“Into the palace parlor they stepped; her hand in his paw the old bruin kept,” 1875 Two hundred fifteen people were killed in a massive bombing and mortar attack on a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, marking Iraq’s largest single-day death toll since the U.S. invasion. The killings prompted Shiite militiamen to seize and burn alive as many as twenty-four Sunnis; other Shiite residents of the capital stoned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “It’s all your fault!” one man shouted.AP via MSNBCReutersElsewhere in Baghdad, insurgents set fire to a U.S. base, APand the host of a popular satirical Iraqitelevision show was found …

A kinkajou, 1886. The Pentagon announced that civilian casualties in Iraq had increased recently by more than fifty percent, and death squads were said to be torturing and killing as many as 1,800 people per month.New York TimesAt least 200 Iraqis were killed in bombings, rocket attacks, and shootings, as were 19 American and British soldiers.CNNNPRU.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales visited Iraq to encourage “the rule of law,” andicasualties.orgNPRReutersReutersReutersSapa-AP via Independent OnlineReutersReutersAP via Houston ChronicleU.S. Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld quoted Georges Clemenceau, who said, “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.”Washington PostIran ignored a U.N. Security …

The U.S. State Department issued a report criticizing human rights abuses in China, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. It also criticized the rights records of Jordan and Egypt, two countries where the United States has sent detainees to be interrogated. The report noted that the United States’ “own journey towards liberty and justice for all has been long and difficult,” and is “far from complete.”The New York TimesThe IndependentA bombing at a Shiite market in Sadr City, Iraq, killed at least 50 people; Shiite vigilantes responded by abducting four men, beating and executing them, and hanging them from lampposts.The New …

Thai health officials confirmed that avian flu has probably begun to spread from person to person. Influenza experts were begging drug companies to begin manufacturing enough vaccine to prevent a pandemic but the companies were complaining that production is too expensive and that they will lose money if a pandemic does not occur. Patent issues were also cited.New York TimesEmory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, began notifying more than 500 patients that they might have been exposed to sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakobdisease because of inadequate sterilization procedures.Associated PressTony Blair underwent heart surgery, andNew York TimesMerck & Co. withdrew its arthritis drug Vioxx …

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a scathing report on the CIA’s unfounded, unjustified, and unreasonable claims about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction; the report was oddly silent, however, about the Bush Administration’s well-documented and apparently successful campaign to intimidate the CIA into coming up with justifications for the President’s fraudulent case for the invasion.New York TimesSenator Trent Lott was outraged by the CIA’s “totally ridiculous, uncalled for, and counterproductive” redactions of the report and called for an independent commission to oversee the classification of government information.New York TimesJapan’s defense ministry said that it will issue its annual defense whitepaper …

A Small Family. Killing Ground. Four American mercenaries employed by Blackwater Security Consulting were pulled from their vehicles in Fallujah, Iraq, hacked to death, burned, and dragged through the streets; the remains of two were then hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River along with a sign that said “Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans.”BBC“Despite an uptick in local engagements,” said General Mark Kimmit at a press briefing a few hours later, “the overall area of operations remains relatively stable with negligible impact on the coalition’s ability to continue progress in governance, economic development, and restoration of essential services.”New …

Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who has criticized the Bush Administration for its poor efforts at fighting terrorism and its misguided invasion of Iraq, appeared before the commission investigating September 11 and apologized for the government’s and his own failure to prevent the attacks. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice have all refused to testify publicly before the commission.ReutersBush Administration operatives were working very hard to discredit Clarke, and Condoleezza Rice agreed to speak with the 9/11 panel once again but not publicly and not under oath.ReutersRice did appear publicly on 60 Minutes and …

Israel assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas; Sheikh Yassin, an elderly, partially blind quadriplegic, was hit in his wheelchair with a missile as he left a mosque in Gaza City.New York TimesThe Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade apologized for murdering a Palestinian college student who was jogging in East Jerusalem; the killers thought he was a Jew.New York TimesThe Pentagon dropped charges against Capt. James Yee, a former chaplain at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, who was accused of being a Muslim spy.Straights TimesThe British government was fighting in court for the right to charge people who have …

More than 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel prize winners and 19 winners of the National Medal of Science, denounced the Bush Administration for its systematic distortion of scientific facts for political gain; John H. Marburger III, the administration’s head of science and technology policy, dismissed the report and said that it was politically motivated.Chemical and Environmental NewsPresident Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors decided to move the official start date of the last recession from the generally accepted March 2001 to the fourth quarter of 2000, when Bill Clinton was still president.Business WeekHealth and Human Services officials admitted that a …

Liberal political groups were attempting to rally SenateDemocrats to oppose the nomination of John Ashcroft to be attorney general of the United States, though few seriously believed that members of the Democrat Party were brave or principled enough to do what it would take to defeat the right-wing Christian extremist.Afghanistan’s chief mullah decreed that encouraging a Muslim to convert to Christianity was a capital crime; Mullah Muhammad Omar also let it be known that selling any kind of anti-Islamic literature would be punished by five years in prison.An Iranian court sentenced several people, including a prominent journalist, to long prison …