Midweek link dump

[tangaroa]

• Hezbollah hosted a large-scale gathering of terrorist organizations, which implies further coordination between them. The conference is said to have included Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars chairman Harith al-Dari, Iranian Vice President Mohammed Reza Mir Tajeddini, Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdul-Karim, Syrian Ba'ath Party representative Shahinaz Fakoush, International Union of Muslim Scholars representative Yusuf Qaradawi, P.L.O. terrorist Layla Khaled, former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights lawyer Stanley Cohen.
• Reese Erlich in Vanity Fair Magazine accuses the U.S. of intentionally killing an unarmed family in the 2006 attack on a house in the Syrian village of al-Sukariya near the Iraqi border.
• Scott Horton in Harpers Magazine alleges that three Guantanamo "suicides" were tortured to death.
• Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown, a Republican, won the special election for the open seat in the United States Senate that was vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. Brown's win represents the current mood of the United States public in a strongly Democratic region, which goes to show that the Democrats need to get off their butts and learn to campaign. Talking Points Memo has an interesting report from a Congressional aide on the Democratic reaction.
• Britain's new science funding rules prioritize research with immediate commercial applications, which discourages expeditions into the unknown.
• The Honduran army chiefs of staff have been charged with abuse of power by exiling desposed President Manuel Zelaya, an act which violated the Constitution, specifically Article 81, as much as anything Zelaya did. This fills the biggest remaining hole in the restoration of Constitutional order.
• Iran has charged seven Baha'i with religious offenses and spying for Israel.
• Feminist playwright Rayhana was attacked by fanatics in Paris.
• A U.S. weapons parts manufacturer has been putting Biblical references on parts sold to the U.S. military.
• The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation routinely fabricated terrorist threats to demand telephone records without a warrant.
• India's registration requirement for satellite phones caught a British biodiesel activist. What is most notable about the story is how the media reports this as "terrorism-related charges".
• A high-school student in Willows, California was expelled for owning a shotgun off school grounds.
• FrontPage Magazine has a report on anti-semitism on Huffington Post. There is no word on when Huffington will produce a report on the anti-Muslim bigotry on FrontPage.
• Raziq at Harry's Place has a short history on the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque at Mecca.