Morning News Roundup (28 Mar)

• The bodies of 14 men, who had been blindfolded and shot in the head, have been found in Baghdad's western al-Adel district. The discovery of bodies has been an almost daily occurrence as sectarian violence has risen since the bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra last month. [BBC] I also highly recommend this NYTimes piece by Jeffery Gettleman (complete with body count graphic), which offers a horribly unsettling and very saddening look at the sectarian brutality on the ground.
  
  
• The United Iraqi Alliance, the largest Shi'ite bloc in the Iraqi parliament, halted negotiations on a new government yesterday after a military assault killed at least 16 people in what Iraqis say was a mosque. [Boston Globe] The raid also widened a split between the Sunni Arab-led Defense Ministry, which oversees the Iraqi troops who took part in the operation, and the Shiite-dominated police force. Rivalry between the two security forces has fueled apprehension that the sectarian violence could drag them into a civil war. [LATimes]
  
  
• Abdul Rahman, an Afghan man who had faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity, has been released from prison after the case was dropped. The UN announced that he had applied for asylum outside of Afghanistan. Several Muslim clerics had threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he was freed, saying that he was clearly guilty of apostasy and deserved to die. [WaPo]
  
  
• Andy Card resigned as White House Chief of Staff, and President Bush, following the code of omertà, stays within the family by bringing in Josh Bolten, currently the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Salon's War Room reminds us of this number from Card's greatest hits album:
  

  For most Americans, the indelible image of Andrew Card's tenure as White House chief of staff comes from the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. As the president sits in a Florida grade-school classroom, Card approaches from his right, whispers in his ear, then disappears from the screen again -- without, it seems, waiting for any kind of response from the president, who continues to sit for several minutes more.

  
  ThinkProgress note's Bolten's bang-up job at OMB:
  

  $6.592 trillion: Federal debt on June 26, 2003, the day Josh Bolten became director of the Office of Management and Budget.
  
  $8.364 trillion: Federal debt today.

  The War Room further notes:
  

  To be fair, the Washington Post notes that Bolten has overseen two consecutive budgets that cut overall nonsecurity discretionary domestic spending. But that's a little like congratulating yourself for clipping coupons for groceries while dropping 100 grand on an adventure vacation and a new Hummer: Between Bush's tax cuts and the war in Iraq, cuts in nonsecurity discretionary domestic spending aren't enough to keep the books balanced.

  There is this to like about Bolten, however: When Dick Cheney started handing out orders to shoot down a jetliner on 9/11, it was Bolten who had the nerve to suggest that he "confirm" his authority to do so with the president first.

• Nearly 40,000 students from across Southern California staged walkouts to protest proposed immigration legislation Monday, blocking traffic on four freeways and leaving educators concerned about how much longer the issue will disrupt schools. The protests appeared to be loosely organized, with students learning about them through mass e-mails, fliers, instant messages, cellphone calls and postings on myspace.com Web pages. [LATimes]
  
  
• Hundreds of thousands of French transport workers, teachers and other employees staged a one-day national strike or marched through the streets on Tuesday to try to force the government to abandon a new youth job law. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin hopes the disputed CPE First Job Contract will reduce youth unemployment from almost 23 percent, but union and student leaders say it will create a generation of "throwaway workers" because it makes it easier to dismiss employees under 26 in a trial two-year period.
  
  
• Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are now seeking political refugee status there, arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum. A decision on a test case involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest by fellow servicemen on both sides of the border. At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003. During the Vietnam war between 50,000 and 60,000 Americans crossed the border to avoid serving. [Guardian]
  
  
• The seven largest of Mount Hood's 11 glaciers have shrunk an average of 34 percent since the beginning of the last century, according to calculations by a Portland State University graduate student who is part of a glacier research team financed by the National Science Foundation and NASA. Scientists in the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group predict the Northwest will warm nearly as much in the next 20 years as it has in the last 100 -- about a degree Fahrenheit. [ENN]
  
  
• More than 25,000 evangelical Christian youth landed Friday in San Francisco for a two-day rally at AT&T Park against "the virtue terrorism" of popular culture. Battle Cry for a Generation" is led by Ron Luce (of the Texas-based Teen Mania ministries), who wants "God's instruction book" to guide young people away from the corrupting influence of popular culture.
  
  The author, host of the "Acquire the Fire TV" cable television program and a President Bush appointee to a federal anti-drug-abuse commission, wants teens to find Bible-based solutions for the spread of sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, drug abuse and suicide.
  
  Same-sex marriage "is another sign of the end of times," said attendee Sherilyn David, referring to the apocalypse that some fundamentalist Christians believe is foretold in Script. [SFChronic]

[posted with ecto]