Multiple layers of painstaking editorial fact-checking. But they'll take the word of any hustler out for publicity, eh?

It was a dramatic front-page story to match an infamous photo: the chilling shot of an Abu Ghraib prisoner, hooded, standing on a box, electrical wires attached to his outstretched arms.

He is Ali Shalal Qaissi, the New York Times said last Saturday, and the Iraqi told the paper that his wounds are still raw.

But after questions were raised by the online magazine Salon, the Times acknowledged last night that the story was flat wrong. The prisoner in the photograph was not Qaissi, who has belatedly admitted that to the newspaper.

"The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph" and "should have been more persistent in seeking comment from the military," the paper said in an editor's note.

Susan Chira, the Times foreign editor, said in an interview earlier this week that Salon had "raised legitimate questions" about the newspaper's story. "Any time you talk to someone like this, you worry: Are they telling you some kind of story?"

In a story published in today's editions, Qaissi is quoted as saying in a tearful telephone interview that he was photographed in a similar position. "I know one thing," Qaissi told the Times. "I wore that blanket, I stood on that box, and I was wired up and electrocuted."

The Army, however, says that only one man was mistreated that way, a prisoner whom guards nicknamed "The Claw," according to the Times report. Further undercutting Qaissi's account, the Times reported, is that he never claimed to have been the man under the hood in the first months after his release from Abu Ghraib or in a July 2004 lawsuit that he joined.

Salon is now a more accurate and reputable source than the New York Times.

How about them apples?

Posted by: Ace at 08:24 AM | Comments (7)
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Ah, zee enlightened socialist utopia of Europe.

"I risk working for two years for nothing, just to be fired at any moment," said Paris student Coralie Huvet, 20, who had "No to the CPE" written on her forehead. Pointing to painted-on tears, she added: "That's depressing, that's why I'm crying."

You know what you can do to avoid this doom, Coralie?*
Give full value for your employer's money. Make yourself useful for a change.

Maybe if you had to work hard to keep your job you wouldn't have the energy to run around all night with your face painted like a mime-whore, throwing rocks at policemen.

A huge step backward for organized Labor, isn't it.
Good.

*Coralie surely knows her employer is itching to get rid of her.

UPDATE: Well, as many of you already know, the rioting has grown more widespread and violent.
I checked out Agence France-Presse and it isn't even on the front page.
You would think that when a European country is faced with a general strike because of labor law changes, that would be big news.

Unless, of course, there were unsavory rioters causing mayhem that might undermine their cause (Fnord).

Posted by: LauraW. at 01:04 PM | Comments (67)
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It's about time.

Kind of related: ShitBeGone brand toilet paper.

Posted by: Ace at 04:01 PM | Comments (379)
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Don't forget the taint!

I won't eat at any restaurant where the Chef's junk doesn't pass my rigorous white-glove test.

Posted by: LauraW. at 03:41 PM | Comments (17)
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Mark the Pundit:

So wait... They print out the news from the internet and deliver it to your house? Huh.

Why, that's almost so witty I might call it a "Durstism."

Posted by: Ace at 02:35 PM | Comments (11)
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Good news:

The U.S. military said on Friday a joint U.S.-Iraqi offensive marked a change in the fight against guerillas, showing Iraq's army was becoming increasingly effective and taking more control.

U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq hinge on the capability of the Iraqi army, disbanded by U.S. authorities in 2003 and now being rapidly rebuilt, in the face of a raging insurgency and a surge in sectarian killings.

"(The operation) really marks a change and it marks an evolution," said a top U.S. commander, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, adding Iraqi forces would control about 75 percent of the country by later this year, up from under 50 percent now.

"I think operations like 'Swarmer' are operations you're going to see more and more of Â… as we turn over more of the large urban areas to Iraqi forces," said Chiarelli.

"Had we tried to accomplish a mission like this 11 months ago, it would have been primarily U.S. forces. But in this case Â… we had primarily Iraqi forces," he said.

