Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 16:55 - Category: Unfiled ;
The Internet Reachability Report currently shows many nodes completely down. This is highly unusual. A friend at a small ISP says spam may be the problem. A few months ago they got 45,000 emails a day and 4,000 were not spam. Today it’s 75,000 emails a day, and still, just 4,000 are not spam.
Update: I can’t access any Blogger blogs on blogspot. They all return errors. Anyone else getting this?
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 15:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
Breaking: United front of every single national gay civil rights group calls on Ford for urgent meeting.
The nuance will probably be missed by Ford, but you can NEVER get all of these groups to sign on to the same request, ever. This is a BIG deal. Well, we can thank Ford for one thing, they’ve galvanized the gay community and its allies as never before. We didn’t even have this much coordination when we successfully went after Microsoft.
Ford, fresh from their success in cratering their car sales because they ignored what the public wanted, has done it again. This time Ford has "entered into a confidential agreement with the extremist American Family Association (AFA) that requires Ford to stop advertising in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media."
AmericaBlog is helping lead the charge on this. When Microsoft attempted the same kind of anti-gay sleazy move a while back, they got their heads handed to them on a platter. Ford will too.
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 14:55 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 12:31 - Category: Torture ;
The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has denied allegations that America has been flying terror suspects around the world to torture them.
Dr Rice confirmed that the US had long participated in the movement of terror suspects between countries but she said that they had never been tortured.
Let’s parse what she says:
Dr Rice said: "The United States does not use the air space or airport of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee when we believe he or she will be tortured."
Ah, but if the prisoner is dumped off at a secret hellhole prison and tortured by the non-US citizen guards there, well, golly, how could the little ole US of A know that would happen? Also note that she describes no precautions by the US to insure torture does not happen.
Would Condi call this torture?
At least one death has been reported elsewhere, however. In a CIA facility in Kabul known as the "Salt Pit", an officer, described as young and inexperienced, used the "cold treatment" on a detainee, who was left outdoors, naked, throughout a freezing Afghan night. He died of hypothermia.Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was US Secretary of State, said last week that he knew of more than 70 "questionable deaths" of detainees under US supervision up to the end of 2002, when he left office. That figure, he added, was now around 90.
Either Wilkerson is lying or Rice is lying. I know who I believe. How about you?
It’s a sign of just how far the US has fallen when a Secretary of State travelling to Europe spends all her time denying the US tortures prisoners - and virtually no one believes her.
Update: From Mike in the comments
Military autopsy report here
They have tortured more than one person to death. Swine.
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 00:10 - Category: Climate change ;
More than 100,000 people took to the streets in more than 30 countries Saturday, in
the first world-wide demonstration to press for action to combat global warming.
The marches - timed to put pressure on the most important international climate change negotiations since the agreement of the Kyoto Protocol eight years ago - took place against a background of a blizzard of new research showing the heating of the planet is seriously affecting the world sooner than scientists predicted.
White House spokesperson Freon J. Bilgewater responded to criticism of inaction by the Bush Administration on global warming as "hysteria mounted by radicals like those who opposed the Catholic Church and claimed the earth wasn’t flat." When reminded that the earth, in fact, is not flat, that Galileo was correct, and was tortured for his beliefs, Bilgewater asked the reporters if they’d "like to go on a little CIA plane flight", before cackling maniacally.
The White House later issued a "clarification" saying Bilgewater meant his comments merely as a jocular aside.
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 00:10 - Category: Torture ;
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says the intelligence agency has broken both US and international law.
It is acting for a man allegedly flown to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan.
"The lawsuit will charge that CIA officials at the highest level violated US and universal human rights laws when they authorised agents to abduct an innocent man, detain him incommunicado, beat him, drug and transport him to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan," the ACLU said in a news release.
CIA agents have broken ranks to reveal the ‘cruel and inhuman’ interrogation techniques they are ordered to use at secret prisons around the world, including freezing and near-drowning.
At least one death has been reported elsewhere, however. In a CIA facility in Kabul known as the "Salt Pit", an officer, described as young and inexperienced, used the "cold treatment" on a detainee, who was left outdoors, naked, throughout a freezing Afghan night. He died of hypothermia. The case is being investigated, along with several others in Afghanistan and Iraq where interrogators - CIA officers, civilian contractors or members of the special forces - went well beyond the guidelines and suspects died as a result.
Let’s make sure I have this right. The US went to war in Iraq because Saddam used torture, but it’s ok for the US to use torture because it hates the terrorists and loves freedom. But, don’t ask Condi about any of this during her current trip to Europe because she’ll tell you to shut up.
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 00:10 - Category: Anti-war ;
The UN said yesterday said that Saddam Hussein’s trial would never satisfy international standards because of ongoing violence and flaws in Iraq’s legal system.
From Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General and part of Saddam’s legal team.
The complete demonization of Saddam Hussein threatens to determine every decision and action affecting not only his future but that of Iraq as well. With U.S. mass media and U.S. government propaganda stripping Saddam Hussein of every redeeming human quality, any act against him or Iraq is ipso facto justified.This successful demonization made the U.S. unilateral war of aggression against Iraq politically possible. It now makes a fair trial for Saddam Hussein impossible.
So, basically, the UN and Ramsey Clark are saying the same thing, right? Those who bash Clark for working at Saddam’s trial apparently believe that only those they deem fit deserve a lawyer.
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 00:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
U.S. Senator John McCain said he expects "lots" of indictments to grow out of the federal investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and that there was "strong evidence" of wrongdoing by some lawmakers.
"This town has become very corrupt, there’s no doubt about it," McCain said today.
Lordy, a senator is now saying the town is "very corrupt." The indictments should be coming by the dozens soon, methinks.
It’s time to remove the slime from power. We can do it. We must do it.
Bob Morris @ Dec 5th 2005 00:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
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