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Patterico has the Los Angeles Times (free registration required) dead to rights in his expose on the March 4 shooting by U.S. soldiers of a car bearing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena:

It is truly astounding that the paper’s editors now see fit to hide from their readers the fact that satellite footage proves the car was speeding. The paper in the past understood that this is a critical issue in the controversy. What possible justification is there for the suppression of proof resolving that issue?

Times editors? What do you have to say?

Read about it here.

Well, Times Editors?

Update #1

Michelle Malkin has a great revisit of the entire SGRENA AFFAIR. Read it here:

There have been several new developments in the probe of the Iraqi checkpoint shooting involving Italian anti-war Communist writer Giuliana Sgrena. On Saturday night, the U.S. military released its official investigative report of the incident (details of which were leaked earlier in the week). Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the ground commander in Iraq, has approved a recommendation that soldiers who participated in the shooting not be disciplined. The Sunday New York Times reports:

According to the report, 11 bullets fired by one American soldier hit the Italians’ car, killing [Italian agent Nicola] Calipari, after the car failed to heed the warnings. The car was traveling about 50 miles per hour – faster than other cars that night – as it approached the checkpoint and did not slow until struck by the bullets, the report said.

The driver “was dealing with multiple distractions including talking on the phone while driving, the conversation in the back seat, trying to listen for threats, driving on a wet road, focusing on tasks to be accomplished, the need to get to the airport, and the excited and tense atmosphere in the car,” the report found. He shouted, “They are attacking us” into his phone when the firing began, the report said, adding that it was “highly unlikely” that any shots were fired after the car stopped. The fusillade lasted four seconds, it said.

The soldier who fired the shots complied with the military’s rules of engagement, the report concluded. “After operating the spotlight, and perceiving the oncoming vehicle as a threat, he fired to disable it and did not intend to harm anyone,” it said.

The timeline reconstructed by the U.S. military can be viewed here.

According to a CBS News report on Thursday, a US satellite reportedly recorded the Sgrena incident–and was used by investigators to reconstruct how fast her car was traveling when U.S. troops opened fire. CBS News reported that US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour.

As noted by LGF, Captain Ed and others, the military satellite evidence torpedoes Sgrena’s claim that her car was going no faster than 30 miles an hour. (The Jawa Report, it should be noted, expresses some skepticism about CBS News’ reportage.)

Strangely, as Patterico notes, the information about the satellite data was edited out of a Reuters story published by the LA Times–which had repeatedly emphasized Sgrena’s claim that the car was traveling at low speed. LGF notes a similar omission in the latest CBS coverage of the incident–even though it was CBS that broke news of the satellite evidence.

No surprise. We’ve seen this selective editing and MSM whitewashing of key details in the Sgrena case before: See here and here.

Meanwhile, the Italians are having a hissy fit over the U.S. report and Sgrena’s newspaper, Il Manifesto, is clamoring for a pullout of 3,000 Italian troops stationed in Iraq. Beleaguered PM Silvio Berlusconi has signaled withdrawal by September. Al Jazeera is playing up the bad blood. Rome prosecutors are continuing their own investigation and 18 police scientists will begin forensic examination of the Toyota Corolla car in which Sgrena and slain Italian agent Nicola Calipari were traveling.

We’ll see what the Italians come up with, but Sgrena’s tale seems to be melting faster than butter on a hot plate of linguini.

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And the MSM complains about the blogosphere?

Take the test here.

My result is:

Hat Tip: Not Exactly Rocket Science

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The risks of developing dental caries are greatly increased.

Read about a treatment protocol involving pilocarpine here.

The New York Times has this story about the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab and the impact of their blogging:

A blog rebellion among scientists and engineers at Los Alamos, the federal government’s premier nuclear weapons laboratory, is threatening to end the tenure of its director, G. Peter Nanos.

Four months of jeers, denunciations and defenses of Dr. Nanos’s management recently culminated in dozens of signed and anonymous messages concluding that his days were numbered. The postings to a public Web log conveyed a mood of self-congratulation tempered with sober discussion of what comes next.

“Some here will celebrate that they have been able to run the sheriff out of Dodge,” Gary Stradling, a veteran Los Alamos scientist who is a staunch defender of Dr. Nanos, wrote Tuesday on the blog.

“It might be a good idea,” Mr. Stradling added, “to shut down the celebration and form a work party to clean up Dodge City, because the new sheriff will if we do not.”

The blogging comes at a delicate moment in the 62-year history of Los Alamos. The University of California, which has helped run the laboratory for the government since the days of the Manhattan Project, faces close scrutiny in Washington as to whether its contract should be renewed. And resignations and fears of a mass exodus have recently roiled the waters. Some analysts believe that now, given the public outcry, the university will have to abandon Dr. Nanos in order to make a credible bid to keep its contract…

Read the rest here.

Go directly to the blog here.

My Word!

H/T: Instapundit

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Check them out.

In the Democrat’s weekly radio address today former New York Governor Mario Cuomo warns:

Senate Republicans “are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they cannot get from the proper political bodies.”

“How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate,” Cuomo said.

“The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate,” he said. “That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, to protect all of Americans from what he called the `tyranny of the majority.’”

“It sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do,” Cuomo said.

Someone should remind the good Governor that there is no Constitutional “right” to filibuster and that each house of the Congress has the right to set their own rules (by majority vote). Article 1 of the Constitution gives each house of Congress the power to determine its own rules. Senate Rule XXII establishes the necessity of 60 votes to close off debate.

William Kristol in the May 9 Weekly Standard has a good piece explaining the historical and consitutional precedences and distinctions.

Flaps’ take: Up or Down Vote Please!