They don't expect God to have a Manchester accent

When I said that Wolfowitz names the people to be prosecuted by military tribunal, their juries, judges and the review board, I failed to mention that his insistence that defense lawyers have security clearances effectively means he appoints them too, or at least vetoes (and can remove them, or the judges, any time during the trial), and reserves the right to listen in on their conversations. The prisoners are also being threatened with the death penalty if they don’t plead guilty.

Incidentally, has there ever been an official explanation of the two prisoners beaten to death at Guantanamo?

Headline in the Observer: “Language Schools 'Were Front' for Lap-Dance Smuggling Ring” [in Ireland]. That’s what we need: an English-Lapdancing Dictionary.

This week Laos sentenced two European reporters to long prison terms, garnering absolutely no attention in the US, although they were reporting on the Hmong and other fighters we first incited into rebellion and then mostly abandoned in 1975. Evidently some of them are still fighting on and expecting rescue by the US any day now. Talk about not getting the message.