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Sunday, May 30, 2004 Archibald Cox - Dies at 92 posted by durani, 05/30/04 06:59 | link | comments Friday, May 28, 2004 Bombing the Capitol It seems that the idea of nuking The Capitol Hill in Washington was the brainchild of President Richard Nixon when he was fed-up with the scene of impeachment hearings against him. Here are excerpts of the actual conversation: Aide: The president asked for the briefcase containing the controls to America's nuclear arsenal. Kissinger: For what? Aide: He is going to drop it on the Hill! posted by durani, 05/28/04 05:34 | link | comments (1)
posted by durani, 05/28/04 05:11 | link | comments Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Cannabis Not Linked with Psychosocial Harm posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/18/04 00:40 | link | comments Friday, May 14, 2004 Mission Accomplished posted by durani, 05/14/04 03:53 | link | comments Thursday, May 13, 2004
posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/13/04 03:58 | link | comments (1)
Situationist Ethics Are the American soldiers who abused Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison "a few who have betrayed our values," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims? Or are they victims of a prison system guaranteed to produce atrocities? In recent days, the latter view has taken hold, buttressed by the Stanford Prison Experiment, a 1971 study in which upstanding young men assigned to be "guards" in a mock jail abused their "prisoners." The study's designer, former Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo, has become the media's favorite expert on prison abuse, imprinting his blame-the-situation attitude on newspaper, magazine, and television coverage of the Iraqi prison scandal. The emerging spin is that the Stanford experiment explains scientifically what happened at Abu Ghraib. But science, particularly social science, isn't all scientific. Every experimenter begins by drawing a box. Inside the box are the factors he decides to control or measure. The rest—including him—are left out, either because he can't control or measure them, or because he doesn't think they're important. The box-drawing process is seldom scientific and often cultural or political. Consequently, excluded factors often turn out to be more important than included ones. That's why the Stanford experiment doesn't explain—or excuse—Abu Ghraib. [Read More] posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/13/04 02:53 | link | comments Wednesday, May 12, 2004
posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/12/04 03:14 | link | comments Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Just Trust Us By PAUL KRUGMAN Didn't you know, in your gut, that something like Abu Ghraib would eventually come to light? When the world first learned about the abuse of prisoners, President Bush said that it "does not reflect the nature of the American people." He's right, of course: a great majority of Americans are decent and good. But so are a great majority of people everywhere. If America's record is better than that of most countries — and it is — it's because of our system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances. Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe in that system. From the day his administration took office, its slogan has been "just trust us." No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was inevitable. [ posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/11/04 01:47 | link | comments Monday, May 10, 2004
The Torture System It's worth starting with the basics, because they are what you're likely to see the least of in the uproar at hand. The system of injustice that, since 9/11, we've sent offshore and organized globally – from Guantanamo, Cuba to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan – is by its nature also a system of torture. It was designed from the beginning to be a Bermuda Triangle of injustice, existing in an extrajudicial darkness beyond "our" sight or oversight. There, on military bases and in special military-controlled prisons, the "war on terrorism" could be carried to its informational climax in whatever ways and by whatever methods American intelligence officials felt might "break" whatever prisoners we had. Whether in Guantanamo or at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, this developing mini-gulag was never meant to be a system of imprisonment for crimes – hence the lack of charges, no less trials of any sort, anywhere in the imperium. It was to be an eternal holding operation for the purpose of information extraction (and possibly revenge). The men (and woman) running the Bush administration's foreign policy in this period didn't have to specify the actual use of torture, though some of them seem to have done so. We know from the Sunday Washington Post that, in April 2003, after "debates" on the subject, Pentagon officials at "the highest levels" approved twenty "psychologically stressful" methods of interrogation, most or all of which any sane person would classify as torture, including the questioning of naked prisoners, and that these methods were later approved at least for "high-value detainees" in Iraq. In the meantime, there was a good deal of post-9/11 torture chatter in the media about how much of it we could, should, and would use in a war to the death against a fanatic enemy. [Read More] posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/10/04 04:15 | link | comments
“Problems can not be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” -Albert Einstein posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/10/04 02:48 | link | comments (1)
posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/10/04 02:17 | link | comments (1) Murdered FM Lindh Sweden's posthumous
"European of the Year"
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, murdered in Stockholm last September, was posthumously designated her country's European of the Year Sunday by the Swedish section of the European Movement. She received the award for her "strong commitment and her participation in the work that led to the enlargement of the European Union (news - web sites)."
