Not A Warm Welcome for Lieberman

And now the most compelling two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

Human Rights Watch Denounces American Troops

Human Rights Watch (search) -- which earlier this year warned of a possible -- "humanitarian disaster" if the U.S. went to war in Iraq -- is now denouncing American troops for using lethal force when ambushed by Iraqi insurgents and for behaving with -- "unnecessary rudeness toward Iraqi civilians."

In a new report, the organization accuses the U.S. military of killing at least 94 civilians in Baghdad under -- "questionable legal circumstances" and then failing to properly investigate those deaths. According to Human Rights Watch, only five high-level investigations have been concluded.

A Matter of the Media?

One day after global leaders condemned Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (search) for urging Muslims to unite against Jews because  -- "Jews rule this world by proxy," Mahathir is now blaming the Western media for taking his remarks out of context. He says -- "In my speech I condemned all violence, ... That was the whole tone of my speech, but they picked up one sentence where I said the Jews control the world."

Nevertheless, he says, the global uproar over his remarks -- "shows that [Jews] do control the world."

Not A Warm Welcome for Lieberman

Many of the Democratic presidential candidates, and one Republican representative, dutifully showed up at this past weekend's Arab American Institute conference in Dearborn, Michigan. But they may not have gone had they known how some in the crowd would react to Joe Lieberman (search) -- the lone Jewish candidate.

One woman, quoted by The L.A. Times, yelled for Lieberman to -- "Go home to Tel Aviv." A Palestinian activist from California, Hanan Rasheed, insisted -- "He is such a Jew. ... He should be running for the prime minister of Israel."

And Tawfiq Barqawi, the president of Philadelphia's American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, had this to say about Lieberman: -- "I hated him."

Wemembering Wilfredo

And remember Wilfredo Laboy -- the school superintendent in Lawrence, Massachusetts, we told about more than two months ago who put 24 teachers on unpaid administrative leave for failing a Basic English test that he himself couldn't pass? Well, we're happy to report that Laboy has now passed what he called that -- "stupid test" ... on his fourth try.

According to the Boston Globe, Laboy took three weeks of vacation at the start of the school year to study for the test.