Probe finds Marines killed unarmed Iraqi civilians

Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found.

Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq.

Bring the troops home now. End the madness. And indict the senior officers under whose command this happened.

Corrupt politicians and CEOs. CIA torture prisons. Deliberate slaughter of children. This country is run by people who can only be described as deranged. We the people are the only ones who can change things. The politicians can’t do it because they are part of the problem. Other countries have had deranged leaders - and have replaced them. We can do it too.

Do something. Get invoved. Fight back. If you’re already involved, then fight back harder. This applies to me too!

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
–Dante Alighieri

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The flights are run by the highly secret CIA Counter Terrorist Intelligence Centre, CTIC, at Langley.

“If a strong psychological interrogation with some physical force is required, a detainee is flown to Jordan. If a suspect is to be interrogated in between periods of strong physical force, he is sent to Egypt. For the most severe of torture for information, he is sent to Uzbekistan where he is killed after he can reveal no more”, a senior Mossad officer said.

Craig Murray, when British ambassador to Uzbekistan, wrote in a memo to Jack Straw, Britain’s Foreign Secretary in November 2004: “The CIA chief in this country acknowledged to me that torture of those rendered includes the boiling in vats of prisoners”.

Those at CIA responsible for these atrocities should be in prison. And maybe one day they will be.

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The House Judiciary Committee today passed the Net neutrality bill proposed by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) by a 20-13 vote. The action represents the first legislative victory for the Net neutrality forces, which are pushing Congress to enact legislation that would prevent service providers from developing premium tiers of Internet content delivery with higher prices.

Yes, that Sensenbrenner…  And this is a big victory indeed.

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I use Microsoft FrontPage to build websites. The most recent version was released in 2003.

Here’s what’s replacing it, Microsoft Expression Web Designer, now available as a free beta download. More on my tech blog.

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In Jan 2002, Viridian Design, an online movement about global warming, had a contest to create a new, more fitting logo for the then catering and collapsing Enron. The above was the winning entry.

When companies merge, or change names, or even re-org, a logo redesign is very often job one. But when companies *croak* in a grotesque welter of scandal and bankruptcy, nobody does a thing about the logo! *Dead* companies don’t even *get* new logos.

However, we Viridians, with our wise “Embrace Decay” principle, can see through this serious organizational shortcoming in contemporary capitalism! And if anybody needs a new logo right now, it’s Enron.

First prize was ‘one hundred shares of Enron stock!’ which at the time was worth, as I recall, about 50 cents a share. Now Kenny Boy, one of Dubya’s earliest financial backers, is going to prison, and Dubya is quite silent about it all, isn’t he?

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The Senate immigration bill which passed yesterday needs to be reconciled with the noxious Sensenbrenner bill which has already passed in the House. The troglodytes there will do their utmost to destroy the Senate version. This fight will be nasty, but really, it’s a choice between a onerous, restrictive Senate bill and a racist, mean-spirited House version.

The Senate version mandates a three-tiered system, sending back some immigrants immediately, and some after they’ve performed their 3-6 years of indentured servitude, excuse me, I meant to say “employment.”

The House bill makes it a felony to help any undocumented worker, that’s right, it would be a felony. That means a nun who runs a soup kitchen where undocumented are fed could go to prison. There’s lots more zenophobia and racism in the bill too.

Both bills mandate building a security fence for hundreds of miles at the U.S./Mexico border, no doubt as a symbol of freedom for the world to see.

Both bills are bad. No bill at all is better than either of them.

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“It’s safe to say each of them is facing north of 20 years real jail time,” said Kirby Behre, a former federal prosecutor and co-author of Federal Sentencing for Business Crimes.

Any money they’ve managed to hold onto will vaporize in the coming onslaught of civil lawsuits. Money they tried to shelter in irrevocable trusts can be seized by the government if they can prove the money was obtained fraudulently.

In the words of an old J. Geils song

“Serve you right to suffer/ serve you right/ You gonna live a long time.”

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