Phone Records Corroborate Armanious Suspect's Confession

... and hair and fiber samples may substantiate it further, according to this article by Tom Troncone at NorthJersey.com.

Records of a telephone call between the two men charged in the slaying of an Egyptian family corroborate a detailed admission by one of them, authorities said Monday. The confession by Edward McDonald and records of his phone call to former prison buddy Hamilton Sanchez in the hours before the killings were enough for prosecutors to charge Sanchez in the Jan. 11 massacre, authorities said. Prosecutors are still counting on evidence being processed at the FBI forensics lab in Washington to cement their case. Hair and fiber samples taken from inside the home Hossam Armanious shared with his wife and two daughters should place the two alleged killers there, said John Conway, an FBI spokesman. "Confessions are always great," Conway said. "But confessions aren't always enough to get a conviction. We do have physical evidence and a high level of confidence that the physical evidence will help link them together."

Read the whole article at the link for details of how Edward McDonald and Hamilton Sanchez allegedly plotted the robbery to repay a debt owed to an unnamed party in New York.

Dreams Into Lightning will post any further significant developments on the Armanious-Garas murders. At this point, however, it appears unlikely that any new information will change the emerging picture of the crime, which appears to have been a common robbery with an uncommonly horrible ending.

Boom!

I am reliably informed that Mount Saint Helens has erupted. I'll keep you posted with the latest from Herculaneum.

UPDATE: KIRO-TV News reports: 'A large plume of steam is being emitted this afternoon from the crater of Mount Saint Helens. The plume was accompanied by an earthquake of about 2-point-zero magnitude. ...' Read the story at the link.

UPDATE 2: Photos here. Hat tip: LGF.

Campus Lesbians Fail "Model Minority" Test ...

... according to Gay Patriot.

Sissy on Drum's "Slime Artists"

Sissy Willis discovers another endearing term for bloggers on reading Kevin Drum. I can't add much to what she says, because she says it beautifully, but I'll just point out the partisan focus of Drum's piece. Bloggers "campaigning against the established media" ... well, Sisu is right, that IS shocking. What's interesting to me is that the media (here and elsewhere) almost always identify anti-MSM blogs (or any they don't happen to agree with) as "right-wing" or "conservative". That is, they identify "right-wing" with "anti-media". Is this, then, an implicit admission of their own leftist bias?

Judith Attends Columbia Conference on Anti-Semitism

Judith of Kesher talk attended a conference on anti-Semitism held at Columbia University. She blogs about it here. Check out her links, too.

"The concept of self-help is prevalent in conservative thought."

LaShawn Barber has an excellent post on black conservatives. Well worth your reading time.

Chris Hedges, Alleged Khafji Correspondent, Gets a History Lesson

The anti-American New York Times journalist Chris Hedges, who claimed to have been present at the battle of Khafji during Operation Desert Storm, is the subject of this open letter by Benjamin Blatt:

Having just finished War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning; I must say that Chris Hedges provides a good read, if you enjoy fiction. In particular Chris, I found your tale of the Battle of Khafji during Desert Storm on page 23 of your book to be particularly entertaining, seeing as how it is spun of whole cloth. Sadly, although your version of events in 2002 has you standing “on rooftops with young Marine radio operators who called in air strikes” watching the Marines who “were called in to push the Iraqis (out of Khafji),” your story just does not pan out. You see, in 2004 a book that may very well become known as the definitive study of Khafji was published. The author of Storm on the Horizon, David J. Morris, researched the battle extensively and interviewed the Marines (all thirteen of them) who had called in the air strikes. And yet, none of those Marines remembered you, the French photographers who were with you, or circumstances in which the presence of Journalists by their positions wouldn’t have gotten them killed. Did you really think that the story would never come out? That carrying on the grand tradition of those who covered Vietnam from the Caravelle’s bar would drown out the voices of the Marines whose story you have dishonored with your lies? But please, don’t take my word alone, let the evidence speak for itself.