Well that's certainly good news. A terrorist mob can't defeat a government armed with a professional army. If the Iraqi army can handle this stuff, then the war is won.

Posted by: Ace at 01:34 PM | Comments (80)
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Hubris kills. Bush is floundering, certainly, but what keeps him from actually sinking is the Democratic Party itself.

The next round of prospective Democratic presidential candidates, even those with centrist credentials, is actively courting the Democratic Party's left wing -- which speaks loudly through its blogs, enjoys rising fund-raising clout built on Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, and is imbued with a confidence that it can build on Republican disarray. The Democrats are rushing to fill a void left in the hearts and minds of many liberal activists by New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts to move to the center, particularly on the Iraq war.

...

Recently released 2005 Federal Election Commission reports indicate that five of the top 10 richest tax-exempt 527 political issue groups were liberal. Of the top 10 political action committees, eight were liberal or affiliated with organized labor, with substantially more cash on hand than conservative groups such as the National Rifle Association or GOP-friendly corporate PACs such as the National Association of Realtors.

But only 16% of the population self-identifes as liberal. 36% identifies as conservative, and 47% as moderate (which surely includes some deluded liberals, but not enough to reach parity).

Godspeed to you. It's time to test out that West Wing derived theory of yours -- that the country is just aching for honest, overt, stridently liberal leadership and policies -- and see how it all works out for ya.

Meanwhile... Susan Sarandon says she can't support Hillary! Clinton, as she "supported" (wink wink, nudge nudge) the war.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (12)
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Cites Internet "event risk:"

Moody's Investors Service said Friday it may cut its rating of the New York Times Co.'s debt because of the company's weak cash flow, high financial leverage, and declining margins.

If that wasn't enough, Moody's said it is concerned about growing media competition, including the Internet, and what it calls ''event risk'' in the newspaper sector.

...

The New York Times Co.'s share buybacks over the last four years, debt-financed acquisition of About.com, and capital expenditures for its move into new headquarters ''leaves the company with a significant debt burden, heightened adjusted leverage, resulting in diminished financial flexibility,'' Moody's said.

And yet publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., The Nepot Despot, just got a $1.6 million bonus.

If he bankrupts the company, they'll give him Bolivia.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (9)
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I'd like to see a counter-suit for property damage and wrongful deaths.

Danish Muslim groups are to report Denmark to the UN Commissioner on Human Rights for failing to prosecute the newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The 27 Muslim groups also plan to sue the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, for defamation in a Danish court, according to their lawyer, Michael Christiani Havemann.

"Denmark is obliged through the UN to secure the civil rights of its citizens," Havemann said by telephone. "The national prosecutor wonÂ’t pursue the case and, therefore, acts as a barrier to justice to the complainants."

Henning Fode, DenmarkÂ’s director of public prosecutions, announced on Wednesday that he would not charge Jyllands-Posten, ruling that the drawings it published last September did not violate DenmarkÂ’s laws against blasphemy and racist speech.

Mr Fode said that the cartoons could be considered an affront to the Prophet, but did not break Danish law.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg is right-- we certainly should be incorporating more foreign law into the American Constitution. They're, like, so advanced 'n stuff.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (8)
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My Pet Jawa notes the released Iraqi docs contain a picture of an Al Qaeda operative based in Iraq pre-war.

The picture is of Al-Zarqawi, and identified as such.

Powerline notes a digest of intelligence (not a transaltion of Iraqi docs as they originally, erroneously stated) which includes the following tidbit:

Office 16. This Office conducts training of agents for clandestine operations abroad. Agents attend a special school near Baghdad which provides language courses and orientation concerning the country to which they will be assigned. The Office also provides training for the operation itself. Special six-week courses in the use of terror techniques are provided at a camp in Radwaniyah.

There is no connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam, and Saddam provided no training or support of terrorists.

Keep saying it to yourself, Chris Matthews, because you're going to need that mantra in the face of the evidence being released.

Posted by: Ace at 11:14 AM | Comments (29)
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