I love to read news like this. Finally, we hearing from the top leaders of Islam in the US that they will no longer stand for the perversion of their religion to excuse cowardly terrorist acts. Not In Our Name! From Reuters: “Having our religious scholars side by side with our community leaders leaves no [...]

The IRA had decided to lay down arms. BELFAST, Northern Ireland – The Irish Republican Army renounced violence as a political weapon Thursday and said it will resume disarmament, taking a dramatic step designed to revive Northern Ireland peace efforts after a 35-year conflict that killed and maimed thousands. Associated Press: IRA Ending Longtime ‘Armed [...]

Security expert Bruce Schneier writes about the use of profiling and why certain types of profiling (e.g. racial profiling) don’t work. It’s well worth the read: Schneier on Security: Profiling [Found via the comment section at Philosoraptor.]

From Wired News: Attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation are holding their breath along with everyone else, calling Roberts’ record “both sparse and mixed.” While he sided with Verizon against the Recording Industry Association of America when the music trade group sought the identities of suspected illegal file traders, he also tends to bow to [...]

Carnivorous mice threaten bird species: Giant carnivorous mice on the British-ruled island of Gough in the south Atlantic are eating seabird chicks alive in mass feeding frenzies, threatening several species’ survival, a wildlife charity warned. The house mice, while three times the size of those seen in mainland Britain, are still only one 250th the [...]

British intelligence is at least considering the questions raised in the article linked to in this previous post. Regarding the July 7 attackers (not the subsequent ones): They bought roundtrip train tickets and paid for long-term parking – two of the details that are prompting the intelligence community to question if the four London bombers [...]

This from ABC News: Sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News an additional 12 bombs and four improvised detonators were found in the trunk of a car believed to be rented by suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer. Police believe the bombers drove the car to Luton, where they boarded trains to London. “I believe that [...]

At least that’s what the top US commander in Iraq is saying. More from the Financial Times: General George Casey said the US could make fairly substantial reductions after the referendum on a new constitution scheduled for October and the election of a new leader in December. “If the political process continues to go positively, [...]

I talked about the double standard regarding torture a few days ago. Now the Financial Times weighs in, saying the Administration’s insistence that they be able to do whatever they want with suspected terrorists (including torturing them to death) should always be an option. The US certainly needs to revamp its public diplomacy. The war [...]

Why is the Administration ignoring the advice of our military? This only bolsters my claim that this Administration is condoning the types of acts that happened at Abu Ghraib when they continue to keep a torture policy in place which harms our credibility as a free and Democratic nation. More from the NY Times. WASHINGTON, [...]

A new centrist movement must establish our cultural values, and take a stand in the war against terrorism.

The Associated Press reports: Americans’ anxiety about the economy and their jobs resurfaced in July, sending a widely followed measure of consumer confidence downward and ending a three-month winning streak. The Conference Board said Tuesday its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 103.2 from a revised 106.2 in June. The July figure was worse than the [...]

A study will test the safety of using adult stem cells to treat heart attacks in humans. A clinical trial to test the safety of treating heart attack damage with stem cells is about to get under way, following a study that showed the therapy helped in pigs. Even though the study is intended to [...]

It seems like most don’t think we’ll win, but they want us to. From USA Today, first the bad news: For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction â€â€? the reason Bush emphasized in making the case [...]

How coincidental. Talk About A Prophetic First Day on the Job: As you know, John Roberts has been nominated to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the U.S. Supreme Court. What you might not know is how John Roberts spent his first day of his first job following his clerkship with now-Chief Justice William Rehnquist. [...]

Imagine that. From the Wash Post: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s call for an ideological cease-fire in the Democratic Party drew an angry reaction yesterday from liberal bloggers and others on the left, who accused her of siding with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in a long-running dispute over the future of the party. Long [...]

Michael Yon’s latest post from Mosul is up. And truly, in a rare convergence of cliche and truth, journalism is the rough draft of history. Perhaps fueling his distress was the well-known but little mentioned tendency–some might say emerging trend–for some Iraqi police to release prisoners for bribes. This catch and release program has the [...]

But maybe that’s the plan… From USA Today: A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday finds that 51% of Americans expect “a major fightâ€Â? over Roberts in the Senate. But by 59% to 22%, those surveyed say he should be confirmed for the job. Roberts’ favorable-unfavorable ratings are a muscular 46%-13%; 19% haven’t heard [...]

Our Attorney General just keeps getting himself in the news. This time it’s over comments he made regarding that particularly controversial SCOTUS decision. From ABC News: In an interview with The Associated Press, Gonzales said a justice does not have to follow a previous ruling “if you believe it’s wrong,” a comment suggesting Roberts would [...]

From ABC News: FBI and law enforcement officials told ABC News the five men � four illegal immigrants and one law enforcement fugitive � were arrested Sunday night following a tip to the Newark Police Department. In addition to the subway maps and video, the men had train schedules and $8,000 in $20 and $50 [...]