U.S. troops seize Iraqi journalist and tapes

On January 8, 2006, U.S. troops broke into the home of Iraqi journalist Dr. Ali Fadhil, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children. Fadhil, who is working for UK's Guardian and Channel 4 on a story about misappropriation of tens of millions of dollars of Iraqi funds held by Americans and British, was hooded and taken for questioning, and released a few hours later. Video tapes made for his investigation were seized and have not been returned.

The troops told Fadhil they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent.

More at The Guardian.

Bush advisor says president has legal power to torture children

John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody - including by crushing that child's testicles.

John Yoo is one of the primary legal advisors to George W. Bush, responsible for legal reasoning to justify torture, warrantless wiretapping, and virtually anything else the president feels is necessary. Here's the exchange with Yoo, from a December 1, 2005 debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor Doug Cassel:

Cassel: If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

More description and a link to an audio clip here.

Bush circumvents hearing process to appoint unqualified head of refugee response team

George W. Bush continues his pattern of appointing unqualified people and bypassing rules and regulations that get in his way by appointing Ellen Sauerbrey to the post of assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration, a post that is responsible for a $700 million budget to address global refugee crises.

Sauerbrey began confirmation hearings in October 2005, but Sen. Barbara Boxer put off the vote until after the winter break. Bush took the opportunity to appoint her and about a dozen other candidates as "recess appointments" while Congress was out of session.

There's more on Sauerbrey's lack of qualifications and her conservative views at Salon.

Iraq war costs underestimated--could reach $1 trillion

In 2003, the Bush administration said that the $200 billion estimate of the cost of the war in Iraq from Larry Lindsey, Bush's economic advisor, was too high. Paul Wolfowitz suggested that the cost of reconstruction would be financed entirely by Iraq. Congress has so far appropriated $251 billion for military operations, and the Congressional Budget Office has indicated that we should expect another $230 billion in costs over the next ten years.

Now a paper by Nobel prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes argues that the CBO's estimate leaves out some significant costs, like healthcare for injured soldiers--lifetime care for brain injuries alone may cost $35 billion. Their paper argues that $1 trillion is a conservative estimate of the total costs.

(Story at The Guardian.)

Rev. Lusk's support for Alito

In a Washington Post article about conservative Christian support for the confirmation of Samuel Alito, Rev. Herbert H. Lusk II, a recipient of over $1 million in federal grants from the Bush administration's Faith Based Initiative, says:

"My friends, don't fool with the church because the church has buried a million critics. And those the church has not buried, the church has made funeral arrangement for."

As Pharyngula points out, this sounds a little threatening...

Urban legend becomes reality, again, as mouse burns down house

From the BBC, how not to dispose of live rodents:

A US man who threw a mouse onto a pile of burning leaves could only watch in horror as it ran into his house and set the building ablaze.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, found the mouse in his home and wanted to get rid of it.

"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," he was quoted as saying by AP.

Though no-one was injured, the house and everything in it was destroyed.

UPDATE: This is not true--the mouse was dead when thrown into the fire, which was blown into the house by wind.

UPDATE January 12: Now Mares is sticking with the original story.

SF Fox affiliate's Emily Litella moment

KTVU in San Francisco used this background image when discussing the NSA warrantless wiretap issue. (John Hazelton on the SKEPTIC list spotted this and got the screen capture.)

Cell phone call records available online

America's Blog has brought up a story that was published in the mainstream media last year (in the Washington Post) and a few days ago (in the Chicago Sun-Times) but which for some reason hasn't resulted in an uproar. The story is that there are sites on the Internet from which you can purchase copies of calling records for cell phones and land lines, such as Locatecell.com. John in DC, who runs America's Blog, purchased his own cell phone records, and indeed got a list of all the numbers he had called.

Cingular thinks this is an "infinitesimally small problem" for them.

How are sites such as Locatecell getting their information? They could be purchasing it from insiders, they are no doubt using "pretexting" (social engineering) to persuade customer support representatives to give them the information, or gaining access to customer account information via the web (Verizon Wireless had another major security hole in their online billing system last year, similar to one in 2001 which they took two weeks to act upon).

Whichever mechanisms are used, it is clear that privacy is being violated and likely that laws are being broken, yet there seems to be little visible interest on the part of the telephone companies in going after the criminals--perhaps because doing so might expose how poorly they are securing the information.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has a good collection of material on this issue here. (Updated January 9: They filed a case against Bestpeoplesearch.com, which admits to using "pretexting" as their method to obtain the information.)

(Thanks to cowmix for bringing this to my attention.)

Phoenix Union High School District: Evolution too controversial to survey science teachers about

The latest issue of Reports of the National Center for Science Education includes an article ("The Taboo Standard") by Marni Landry of Paradise Valley High School, who reports that she proposed a study to survey life science teachers in the Phoenix Union High School District on the subject of evolution. The survey, intended to support her M.A. thesis work at the University of Phoenix, asked the recipients whether they agreed or disagreed slightly or completely with the following statements:

I have helped to write the district or state science standards.

I would like to contribute in the writing of the district or state science standards.

I know specifically what the district standards are concerning the theory of evolution.

I have avoided details about the origin of life in order to avoid conflict in my classroom.

The theory of evolution goes against my religious beliefs.

If I were to get into a confrontation with a student or parent concerning the theory of evolution, I feel that [the] administration would support my actions.

I feel that creationism (creation science) should be taught parallel to evolution in the classroom.

I am concerned over the fact that many states have removed evolution from their science standards.

Students must understand the theory of evolution in order to understand the study of biology.

I have experienced conflict with a student, parent, or administrator concerning my teaching of evolution.

This survey and edited versions were rejected by school district administrators as "too controversial." The irony of being unable to conduct a survey of science teachers about a subject that they are required by state science standards to teach is explicitly noted.

The author was able to complete a pilot study, and her article reports the percentages for the above statements (16.5% say that evolution conflicts with their religious beliefs and that creationism should be taught).

The same issue of Reports has stories from Texas and Arkansas about high school teachers being unable to teach about evolution or (in Arkansas) even mention the ages of rocks in millions of years.

This, to me, is far more frightening than attempts to force the teaching of intelligent design or creation science--that teaching about evolution has already been removed from or watered down in many of the classrooms of the United States. It's no wonder that the average American is completely ignorant on the subject.

Jeff Lowder's blog: Naturalistic Atheism

Jeff Lowder, one of the founders and former president of the Internet Infidels, now has a blog, Naturalistic Atheism.