More details emerge on the US assault on the Kunduz hospital

More details are emerging about the attack by a US gunship on the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan in the early hours of Saturday, October 3, 2015 that resulted in 22 deaths (so far), at least 37 injured, 33 missing, and resulted in the closing of the only major hospital that served a wide area. After talking with the people who worked at the hospital and live in the area, the Los Angeles Times provides a detailed chronology of the events of that night. The Washington Post has another account that complements it, using as its main sources the US and Afghan military.
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Stephen Colbert on the chaos in the Republican party

He had a hilarious bit about the maneuvering to not become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. I have not been watching his new show but it looks like the set-piece monologue segments like this are exactly like the ones he used to do on his old show and that is a good thing. The one difference is that he no longer has to act like a right wing nutter.
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And then there was one (young gun)

Every time I think that the state of US politics in general, and the Republican party in particular, has reached new depths of dysfunctionality and cannot sink any lower, I get proved wrong. The bizarre struggle to find a new Speaker for the House of Representatives truly marks a major new low. The Speaker’s post was until just recently something that ambitious young congresspeople aspired to as the pinnacle of their careers. It enabled the holder to wield considerable political power, someone who, along with the senate majority leader and the president, pretty much determined the agenda of the country. The Speaker was the second in line for the presidency, after the vice-president, which gives some idea of the importance attached to the position by the drafters of the US Constitution. (UPDATE: This is wrong. As Chiroptera points out in the comments, the complete line of succession is not in the Constitution but is specified by law. Ahcuah points out that some legal scholars say that the Speaker does not qualify to be in the list at all. Thanks to both!)
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Can you guess who said this?

When a couple were denied a marriage license because the justice of the peace said that their proposed marriage would be harmful to children and also violated his personal beliefs, the state’s governor was outraged and thundered, “This is a clear violation of Constitutional rights and federal and state law. Mr. Bardwell’s actions should be fully reviewed by the Judiciary Commission and disciplinary action should be taken immediately, including the revoking of his license” and when Bardwell finally resigned his position, the governor said that it was “long overdue”.

Give up?
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Sam Harris on killing people for thought crimes

I recently came across an item where the author claimed that Sam Harris had advocated that some beliefs are so pernicious that they merited the person holding them being killed. The critic was using this quote supposedly made by Harris that “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.” Although Harris has advocated ideas that are terrible (such as bombing campaigns against Islamic countries), racial profiling, and concocting elaborate scenarios to justify the use of torture, I thought that advocating killing people for thought crimes was a bit much and that he must have been taken out of context.
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