detainees, committing indecent acts, adultery and obstruction of justice.

We assume the adultery charge pertains to Spc. Lynndie England's pregnant condition.

As we reported earlier, SPC Jeremy Sivits is expected to plead guilty next week and provide evidence against the other guards. According to the Guardian, Sivits will claim:

This article in Al Jazeera says bloggers around the world are questioning the authenticity of the Nicholas Berg decapitation video. Conspiracy theorists take note - it raises many questions and points out several oddities in the video. Here's a few:

Net surfers point to the unlikely timing of the executioner's dubbed announcement that Berg was to die for "Iraqi prisoner abuse". Berg was last seen alive on 10 April, when his father Michael Berg believes he was killed - two weeks before the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke in the world's media.

The body is completely motionless even as the knife is brought to bear – not so much as an instinctive wriggle. More graphically, some claim that cutting the throat's artery would cause a significant amount of blood to gush out. But little emerges and when the head was raised – not a drop of blood is seen to fall.

His last email on 6 April to his family stated he wished to return home as soon as possible – yet the FBI claims he refused an offer of help to get home....Some claim the face in the video looks remarkably unlike Berg's...The Jordanian accused of the beheading Berg is himself believed to have been killed in March, according to two Islamist groups.

Was he killed first and beheaded later? Was it really Berg? Why was Berg detained by Iraqi police? Berg was last seen on April 9. His body was found May 8.

Update: The CIA maintains the beheader was Abu Musab Zarqawi. One question we have that goes against the conspiracy theorists: If Berg was not decapitated live, what were the blood-curdling screams on the tape we could all hear? Or, was the audio dubbed in later?

Joe Conasen at Salon writes that the group attacking Kerry for his antiwar record (the "swift-boat vet attacks") is backed by a wealthy veteran with major investments in Vietnam who is profiting from his business ties to the Communist regime.

In other Kerry news, Arianna Huffington and former Dean campaign chief Joe Trippi have teamed up to draft a web petition "calling on Democratic candidate John Kerry to inspire more voters by bringing "hope and soul" back to political discourse. "

Author Bob Zimmerman examines Bush and Kerry's records and explains why the choice between Bush and Kerry should be clear. From his email: