molly (i love her!!!) from texas has the scoop on lamont from connecticut

and why osama bin is so very happy ned won. the terrorists were on the edges of their seats the night of the election i'll have you know!

Molly Ivins: Osama Hearts Lamont

By Molly Ivins
If you listen to Dick Cheney, Bin Laden & Co. were staying up late to hear the Lamont-Lieberman election returns from Darien, Conn. AUSTIN, Texas—The most cunning refinement yet in the administration’s plot to scare the liver, lights and onions out of us with Tales of Terror Plots is the Department of Homeland Security’s brilliant move to declare Indiana the national center of terrorism, with 8,591 potential targets. Many citizens have questioned the Indiana move—some claiming it is a waste of money trying to stop attacks on the Wabash Cannonball. The Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument might merit a little more attention. This is precisely why it is better to have Michael Chertoff and Karl Rove making these Homeland Security decisions, rather than Osama bin Laden. The defeat of Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary alerted Veep Dick Cheney to the menace. Ned Lamont, the guy who beat Lieberman, said he was surprised that Cheney claimed his victory would embolden Osama bin, as we call him Texas. “My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home, and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how we can turn this to partisan advantage,” complained Lamont. Lieberman warned that Lamont’s call for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be “taken as a tremendous victory” by the terrorists. Cheney said it would encourage “the Al Qaeda types” who want to “break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.” .........

a letter from 18 writers

including three Nobel Prize recipients

The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner--and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis--there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.
That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources--most particularly that of water--by the Israeli Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.
Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly--who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?
Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.
This has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted.
PS: As Juliano Mer Khamis, director of the documentary film Arna's Children, asked: "Who is going to paint the 'Guernica' of Lebanon?"
John Berger
Noam Chomsky
Harold Pinter
José Saramago
Eduardo Galeano
Arundhati Roy
Naomi Klein
Howard Zinn
Charles Glass
Richard Falk
Gore Vidal
Russell Banks
Thomas Keneally
Chris Abani
Carolyn Forché
Martín Espada
Jessica Hagedorn
Toni Morrison

i disagree

i of course believe king george thinks he is a citizen (well royalty) above suspicion (GREAT movie by the way) and not only that, i absolutely believe no one has the stones to bring him to trial/justice. he (and his court) have broken MANY laws. there is NO doubt about that. yet, not one of them is afraid of being charged. why? it's AIN'T gonna happen. why not? NO ONE HAS THE BALLS

Supreme Court Strikes Fear

Reprimanded by the Supreme Court, the Bush administration rushes to evade punishment
by Nat Hentoff August 20th, 2006 11:26 AM

The interrogations of prisoners now condemned by the Supreme Court were ordered by policy makers at the highest levels of the administration—who could be prosecuted under the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. Scott Horton, chairman of the New York City Bar Association's Committee on International Law and adjunct professor, Columbia Law School
In June, the Supreme Court ( Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) placed commander in chief Bush and the top of his policy-making chain of command in jeopardy for the treatment of their suspected-terrorist prisoners in Guantánamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan and elsewhere.
So much has happened since June—the Middle East war, the civil war in Iraq, and the plot to blow up multiple U.S.-bound passenger planes—that most Americans have only a hazy idea of this Supreme Court decision that blew up the administration's grand strategy for extracting information from its prisoners around the world by any means necessary..........

the big dick (hears what he wants to hear)

kill kill kill

Cheney Gets Flawed Neocon Briefings on Iran

By Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story. Posted August 19, 2006.
In what has become an all-to-familiar storyline, Dick Cheney is receiving flawed intelligence briefings from a clique of neocons who are viewed skeptically by veteran analysts.
The Bush administration continues to bypass standard intelligence channels and use what some believe to be propaganda tactics to create a compelling case for war with Iran, US foreign experts and former US intelligence officials have said.
One former senior intelligence official is particularly concerned by private briefings that Vice President Dick Cheney is getting from former Office of Special Plans (OSP) Director, Abram Shulsky.
"Vice President Cheney is relying on personal briefings from Shulsky for current intelligence on Iran," said this intelligence official.
Shulsky, a leading Neoconservative and member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), headed the shadowy and secretive Department of Defense's OSP in the lead-up to the Iraq war -- helping to locate intelligence that would support the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq...........

another op/ed right ON the mark

I Dare Any American to Name a Single Bush or Republican National Security Success...Just One

A. Alexander, August 18th, 2006
Republicans are masters at creating a political perception that is entirely divorced from reality. On no other issue is this highlighted more clearly than regarding national security. What is more incredible still, is that the American people buy into these Republican myths regardless of what their own senses tell them.Somewhere in the national security formula must be a variable called competence. How is it possible for a president or party to keep the nation secure, if their strategy has resulted in a string of one failure followed by another? Bush and Republicans began the war in Afghanistan, completed half the job, pulled out most of the military resources, and have done virtually nothing as that country slips back into the hands of al Qaeda and the Taliban. A recent report stated, in no uncertain terms, that the Bush-backed strategy for combating an Islamist insurrection in Pakistan has failed 'badly'. The Bush administration's attempts at preventing Somalia from falling to Taliban-like Islamists, has also failed. All this, of course, says nothing about the complete and utter disaster known as Iraq. ..............

bring home the 172nd

some shocking statistics

and i do mean shocking. i don't understand how this level of abuse could happen.

Sexual Abuse By Military Recruiters
Over 100 Women Raped Or Assaulted By Recruiters In Past Year

(AP) More than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams. A six-month Associated Press investigation found that more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined last year for sexual misconduct with potential enlistees. The cases occurred across all branches of the military and in all regions of the country. "This should never be allowed to happen," said one 18-year-old victim. "The recruiter had all the power. He had the uniform. He had my future. I trusted him." At least 35 Army recruiters, 18 Marine Corps recruiters, 18 Navy recruiters and 12 Air Force recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior with potential enlistees in 2005, according to records obtained by the AP under dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests. That's significantly more than the handful of cases disclosed in the past decade. ....................

hmmmmmm i couldn't even finish the article

the picture was so f**king offputting

by the way did you know the following women were fat?
scarlett johansson
evangeline lilly
liv tyler
mandy moore
katherine heigl
madonna
gretchen mol
sophia loren
carla gugino
?????????????????????????????????????????/


from details:
WHY FAT IS BACK IN HOLLYWOOD

(a shout out to feministing for pointing the details story out)

James K. Galbraith asks some very good questions

worthy of some thought. oh, i know there are terrorists out there. people who mean to bring the united states (and other countries) harm. i also know there are some liars and some immoral and some insane people running this country as well as other countries.

jon stewart had correspondent john oliver on the other day. they were talking about how electing ned lamont would of course open the door for terrorists, osama and the rest of al qaeda to come marching right into this country. it was WICKED hilarous (i checked you tube to see if they had the video, they didn't. at least not yet).

did announcing the arrests of the alleged terrorists in britain right after the primary elections in the united states amount to one big fat coincidence?

Groundhog Day

by JAMES K. GALBRAITH
[posted online on August 16, 2006]
James K. Galbraith flew from Manchester to Boston on August 10, enduring eleven hours without a book.
Let's see... It's August. Bush is in Crawford on a "working vacation." His polls are in the tank. Congress is in revolt. The economy is going soft. The next elections don't look good. Cheney is off in Wyoming, or wherever he goes. It's 2001. No, it's 2006.
In The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx reports that "Hegel writes somewhere" that the great events of history tend to occur twice, first as tragedy and then as farce.
On September 11, nineteen hijackers commandeered four airplanes and succeeded in killing some 3,000 people. On August 10, we are told, British authorities upended a suicide-murder plot aimed at destroying twelve airplanes, killing everyone on board including the bombers, possibly with more fatalities than on 9/11. As a senior British police official put it, "This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale."
From all official statements so far, we are led to believe that August 10 was a highly developed, far-advanced conspiracy, under surveillance for some time, which could have been put into action within just a few days. And perhaps 8/10 really was the biggest thing since 9/11. But then again, perhaps it wasn't. We don't know yet. And it's not too early to ask the questions on which final judgment must depend.
Well, then. Here is a checklist of some things we should shortly be hearing about. Bombs. Chemicals. Detonators. Labs. A testing ground. Airline tickets. Passports. Witnesses. Suspicious neighbors. Suspicious parents. Suspicious friends. Threats. Confessions. Let me spell this out: By definition, you cannot bomb an aircraft unless you have a bomb. In this case, we are told that there were no bombs; rather, the conspirators planned to bring on board the makings of a bomb: chemicals and a detonator. These would be mixed on board. ..........

one of THE worst jobs in the entire universe

can you imagine having to say this shite day after day with a straight face? say this shite like you actually believe it yourself? day - um

Tony Snow: No Civil War in Iraq -- and He Disputes 'NYT' Report on Bush's 'Frustration'

By E&P Staff Published: August 16, 2006 5:35 PM ET
NEW YORK Generals, pundits, and members of Congress may see shades of grey in the situation, but Tony Snow, the White House Press Secretary, has no such doubts. "There is not a civil war going on" in Iraq, he declared today in his daily meeting with reporters.As for the upsurge in brutal killings and bombings that left more than 3,400 civilians dead last month, Snow characterized this as "a number of sectarian violence operations going on." The New York Times reports Thursday that the number of roadside bombs planted in Iraq rose in July to the highest monthly total of the war.Snow also took issue with New York Times and Los Angeles Times stories today depicting President Bush as growing "frustrated" with lack of appreciation for U.S. efforts on the part of Iraqis.The transcript of the relevant exchange follows. For an uncut video of the press conference, click here............

as far as i'm concerned

THESE people are the REAL threats to the world. whether they be in suits and little black cocktail dresses or inked skinheads (i know many who are inked and shaven of skull who are NOT racist by the way. i'm using the term skinheads because it is descriptive ). these people scare me. the ones in the 'proper dress' that is. the ones who seem to fit into society. the ones whose beliefs remain hidden unless they are with like kind. the ones with hate behind their eyes. the ones who fear something they will never know.

A Split In the Racist Right

By Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok, Intelligence ReportPosted on August 16, 2006, Printed on August 16, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/40343/
For a gathering of people devoted to denouncing the inferiority of blacks and sounding the alarm about civilization-threatening Muslims, the biannual conferences thrown by the New Century Foundation, publisher of the racist newsletter American Renaissance, are decidedly genteel affairs. Men dress in suits and ties, women in formal business attire, and there are no uniformed skinheads or Klansmen to be seen. Large plasma television screens, Starbucks coffee spreads and fancy linens adorn the hotel meeting hall. Epithets have no place here.
Or at least they didn't. At the latest edition of the conferences that began in 1994, held this February at the Hyatt Dulles hotel, a nasty spat broke out that upset the gathering's decorum -- and may even shape the future of the radical right.
It began when David Duke, the former Klan leader and author of Jewish Supremacism, strode to a microphone after French author Guillaume Faye wrapped up a talk vilifying Muslims entitled "The Threat to the West." Duke thanked Faye for remarks that "touched my genes." But then he went one further.
"There is a power in the world that dominates our media, influences our government and that has led to the internal destruction of our will and spirit," Duke said, according to an undisputed account in The Forward newspaper.
"Tell us, tell us," someone in the back yelled..............

i loved bruno kirby

damn, he was in a ton of movies. he always made me smile when i saw him or heard his voice. a wonderful character actor.

'City Slickers' Actor Bruno Kirby Dies

By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ

Associated Press Writer


LOS ANGELES — Bruno Kirby, a veteran character actor known for playing the best friend in two of Billy Crystal's biggest comedies "When Harry Met Sally" and "City Slickers," has died. He was 57.

Kirby died Monday in Los Angeles from complications related to leukemia, his wife Lynn Sellers said in a statement Tuesday. He had been recently diagnosed with the disease.


"We are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support we have received from Bruno's fans and colleagues who have admired and respected his work over the past 30 years," his wife said. "Bruno's spirit will continue to live on not only in his rich body of film and television work but also through the lives of individuals he has touched throughout his life."

Born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu in 1949 in New York City, he was the son of actor Bruce Kirby. His early work included the 1971 film "Young Graduates," as well as appearances on the television show "Room 222" and the made-for-TV movie "The Summer Without Boys."

In 1974, he scored a role in "The Godfather: Part II," which won several Academy Awards, including best picture. In the film, Kirby played young "Pete Clemenza," following Richard S. Castellano's role in the first installment...........

bruno kirby

since i just had a bat in my house

i thought this story was rather appropriate.

Photo in the News: Baby Bats Babble Like Human Infants

August 14, 2006—Just like human children, bat pups may amuse themselves by saying the equivalent of "goo goo ga ga."
Young greater sac-winged bats, like the one pictured here, make long strings of adultlike noises, according to research by Mirjam Knörnschild and her colleagues at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.
The screeches, barks, and hisses have no social context, meaning the sounds are most likely babbling and not a form of communication, the scientists report in an upcoming issue of the journal Naturwissenschaften (listen to a babbling baby bat). ...........


Photography courtesy Mirjam Knörnschild

bring them home, bring them home NOW

i am sure there are all sorts of horror stories like this one.

US sending 300 newly returned troops back to Iraq

By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - About 300 U.S. soldiers who just weeks ago returned home to Alaska after a year in Iraq are being ordered back to try to help bolster security in Baghdad, the U.S. Army said on Monday.
The soldiers are part of the 3,900-strong 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fort Wainwright in Alaska. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on July 27 ordered the unit to remain in Iraq for up to four months past its scheduled departure.
The order provoked anger and disappointment among some of the soldiers' families in Alaska. It also made clear that any significant reduction in the 135,000-strong U.S. force in Iraq was unlikely in the immediate future.
The brigade was so far along in the process of flowing out of Iraq after its yearlong tour that 380 soldiers had returned home to Alaska and 300 had arrived in Kuwait en route home, the Army said..........

update on the story below

(well the part that deals with me that is)

the person at work whom i had a discussion with last thursday, said HELLO to me this morning very loudly. i didn't answer him. i was still quite upset (and to tell you the truth a bit hurt). he came over to my desk and asked me what was up. i told him, i was very upset and it was hard for me to deal with some of the things he said to me. i said i wasn't so much upset about what he said about things in general, i was upset he didn't want to deal with me anymore because of MY beliefs (which i normally keep to myself at work. remember HE brought it up. although he did overhear me talking with someone else about my political beliefs). a few other things were said and then he apologized to me and i of course apologized to him (although i didn't do anything that i felt needed an apology. i just wanted to say it to clear the air). i then said i am going to consider the prior discussion forgotten (and i will). end of (this) story

