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NEWS BRIEFS
BAGHDAD
Official: Saddam
Hussein's former
deputy hanged
The former deputy in Saddam
Hussein's government was hanged
before dawn today for the killings
of 148 Shiites, an official with the
prime minister's office said.
Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was
Saddam's vice president when the
regime was ousted four years ago,
was the fourth man to be executed
in the killings of 148 Shiites follow-
ing a 1982 assassination attempt
against the former leader in the city
of Dujail.
The official, who witnessed the
hanging but spoke on condition
of anonymity because an official
announcement had not been made,
said precautions had been taken to
prevent a repeat of what happened
to Saddam's half brother Barzan
Ibrahim, who was decapitated on
the gallows.
WASHINGTON
Pentagon says
planner of
bombings confesses
A Yemeni portrayed as an al-
Qaida operative and a member of a
terrorist family confessed to plot-
ting the bombings of the USS Cole
and two U.S. embassies in Africa,
killing hundreds, according to a
Pentagon transcript of a Guanta-
namo Bay hearing.
The transcript released yes-
terday was the fourth from the
hearings the military is holding in
private for 14 "high-value" terror
suspects who were kept in secret
CIA prisons before they were sent
to the U.S. facility in Cuba last fall.
Last week, Waleed bin Attash
said he helped plan the 1998 embas-
sybombings in Kenya and Tanzania
that killed more than 200, accord-
ing to the transcript. He also said
he helped organize the 2000 attack
on the USS Cole in which suicide
bombers steered an explosives-
laden boat into the guided-missile
destroyer, killing 17 sailors.
WASHINGTON
In address, Bush
stands by 'surge'
With Democrats pushing for an
4 end to the Iraq war now entering its
fifth year, President Bush pleaded
for more patience yesterday, saying
success is possible but "will take
months, not days or weeks."
The war has stretched longer,
with higher costs, than the White
House ever predicted. On the
fourth anniversary of the day Bush
directed the invasion to begin, the
president made a televised state-
ment from the White House Roos-
evelt Room to defend continued
U.S. involvement.
He said his plan to send 21,500
additional U.S. troops to secure
Baghdad and Iraq's troubled Anbar
Province "will need more time
to take effect," especially since
fewer than half of the troop rein-
forcements have yet arrived in the
capital. Bush added: "There will be
good days and bad days ahead as
the security plan unfolds."
WASHINGTON
Gonzales' hold on
job tenuous
Attorney General Alberto Gon-
zales' hold on his job grew more
uncertain yesterday as the Senate
debated removing his authority to
unilaterally name U.S. attorneys
and the White House said it merely
hoped he would survive the tumult.
Asked if Gonzales had contained
the political damage from the firing
of eight federal prosecutors, White
House spokesman Tony Snow said,
"I don't know."
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
y.com
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 - 3
CALIFORNIA FLY-IN'
0
High court hears
' Bongs 4Jesus' case
An Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, passes the old controltower,
now the administration building, at Los Angeles International Airport as it prepares
to touch down on its inaugural visit to Los Angeles yesterday.
CHARLEY'S
From page 1
Good Time Charley's will have
some changes, including less space,
fresh paint and new ceiling tiles.
Lowenstein pointed out the sharp
contrast between a few newer ceil-
ing tiles scattered among those
stained by years of cigarette smoke.
The bar's furniture, though, will
stay.
"I like the old feel of it," Lowen-
stein said.
The entrance to Good Time
Charley's will no longer be the
familiar double doors that led up a
ramp. Instead, the bar's main door
will be closer to the corner of South
University Avenue and Church
Street, near the entrance to the for-
mer Charley's Upstairs night club.
The area immediately to the right
of the old entrance, where the pool
tables were located, will not be a
part of the revamped Charley's.
"By cutting it down, we make it a
lot more manageable and intimate,"
Lowenstein said.
Lowenstein also said he will be
making significant changes to the
bar's patio, which he said was one
of the biggest selling points of the
entire establishment.
"If your customers aren't having
a good time, they're not going to
come back," Lowenstein said.
"Especially at a place called
'Good Time Charley's,' "said Low-
enstein's roommate, who was help-
ing Lowenstein clean at the bar
yesterday afternoon.
Lowenstein said three or four
people may be rehired, but the for-
mer doormen and security person-
nel won't be brought back on.
Both Lowenstein and Chaconas
said the bar's floor-to-ceiling win-
dows on its upper level overlook one
of the best locations near campus.
Lowenstein said BTB Cantina will
be a complete departure from the
night club that used to occupy the
space. He said BTB Cantina will be
open17 hours a day, seven days a week
and will be a place where students can
come between classes to grab a bite to
eat and even get some work done.
He hopes to open the cantina in
August in time for the new school
year. He said he's planning to
reopen Good Time Charley's dur-
ing the first week of April.
Lowenstein said . there has
recently been an increase in compe-
tition among burrito joints on and
around campus, citing the recent
opening of Chipotle on Washtenaw
Avenue as an example.
"Once we have the liquor license
aspect, that's a huge advantage thatno
one else has, and that'll keep us a step
ahead of the competition," he said.
Some students, though, think the
entry of BTB Cantina into the cam-
pus burrito market could spell the
end of competition.
"They're gonna destroy Panche-
ro's," said LSA freshman Alex Riley
upon hearing the news of the new
location while eating at BTB Burrito
on State Street with Engineering
freshman Michael Taylor last night.
