WE are the savages, the brutes, the thugs, THE TORTURERS

A Brief on the Use of Water Torture by American Officials in the War on Terrorism
by William John Cox
....................
HISTORY OF WATER TORTURE
The use of water to simulate drowning has been used as a torture device since at least the Middle Ages. It was known as the tortura del agua during the Spanish Inquisition and was used by agents of the Dutch East India Company during the Amboyna massacre in 1623.
Water torture has been acknowledged by the United States to be illegal since at least 1901 when an Army officer was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for using it to torture a Philippine rebel.
In 1947, a Japanese officer was prosecuted by the United States for strapping a U.S. civilian to a tilted stretcher and pouring water over his face until he agreed to talk. The officer was convicted of a Violation of the Laws and Customs of War and was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
In 1957, French forces in Algeria tortured Henri Alleg, a journalist, by strapping him to a plank and wrapping his head in a cloth placed under a running water tap. Alleg later talked about his torture in The Question: "The rag was soaked rapidly. Water flowed everywhere: in my mouth, in my nose, all over my face. But for a while I could still breathe in some small gulps of air. I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible and to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn’t hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me. In spite of myself, all the muscles of my body struggled uselessly to save me from suffocation. In spite of myself, the fingers of both my hands shook uncontrollably."...........

et tu cnn?

i could see faux 'news' reporting on this story, but YOU? c'mon now. you're supposed to be better than that
CNN reported on Obama's missed Senate votes, but ignored McCain's
During the November 2 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin reported on the voting records of Democratic presidential candidates who are also current U.S. senators. Yellin stated that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has missed "nearly 80 percent [of Senate roll-call votes] since September" and that Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (DE), Chris Dodd (CT), and Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) "don't have great voting records, either." ................
....................the only current Republican presidential candidate who is a sitting U.S. senator -- has missed more votes than any other senator since Congress convened in January, with the exception of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), who spent months recuperating from a brain hemorrhage.................

rent a spook

yeah, not only does blackwater supply mercenaries, they ALSO supply spys for hire (total intelligence solutions). dang! who is in charge of the spy arm? well none other than tofer black (he actually merged a company of his with two others including the blackwater one).
i'm just wondering why WE (the us government) doesn't have enough soldiers and spies on it's own payroll. why is the american public responsible for paying PRIVATE mercenaries and spooks?
here's a word: NEFARIOUS (there is a whole other world out there)

Blackwater's Owner Has Spies for Hire
Ex-U.S. Operatives Dot Firm's Roster

By Dana Hedgpeth Washington Post Staff Writer
................The Prince Group, the holding company that owns Blackwater Worldwide, has been building an operation that will sniff out intelligence about natural disasters, business-friendly governments, overseas regulations and global political developments for clients in industry and government.
The operation, Total Intelligence Solutions, has assembled a roster of former spooks -- high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence -- that mirrors the slate of former military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency's more controversial programs, including the rendition and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas. .....................

an index of salon stories

on THE BIG BULLY, CLEAR CHANNEL

clear channel

a bunch of giant pieces of steamin' shite. it's not even that i'm a giant bruce fan (i like him but don't love him). it's just yet another example of clear channel bullshite

CLEAR CHANNEL, REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA NETWORK, OUT TO KILL SPRINGSTEEN'S MAGIC?
........................Republican radio network Clear Channel, a monopoly in many cities and a dominant player in most of the rest, isn't interested. Is it because Springsteen has been an outspoken campaigner for Democrats and progressives? Clear Channel has taken a political stand with its programming in the past. Just think back to their boycott of the Dixie Chicks. Oh, no... not way back, just back to when they released their most recent album. Despite being one of the top 10 best-selling American albums of the year-- across all genres and demographics-- radio studiously ignored it. There were maybe half a dozen country stations that even played it at all. What Clear Channel did to the Dixie Chicks is a watertight case for the need to break the media companies up into a thousand pieces. (John Sununu disagrees; he's pro-censorship.) I spoke with an old friend who heads a record company and preferred to speak off the record..........

