Public education for profit, CIA convicted in Rome, Westmoreland dejavu, Alosi's mistake

Privatizing health care has been so successful, let’s privatize education. Let’s eliminate gov’t altogether
Newly elected Florida Gov. Rick Scott is making waves with his proposal that all children should receive education vouchers they can use to attend private, public or charter schools.
"The parent should figure out where the dollars for that student are spent," the Republican governor-elect told the St. Petersburg Times. "So if the parents want to spend it on virtual school, then spend it on virtual school. If they want to spend it on, you know, whatever education system they believe in, whether it's this public school or that public school or this private school or that private school, that's what ought to happen
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Further evidence of new meaning of law under Obama
ROME (AFP) – An Italian court upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US "extraordinary rendition" programme.
The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defence lawyers described as a "shocking blow" for the US.
They were also ordered to pay 1.5 million euros (two million dollars) in damages to the imam and his wife for the 2003 abduction.
Washington has refused to extradite the agents, who all remain at liberty but now risk arrest if they travel to Europe.
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Shades of Johnson/Westmoreland reports on Viet Nam
The [Afghanistan War] review comes at the end of the bloodiest year since U.S.-backed Afghan forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, with almost 700 foreign troops killed so far. Yet Afghan civilians bear the brunt of the conflict as insurgents expand from strongholds into once-peaceful areas in the north and west.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday that worsening violence in Afghanistan has made it more difficult than at any time in three decades for aid groups to reach people in need.
The review's unclassified summary said al Qaeda had been weakened in Pakistan but was still capable of plotting attacks against the United States. It also noted "uneven" progress in U.S. efforts to get Pakistan to go after militants along its border with Afghanistan, and it said widespread corruption continued to threaten the future of Afghanistan. Despite cautious optimism from the White House a year after Obama ordered the extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, civilian and military deaths have reached record highs in Afghanistan and Obama must overcome skepticism in the U.S. Congress and among Americans tired of the long, expensive conflict.
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Sal’s getting a bum rap for all the mayhem coaches deliberately inflict weekly
Sal Alosi, the New York Jets coach who tripped Miami player Nolan Carroll(notes) in the third quarter of the Dolphins’ 10-6 win last Sunday, didn't "just happen" to be there.
The Jets have discovered that he strategically ordered players to "form a wall" in that specific place, and have now changed Alosi's suspension from "rest of the season" to "indefinite."