Betsey's Loyal Minion

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Regarding Syria's eastern neighbor, Iraq, Al-Assad said the United States should re-examine its policy there because of the negative consequences of the war.

"We should re-evaluate what's going on in Iraq," he said.

"What did we achieve, what did they achieve from that war in Iraq," he asked. "It's a very simple question. What did they achieve economically, politically, fighting terrorism?

"We didn't achieve anything. This is one example."

When Amanpour suggested the U.S.-led war ousted Saddam Hussein, Al-Assad replied, "Yeah, but what did you lose as a return? The hope of the people, the stability, no better democracy, no better economy, no services, no stability in the region, more terrorism -- so is that the prize you've won for getting rid of a dictator? That's not a goal."

Al-Assad's regime has faced sharp criticism from the United States, which has alleged the country shelters terrorist organizations and has failed to take measures to prevent fighters from crossing the border into Iraq.

On Wednesday, President Bush called on Syria to be a "good neighbor" in the Middle East, warning Damascus against interfering in Lebanon and allowing insurgents to cross into Iraq.

"We're making good progress toward peace in the Holy Land, but one of the areas of concern is that foreign countries such as Syria might try to disrupt the peace process by encouraging terrorist activities," Bush said.

"We expect Syria to do everything in her power to shut down the transshipment of suiciders and killers into Iraq."

Al-Assad said that the United States cannot control its border with Mexico so Syria cannot be expected to keep people from sneaking into Iraq.

He said his country does not support people who kill Iraqis but he thinks there is a difference between terrorists and those who fight against American and British troops.

He added that his country has asked Washington for technical support to monitor the Iraqi border better but ended its security cooperation with the United States recently because of repeated verbal attacks from the Bush administration.

The interview was conducted just before the news of the suicide of Ghazi Kanaan, Syria's interior minister who led the country's military intelligence in Lebanon for nearly 20 years.

Kanaan died in a Damascus hospital of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the interior ministry and other government ministers.

The official was among those interviewed by a German prosecutor heading the U.N. investigation into Hariri's death.

At issue was a defamation lawsuit filed last year by Patrick Cahill, a councilman in Smyrna, Del. Mr. Cahill said he needed the identity of a blogger who in a September 2004 posting praised the mayor but said Mr. Cahill was divisive and had "an obvious mental deterioration."

In a second posting, the blogger, named John Doe in the suit, wrote that Mr. Cahill "is as paranoid as everyone in the town thinks he is," according to court records.

In a 33-page opinion, the five justices reversed the lower court, saying the judge used a standard that was incorrect because it was not stringent enough. The court said, "The Internet provides a means of communication where a person wronged by statements of an anonymous poster can respond instantly, can respond to the alleged defamatory statements on the same site or blog, and thus, can, almost contemporaneously, respond to the same audience that initially read the allegedly defamatory statements."

David Finger, the blogger's lawyer, said: "Statements on an electronic bulletin board with hyperbole and profanity are generally not considered as credible sources of facts. The court found that people who read these types of blogs cannot reasonably expect them to be anything more than the writer's opinion."

Mr Clarke recently said he wanted to stop "nasty and extreme behaviour" which destroyed individuals and divided communities.

"This is not just about doctrine. This is not even about theological opposition. This is about our basic freedom to speak and to preach.

"It affects people's freedom to discuss and to critique anything because it might upset or offend somebody else and that is very serious."

The term "Thought Police", by extension, has come to refer to real or perceived enforcement of ideological correctness in any modern or historical contexts.

Two lobbying groups, chosen by Louisiana to collect emergency requests from hospitals and nursing homes during Hurricane Katrina, found themselves instead scrambling to arrange private rescues when government teams became preoccupied with plucking citizens off rooftops.

The inability to quickly direct National Guard and other government rescue teams to health care facilities had deadly consequences.

Dozens of fragile patients died in sweltering heat and other taxing conditions that lasted for days.

"We are an advocacy organization on behalf of hospitals. Overnight we turned into a hospital emergency center," Louisiana Hospital Association president John Matessino said, summing up how his group rose to rescue coordination amid the chaos.

Some are now asking why lobbyists, instead of emergency experts, were left to devise life-and-death solutions by patching together church and tour buses, private ambulances and religious volunteers.

The state gave both the Louisiana Nursing Home Association and the Louisiana Hospital Association permanent seats at the state emergency operations center in Baton Rouge and trained them to track health facility needs and relay information to authorities who would dispatch the help.

But that plan disintegrated under the magnitude of Katrina's destruction, leaving the lobbying groups to scramble to find private alternatives when government rescuers couldn't get to facilities.

"The priority mission was picking people off of rooftops and out of water," said state Health Officer Jimmy Guidry, the main contact for the hospital and nursing home lobbies in the Louisiana disaster center.

Guidry said he argued for nursing home and hospital requests but "it seemed like forever to get all the transportation that was being asked for."

Louisiana emergency operations spokesman Mark Smith said the choice boiled down to "if the water is about to come over the roof of someone's house do they have a need greater than the elderly person lying in their bed in the nursing home? ... They're not about to die because they're about to get swept away by a flood."