it damn well better be better than the FIRST one

which was a pile of steamin' shite. that first x-files movie SHOULD have been cut to one hour and made an episode on tv. NOT a full fledged movie. it STUNK (plus when i actually went to a theater to see it with vincenzo, i was ATTACKED by a woman in the row in front of me. but that's a story for another day)
December shoot for X Files sequel
Filming on the second X Files movie is to begin on 10 December, 20th Century Fox has announced.
The film will see David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson reprise their famous roles as alien-hunting FBI agents Mulder and Scully.
Series creator Chris Carter will direct the as-yet unnamed film when production begins in Vancouver, Canada.
The first X Files feature film was released in 1998 as a spin-off to the successful cult TV series.
Fox also announced the sequel will be released on 25 July 2008 in the US. ..............

he IS a murderer AND a terrorist

and it is BEYOND ME (oil i'm sure) why he is now our bud. he's pure evil. yet we seem to be embracing him with open arms.

hey peeps, HE'S STILL A CRAZY KILLER. no ifs ands or buts
Gadhafi's role in Darfur talks sets back new image as statesman
By Shashank Bengali McClatchy Newspapers
TRIPOLI, Libya — He's been crossed off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, has won a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council and is slowly opening his oil-rich economy to an eager West.
But longtime Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi showed last week that his evolution from strongman to statesman still has a way to go.
On his biggest stage in years — launching new peace talks for Sudan's Darfur region in his home city of Sirte, Libya — Gadhafi delivered a meandering and often insulting monologue, declaring the negotiations a lost cause and assailing Western countries for meddling in African affairs.
"I always say leave these problems to their own people," Gadhafi said. He later added, "I feel this conference of ours should stop at this point." After the speech he vanished from the conference altogether, leaving the work of solving one of the world's deadliest and most intractable conflicts to the U.N. and African envoys he'd just criticized..........

uh oh

sounds like he's a bit peeved at some truthtellers. sounds like he's a GIANT BABY too
Attack: Bush calls out Dems, MoveOn, Code Pink in speech
David Edwards and Nick Juliano
George W. Bush -- President of the United States, commander in chief of the world's most powerful military, a man whose actions can move global markets -- took some time out of a speech Thursday to personally toss some political red meat to the conservative audience he was addressing.
"Some in Washington should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden, and the requests of our commanders on the ground," Bush charged, "and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters.".......

as if it wasn't bad enough

mattel apologized to china because china was making toys for the united states with lead (and goddess only knows what else) in them

well NOW THIS Industries Paid for Top Regulators' Travel
Two Heads of Product Safety Agency Accepted Trips From Manufacturer Groups

wtf?????????????????????
By Elizabeth Williamson Washington Post Staff Writer
The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.
The records document nearly 30 trips since 2002 by the agency's acting chairman, Nancy Nord, and the previous chairman, Hal Stratton, that were paid for in full or in part by trade associations or manufacturers of products ranging from space heaters to disinfectants. The airfares, hotels and meals totaled nearly $60,000, and the destinations included China, Spain, San Francisco, New Orleans and a golf resort on Hilton Head Island, S.C. ..............

well now

it appears god hates YOU more than she hates 'fags' (i use that term only in an illustrative manner. i used it because THEY use it and i'm making a point here)

i am sorry for the loss of your son lance cpl matthew snyder, mr snyder. i know you'd rather have him back than ANY amount of money. i know you're never going to see the 11 million the jury awarded you and that's NOT the point. the point is to STOP this subhuman, soul-less, heartless, cult of demons

Jury awards father $11M in funeral case
By ALEX DOMINGUEZ, Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE - A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.............

even the state department employees

who are being FORCED to serve in iraq don't want to go. one man said, 'it's a death sentence'. well think about how our armed forces feel...............WE SHOULD NOT BE THERE. CIVILIANS OR MILITARY.

Envoys Resist Forced Iraq Duty
Top State Dept. Officials Face Angry Questions

By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer
Uneasy U.S. diplomats yesterday challenged senior State Department officials in unusually blunt terms over a decision to order some of them to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or risk losing their jobs.
At a town hall meeting in the department's main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State's personnel policies in Iraq. They took issue with the size of the embassy -- the biggest in U.S. history -- and the inadequate training they received before being sent to serve in a war zone. One woman said she returned from a tour in Basra with post-traumatic stress disorder only to find that the State Department would not authorize medical treatment..................

