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Sunday, June 12, 2005
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Pentagon gives no excuses for terror suspect treatment.
Washington | June 13
AFP - The US military on Sunday offered no excuses for interrogation
techniques used on a Saudi terror suspect at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
saying his questioning followed a "detailed plan" and that prevention
of new attacks justified the means. The retort followed publication of
a secret document detailing the military's handling of Mohammed
al-Qahtani, suspected of being the 20th hijacker on September 11, 2001,
that suggested his interrogators may have used a combination of forced
hydration and denial of bathroom facilities to pressure him for
information. The revelation has left some US lawmakers aghast, with
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel openly suggesting "a vacuum of
leadership" at the Pentagon.
TIME has the story of detainee #063(al-Qahtani) and the interrogation log.
~~ed.
[The Agonist]
10:48:00 PM 
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BizarroWorld.
It's official. BushLand is BizarroWorld. Eric Umansky writes:
Eric Umansky: Payrolls in Iraq: The LAT reports that the Iraqi
government is considering doing serious layoffs. I have no doubt the
government is full is slacker workers and plenty of others who don't
show up. Still, in the midst of a growing insurgency, creating
thousands of pissed-off unemployed men seems like Bad Idea Jeans. But
here's what really caught my eye is this bit buried deep down: On
Sunday, members of Iraq's elite police commando units, heralded by U.S.
and Iraqi officials as a key to stemming the insurgency, staged a
protest outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, saying they
hadn't been paid in four months, witnesses said. WTF? Now, there are
all sorts of commando units out there. But anybody heard reports of
this before? Swopa? Praktike?...
[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
3:03:50 PM
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The Worsening of the Income Divide: Why Peak Oil Will Hit Hard.....
Bill Moyers amazes me. He does it again in this speech, entitled "Losing the American Revolution," which has very little, at least prima facie, to do with peak oil.
Well, at least not until you start thinking about it.
When
you start thinking about what $4/gal gasoline does to our economy,
further worsening existing problems and inequities, especially those
dealing with wealth concentration, etc., that have already been getting
worse over the past few decades.
Then you starting thinking
about what an already disparate class structure looks like after the
coming problems hit with full force. It could get quite ugly.
Here's some quotes from the article/speech:
"For
years now a relatively small fraction of American households have been
garnering an extreme concentration of wealth and income as large
economic and financial institutions obtained unprecedented levels of
power over daily life. In 1960 the gap in terms of wealth between the
top 20 percent and the bottom 20 percent was 30-fold. Four decades
later it is more than 75 fold. (See Joshua Holland, AlterNet, posted
4/25/05 )
Such concentrations of wealth would be far less of
an issue if everyone were benefiting proportionally. But that's not the
case. Statistics tell the story. Yes, I know—statistics can cause the
eyes to glaze over, but as one of my mentors once reminded me, "It is
the mark of a truly educated man [or woman] to be deeply moved by
statistics."
Let's see if these statistics move you.
While
we've witnessed several periods of immense growth in recent decades,
the average real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers
- that's a heap of people - fell by 7 percent between 1973 and 2000.
(ibid )
During 2004 and the first couple of months this year,
wages failed to keep pace with inflation for the first time since the
1990 recession. They were up somewhat in April, but it still means that
"working Americans effectively took an across-the-board pay cut at a
time when the economy grew by a healthy four percent and corporate
profits hit record highs as companies got more productivity out of
workers while keeping pay raises down." (ibid )
Believe it or
not, the United States now ranks the highest among the highly developed
countries in each of the seven measures of inequality tracked by the
index. While we enjoy the second highest per capita GDP in the world
(excluding tiny Luxembourg), we rank dead last among the 20 most
developed countries in fighting poverty and we're off the chart in
terms of the number of Americans living on half the median income or
less. (ibid )
And the outlook is for more of the same. On the
eve of George W. Bush's second inauguration The Economist - not exactly
a Marxist rag - produced a sobering analysis of what is happening to
the old notion that any American can get to the top. With income
inequality not seen since the first Gilded Age (and this is The
Economist editors speaking, not me) - with "an education system
increasingly stratified with fewer resources than those of their richer
contemporaries" and great universities "increasingly reinforcing rather
than reducing these educational inequalities" - with corporate
employees finding it "harder…to start at the bottom and rise up the
company hierarchy by dint of hard work and self-improvement" - "with
the yawning gap between incomes at the top and bottom" - the editors of
The Economist - all friends of business and advocates of capitalism and
free markets—concluded that "The United States risks calcifying into
a European-style class-based society."
Let me run that by you again: "The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society."
Or
worse. The Wall Street Journal is no Marxist sheet, either, although
its editorial page can be just as rigid and dogmatic as old Stalinists.
