Links and Minifeatures 12 11 Sunday

It looks from a Google and Yahoo result that I'm coming to this one late, but it's still worth hitting. HT to Owner's Manual (an article worth reading) for turning me on to a story at The Agitator about a man on death row for shooting a police officer. What that doesn't tell you is he was peacefully asleep in his home when the police officer served a 'no-knock' warrant by breaking down the door to the wrong address. (it is in dispute whether announced or not.) This guy, named Cory Maye, should not be in jail at all, much less of death row. He was justifiably in fear for his life and the safety of his family. Oh, and I failed to mention that he's a black man, and his target was the white son of the police chief, and the jury was all white also. This looks like real racism. Why aren't Tookie's defenders leaping in? Where is all of the high profile help?



Here is the AJS summary.



here and here and here is the hometown news coverage.

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Strata-Sphere is in favor of a proposal to help modernize Poland's military. This makes sense. Everybody gets something they want by agreeing.



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State of Flux has an excellent article (even if it does use Wikipedia as a source) on the growth of the Iraqi economy, and how it is seemingly growing beyond an oil-based economy. If true, this could be the best long term news for Iraq out of the whole regime change operation.



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Eidelblog has a heck of a good post on pensions and pension guarantees. He misses the fact that the number one reason for pension shortfalls is timely funding of obligations, but nails the rest. Yeah, FASB put pension obligations on the reports back around 1991, and GM took a $23 Billion dollar hit because of it. There are even penalties for corporations who fail to make contributions in a timely manner. Nonetheless it happens (and Buddha only knows how many governmental employers play the same game). They decide they want the cash now, and "We'll make it up later"



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Louisiana Libertarian covers a "We Hate Bush" rally in New Orleans. That's not what they called it. But that's what it was. He also has photos posted. This is what comes of allowing idiocy to think it's valid. Moonbats, Moonbats, Stupid Brainless Moonbats...



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Carnival Of Insanity is up! Recommended: National Review Online



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Looks like there's been some sort of Explosion in a fuel depot near London. They're saying it wasn't caused by any third parties, although I'm not sure how they can tell that at this stage unless someone copped to something extremely stupid.



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The Jawa report has an editorial on something I've long wondered about - or actually, been certain of. Why is it that the Legacy Media don't give a rat's about the people in Iraq to rebuild it, only the "we're so sorry!" apologist surrender monkeys who aren't doing anything to help and have no intention of doing so?



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Indepundit is stirring up all kinds of activism. I confess that I've fallen behind while I'm sick. Perhaps I'll make some time to do catch-up tomorrow.



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Too much new good stuff over at Armies of Liberation to list individually. I suggest you go read the whole front page.



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Michael Barone has some very good advice on what we should do about failing high schools: Let them try different stuff and see what works. Let's not try to have a big national strategy - instead let all of the competing ideas try to sell the schools individually. That way, we find out which of them really does and does not work. Yes, we could do a disservice to many students, but if we wait for a national policy, they're all going to lose out.



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Affordable Housing Institute sees a canary in the national housing mine shaft - subprime delinquencies - and calls market top nationally. I'd be refreshed to see an incidence of subprime loans as low as 19%.



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Powerline has some points that are worth considering regarding the CIA undercutting the president.