Your turn. All topics welcome.

Update: Al-Shihri says he's alive. So does a Yemen official:

The Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted an unnamed senior Yemeni defense ministry official as saying that DNA tests of the body have proved that the dead man was not al-Shihri.

Saeed Ali al-Shihri, the former Guantanamo inmate who after release, went to a Saudi rehabilitation camp and then returned to Yemen to form AQAP and become its second in command, has been killed in Yemen. The Yemen News Agency announcement is here.

This isn't the first time Yemen has announced al-Shihiri is dead. More on Al-Shehri (also spelled al Shihri) and the other top AQAP leaders here. You can read his father's statements disowning him here.

The United States officially handed over control of Bagram Prison in Afghanistan today.

Here is the May, 2011 Human Rights First Report: Detained and Denied in Afghanistan. And a December, 2011 CBS report: Bagram: The Other Guantanamo?

Via Reuters: The military has announced a Guantanamo detainee was found dead today:

"While conducting routine checks, Joint Task Force-Guantanamo guards found the detainee unconscious and unresponsive. The guards immediately performed first aid and summoned medical personnel to the scene," the Southern Command said in a news release Monday.

Medics tried to revive him and took him to the base hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the release said. His remains will be returned home after an autopsy, it said.

The Southern Command's press release is here.

The FBI's $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) programme is proceeding on schedule and should be fully launched by 2014. It's already in use in several states as test pilots, including Michigan, Hawaii, Maryland, and possibly Oregon.

NGI expands the FBI’s IAFIS criminal and civil fingerprint database to include multimodal biometric identifiers such as iris scans, palm prints, face-recognition-ready photos, and voice data, and makes that data available to other agencies at the state and federal levels.

The FBI page for the program is here. Here is a handy powerpoint on it from the 2010 Biometrics Conference. Here are the uses the FBI envisions for it: [More...]

The former Seal who goes by the name Mark Owen was on 60 minutes tonight. He said the raid on the Osama bin Laden compound was not a kill mission.

He then describes how they were going up the stairs and had been told to expect one of bin Laden's sons to be there. They saw a figure disappear behind a door. They didn't know who it was. A Seal, on a hunch, whispers "Khalid." The figure peeks around the corner. The Seal shoots him dead. It was Khalid bin Laden.

Owen: “Curiosity killed the cat. I guess Khalid, too.”

But this was not a kill mission.

As Mark Kleiman notes, Republicans are waking up to the fact the Romney is losing. So it's time to try and understand why. Collective answer? It's the American People's fault.

John Hinderaker thinks it all those welfare queens in their Cadillacs:

I'm back in NY after the DNC. I apologize for the sparcity of my blogging from Charlotte - I was juggling a lot of balls, including some important work issues. Tomorrow I hope to provide a comprehensive post on the goings on and what I think they mean for this election. In the meantime, it's Saturday and that means college football. My picks on the flip.

Open Thread. Go Gators!

Busy work day, but I see the jobs report is out.

If you're driving on East Colfax today in Denver, be prepared for delays. A 19 year old is holding the manager of a Radio Shack hostage at Colfax and Glencoe. Shots have been fired, the police are everywhere, and the 19 year old says he's not coming out.

Businesses in the adjacent strip mall and nearby streets have been evacuated. Traffic on Colfax is blocked by 40 to 50 police and emergency vehicles. Fifteen to 20 cops, including SWAT-team officers, are in front of the RadioShack. Others searched the alley behind the store with their guns drawn. Along Glencoe Street north of Colfax, cops have lined the street with their cars and are pointing their guns toward the store from behind open car doors.

5 elementary schools are on lockdown.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

While we were watching Obama last night, the MTV Music Video Awards took place in LA. In case you are wondering what you missed: Best New Artist went to the latest incarnation of the British Invasion boy group, One Direction, who were contestants on the British version of the X Factor, were then signed by Simon Cowell's record label and became Mega Stars. You can watch their live performance here.

[More...]

The text of Obama's speech is here.

It's a Wrap: Obama gave a great speech -- he was inspiring, authentic, inclusive, humble, passionate and most of all, Presidential. His supporters love him. They will work extra hard in November. There's too much at stake.

8:55 pm: Obama's hit his mark. Most moving line so far: "Welcome Home."

You’re the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she’s ever called home — why selfless soldiers won’t be kicked out of the military because of who they are or who they love, why thousands of families have finally been able to say to the loved ones who served us so bravely, welcome home. Welcome home. You did that. You did that. You did that.

[More...]

The New Yorker has an extensive article, The Throwaways , on the misuse of informants.

Informants are the foot soldiers in the government’s war on drugs. By some estimates, up to eighty per cent of all drug cases in America involve them, often in active roles like Hoffman’s. For police departments facing budget woes, untrained C.I.s provide an inexpensive way to outsource the work of undercover officers. “The system makes it cheap and easy to use informants, as opposed to other, less risky but more cumbersome approaches,” says Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a leading expert on informants. “There are fewer procedures in place and fewer institutional checks on their use.” Often, deploying informants involves no paperwork and no institutional oversight, let alone lawyers, judges, or public scrutiny; their use is necessarily shrouded in secrecy.

[More....]