israeli attack kills innocent bystanders

a state that behaves in this fashion is a criminal terrorist state, and surely does not deserve any kind of guarantees as far as its survival as a state.


Botched Israeli air strike kills 2 in Gaza
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Wed Jun 21, 5:44 PM ET

GAZA (Reuters) - Two Palestinians were killed and 13 others wounded on Wednesday in the latest of a series of botched Israeli missile strikes against Gaza militants.

Israel, which has faced international criticism over the attacks, said it would continue air strikes to try to stop Palestinian factions from firing rockets into the Jewish state.

The latest strike, which killed a man and a woman, brought to 14 the number of civilians killed in recent air attacks.

Palestinian bystanders said the target appeared to have been a car carrying members of the Islamic Jihad group in the militant stronghold of Khan Younis. But a missile slammed into a house. The gunmen escaped unharmed.

Among those wounded in the strike were a pregnant woman and four children.

A senior air force commander said investigators were trying to find out why the missiles missed their target, and said the possibility of a malfunction could not be discounted. But he emphasized that there would be no change in tactics.
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supreme court weakens search protections

chimpy's supreme court appointees waste no time in weakening our constitutional protections against unreasonable search...

``...
WASHINGTON, June 15— The Supreme Court today affirmed the power of police officers backed by a search warrant to enter a home without knocking, and in so doing signaled the more conservative tilt of the tribunal in recent months.

The 5-to-4 ruling in an otherwise mundane drug case from Detroit was sure to please law enforcement officials and prosecutors. The result had been eagerly awaited to see how President Bush's court selections, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., would vote. They were in the majority today.
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On a summer afternoon in 1998, Booker T. Hudson was sitting in his living room when several Detroit police officers arrived with a warrant. They announced their presence and waited "three to five seconds," according to court records, then entered through the unlocked door without knocking.

The police found guns and cocaine, and Mr. Hudson was eventually found guilty of drug possession and sentenced to 18 months' probation. His lawyers argued unsuccessfully in a state appellate court that the evidence should be excluded, because when the officers barged in without knocking they violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Indeed, it was not disputed that the Detroit officers had violated the Supreme Court's modern interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, which generally holds that officers with a warrant should knock first. The question for the justices was whether the violation was serious enough to throw out Mr. Hudson's conviction.

In concluding that it was not, Justice Scalia noted the difference between a situation in which evidence is seized without a warrant and a situation like Mr. Hudson's when the police came with a warrant. He wrote, too, that other remedies, like civil suits and disciplinary actions within police departments, are in place to counter lapses like those committed by the Detroit officers.

"When the knock-and-announce rule does apply, it is not easy to determine precisely what officers must do," Justice Scalia wrote. "How many seconds' wait are too few?" The court's "reasonable wait time" standard is "necessarily vague," he wrote.
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link

a warmonger eats crow

after thousands of dead, tens of thousands crippled for life, and $300 billion wasted; leaving Iraq in ruins, and America no safer; is this the best apology he can muster for cheerleading for Chimpy's disastrous adventure? what we need now is not some lame apology. true contrition should manifest in calls for impeachment of the warmonger-in-chief.

Apologizing for Iraq

``...
Since the Iraq war was obviously a gross blunder, is it time for those of us who cheered on the war to offer some kind of apology? Here we are—we, the United States—in our fourth year of occupying that sinkhole, and it looks pretty much like the third year, or the second. Will the eighth year of our occupation, or our twelfth, look any better? I know people who will say yes, but I no longer know any who will say it with real conviction. It’s a tough thing, to admit you were wrong. It’s way tough if you’re a big-name pundit with a reputation to preserve. For those of us down at the bottom of the pundit pecking order, the stakes aren’t so high. I, at any rate, am willing to eat some crow and say: I wish I had never given any support to this fool war.
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hillary booed for ambiguous stance on war

take a look at the polls, Hillary. if you think your stand on the war in any way shape or form represents "middle America", rather than your own right-wing predilections, then you badly need to get out of your bubble and back in touch with some real people. the majority of America is longing for a way out of this misbegotten war. either lead, follow, or get out of the way. furthermore, the war is a moral issue, not just a political one. if you think it's all about triangulation, then i don't want you anywhere near the white house.

``A liberal crowd both booed and cheered Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Tuesday after she encouraged Democrats to have a "difficult conversation" about their position on the Iraq war in order to win over middle-of-the-road voters.'' link

whipworms may be prescribed for bowel syndrome

a big ICK to this idea!!

Researcher: Worms may help bowel disease
Fri Jun 9, 9:17 PM ET

EAST LANSING, Mich. - The upside of Linda Mansfield's research is that it may lead to a new treatment for inflammatory bowel disease. The downside is that it would involve swallowing worm eggs. Mansfield is a professor of microbiology at Michigan State University who specializes in the study of parasites.

She's also one of several researchers around the country looking at the use of threadlike intestinal parasites called whipworms to treat the disease, which can cause diarrhea, painful cramps and even intestinal bleeding.
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Inflammatory bowel disease, the most common forms of which are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is a condition that is virtually unknown in the developing world. But it is becoming increasingly common in industrialized countries.

Researchers have put forward several explanations for that, among them diets high in fat and refined foods. But another possible cause, Mansfield said, is increasing levels of hygiene.

Portions of the immune system actually require periodic infections in order to develop properly. Some exposure to dirt, bacteria and even worms can be beneficial.

"By living in an ultra-clean environment," Mansfield said, "we're removing some of the things that helped to educate our immune system."

Mansfield said it's possible that the human immune system developed in a way that's reliant, to some degree, on the presence of parasitic worms.

She wasn't the first to hit on that idea. A research team at the University of Iowa already has tried treating human patients with a whipworm egg and Gatorade cocktail. Their results were promising.

David Elliott was a member of that team.

"There are probably individuals in the population who, back when worms were prevalent, were the healthiest because their immune systems could fight off all sorts of things," he said. "When worms are removed, their immune systems become unbridled, and they move on to develop disease."
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