free speech in america

it seems less and less likely (on thursday of last week something very disturbing happened to me at work. i went to ask someone a WORK RELATED question and he said to me (in a semi-kidding way), ‘i don’t think i want to talk to you anymore’. i asked him why and he said he had overheard me speaking with someone else about my choice for senator in the connecticut primary. he then started a rather political discussion (HE started it not me). it became quite clear to me he wasn’t kidding about not wanting to answer my WORK RELATED question. he was seriously angry with me i asked him if he thought the king and his court were doing a good job. i brought up many examples and he agreed, the king was doing a lousy job (how could he NOT agree. the king IS doing a lousy job). however, he was incensed i voted for ned lamont and not da liebs. i said i voted for ned first and foremost because i was against the war in iraq. i stated i was against BOTH sides in the israel lebannon war. i said innocents were being killed everywhere. he just couldn’t fathom what i was saying. it was making him mad. it was making him mad i didn’t want people to be killed. he thinks the king and his court are supporting the people of israel. little does he know the king and his court don’t give a flying yoo hoo about the people of israel. they believe in the rapture and when the rapture comes, the people of israel will be wiped out along with all of the OTHER non believers. if not that, the king and his court want the oil in the middle east. they don’t give two sh**s about ANY of the peoples in the middle east (why aren’t we doing something about the wars and atrocities in some of the african countries????????), they care about wealth and power (and the rapture). the person at work even went so far as to say he wished everyone in france would get wiped off of the face of the earth. why? why even say something like THAT?

i walked away because i had enough. i wanted to question him more about his world beliefs. did he feel like he felt ONLY because he was a jew? is that fair? aren’t there all sorts of OTHER considerations to take into account? i was afraid to ask. work wasn’t the proper forum for our discussion anyway. would i have asked him OUTSIDE of work? i don’t know and that is bothering me too.

we can’t have peace if our minds are closed to others. it has to start somewhere. it has to start with me AND YOU. it has to start now)
The land of the free - but free speech is a rare commodity

You can say what you like in the US, just as long as you don't ask awkward questions about America's role in the Middle East Henry Porter Sunday August 13, 2006 The Observer
It used to be said that academic rows were vicious because the stakes were so small. That's no longer true in America, where a battle is underway on campuses over what can be said about the Middle East and US foreign policy.
Douglas Giles is a recent casualty. He used to teach a class on world religions at Roosevelt University, Chicago, founded in memory of FDR and his liberal-inclined wife, Eleanor. Last year, Giles was ordered by his head of department, art historian Susan Weininger, not to allow students to ask questions about Palestine and Israel; in fact, nothing was to be mentioned in class, textbooks and examinations that could possibly open Judaism to criticism.
Students, being what they are, did not go along with the ban. A young woman, originally from Pakistan, asked a question about Palestinian rights. Someone complained and Professor Giles was promptly fired.
Leaving aside his boss's doubtful qualifications to set limits on a class of comparative religion - her speciality is early 20th-century Midwestern artists such as Tunis Ponsen (nor have I) - the point to grasp is that Professor Giles did not make inflammatory statements himself: he merely refused to limit debate among the young minds in front of him...........

i am a firm believer

animals do have feelings and emotions. we should treat them as such. hell, we can't even treat each other with compassion, i guess it's too much for me to expect us to treat animals kindly.

Photo Gallery: Dying Elephant Elicits ''Compassion'' (click on the title above, it's a link to the rest of the story and pictures)

Warning: This gallery contains graphic images.
Day One: Grace Aids Eleanor
Grace, of a family of elephants that researchers call the Virtues, touches the ailing Eleanor, the matriarch of the First Ladies family, who has fallen in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve on October 10, 2003. Grace will soon push Eleanor back to her feet, though the ailing elephant's resurgence will be short-lived.
Elephants show compassionate behavior to others in distress, even to elephants not closely related to them, according to the researchers who produced these photos and an accompanying report, published in the July 2006 issue of the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
Before this picture was taken, Eleanor, a new mother, had been found with a swollen trunk, abrasions to an ear and a leg, and a broken tusk—probably from a previous fall. ..............


and this from the ny times

A Chinese Outcry: Doesn’t a Dog Have Rights?

