A chart of Bush's military record and non-service, prepared by Uggabugga is quite illuminating.

We found this tonight over at the Toronto Star which has been covering the trial of the American Air Force Pilots who accidentally killed Canadians in Afganistan last year while on a flight mission--a mission for which the Air Force doctors gave them dexadrine (speed, called "go pills") to fight fatigue.

It turns out that the Air Force also gives the pilots Ambien, sleeping pills, to come down from the dexadrine and then repeats the cycle the next day.

What will we learn next? That the pilots were routinely given morphine in case they got a headache? We can just hear them singing now, as they flew around Afganistan, "And I won't forget to put flowers on your grave."

Who needs a draft--when this gets out, there should be no shortages of enlistees.

This would be quite funny, were it not so pathetic....Ashcroft invoking Martin Luther King, Jr. to defend his civil rights record.

"From the first days of our administration, honoring the diversity of the American people has been a priority for President Bush and for me," Ashcroft said. ...The largely African-American crowd of Justice Department employees responded with restrained but polite applause.

He's lucky they didn't jeer.

"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded... I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed... I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war." Dwight D. Eisenhower

Skippy reports on the hypocrisy in Ari Fleischer's statement that President Bush welcomes the war protests as a part of our democracy. Skippy gives lots of examples, and we'd like to bring back one from the past. But not before we recount the details of a successful war protest--to date, the nation's largest:

"Bolivian farmers blocked highways for a fifth day demanding their right to grow coca, from which cocaine is processed, as 20,000 retirees marched on La Paz demanding bigger pensions."

"Coca farmers wielding sticks and stones have battled with police using tear gas since Monday for control of a stretch of the key route through central Bolivia, high in the Andes. Growers of coca demanded repeal of a 1988 law prohibiting farmers from growing the leaves Andean indigenous people have chewed for thousands of years, also used in a non-narcotic tea thought to help fend off altitude sickness."

"But the leaves are not just a traditional plant; they are also a temptingly lucrative cash crop in South America's poorest nation."

Jim Castle, President of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, had this to say in a letter to the editor in Friday's Denver Post on Colorado Governor Owen's criticism this week of former Illinois Governor George Ryan's granting of clemency to Illinois death row inmates:

Clouded by rhetoric

We should all be troubled, but not surprised, by Gov. Owens' Monday-morning quarterbacking of Illinois Gov. George Ryan's clemency decision for inmates on death row in Illinois prisons.

Gov. Owens correctly pointed out that we are a government of laws and not of men. Clemency was chosen for the very reason that men, and not laws, had manipulated the system in Illinois to bring about death verdicts. Nearly half of all inmates on death row in Illinois were represented by attorneys who were later disbarred or suspended. Seventeen men have now been released from Illinois prisons after having been exonerated after they spent 173 years in prison. A review of the Illinois cases also showed widespread use of torture to exact confessions and prosecutorial misconduct in a vast majority of cases.

Gov. Owens is wrong when he says that Gov. Ryan put his opinions above those of the jurors, citizens and legislators. The moratorium was supported by 70 percent of Illinois residents. percent of Illinois voters had grave concerns that there were innocent people on death row.

The jurors who voted for the death penalty never knew that evidence had been hidden, that a confession had been manufactured or that the defense attorney had failed to investigate when they issued many of the death verdicts. I am sure if one were to interview these jurors, they would be angry at the role they were forced to play in a system designed for injustice. Perhaps, however, Owens is right that politicians, who have rarely been linked with courage, may have opposed clemency.

That's why Gov. Ryan issued the clemency order. He couldn't trust the next politician to do the right thing. I guess it is not surprising that Gov. Owens was not a supporter of Gov. Ryan's decision.

The lesson for Colorado in the Illinois experience is that - unless police are closely monitored, procedures designed to increase death sentences are rejected and unless adequate funding for indigent defense is guaranteed - we, too can become the next Illinois. Hopefully this message will not be clouded in the web of rhetoric.

And from another Post reader,

[The] casual reader might believe Illinois' governor had seriously miscarried justice, when in fact the commutations resulted in penalties equal to the harshest imposed in most of western Europe and several states in the U.S. Our Gov. Owen's comments are also misleading in that he equates life without to the freeing from prison of felons. Righteous indignation aside, lifelong incarceration is far from a bleeding-heart alternative to murder by the state.

And in other news related to the Illiniois clemency decision, we recommend reading :

Hundreds of Pakistanis are fleeing to Canada to avoid the new INS registration requirements in the U.S.

Rather than wait for the inevitable, many Pakistanis have chosen to run, often with families in tow. They hope to obtain asylum in Canada.