yeah-keep ELEVATING the threat

even if it doesn't exist. even if it costs the lives of well over 3,500 american men and women. even if it costs the lives of tens of thousand of iraqis. even if it destroys the lives of millions of iraqis who (at the time) NEVER DID ANYTHING TO US - WERE NEVER A THREAT TO US.

and again, NOTHING will be done. no one (well very few) cares
From the Desk of Donald Rumsfeld . . .
In Sometimes-Brusque 'Snowflakes,' He Shared Worldview, Shaped Policy

By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer
In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.
The memos, often referred to as "snowflakes," shed light on Rumsfeld's brusque management style and on his efforts to address key challenges during his tenure as Pentagon chief. Spanning from 2002 to shortly after his resignation following the 2006 congressional elections, a sampling of his trademark missives obtained yesterday reveals a defense secretary disdainful of media criticism and driven to reshape public opinion of the Iraq war. ,..................

a moment of levity

Snow says 'people ought to learn' from Fox News

in some countries

if the 'elected' leader chose to disregard the laws of the people and the votes of other elected officials and just go on and do as HE wants to, well, they would be called a DICTATOR wouldn't they?
why aren't we calling OURS a dictator?

To Implement Policy, Bush to Turn to Administrative Orders

By Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writers
The White House plans to try implementing as much new policy as it can by administrative order while stepping up its confrontational rhetoric with Congress after concluding that President Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership, administration officials said.
According to those officials, Bush and his advisers blame Democrats for the holdup of Judge Michael B. Mukasey's nomination to be attorney general, the failure to pass any of the 12 annual spending bills, and what they see as their refusal to involve the White House in any meaningful negotiations over the stalemated children's health-care legislation.
White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing administrative orders, as he has in recent weeks on veterans' health care, air-traffic congestion, protecting endangered fish and immigration. They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months, even as he speaks out on the need to limit spending and resist any tax increases. ............

man, the above couple of paragraphs makes it sound like king george is a great and powerful OZ, trying to protect the children, the men, the women of america. trying to protect the little fishies and the birds and the bees (as long as they're not of color OR gay that is). wow, i guess i was wrong thinking he was evil and soul-less and only out to line his own pockets and the pockes of his good ol' white boy network. dang!

so let me get this straight

they find something 'questionable' (i.e. a lost accounting of at LEAST a BILLION dinars) so instead of DEMANDING THE MONEY BACK AND FIRING THE ASSES OF cheney's kbr (an arm of halliburton), they keep them AND add an additonal two contractors. well now two OTHER contractors (who lost out initially) are questioning how the contract was awarded. the gao is reconsidering....................(somehow kbr is NEVER going to be excluded though. you and i both know that)

Protest Leads Army to Reconsider Big Contract

By Dana Hedgpeth Washington Post Staff Writer
One of the biggest military contracts to house, feed and provide other services to U.S. military troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait may be canceled and renegotiated after the Government Accountability Office said yesterday that it upheld a protest from two teams that lost the bid.
The $150 billion contract, known as the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP IV, spans 10 years and was awarded in June to three companies -- Fluor Intercontinental of Greenville, S.C., DynCorp International of Fort Worth and KBR of Houston.
Two losing teams, Contingency Management Group and IAP Worldwide Services, filed protests in July questioning the award of the contract. Both teams alleged that the bids were evaluated improperly by the Army Sustainment Command and "argued that the agency's evaluation of proposals was unreasonable," according to a statement released by the GAO. .............

from one of my favorite knitting sites of all times

the little red blog of revolutionary knitting

and

steal this sweater knitting with a vengence

check out the pictures on her sites. her work is amazing. it's machine knit. she DOES have a couple of (free) patterns for hand knitting. one of them is a pattern for mittens with the number of dead american service members in iraq/afghanistan

wicked cool website of the week

skull a day

(she has a link to a cool skull font too)

he's NOT getting the job

afterall
but remember, if they didn't get caught HE WOULD HAVE HAD THE PROMOTION
that's how it works afterall
Fake FEMA Briefing Costs Official New Assignment
Missteps Too Common At Agency, Critics Say

By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer
The Federal Emergency Management Agency's director of external communications was denied a post as senior spokesman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell yesterday, becoming the highest-ranking casualty of a fake news conference staged by FEMA last week to publicize its response to California's devastating wildfires.
The flap is not the first time FEMA or its parent Department of Homeland Security has been on the wrong end of a public relations move that backfired. Rather, it fits a pattern in which domestic security officials have mismanaged the public presentation of their efforts, whether those efforts are going well or poorly. .........

the possible collapse of a damn in iraq

has 'ALARMED' american officials. i in NO WAY want to trivialize that. nor do i want ONE MORE PERSON in iraq to be hurt or displaced by either human hand or act of nature hand. want i DO WANT is for american officials to be ALARMED at what's going on in america. too bad they weren't 'ALARMED' during the time of katrina, huh?

