Aug. 10, 2003The top American administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, was quoted on Sunday as saying that intelligence reports indicate that hundreds of Islamic militants who fled the country during the U.S.-led war had returned and were planning to conduct %u201Clarge-scale terrorist attacks.%u201D Bremer%u2019s comments follow another day of violence in Iraq, during which at least four U.S. soldiers were wounded in separate attacks. [MSNBC]
LOS ANGELES, CA Tony Award winner Gregory Hines, the tap-dancing actor who started on Broadway and in movies including “White Nights” and “Running Scared,” has died, his publicist says. He was 57.
Hines died Saturday in Los Angeles of cancer, publicist Allen Eichorn said.
The dancer, among the best in his generation, won a 1993 Tony for the musical “Jelly’s Last Jam.” [Washington Post]
WHEN WILLIAM BULGER became president of the University of Massachusetts in 1995, I remarked that his Beacon Hill career had been one long gorging at the public trough. ”By now,” I wrote in this space, ”the dollars he has extracted to enrich himself and his relatives must run well into seven figures.” After last week’s larceny, it may be time to update that estimate. Between the $960,000 severance deal and an annual pension of at least $240,000 (but ”there are a lot of complicating factors that could make it even higher,” the state treasurer’s office says), the total Bulger take must surely be nearing the eight-figure mark — if it hasn’t passed it already.
[…]
The right answer, then as now, was: A person of integrity, someone of incorruptible character whose appointment would reflect honor on the institution. No one should have confused Bulger with such a person — least of all the man whose endorsement essentially handed him the job: Governor Weld. [Boston Globe]
This has to be the most disgusting stuff I have ever had to drink. Good God. How does this stuff sell so well?
There is just something sort of wrong when you hear Jimmy Buffett singing “Brown Eyed Girl”.
I’m sorry, but this man needs to stay behind bars. Reading through the rest of the article outlines other examples of killers, including one of a county sheriff during an escape attempt, served 20 – 25 years and are now paroled.
This is wrong. Life should mean what it is.. Life.
Nearly 30 years ago, prosecutors assured Stephanie Manley that the day would never come when the man who pleaded guilty to the murder of her husband would leave prison.
But now that day is almost here. It’s Tuesday.
At her request, a judge is considering an injunction. But if the past is any guide, such a move is unlikely.
Norman Woodford avoided the risk of execution by pleading guilty to murder in connection with the 1974 slaying of Indianapolis Police Officer Ronald Manley.
Back in 1976, when Woodford pleaded guilty in a Marion County court, murderers serving life were ineligible for parole, Indiana Parole Board attorney Earl Coleman said. Only the governor could grant them freedom.
In 1979, lawmakers changed the rules, Coleman said, and gave Woodford and many other convicted killers serving a single life sentence a chance at parole. [Indianapolis Star]
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 ó The United States military, the Central Intelligence Agency and Iraqi exiles began a broad covert effort inside Iraq at least three months before the war to forge alliances with Iraqi military leaders and persuade commanders not to fight, say people involved in the effort.
Even after the war began, the Bush administration received word that top officials of the Iraqi government, most prominently the defense minister, Gen. Sultan Hashem Ahmed al-Tai, might be willing to cooperate to bring the war to a quick end and to ensure a postwar peace, current and former American officials say.
General Hashem’s ministry was never bombed by the United States during the war, and the Pentagon’s decision not to knock Iraqi broadcasting off the air permitted him to appear on television with what some Iraqi exiles have called a veiled signal to troops that they should not fight the invading allies. [NY Times]