What Caught My Eye Today

Iraq - Guards working for an Australian-owned security company fired on a car as it approached their convoy, killing two women before speeding away from the latest bloodshed blamed on the deadly mix of heavily armed protection details on Baghdad's crowded streets. The deaths of the two Iraqi Christians came a day after the Iraqi government handed U.S. officials a report demanding hefty payments and the ouster from Iraq of embattled Blackwater USA for a chaotic shooting last month that left at least 17 civilians dead. An Iraqi investigation of the Blackwater shooting on Sept. 16 was ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and called for the company to pay $8 million in compensation to the families of each of the 17 victims. The commission also said Blackwater guards had killed 21 other Iraqis in past incidents since it began protecting American diplomats in Iraq shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. By no means am I justifying the actions of the security companies (especially if they are guilty), but doesn't it strike you as somewhat curious that these reports of abuse of power are just now coming to light? Something odd is going on here. I'm not sure any of us are going to like what we hear when this all shakes out.

Supreme Court - A German man who says he was abducted and tortured by the CIA as part of the anti-terrorism rendition program lost his final chance Tuesday to persuade U.S. courts to hear his claims. The Supreme Court rejected without comment an appeal from Khaled el-Masri, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if courts allowed the case to proceed. The man says he was mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers and was detained while attempting to enter Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003. He claims that CIA agents stripped, beat, shackled, diapered, drugged and chained him to the floor of a plane for a flight to Afghanistan. He says he was held for four months in a CIA-run prison known as the "salt pit" in the Afghan capital of Kabul, then after the CIA determined it had the wrong man he was dumped on a hilltop in Albania and told to walk down a path without looking back. This case centers on the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, in which terrorism suspects are captured and taken to foreign countries for interrogation. Human rights activists have objected to the program. President Bush has repeatedly defended the policies in the war on terror, saying as recently as last week that the U.S. does not engage in torture. This lawsuit had been seen as a test of the administration's legal strategy to invoke the doctrine of state secrets and stop national security suits before any evidence is presented in private to a judge. Another lawsuit over the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, also dismissed by a federal court on state secrets grounds, still is pending before the justices. Don't look now, but it is starting to appear as though Bush is having his way with the judicial branch as much as he is with the legislative branch. How is he is managing to pull this off?

Lindsay Lohan - It's been quite some time since I've published an pearls of wisdom from Lindsay. Here's the latest. The 21-year-old actress reportedly checked out of the Cirque Lodge, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Utah, last week. She had entered treatment in August after reaching a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges following two arrests. Lohan was arrested in May after crashing her Mercedes-Benz into a tree in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was arrested again in July after the mother of Lohan's former personal assistant called 911 to report that her car was being chased by a sport utility vehicle. "It was a sobering experience," Lohan said of her stay in rehab. That's sort of the point, girlfriend.

Baseball - No one is more surprised than me that I managed to get 3 out of the 4 divisional playoff winners correct, though I have to say I'm not shedding too many tears over the early exit (again) of the New York Yankees. Without further adeiu, here are my picks for the Championship Series:

American League: Boston Red Sox over the Cleveland Indians in 6 games.
National League: Arizona Diamondbacks over Colorado Rockies in 7 games.

Hockey - Not sure if anyone noticed (I'm guessing not), but hockey season started last week...That's all. I don't have much else to report other than the second half of the season, otherwise known as the playoffs, begins April 9.

Athletics - Disgraced sprinter Marion Jones has been stripped of her gold medals from the 2000 Olympics and asked repay more than 100,000 dollars in prize and bonus money, according to the United States Olympic Committee. Jones, who admitted in a US court last week to using performance-enhancing drugs, has returned the three gold and two bronze medals she won in Sydney. Jones pled guilty Friday to lying to federal investigators and USOC chairman Peter Ueberroth said the next step would be for her to hand back the Olympic medals. Jones was also slapped with a two-year competition ban by the United States Anti-doping Agency (USADA) yesterday but she had already announced her retirement on Friday. Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou is in line to receive one of the golds because she finished second behind Jones in the Sydney 100 metres. Thanou's situation poses another problem for the IOC as she was given a two-year ban for allegedly faking a motorbike crash to cover up missing a drug test during the 2004 Summer Games. This doping scandal in the world of sports has moved well beyond crisis and is approaching the realm of complete catastrophe. Even the runner up is in question.

Cycling - Speaking of vanquished champions, Spanish rider Oscar Pereiro will receive his yellow jersey as the retrospective winner of the 2006 Tour de France. The 2006 runner-up has been moved up to first position after American Floyd Landis was stripped of the title for doping. Pereiro finished the 2006 edition 57 seconds behind Landis but the American tested positive for testosterone following his 17th stage win at Morzine, three days before the finish in Paris. Landis is the first winner in the 100 year history of the cycling blue riband to be stripped of the title for doping. Well, I suppose this is one way for Landis to get himself into the annals of cycling history. Too bad its for all the wrong reasons.