Wherever anything happens these days, it seems a blogger is covering it. Two bloggers writing from Haiti and covering the conflict are Haiti Pundit and John Engel.

We haven't had time to read them in depth and don't even know if they take sides, but Instapundit says:

One observation: "The conflict is incredibly complex. The rebels for the most part, are baddies. In my opinion, Aristide and his regime are also baddies."

Rumsfeld flew into Iraq today. Tom Paine.com's new blog, The Dreyfus Report, asks and answers an important question..."Does the United States want to have permanent military bases in Iraq? Does a camel sleep in the desert."

Speaking at a Feb. 11 seminar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, Isam Al Khafaji of the Open Society Institute—just returned from Iraq—noted that for the United States, the real issue isn't its oft-proclaimed commitmentto establishing a democratic Iraq. Instead, what's driving U.S. concern, he suggested, was strategic:

"The question is not democracy. The question is: how to develop a formally sovereign Iraq that signs a treaty with the United States, with permanent military bases for the U.S. All of Iraq's political actors are quite aware of the importance of this issue."

How many times does this go on when and no one finds out? A high school principal has admitted planting marijuana on a student he suspected of using the drug.

Eric Nordmark planned to kill himself in jail if convicted -- with a razor blade he had smuggled into his cell. He spent 8 months in that cell awaiting trial on a charge that he molested three schoolgirls. The trial began. Two days into it, the girls admitted they made up the accusation to cover themselves and not get in trouble for being late coming home from school.

The girls didn't get off lightly.

The three little girls were arrested and led from their elementary school in handcuffs for making up the story.

Mr. Nordham is now living in Seattle where he obtained a job sorting clothes for Goodwill. What went wrong? How did the girls' story get so far?

Nordham's lawyer, David Swanson, believes the police made serious error by interviewing the girls in a group rather than individually, a circumstance that made it easy for them to tell the same story.

False accusations are a bigger problem than you think. There are a myriad of reasons why they occur. But this story is a powerful reminder that children can do bad things and all allegations of misconduct should be scrupulously scrutinized.

Months ago, we all rejoiced that TIA (Total Information Awareness) was dead. We may have been premature in our celebration. The AP reports that research for many of Poindexter's programs continues to be funded under slightly altered names--a "shell game" if you will.

The government is still financing research to create powerful tools that could mine millions of public and private records for information about terrorists despite an uproar last year over fears it might ensnare innocent Americans.

Congress eliminated a Pentagon office developing the terrorist tracking technology because of the outcry over privacy implications. But some of those projects from retired Adm. John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness effort were transferred to U.S. intelligence offices, congressional, federal and research officials told The Associated Press.

In addition, Congress left undisturbed a separate but similar $64 million research program run by a little-known office called the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) that has used some of the same researchers as Poindexter's program.

"The whole congressional action looks like a shell game," said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. "There may be enough of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing."

David Neiwert, writing over at American Street answers the question, "What do the Ten Commandments, gay marriage and Janet Jackson all have in common?"

All three are symbols, for the religious right, of "everything that is wrong with America." The fact that a judge was prevented from having the Ten Commandments placed in an Alabama courthouse; that a Massachusetts court legalized gay marriage, followed by the civil-disobedience action by San Francisco authorities in similarly recognizing such unions; and that Jackson was able to "shock" Super Bowl audiences long ago jaded by half-naked cheerleaders and beer commercials by briefly baring her breast -- all these, according to the folks who want to remake America as a "Christian nation," are clear signs that the nation's moral depravity has gone too far.

And as a troika, they are playing a central role in the campaign by this same faction of the right to radically recast the nation's political landscape, primarily by attacking the power of the courts to shape public policy. They are the noisy cover, as it were, for a stealth attack on the judiciary.

This is great writing, read the whole thing.

The Guardian reports that Mick Jagger was convinced he was framed in a 1969 drug raid, according to newly released reports.

The controversy around the May 1969 police raid, led by the head of the Chelsea drug squad, the curiously named Detective Sergeant Robin Constable, on Jagger's Cheyne Walk home was to prove typical of its time. Only a few years later senior detectives of Scotland Yard's drug squad under Detective Sergeant "Nobby" Pilcher found themselves on trial at the Old Bailey for just such corrupt practices.

The DPP file released this month at the National Archives shows that Jagger's allegations were taken more seriously than most because his came with the backing of a future Conservative attorney general, Michael Havers, and the Labour MP, Tom Driberg. But a full internal Scotland Yard inquiry was only launched after the Australian police reported that Jagger's partner, the actress Marianne Faithfull, had told them she "hated coppers" because the couple had been framed on trumped-up charges by the London police. Faithfull had been admitted to a Sydney hospital for a drug overdose while she had been in Australia with Jagger where she was supposed to co-star with him in Tony Richardson's film, Ned Kelly.