In the past Mr. Hedges, you have crowed loudly about having fled the Pentagon’s Gulf War press pool, choosing instead to cover a shooting war on your own. But even though in Morris’s book there is a brief mention of the presence of “Unilateral” or “Pool breaker” journalists being around the area of Khafji during the battle, these journalists are mentioned as being British and French, and no mention is made of them having interacted with the two trapped and hidden Marine recon teams in Khafji. But I’m sure the presence of these journalists provided you excellent cover when you started to make your claims years later. ...

Read the whole thing at the link. Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.

Credit Where Overdue

Or, "A Day Late and a Dollar Short." The following brief mentions will be much shorter than the respective parties deserve, only because they're already so late that I don't want to delay any longer in getting them posted. So, here goes ...

Stefania turns 23. Stefania LaPenna, the brain behind Free Thoughts, celebrated her twenty-third birthday yesterday, March 7. Happy birthday, Stefania! Readers, be sure to check Free Thoughts regularly for updates on Giuliana Sgrena and other Italian hostages - as well as info on freedom movements in Iran, Syria, Cuba, and elsewhere.

Michael J. Totten has returned from Puerto Rico (and before you ask, no, his visa didn't expire) with lots of photos. Back home in sunny Portland, he writes on Syria and disovers a great new Syrian blog by Ammar Abdulhamid (Amarji).

Bear Left is back and blogging again, after a nasty bout of carpal tunnel. Even with those wrist supports, though, he's maintaining a healthy caution about overdosing on the electronic media.

The Redhunter is a frequent visitor and commenter here. Tom has posted on United Nations scandals and Iraqi atrocities. He also has an impressive series on "Just War" theory - the latest installment is here.

Condolences go out to Husayn and to the family of his cousin, who was killed in a recent terrorist attack. Take a moment to hit Husayn's tip jar to help out the family.

Sgrena's car, riddled with 300 to 400 bullets.

Photos at Little Green Footballs.

Sex, Gender, and Restrooms

It gives me no pleasure to take issue with Ann Althouse, who is one of the most intelligent voices in the blogosphere. But I've got to say something in response to her post (and its follow-up) on the issue of public restrooms.

The issue is: What changes in public accommodations should be made to protect transgendered people from violence and harrassment in public lavatories? Ann's answer, so far as I can tell, is: none.

The original post starts off reasonably enough. "I understand the problem transgendered persons sometimes have in finding an acceptable public bathroom," she begins, "but I consider the solution of abolishing separate mens' and womens' restrooms quite intolerable." And so do I, and I think most people feel the same way. Women have every right to be concerned about "safety and privacy issues" in a public, multi-user restroom. And I'll even add that some women may not be comfortable sharing a restroom with a transgendered person. This concern deserves to be taken into account.

What's the solution? "I have no problem with the sort of bathrooms that accommodate only one person at a time being made available to anyone," she says, but then reverses herself: "Well, now that you mention it, maybe I should take back my statement that I have "no problem" with the single-user unisex bathroom. The truth is I do. ... The simple reason is that a bathroom used by men is dirtier." So the single-seater is out. Not for reasons of safety or of privacy, but because "a bathroom used by men is dirtier." A reader who's cleaned public restrooms writes in to dispute this finding. And from there on, the post digresses into the details of bathroom dirt, the original issue long forgotten. Althouse concludes with the revelation: "Oh, my friends: there is a divide between men and women!"

Well, no kidding. Ann Althouse defiantly refuses to use the word "gender" - no silly political correctness for her. You know, if Ann woke up tomorrow morning with a beard and a bass voice, and people expected her to start using the men's room, I'm betting the word "gender" would enter her vocabulary pretty quick.

So, no all-gender single-seaters either. How about separate private stalls designated for men and women? I've seen those. Perhaps that would be to Ann's liking? Oh no, that won't do either: it's the one and only point on which she can agree with Ian Ayres, in her follow-up post: "Like Ayres, however, I do think there isn't so much point to limiting single-user bathrooms to one sex or the other."

It seems there is no solution that will satisfy Ann Althouse - nor does she appear particularly eager to find one, as neither of her posts on the subject expresses any real concern for the safety of transgendered people who need to go.

