Sunday, April 22, 2007
Appalling news roundup for Sunday
• Erroneous convictions are terribly unjust, and everything possible should be done to eliminate them. An analysis of 197 wrongful convictions found that the error in 75% of the cases was due to false eyewitness identification. Vesna Jaksic surveys some of the changes in conducting a lineup that are under consideration in several states.
• Amnesty International says that Iraq has moved up to 4th place in the international death penalty competition and now trails only China, Iran and Pakistan. I don't know why they waste money on hangings when they could just force the culprits into the streets for the same lethal effect.
• James Morrison of the Washington Times suggests that the Democrats are about to "lose" Turkey. How? By recognizing the Armenian genocide. But "Onur Oymen, a former top Foreign Ministry official..., noted that favorable attitudes ... toward the United States have plummeted to single digits since the start of the Iraq war in 2003."
• "The United Nations will not include Iraqi civilian casualty figures in its next human rights report, a spokesman said yesterday, omitting what many had viewed as a rare, reliable indicator of suffering in Iraq." Official figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry—one component of the UN estimate—have not been received.
• What a relief! We may not be able to do anything about poverty, but at least ignorance is spreading, so maybe nobody will notice. The Economist surveys anti-Darwinian efforts as they travel from the U.S. to Istanbul, to Moscow and to the Vatican.
Tags: * news roundup
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