Lindh, 46, died a day after being stabbed in a department store where she was shopping with a friend. In March Mijailo Mijailovich, 25 was sentenced to life for the killing. He claimed to have heard voices telling him to commit the murder.
The award was made to Lindh's husband Bo Holmberg by her successor as foreign minister, Laila Freivalds.
Lindh, a convinced European, was a rising star in the ruling social democratic party and tipped as a future party leader and prime minister.
Her killing recalled that of Prime Minister Olof Palme, shot dead in the street 17 years ago, and caused a similar sense of shock and disbelief. [Link] posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/10/04 01:25 | link | comments Friday, May 07, 2004
Ad assails Cardinal for stance on communion Some say antiabortion group's tactics may backfire By Alan Cooperman A Roman Catholic antiabortion group launched an advertising campaign against Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington yesterday, attacking him for saying he is not comfortable denying Communion to Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and other Catholic members of Congress who support abortion rights. The Virginia-based American Life League said the advertisements are the beginning of a $500,000 print ad campaign targeting bishops who are reluctant to punish Catholic politicians for taking policy positions that defy the church. The first ad shows Jesus in agony on the cross and asks: "Cardinal McCarrick: Are you comfortable now?" Under pressure from such groups and from the Vatican, a small but growing number of U.S. bishops have said they would deny the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, to elected officials such as Democratic presidential candidate Kerry and the governor of New Jersey. But the increasingly aggressive, personal criticism of bishops and politicians is running into opposition from Catholics across the political spectrum. Some conservatives fear the tactics may backfire and raise sympathy for Kerry. Some liberals say the church is opening itself to charges of partisanship and could revive the charge that haunted John F. Kennedy, that Catholic politicians take orders from Rome. [ {So when are these Catholics going to oppose Bush for his capital punishment record? Oh wait, that‘s not important because he‘s leading the Crusade for Christian dominance!} posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/07/04 05:58 | link | comments (2)
posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/07/04 04:29 | link | comments
U.S. faces lasting damage abroad Moral high ground lost, experts say By Robin Wright The United States faces the prospect of a severe and enduring backlash not just in the Middle East but also among strategic allies, putting in question the Bush administration's ability to make serious headway on a range of foreign policy goals for the rest of this presidential term, according to U.S. officials and foreign policy experts. The White House damage-control campaign, including the long-awaited apology from President Bush yesterday, is likely to have only limited, if any, success in the near term, administration officials said yesterday. [ Read More]posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/07/04 03:15 | link | comments (1)
Donald Rumsfeld Should Go There was a moment about a year ago, in the days of "Mission Accomplished," when Donald Rumsfeld looked like a brilliant tactician. American troops — the lean, mean fighting machine Mr. Rumsfeld assembled — swept into Baghdad with a speed that surprised even the most optimistic hawks. It was crystal clear that the Defense Department, not State and certainly not the United Nations, would control the start of nation-building. Mr. Rumsfeld, with his steely grin and tell-it-like-it-is press conferences, was the closest thing to a rock star the Bush cabinet would ever see. That was then. It is time now for Mr. Rumsfeld to go, and not only because he bears personal responsibility for the scandal of Abu Ghraib. That would certainly have been enough. [Read More] posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/07/04 02:28 | link | comments
Do You Recognize Bush's America? By Arianna Huffington, Welcome to George W. Bush's version of America – Bush Democracy. Apparently, he has his fanatical neo-con programmers working overtime to iron out all those bothersome bugs and kinks that have been holding the United States back for the last 228 years – exasperating glitches like openness, integrity, accountability, responsibility and the value of an informed public. I have to admit, this new edition has been a little hard for me to get used to; it's a lot different than the America that I grew up studying – and revering. You might be having a similar problem, so, as a public service, I've decided to provide this helpful primer. Think of it as Bush Democracy for Dummies. In Bush Democracy, the messy concept of the public's right to know has been replaced by the far more user-friendly "don't worry, we know what's right for you." Why clutter up the citizenry's hard-drive with all sorts of unimportant facts and information? Which is why, just to be on the safe side, Bush Democracy comes with a helpful, one-step fact-check-and-delete program. No need to bother with taping or even transcribing important meetings like the president's three-hour appearance in front of the 9/11 Commission last week – Bush Democracy decides what's pertinent and discards the rest into the unrecoverable recycle bin of history. [Read More] posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/07/04 01:58 | link | comments (1) Thursday, May 06, 2004