I wrote of my early experience with public (school) restrooms in this post, one of my first at Dreams Into Lightning. I've also written about the confusion about gender and sexuality to which both feminists and social conservatives have contributed. I've blogged on transsexuals in the Middle East here and here. Right now I will simply say this: Nobody wants men to stop being men or women to stop being women; nobody, at least, outside of a few fringe radicals. But there are a great many transsexual, transgendered, and differently-gendered persons out there who ask nothing of the world except the opportunity to live with some measure of safety and dignity.

In recent years, there have been enormous strides towards better understanding of transgendered and transsexual people, both in the general population and among the formerly hostile lesbian/feminist community. Flims like "The Crying Game" and "Boys Don't Cry" presented a nuanced and sympathetic (if tragic) picture of trans people. The popular lesbian magazines Curve and Girlfriends have reflected a progressive understanding of gender; and the popular Showtime series "The L Word" included a female cross-dresser named "Ivan" (and, for a few episodes, even a male lesbian) in its debut season.

Ann Althouse proudly proclaims herself "pro-gay rights". That's great! I look forward to learning what she plans to do to protect transgendered people like Riki Dennis.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse has a very good post on a restroom discrimination case (Hispanic Aids Forum v. Estate of Joseph Bruno) here: Is This Sex Discrimination?

Recognition

Two of my favorite bloggers got some long-overdue recogntion this past week:

Jane at Armies of Liberation got a write-up in Day By Day. Great work, Jane!

Sherri Reese at Straight Up With Sherri was interviewed on radio on the Andrea Shea-King Show last Sunday night, March 6. Sherri has been doing tremendous work to raise public awareness on the fight to save Terri Schiavo. Go visit Sherri's site and learn about the Terri Schiavo case.

Morning Report: March 8, 2005

Bush stands firm on democracy. President Bush reiterated his support for democracy at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, saying "We are confident that the desire for freedom, even when repressed for generations, is present in every human heart, and that desire can emerge with sudden power to change the course of history." A full transcript of the President's speech may be found here. Bush specifically mentioned the regimes in Iran and Syria. (CNN)

Pakistani women demonstrate against tribal rape. 'Thousands of women rallied in eastern Pakistan on Monday to demand justice and protection for a woman who said she was gang-raped at the direction of a village council, after a court ordered the release of her alleged attackers. The victim, Mukhtar Mai, also attended the rally in Multan, a major city in the eastern province of Punjab,' according to this AP story by Khalid Tanveer. 'In June 2002, Mai said she was raped by four men on the orders of a village council that wanted to punish her family. Mai's brother was accused of having sex with a woman from a more prominent family, though Mai's family says the allegations were fabricated to cover up a sexual assault against the boy by several men. Mai, a 33-year-old school teacher, went public about her ordeal, drawing international media attention to widespread crimes against women in ultraconservative Pakistan. The government also pledged to track down her attackers. A court later sentenced six men to death for Mai's rape. An appeals court overturned the convictions of five of the men last week, citing lack of evidence, and reduced the other man's sentence to life in prison.' Read the full story at the link. (AP/Yahoo via LGF)

Questions surround McCain, Cablevision. CNN reports: 'A senator promotes a government policy sought by a corporation while a tax-exempt group closely tied to him solicits and gets $200,000 from the same company. Campaign finance watchdogs say that creates the appearance of a conflict of interest. To their surprise, the senator is Arizona Republican John McCain, whom they usually praise for advocating campaign finance restrictions. McCain's help to Cablevision Systems Corp. included letting its CEO testify before his Senate committee, writing a letter of support to the Federal Communication Commission and asking other cable companies to support so-called a la carte pricing.' Kent Cooper of Political Money Line said: "Senator McCain derives a clear benefit by using The Reform Institute to help the debate on campaign finance reform. His McCain-Feingold bill helped break the connection between members of Congress and large contributions. Here is an example of a large contribution going to the foundation connected with a member of Congress. I don't see a difference." (CNN)