The Journal's reporters, however, are among the best in the country.
They're devoted to getting as close as possible to the verifiable truth
and describing what they find with the varnish off. Two weeks ago a
front-page leader in the Journal concluded that "As the gap between
rich and poor has widened since 1970, the odds that a child born in
poverty will climb to wealth - or that a rich child will fall into
middle class - remain stuck... Despite the widespread belief that the
U.S. remains a more mobile society than Europe, economists and
sociologists say that in recent decades the typical child starting out
in poverty in continental Europe (or in Canada) has had a better chance
at prosperity." (Wall Street Journal , page one, 5/13/05)
That
knocks the American Dream flat on its back. But it should put fire in
our bellies. Because what's at stake is what it means to be an
American."
And then you combine that with what we already know
about the economics, politics, and geopolitics of the coming of the
peak, and my friends, you have the recipe for a very very big fall.
Go to the postings for today
Technorati Tags: peak oil, oil By noemail@noemail.org (profgoose).
[The Oil Drum]
3:02:27 PM
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Okay, I have a house to clean. And I'm probably going to get hemorroids from sitting down so much to blog. But this story is worth a read.
Apparently, those camps you hear about that are supposed to "fix" gay
teenagers are very real and worse than you could imagine. It was just a
matter of time before a blogger got swept up into one, and this blogger goes by the name of Zach.
He's 16 years old and his reward for being forthcoming with his parents
about being gay is that they are bundling him up and sending to "camp"
for kids who dare be themselves. The rules of this place are enough to make you want to cry for this kid.
1. LIA wants to encourage each client, male and
female, by affirming his/her gender identity. LIA also wants each
client to pursue integrity in all of his/her actions and appearances.
Therefore, any belongings, appearances, clothing, actions, or humor
that might connect a client to an inappropriate past are excluded from
the program. These hindrances are called False Images (FI¹s). FI
behavior may include hyper-masculinity, seductive clothing,
mannish/boyish attire (on women), excessive jewelry (on men),
mascoting, and "campy" or gay/lesbian behavior and talk. 2. As non-residential clients, Refuge participants must submit to
an F.I. search every morning. With the exception of the very first
program day, when they may arrive no later than 9:00 a.m., Refuge
clients will arrive daily at the Love in Action campus no later than
8:50 a.m., waiting in a designated area until a staff member meets them
to perform the F.I. search and check them in. Refuge clients may not
enter any of the client spaces on campus before submitting to an F.I.
search. All belongings brought to campus will be searched, including
book bags, notebooks, wallets, handbags, purses, etc. Items that
violate the F.I. policy or the dress code will be held for the client,
to be returned no later than the client¹s last day in program. Clients
may request to have their F.I. items returned by filling out a C.O.C.
3. All photographs will be taken for the purpose of sobering re-evaluation. Clients may request to have pictures returned to them via C.O.C.
4. Refuge clients will not be allowed to use personally owned
computers during the program, whether on campus or at home/in temporary
lodging. Computer stations are normally available on campus when
clients need to type something.
5. Clients should report all FI's (with discretion), whether their own or another's, to staff.
The rule I bolded should make it obvious what's going to happen to
these kids. Can you imagine having a photo taken of yourself for a
"sobering re-evaluation" by a fundie, sex-and-homophobic wingnut?
During the blog-a-thon I amassed a bunch of emails from people who
have issues they wanted to have addressed in the context of a human
rights blog-a-thon. I'm sorry I was unable to get to all of them, but
eventually most will be posted up during the week. [Pandagon]
1:44:31 PM
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Sunday Sermonette: Tai Solarin.
Today's Sunday Sermonette is inspired by the life and work of Tai
Solarin (1922-1994), arguably, the most distinguished African humanist
of the 20th century. First, a little background on this remarkable
figure: Solarin was an indefatigable warrior in the cause...
[Majikthise]
1:43:13 PM
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Kinsley on the Downing Street Memo.
KINSLEY ON THE DOWNING STREET MEMO....About 30 minutes ago, in an
update to last night's post about the Downing Street Memos, I suggested
that reporters weren't paying a lot of attention to them because they
thought it was old news....
[Political Animal]
1:39:51 PM
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More on the Rising Cost of Employer-Provided Health Care
Has
Ron Scherer
of the
Christian Science Monitor
been reading Angrybear?
An
increasing part of production costs in America comes from the price of
promises … Now, even with the economy far from a recession, the cost of
these promises is becoming a drag. On Tuesday, the size of the drag
became more apparent for General Motors, which said it would eliminate
25,000 jobs by 2008 - in part because of the cost of its healthcare
commitments, now amounting to about $1,500 per car.
[Angry Bear]
11:47:14 AM
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U.S. Campaign Produces Few Convictions on Terrorism Charges.