Restoring Our Honor By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN W e are in danger of losing something much more important than just the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the world. I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today. I was just in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us. It's no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom "Friends" right now. They're the only friends we have, and even they're leaving. [Read More]posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/06/04 04:19 | link | comments
posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/06/04 02:27 | link | comments
Why Bush Didn't Apologize By Fred Kaplan It would be a surprise if President Bush's Arab TV interviews today went over well with Iraqi viewers. It would also be a surprise if he much cared. His remarks seemed geared, for the most part, to American voters, who he knew would watch replays and excerpts a few hours later. For this audience, he pushed all the right buttons. For the other, Arab audience, he pushed a few of the right buttons, brushed up against some of the wrong ones, and deliberately avoided the crucial ones. He scheduled the interviews—with Al Arabiya, a popular and independent Arabic network, and Al Hurra, a much-derided station owned by the U.S. government (but, pointedly, not with Al Jazeera)—to defuse the uproar over news of American soldiers torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison. As everyone acknowledges, these revelations could irreversibly harm America's already-tarnished reputation in the Middle East. [Read More]posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/06/04 01:44 | link | comments (3) Wednesday, May 05, 2004
“The law has persistently refused to impose on a stranger the moral obligation of common humanity, to go to the aid of another human being who is in danger, even if the other is in danger of losing his life.” -Prosser & Keeton on the Law of Tortes posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/05/04 04:01 | link | comments
posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/05/04 03:12 | link | comments
How To Discipline Private Contractors Criminal charges have been filed against the U.S. military personnel accused of torturing prisoners at Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Reports have also alleged that government contractors coached these soldiers on how to abuse the Iraqis, in apparent violation of international and domestic law. These contractors are not subject to military justice, and so far, the Justice Department has taken no steps to prosecute them. When private military contractors break the law, what can be done to discipline them? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Misbehaving firms can have their government contracts terminated; they can be barred from competing for future contracts; and they may also be subject to civil and criminal liability. However, nearly all of these penalties are at the discretion of the agency that issued the original contract. Procurement officials, political leaders, prosecutors, and judges get to decide whether to sanction contractors for allegedly breaking the law in Iraq. [Read More]posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/05/04 02:44 | link | comments Tuesday, May 04, 2004
posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/04/04 01:47 | link | comments Monday, May 03, 2004 Nightline Snub Sinclair Broadcast Group on Thursday ordered its eight ABC affiliates to pre-empt Friday's "Nightline" broadcast of the reading of the names of US military personnel killed in Iraq, saying the program is "motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." The political leanings of Sinclair executives also may have played a part in the company's decision to block the popular ABC news program. In 2004, Sinclair executives gave 98 percent of their political contributions to GOP candidates. In a fax to press Thursday, the Baltimore-based media company, whose holdings include 62 local TV stations, said that by airing Friday's Nightline program, "ABC is disguising political statements as news content." During the ABC News broadcast, anchorman Ted Koppel will read aloud the names of more than 500 U.S. service men or women who have lost their lives in the war, as a corresponding photo appears on the screen along with that person's name, military branch, rank and age. In an emailed statement, ABC News "respectfully disagreed" with Sinclair's view of the program saying that Nightline "is dedicated to thoughtful and balanced coverage and reports on the events shaping our world with neither fear nor favor – as our audience expects, deserves, and rightly demands." [Read More] posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/03/04 02:47 | link | comments Sunday, May 02, 2004
Dr. Strangelove at Abu Ghraib Prison
posted by durani, 05/02/04 12:05 | link | comments Wolfie's Fuzzy Math By MAUREEN DOWD As of Thursday, there were 722 deaths, 521 in combat. The No. 2 man at the Pentagon was oblivious in the bloodiest month of the war, with the number of Americans killed in April overtaking those killed in the six-week siege of Baghdad last year. [Read More] posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 05/02/04 00:40 | link | comments (1) |
thanks to squidfingers for background pattern