Both are native Ann Arborites,
and they said have been frequent-
ing BTB Burrito since they were in
high school.
"It's closer to Central Campus,"
said LSA freshman Daniel Urcuyo-
Llanes said. "The big pain is walk-
ing down here."
Student free-speech
rights at stake in
case argued by
Clinton prosecutor
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The New York Times
WASHINGTON - Kenneth W.
Starr had a strategy for convincing
the Supreme Court that an Alaska
high school principal and school
board did not violate a student's
free-speech rights by punishing
him for displayingthe words "Bong
Hits 4 Jesus" on a 14-foot-longban-
ner across the street from school
as the 2002 Olympic torch parade
went by.
"Illegal drugs and the glorifica-
tion of the drug culture are pro-
foundly serious problems for our
nation," Starr, a former solicitor
general, told the justices in a sol-
emn tone in the opening moments
of his argument on yesterday.
In other words, his approach was
to present the free-speech case as a
drug case and argue that whatever
rights students may have under the
First Amendment to express them-
selves, speaking in oblique or even
in arguably humorous dissent from
a school's official anti-drug mes-
sage is not one of them.
That was Starr's story, and he
stuck with it, through a series of
hypothetical questions from the jus-
tices and on into a one-minute rebut-
tal at the end of the lively hour. While
Starr may not prevail on the full
breadth of his argument, his strategy
appeared on the verge of succeeding
well enough to shield his clients, the,
Juneau School Board and Deborah
Morse, the high school principal,
from having to pay damages to the
student, Joseph Frederick.
A majority of the court seemed
willing to create what would
amount to a drug exception to stu-
dents' First Amendment rights,
much as the court has in recent
years permitted widespread drug
testing of students, even those
not personally suspected of using
drugs, under a relaxed view of the
Fourth Amendment prohibition
against unreasonable searches.
Starr's biggest ally on the court
was the man who once worked as
his deputy in the solicitor general's
office, Chief Justice John G. Rob-
erts Jr. The chief justice intervened
frequently throughout both sides
of the argument, making clear his
view that schools need not toler-
ate student expression that under-
mines what they define as their
educational mission.
"Why is it that the classroom
ought to be a forum for political
debate simply because the students
want to put that on their agenda?"
Roberts asked Starr.
The question was particularly
interesting because Starr had just
sought to reassure the court that
his argument was not limitless. The
court's leading precedent on student
speech, a1969 decisioncalled Tinker
v. Des Moines School District, "artic-
ulates a baseline of political speech"
that students have a presumptive
right to engage in, Starr said.
That was too far to the middle
for the chief justice. "Presum-
ably, the teacher's agenda is a little
bit different and includes things
like teaching Shakespeare or the
Pythagorean theorem," he said,
adding that "just because political
speech is on the student's agenda,
I'm not sure that it makes sense to
read Tinker so broadly as to include
protection of that speech."
And later, Roberts took issue
with a suggestion by the student's
lawyer, Douglas K. Mertz, that
schools that seek to inculcate an
anti-drug message must permit
students, outside the formal class-
room setting, to offer competing
views. "Content neutrality is criti-
cal here," Mertz said.
"Where does that notion that our
schools have tobe content neutral"
come from, the chief justice want-
ed to know. He added, "I thought
we wanted our schools to teach
something, including something
besides just basic elements, includ-
ing character formation and not to
use drugs."
Mertz clarified his point. "There
is no requirement of equal time
or that it be neutral," he said. The
school should be able to express a
viewpoint, he continued, but "in the
lunchroom,outsideinrecess, across
the street, that is a quintessentially
open forum where it would not be
proper, I think, to tell students you
may not mention this subject, you
may not take this position."
One issue in this case, Morse v.
Frederick, was the nature of the
event at which the student unfurled
his provocative banner. Edwin S.
Kneedler, a deputy solicitor general
who shared Starr's argument time
and presented the Bush admin-
istration's position in support of
the school, said the Olympic torch
eventwas the equivalent ofaschool
assembly, with students attend-
ing under the supervision of their
teachers and under the jurisdiction
of the school.
Mertz said it was basically a pub-
lic event in a public place. In that
context, he argued, the signwas not
disruptive.
The distinction matters, because
under the Tinker precedent, stu-
dent speech can lose its protected
status if it is unduly disruptive.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
took issue with Mertz's character-
ization of the display as not being
disruptive.
"It was completely disruptive of
the message, of the theme that the
school wanted to promote," Ken-
nedy said, adding: "Completely dis-
ruptive of the reason for letting the
students out to begin with. Com-
pletely disruptive of the school's
image that they wanted to portray
in sponsoring the Olympics."
As in many other cases, Kenne-
dy's vote may prove crucial to the
outcome. This case presents a par-
ticular challenge for him. While he
is perhaps the most speech-protec-
tive of the justices, he is also highly
pro-government on issues involv-
ing illegal drugs.
3,203
Number of American service
members who have died in the War
in Iraq, according to the Depart-
ment of Defense. The following
were identified yesterday:
Army Sgt. James Arnold, 31, of
Phoenix
Army Sgt. Benjamin L. Sebban,
29, of Chattanooga, Tenn.
Army Pfc. Anthony A. Kaiser,
27, of Narrowsburg, N.Y.
Marine Lance Cpl. Harry H.
Timberman, 20, of Minong, Wis.