Tuesday afternoon news roundup

While I’m stuck on some SQL problems (use SQLite only if necessary), here is a quick roundup

• ‘American Taliban’ Father Urges Clemency – What does it take to lose your citizenship? I would think joining a foreign army should do it fairly easily, but it would seem not.
  

  In the spring of 2001, John Walker Lindh told his parents he was going to dodge the desert heat and spend the summer in the mountains of Pakistan. He did not tell his parents that he planned to cross into Afghanistan and join the Taliban army.

  The younger Lindh saw bin Laden speak twice while he was training in Afghanistan, but had no idea that he was involved in terrorism against the U.S., his father said.

  On Thursday, Frank Lindh emphasized that John Walker Lindh was involved in an Afghan war, not a fight against the U.S., when the Muslim convert joined the Taliban army to fight the Northern Alliance. He noted that the U.S. once supported Taliban fighters when they were fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

  This is either a blatant lie or a remarkably large error. The Taliban formed after the Soviets left and Northern Alliance was mostly composed of anti-Soviet fighters. Leave alone the fact Lindh could attend an al-Qaida training camp (one of whose main reasons to exist (though not it’s only one) is to kill Americans) and not know anything about it’s goals, let alone it’s many public declarations to that effect.

• Larry Franklin got 12 years for passing secrets to the Israelis. Seems a bit low to me.
• Maryland’s latest anti-Walmart legislation may come back to haunt them. The company may not build a warehouse in one of Maryland’s poorest counties.

  It’s always amazing to me how people think that the way to help people is to limit options, whether it be 12 year olds building toys in Malaysia or 70 year old Walmart greeters. If they had better options, they would take them, why remove the best available choice to them?

• Russians endure, cheer frigid winter – curiously no mention is made of global warming. Since Russia contains one sixth of the earth, you would think this would be significant one way or the other. They certainly do stories about a lot less.
• Patients suspect they’ve been given tissue stolen from corpses
• Atlanta saves itself from people who would otherwise live in the suburbs. Isn’t mandating housing size a strike against diversity?
• Check out the fiddle tune book.
• Home genetic testing – find your true heritage for a remarkably low price.