New York City has a vast Pakistani community, and everyone knows the route north.... Each night, Pakistanis board the midnight Greyhound bus at Manhattan's Port Authority and six hours later they arrive at a deserted strip mall on the western edge of Plattsburgh, N.Y. Taxi drivers charge $50 for the ride up through frozen northern farmlands to the border turnaround. They walk the final 300 yards through the snow to the Canadian immigration center.

...without visas in these nervous times since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, deportation is almost a certainty. Hundreds of registrants have been arrested since the program began on Dec. 16. The detentions have sparked protests and demonstrations and this week the INS extended deadlines, but also added five nations to the registration program.

The Director of the Canadian Immigrations center says his staff runs criminal background checks on all of the Pakistanis, and very few of them flunk.

If applicants pass that hurdle, they can continue on to Montreal or Toronto and begin a year-long series of asylum hearings. Canada grants asylum to 54 percent of the applicants. Those who are rejected are returned to the United States and turned over to the American border station.

The stories are sad, because of the uncertainty facing these refugees.

Everyone here is "without status," meaning that they overstayed American visas, or lost papers or have applications pending. The complications are endless and exhausting. They only know they don't want go back to Pakistan, because it's poor and dangerous, and because their lives would be without prospects.

Their families are like seeds tossed to the wind. Brothers work the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, sisters as domestics in Manila or Kuwait. In their telling, the United States was a golden place. Malik, 28, who has a good command of English, landed at JFK airport eight years ago. He traveled to Manhattan on his second day and fell in love. Within a month, he had an apartment in Brooklyn, near Kings Highway. He was a limousine dispatcher, he belonged to a gym, and he says he paid taxes for the past seven years....

The application process stretches late into the afternoon. Bags are searched and they are asked many questions. They are stateless and expect no less. By mid-afternoon, Malik from Brooklyn allows himself an optimistic accounting. He has no criminal record, he was a good Pakistani and a good New Yorker. He will be a good Canadian.

The INS foreigner registration progam is as harsh as any we can recall. Surely there must be a better way.

This in from Dale Gieringer of California's NORML (available on DrugSense):

The text of the newly proposed "Crack House Statute" amendment is now available on Thomas. It appears as Section 5131 of S. 22, the "Justice Enhancement and Domestic Security Act" of 2003, a comprehensive bill covering a potpourri of other law enforcement measures ranging from telemarketing fraud and gun control to anti-terrorism and victim restitution.

he bill is the same as last year's anti-RAVE act S. 2622, without the extensive findings denouncing raves. Its basic effect is to extend current federal law against owning or maintaining drug-involved premises to include renting, leasing and using.

At present, Section 416 of the Controlled Substances Act, 21 USC 856 a(1) makes it a federal crime to " knowingly open or maintain any place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using any controlled substance." (This is one of the statutes under which Ed Rosenthal has been charged).

The amendment would expand this to "open, LEASE, RENT, USE, or maintain any place, WHETHER PERMANENTLY OR TEMPORARILY"

Note that the owner/leaser must KNOWINGLY have the PURPOSE of using the premises for a controlled substance offense. Thus the act of leasing premises for rave parties where drugs happen to be used would arguably not be a crime. However, maintaining premises for medical cannabis clubs would be illegal (as under current law in the case of property owners).

The proposed amendment also provides for a new civil penalty of $250,000 for maintaining drug-involved premises; however, this doesn't add a lot to the present criminal penalties of a $500,000 fine and 20 years in prison.

Absent last year's inflammatory language against raves, the bill appears to be a less than radical, though still objectionable, extension of current law."

Nathan Newman calls for respectful treatment of Democratic presidential nomination contender Al Sharpton. He raises some good points and we're considering them. The jury's still out though, as we are troubled by his anti-semitic comments over the years.

Condoleeza Rice's welcome statement on affirmative action and the President's Amicus Brief:

"When the President decided to submit an amicus brief, he asked for my view on how diversity can be best achieved on university campuses. I offered my view, drawing on my experience in academia and as provost of a major university. I agree with the President's position, which emphasizes the need for diversity and recognizes the continued legacy of racial prejudice, and the need to fight it. The President challenged universities to develop ways to diversify their populations fully. I believe that while race neutral means are preferable, it is appropriate to use race as one factor among others in achieving a diverse student body." (Emphasis supplied by us)

The complete text of Ms. Rice's statement is available here.

In response to Rice's comments, People For the American Way Foundation President Ralph G. Neas released the following statement:

"It is very good news that Condoleezza Rice agrees with Colin Powell's longstanding belief that it is appropriate to use race as one factor among others in achieving a diverse student body. It also reflects precisely both what the law of the land has been for a quarter of a century and what a bipartisan majority of the American support."

University of Illinois Law Professor Francis A. Boyle, who nominated former Illinois Governor George Ryan for a Nobel Peace Prize, has drafted a resolution to be introduced in the House of Representatives to impeach President Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.

(Thanks to reader Paul for the link).

Update: Lisa English of Ruminate This has more on impeachment...