It's an ugly scenario, and Jagger's version rings true to us:

Daily Kos endorses John Edwards for President.

It's Comedy Monday over at Hamster.

Thinking of seeing Mel Gibson's film, Passion of Christ? Get the low-down from Dave Neiwert at Orcinus.

Jesse and Ezra over at Pandagon are not impressed with the start-up of the Bush re-election campaign.

Join the movement and send flowers to a random same-sex couple getting married at city hall in San Francisco.

Atrios says be sure to buy girl scout cookies--they are being boycotted for their support of Planned Parenthood. We like the thin mints the best.

Skippy's gone all awol all the time.

Demagogue makes the case that Bush's recess appointment of William Pryor to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is unconsitutional.

Don't forget to bookmark The Dreyfuss Report, Tom Paine's new blog on Iraq and national security issues.

Oliver Willis has an original take on Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Rock.

SKBubba has the last word on Nader's run:

Bush's popularity has faded with Illinois voters:

Illinois voters have grown so disenchanted with President Bush that he would lose the state to either of the top two contenders for the Democratic nomination if elections were held today, a Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows.

According to the poll, both Kerry and Edwards would beat Bush in Illinois.

We've been receiving e-mails from people we don't know in opposition to Ralph Nader's decision to run for President. Here are some of them:

• I can only assume that Nader's decision to run for President again is based either on a tremendously over-inflated ego or he is a puppet of the Republicans who welcome him into the race in the hope that Bush will win again. There is no logical reason for Nader to run - his protestations about the "liberal inteligentsia" being out to stop him is ridiculous. He has demonstrated - four years ago, and again now, that he is irrelevant except as a spoiler. There is not a single spark of hope of him winning anything except ridicule. No money, no funding, little chance of even getting on a state ballot make this attempt nothing short of idiotic.
  
• Why is Ralph Nader running? You could say ego. And you would be right. You could say bile and meanness. And you would be right. You could say "because he can" (like why a dog licks himself). And you would be right. But the most powerful reason, in my judgment, is that he wants Bush to win. That way the ultra-libs will be further energized, and keep sending him all those lovely checks. Ralph Nadar is only interested in Ralph Nadar. He is a wolf in wolf's clothing. I'd sooner vote for Osama Bin Laden; at least he isn't a hypocrite.

We liked these too:

• Nader, you're going to ruin it again. You screwed up last time and now we're living with George Bush. Get behind the Democratic candidate -- now - - before the damage is done! Thanks.
  
• Mr. Nader, please I do not want GW Bush re-elected. Please do not run in November.

We don't feel threatened by Nader's run this time. We don't think many people will vote for him, least of all the Democrats. We doubt the press will give much coverage to his campaign. We don't intend to give him much coverage here either. We think he's best ignored.

Update: Calpundit shares our view.

But can the rest of us make a pact to just ignore him? He's not even worth criticizing or mocking anymore, and we've all got more important things to do than giving him the attention he craves. Like unelecting our current president, for example. OK?

Maybe some creative blogger will come up with a graphic of Nader that says "Nader-Free Zone."

Georgetown Law Professor and civil liberties expert David Cole has an excellent op-ed on the detainees at Guantanamo in Sunday's Los Angeles Times (free subscription required). Here's a snippet:

The Supreme Court recently decided, over the government's objections, to take up legal challenges by the Guantanamo detainees and U.S. citizen Yaser Esam Hamdi. Only after that decision did the Pentagon announce that Hamdi would be allowed to talk to his lawyer, that the juveniles and several others at Guantanamo would be released and that the military would provide annual reviews for those still detained.

The Pentagon no doubt hopes that these initiatives will show that it can be trusted with wholly unchecked authority. But the fact that it made these overtures only when threatened with legal oversight underscores the necessity of the rule of law.

Guantanamo is, in short, the perfect symbol of what the administration has sought generally in the war on terrorism: the authority to act without the constraints of law. The nations of the world are concerned that we want that authority not only on an isolated leasehold in Cuba but in their backyards as well.

Monday the Judge in the Martha Stewart trial will hear more arguments and decide whether to throw out the securities fraud charge against her. From the questions put to the prosecution on Friday, this seems quite possible.

Cedarbaum on Friday repeatedly asked prosecutor Karen Patton Seymour what evidence supported the claim that Stewart sought to defraud investors in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia when Stewart issued allegedly false public statements and releases protesting her innocence in June 2002.