At least 80 are reported dead and twice as many wounded in suicide car bomb explosion near a gathering of laborers in Kadhimiya, a Shiite area of north-central Baghdad. About three hours later, another suicide car bomb targeted shoppers in the busy Shiite neighborhood of Shula in northwestern Baghdad, killing four and wounding 22 others. In Taji, about 10 miles north of Baghdad, men wearing Iraqi army uniforms stormed homes and pulled 17 Shiite men from their homes, shooting them execution style, police said.

Attacks were also staged on at least three military convoys. A suicide car bomb targeted an Iraqi army convoy in the al-Adil intersection in western Baghdad, killing three Iraqi soldiers. About 40 minutes earlier, another suicide car bomber hit a US military convoy in eastern Baghdad, wounding two soldiers and damaging their Humvee. A roadside bomb also exploded near a US convoy in the capital. There were no reports of casualties.

Cindy Sheehan, the grieving military mother whose vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX, focused the nation's attention on the human cost of the Iraq war, will be arriving in Covington, LA, joining the ongoing national volunteer effort to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Immediately after Sheehan's vigil at "Camp Casey" in Crawford ended on Aug. 31, veterans who'd participated in the vigil drove all leftover supplies from the campsite -- toilet paper, medicines, water, and food -- to Covington, La., for distribution to hurricane victims. Since Sept. 2, they have been in Covington, operating a relief operation out of "Camp Casey III."

In a Sept. 13 update for the Village Voice, Sarah Ferguson reports that Houston mirco-radio activists have sidestepped FEMA bureaucracy to broadcast relief info to Katrina survivors:

After a week of wading through FEMA red tape, media activists finally fired up a low-power radio station to serve Hurricane Katrina evacuees still living in the Houston Astrodome and adjacent Reliant convention center.

KAMP (Katrina Aftermath Media Project) 95.3 FM, Dome City Radio went live at noon today, broadcasting from a donated Airstream trailer in the Astrodome’s parking lot.

Kristen Lombardi in the Village Voice Sept. 6 remembers 9-11's forgtten victims—who continue to suffer in silence:

Sarah Ferguson reports for the Village Voice Sept. 12 on how the conspiracy set crashed the official 9-11 commemoration:

The anguish was palpable at Ground Zero yesterday, as family members made their way down a long ramp into the vast emptiness of the World Trade Center site, then took turns reading out the names of their lost loved ones.

"Vasean's Law" is a step in the right direction, but too bad it couldn't be applied retroactively. In the USA, it seems having a driver's license is literally a license to kill. From New York Newsday, Sept. 13:

Drunk driver who inspired Vasean's law released from jail
The drunken driver who mowed down two boys last year, killing one of them, is a free man after serving 38 days of his two-month sentence.

Premier Dalton McGuinty pledged to axe a peneding law to establish a conflict-settlement program based on shariah law in Ontario, and also promised to outlaw existing religious tribunals used for years by Christians and Jews under Ontario's Arbitration Act.

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reports Sept. 11 that the Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to pre-empt an attack by a nation or terror group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.

The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures governing the use of nuclear weapons to reflect a pre-emption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 2002.