The Bush Administration reversed itself and declared that non-Iraqis captured fighting in Iraq are not protected by the Geneva Conventions; such prisoners, it was reported, have already been transferred out of Iraq in recent months and could be taken to Egypt or Saudi Arabia where torture is more common than it is in the United States.
Just reading this is a form of torture.
President Bush suggested that the missing explosives from the Al Qaqaa military facility might have been removed before the invasion. Several news agencies confirmed that their embedded reporters were present at the facility with American troops and that they saw boxes labeled as explosives; KSTP Television in Minneapolis broadcast footage taken at Al Qaqaa of boxes of high explosives.
Congress approved a measure that will permit soldiers and their families to seek reimbursement for combat equipment, such as body armor, that they have purchased with their own money.
Osama bin Laden released a new video message and said that it was U.S. foreign policy, particularly U.S. support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, that led him to plan the September 11 attacks. [CNN] Bush-Cheney campaign officials were happy to hear from Osama: “We want people to think ‘terrorism’ for the last four days,” said one. Another said that “anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush.” [NY Daily News]
Ah, the perfect campaign policy.
Voter suppression campaigns were reportedly underway all around the country, though all indications were pointing to an historically high turnout. [Talking Points Memo] Wisconsin Republicans were trying to challenge about 37,000 voter registrations in Milwaukee. [Talking Points Memo] In South Carolina a letter purporting to be from the NAACP claimed that voters will be arrested at the polls if they have outstanding parking tickets or child support payments and said that voters must provide a credit report, two forms of photo ID, a Social Security card, a voter registration card, and a handwriting sample. [Associated Press] Broward County’s election supervisor said that up to 15,000 absentee ballots would be resent to voters whose ballots mysteriously disappeared. [New York Times]
The Bush Campaign was forced to withdraw an ad that had been digitally altered to increase the number of soldiers in an audience listening to the president speak. [New York Times]
This bears a larger rant but I don’t have time right now.
Fidel Castro banned the U.S. dollar
Scientists announced the discovery of a species of hobbit-like humans on Flores, an island 370 miles east of Bali, that lived as recently as 13,000 years ago. The adult hobbits, who apparently hunted pygmy elephants and Komodo dragons for food, were about the size of a three-year-old modern human child. [National Geographic, New York Times]
New research found that it is better to be bullied for the first time as a young child than as an adolescent. [New Scientist]