Iraqi Dam Seen In Danger of Deadly Collapse

By Amit R. Paley Washington Post Foreign Service
AT THE MOSUL DAM, Iraq -- The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.
Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. "The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability," in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report. ............

their city got taken away

now you want to take away their customs? this is uneffingbelievable
Band on the run in New Orleans
Police have cracked down on funeral processions, a time-honored cultural tradition in the historic black neighborhood of Treme. But musicians vow to play on.
By Larry Blumenfeld
Oct. 29, 2007 NEW ORLEANS -- On the evening of Oct. 1, some two dozen of New Orleans' top brass-band players and roughly a hundred followers began a series of nightly processions for Kerwin James, a tuba player with the New Birth Brass Band who had passed away on Sept. 26. They were "bringing him down," as it's called, until his Saturday burial. But the bittersweet tradition that Monday night ended more bitterly than anything else -- with snare drummer Derrick Tabb and his brother, trombonist Glen David Andrews, led away in handcuffs after some 20 police cars had arrived near the corner of North Robertson and St. Philip streets in New Orleans' historic Tremé neighborhood. In the end, it looked more like the scene of a murder than misdemeanors.
"The police told us, 'If we hear one more note, we'll arrest the whole band,'" said Tabb a few days later, at a fundraiser to help defray the costs of James' burial. "Well, we did stop playing," said Andrews. "We were singing, lifting our voices to God. You gonna tell me that's wrong too?" Drummer Ellis Joseph of the Free Agents Brass band, who was also in the procession, said, "They came in a swarm, like we had AK-47s. But we only had instruments." .........

the more you lie,

the higher up in king george's court you get!
Fake FEMA news conference director gets promotion
David Edwards
CNN reports that John "Pat" Philbin, the Director of Public Affairs responsible for FEMA's recent faked news conference, is effectively receiving a promotion. PRNewser was notified by an email which said that Philbin's new job was an "amazing opportunity to head the communications shop at ODNI."
Philbin is slated to become Director of Public Affairs for the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell.

inconsistant?

no, they've been almost NON EXISTANT

if our troops should be deployed ANYWHERE it should be here. on a REAL peace mission. saving these people from evil

U.S. Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions
Bush Expresses Passion for Issue, but Policies Have Been Inconsistent

By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer
In April 2006, a small group of Darfur activists -- including evangelical Christians, the representative of a Jewish group and a former Sudanese slave -- was ushered into the Roosevelt Room at the White House for a private meeting with President Bush. It was the eve of a major rally on the National Mall, and the president spent more than an hour holding forth, displaying a kind of passion that has led some in the White House to dub him the "Sudan desk officer."
Bush insisted there must be consequences for rape and murder, and he called for international troops on the ground to protect innocent Darfuris, according to contemporaneous notes by one of those present. He spoke of "bringing justice" to the Janjaweed, the Arab militias that have participated in atrocities that the president has repeatedly described as nothing less than "genocide." .........

i guess this is an example

of things getting better in iraq??? nothing is getting better in iraq. the people that are still there, are living in fear. they're living without amenities. what have we done?

Gunmen in Iraq Kidnap Eleven Tribal Leaders Allied With U.S.

By Amit R. Paley Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 -- Eleven tribal leaders who had banded with U.S. troops to fight the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq were kidnapped Sunday morning, the latest in a string of such attacks, fellow tribesmen said.
The Shiite and Sunni sheiks, members of the al-Salam Support Council, a group fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq in volatile Diyala province, were taken from their cars by gunmen as they were returning home from a meeting in Baghdad with a government official, the tribesmen said. ..........

i'm happy

Champs again! Red Sox sweep World Series

photo: Jonathan Papelbon celebrated on the field as the Red Sox won the World Series. (Getty Images Photo / Jamie Squire)