By Dan Eggen & Julie Tate | June 12
WaPo - On Thursday, President Bush stepped to a lectern at the Ohio
State Highway Patrol Academy in Columbus to urge renewal of the USA
Patriot Act and to boast of the government's success in prosecuting
terrorists. Flanked by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush said
that "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against
more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been
convicted." Those statistics have been used repeatedly by Bush and
other administration officials, including Gonzales and his predecessor,
John D. Ashcroft, to characterize the government's efforts against
terrorism. But the numbers are misleading at best. An analysis of the
Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The
Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have
implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national
security. First of two parts...
[The Agonist]
9:32:19 AM
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Schweitzer to the rescue. Cute.
A Charles County [Maryland] high school's
decision to deny a diploma to a senior who wore a bolo tie to
graduation didn't offend just the student and his family. Montana's
governor is mighty annoyed, too. "To have some high school say that
a bolo tie is not a tie is an outrage," said Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D),
who called The Washington Post yesterday after reading an article about
17-year-old Thomas Benya. "In Montana and anyplace in Indian country, a bolo tie is dressed up," he said. "A tie is a tie."
Schweitzer, who has a collection of more than 30 string ties, called to
encourage Benya yesterday and is sending him a Montana state bolo.
[Daily Kos]
9:30:49 AM
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Great Editorial on the DSM.
Geov Parrish in the Seattle Weekly:
I
have a three-word response to the media frenzy that followed revelation
of the long-secret identity of Deep Throat: Downing Street Memo.
Here's what John Dean, a key Watergate figure, wrote about Dubya's case for the Iraq war in a June 2003 column for www.findlaw.com:
"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war
based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate
misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be a
'high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause."
That's exactly what the Downing Street Memo, first reported a month ago by The Times of London, proves… Go read the rest. And while you're at it, check out this story at Editor & Publisher, too.
The
problems we find in the mainstream press do not plague the alternative
media. We need to promote the good work they're doing on behalf of
truth and accountability, even as their more well-known counterparts
refuse to do the same.
By noemail@noemail.org (Shakespeare's Sister).
[Shakespeare's Sister]
7:43:42 AM
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Conyers Schedules Congressional Hearings on DSM. They say you can't always get what you want,¦but sometimes you can!
Raw Story: The
ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled
hearings on the 2002 minutes between senior British and American
officials which asserted that intelligence was "being fixed" to support
the case for war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
The
hearings, which will be held next Thursday, will bring renewed
attention to what is being called the "Downing Street memo," actually
official minutes of a secret 2002 meeting.
Conyers office has
revealed that they will introduce new documents that corroborate the
Downing Street Memo at the hearings June 16.
Among those
scheduled to testify are Joe Wilson, former ambassador and weapons of
mass destruction expert; Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA analyst, used to
do presidential daily briefings for Ronald Reagan; Cindy Sheehan, a
mother who lost her son in Iraq combat; and John Bonifaz, the Boston
constitutional lawyer who has called for a resolution of inquiry into
what he sees as impeachable offenses in the president's false pretenses
for war.
The Democratic Judiciary staffer said the overwhelming
online response to Conyers' push on the Downing Minutes has further
proven that pressure on issues can be built outside the mainstream
press. 
Go get ’em!(Hat tip Republic of T.) ----------------- UPDATE:
John Conyers also links on his blog to his diary at dKos on the topic, in which he says (in part): This
hearing is just one step in an investigation that I am commencing that
will literally span the Atlantic. I am in touch with British officials
and former U.S. intelligence officials and I am determined to get to
the truth.
At the hearing, I will disclose information found to
date, which includes the public release of newly discovered documents.
While none of these documents are as damning as the DSM, they
nonetheless bolster the accuracy of it.
There is another point
that has been missed of late. An article I read a week ago, I can't
remember where, quoted a right wing blogger as proclaiming this a dead
issue and further stating that this was a test of the progressive
netroots. Implicit was his contention that we were failing that test. A
week later, the President was forced to respond (inadequately) to a
question about it. We have passed the test.
Thanks again for your help and support. This is just the beginning. Thank you, Congressman. By noemail@noemail.org (Shakespeare's Sister).
[Shakespeare's Sister]
7:41:59 AM
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Yeesh.
Somebody call a wahhhhhhhhhmbulance!
Big baby and apparent lunatic James Sensenbrenner unceremoniously and
abruptly ended the hearings on the Patriot Act today because he didn't
like what he was hearing and walked out. Blink. Blink. Go read Pam,
because I'm seriously too tired to bother writing another post on how
the GOP is drunk with power and inexplicably determined to flush our
entire democracy down the turd tunnel.
By noemail@noemail.org (Shakespeare's Sister).