SHANGHAI, Aug. 9 — It was late last month, the boy said, his voice still tinged with emotion, when he and his father were forced to march their two German shepherds to a public square and hang them from a tree.
The boy, Xia Shaoli, was not alone in his pain. Officials in Mouding County in southwestern Yunnan Province had ordered the mass extermination of dogs, pets as well as strays, after three people died in a rabies outbreak. And as a crowd gathered around a large tree in the village of Xiajiashan, owners complied one after another with commands to string their dogs up.
According to official figures, 54,429 dogs were killed during the Yunnan campaign. Reports in the Chinese news media say that some people out walking their dogs had the animals seized by gangs of vigilantes, who clubbed the dogs to death on the spot.
The events in Yunnan have been quickly followed by rabies scares in other parts of China. On Wednesday, the Chinese news media reported the killings of 280 dogs in Wuxi, a city near Shanghai, and 13 in the city of Fuzhou in southern Fujian Province. ..........

this is an interesting little article.........

Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved


By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 11, 7:38 PM ET
While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.
Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.
Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.
"The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security," the panel wrote June 29 in a bipartisan report accompanying the agency's 2007 budget.
Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short.
"They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using," Sabo said...........

i meant to post this the other day, but didn't have time

since the original story i have read donations have been coming in for mr mccusker.

what happened to him and thousands of others was/is inexcusable. there is no reason it HAD to happen as it did. there is NO reason our nation didn't help them as it should have. katrina destroyed more than homes. instead of lending a hand, many (in our government) just spit on those that were treading water.

this is so very sad. this is but ONE story out of so many. those of us not in the gulf coast area have no idea (me included) how much devastation occured.

After Long Stress, Newsman in New Orleans Unravels

By SUSAN SAULNY
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 9 — On the morning after Hurricane Katrina, when members of The Times-Picayune’s staff found themselves marooned in its flooded building here, John McCusker refused to join most of his colleagues in relocating to a remote newsroom in Baton Rouge.
After the building was evacuated, Mr. McCusker, a photographer for the paper, swam through muck while managing to keep his equipment dry and, from a kayak, captured some of the most harrowing images of the storm’s immediate aftermath.
Then, for months, he lived the misery he had been photographing, having lost his possessions, his family’s home and his entire neighborhood to the hurricane. On Tuesday, nearly a year after the storm, he seemed to snap.
In an episode that began as a traffic stop for erratic driving, the authorities say, Mr. McCusker was halted once, pinned a police officer between cars by backing up, then fled and drove into several cars and construction signs in the Uptown neighborhood before being stopped again and finally subdued with a Taser gun. In both stops, the police say, he begged officers to shoot him, telling them he did not have enough insurance money to rebuild his home in the Gentilly neighborhood and wanted to die.
“He was demanding it; he kept saying, ‘Just kill me, just kill me,’ ” said James Arey, commander of the negotiation team of the Police Department’s special operations division, who responded to the scene. ..........

over the years i have been reading about this VERY disturbing story

women ARE second class citizens even in north america. something to show off, something to own, something to get rid of when you're done with them

the good ol' boy network at work here. even though their skin isn't white white white this time, it's the same thing. money and power

El Paso Reporter Risked Her Life on a Mass Murder Story

By Barbara Bedway Published: August 11, 2006 10:45 AM ET
NEW YORK By 1999, when the El Paso (Texas) Times' Diana Washington Valdez began reporting on a string of murders of young women across the border in Juarez, Mexico, the killings had been going on for six years. But the level of U.S. media frenzy generated when a young blonde woman goes missing somewhere was notably absent in Juarez, even as the number of victims -- most of them poor, attractive girls attending school or working at one of the city's many large assembly plants -- steadily grew into the hundreds. Many of the women were raped and mutilated prior to their deaths, their bodies dumped in ditches or vacant lots in the desert. State law enforcement authorities responsible for investigating the crimes (at least 90 women were raped and killed in similar ways) consistently failed to preserve crime scenes, collect evidence, or interview witnesses. Valdez, a bilingual reporter with plenty of experience investigating corruption on the U.S. side of the border, says, "Even I had no idea how bad it was, and how high up the corruption was occurring."...........