Ohiocore

At the end of the same BBC article you get a few "Oh, and by the way" points to consider:

• Nine Iraqi police and a civilian have died in suicide bombings between Baghdad and Karbala, where Shias are attending a major religious festival
• ... a nephew of Saddam Hussein, Ayman Sabawi, has been sentenced to life in prison for funding Iraq's insurgency
• An Iraqi reporter working for the New York Times, Fakher Haider, has been found dead in Basra
• Iraq's Finance Minister, Ali Allawi, tells the UK's Independent newspaper that large-scale corruption in Iraq's ministries, particularly the defence ministry, has led to the theft of more than $1bn.

That's a "B". On the one hand, it's total corruption. On the other hand, since the goverment hasn't even existed for 18 months yet, you have to be impressed with their efficiency!

The BBC reports on a striking story:

British forces have rescued two UK servicemen who were arrested by Iraqi police in the southern city of Basra. Official Iraqi sources say British tanks stormed the city's jail, but the Ministry of Defence says the men's release was negotiated. Basra governor Mohammed al-Waili said it was a "barbaric act of aggression".

This seems to represent a continuation of the conflict between British tanks and Iraqi locals. A Shite leader in the "Shia Mehdi Army" had been arrested earlier. As I previously blogged, Basra's police force was heavily and knowingly infiltrated by religious extremists. After some exchange in this case, 2 undercover British operatives were involved in a skirmish with Basra cops, killing one of the officers. They were then arrested, and then there were street protests were 2 UK tanks were burned, and crews forced to abandon them. 6 tanks then assaulted the Basra jail and busted out 150 prisoners, including the 2 operatives.

MoD officials insist they have been talking to the Iraqi authorities to secure the release of the men - who were reported to be working undercover. But they do acknowledge a wall was demolished as UK forces tried to "collect" the men Iraqi police accused of firing on them.

However, sources in the Iraqi Interior Ministry say six tanks were used to smash down the wall in a daring rescue operation.

In case anyone had forgotten, Ohio is still seriously, seriously fucked up:

deputies found 11 children locked in cages rigged with alarms Monday in a north Ohio house... ages 1 to 14... in cages in the walls of the home in Clarksfield Township, about 50 miles west of Cleveland. They had no blankets or pillows, according to the Huron County Sheriff's Office.

The brief report mentions that they were all adoptive or foster kids. It takes a while to adopt or foster for 11 kids... and to build your in-home prison architecture for all of them. It's not a standard feature on most housing. Presumably they started by locking up a smaller number of kids, got more kids, got more cages, etc. In all that time did they ever have a social worker visit to check on the kids? Still think gutting the state budget for social services is a great way to save money?

So no neighbors or friends of the kids came over and thought something was wrong with their people-cage capacity? I guess I can't really be surprised that the kids themselves wouldn't mention it, since self-reporting is not a common mode of disclosure for abuse. But 11 kids!?! School is already in session. Can nobody can pick up on this? Did any of these kids go to school?