[ Shakespeare's Sister]
7:34:37 AM
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San Francisco Chronicle Editorial on DSM. Most excellent:
There should be no statute of limitations -- or shortness
of public attention span -- on an issue that cuts to the core of this
government's integrity and credibility. Congress must fully investigate
the actions in Washington that led the highest officials in Great
Britain to be convinced that the Bush administration was hell-bent on
war and working to concoct a rationalization for it. Read the rest. (Hat tip Poverty Barn.) By noemail@noemail.org (Shakespeare's Sister).
[Shakespeare's Sister]
7:33:21 AM
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Hot Damn. The first day I've actually engaged in a social life in weeks and what do I miss? The leaking of a new British memo confirming that it was necessary to create the conditions for the legality of the Iraq War. The London Times reports (emphasis mine):
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper,
said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid
of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W
Bush three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was necessary to create the conditions which would make it legal.
This
was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take
part in an invasion, the American military would be using British
bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal
US action.
The document said the only way the allies could
justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where
he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to
co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.
It
is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam
would reject, the document says. But if he accepted it and did not
attack the allies, they would be most unlikely to obtain the legal
justification they needed.
The suggestions that the allies
use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush,
repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to
the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.
There
has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month's
publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens,
including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing
Street memo (often shortened to the DSM on websites) has been largely
ignored by the US mainstream media. (Including the 427 members of the Big Brass Alliance.) Who,
I wonder, is our friendly British Deep Throat? Whoever it is, I'm
fucking glad they care more about holding our president accountable for
his actions more than most of the members of our own government. More information on this as it becomes available. In other news, the AP has done a fine piece on the Downing Street Memo, and the Washington Post has gotten in on the action, too. HOT DAMN!
[Shakespeare's Sister]
7:31:53 AM
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Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Liars? (And We Could Use a Better Press Corps...).
The Downing Street Memo acquires more steam: Ministers were told of need for Gulf war "excuse"
- Britain - Times Online: Michael Smith:
MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking
part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to
find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office
briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military
action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of
President George W Bush three months earlier... since regime change was
illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it
legal. This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain
should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be
using British bases.... The paper was circulated to those present at
the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary,
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief
of MI6.... The document said the only way the allies could justify
military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he
ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum.... But it...
[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
6:39:32 AM
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Dismember of Congress.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Orkin) was not too happy yesterday
to see the House controlled by his party nonetheless endorse
legislation supporting federal funding for embryonic stem-cell
research. The margin of the vote, 238-194, wasn't enough to override
President...
[slacktivist]
6:37:47 AM
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It Just Gets Weirder and Weirder.
If, as the AP is speculating, Sen. John Cornyn gets nominated for the
Supreme Court, he'd better watch his back. After all, just a few months
ago there was this guy -- a Senator, no less! -- named John Cornyn...
[Ezra Klein]
6:36:37 AM
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Why I Can't Hate Nick Kristoff Indefinitely. Guest blog from the fabulous Lindsay, returning to Pandagon to help us with the blog-a-thon.
Sure, Kristoff buys Thai prostitutes for self-promotional purposes,
but he also made this multi-media presentation for the New York Times: The Illiterate Surgeon.
I think this might interest Pandagon readers. It's appropriate for
the AI drive because it dramatizes a few of the connections between
development, women's health, and human rights. It's the story of a
woman named Mamitu, a onetime victim of an obstetrical injury known as vesico-vaginal fistula whose condition was surgically corrected at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia.
As the segment explains, fistula is a complication of childbirth
that afflicts approximately 2 million women in the developing world.
Most fistulas occur in teenage girls during their first labour. Because
their pelvises are small, the baby's head can become trapped under the
pelvic bone. If the pressure isn't relieved in time, the baby will die
and the mother's perineum will be ripped in two, causing urine and/or
feces to leak through the vagina. Women who suffer fistulas are
typically abandoned by their husbands and banished by their
communities. Sometimes they are simply left to die.
After Mamitu was cured, she stayed on at the hospital as an informal
apprentice. Today she's one of the world's leading fistula surgeons.
She trains doctors from all over the world to perform this procedure.
Now a successful middle aged woman, Mamitu is also completing her
primary school education in night school.
Kudos to Kristoff for not being too squeamish to talk about vaginas in a voiceover. I didn't know he had the balls, so to speak. [Pandagon]
6:35:39 AM
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Better Late than Never.
Nearly 4 years into the GWOT and the Pentagon is just starting to think
about network disruption. The delays are being blamed on bureaucratic
infighting. This would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
WT. "DOD is pushing a strategy...
[John Robb's Weblog]
6:34:32 AM
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© Copyright
2005
Michael Mussington.
Last update:
7/1/2005; 6:37:32 AM.
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