Love the earth and sun and animals.
Despise riches.
Give alms to everyone that asks.
Stand up for the stupid and crazy.
Devote your income and labor to others.
Hate tyrants.
Argue not concerning God.
Have patience and indulgence toward people.
Take your hat off to nothing known or unknown to any man or number of men.
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young mothers of families.
Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or any book.
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul and your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Walt Whitman
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
When is a Person a Person?
So let me get this straight. If you are a detainee ie prisoner OUTSIDE of the US but held in US custody, you are no longer a person. If you are an *enemy combatant* inside the US are you still a person? Hmmmm????? I am confused but I really do think I am still a person.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011208B.shtml
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011208B.shtml
Torture
Reading this article was torture enough for me. What would you like to know? I will tell you anything if you promise not to make me read this again.
McConnell Weighs In on Waterboarding
By Pamela Hess
The Associated Press
Sunday 13 January 2008
Washington - The nation's intelligence chief says waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him or if someone under interrogation actually was taking water into his lungs.
But Mike McConnell, in a magazine interview, declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.
"If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," McConnell told The New Yorker, which published a 16,000-word article Sunday on the director of national intelligence.
The comments come as the House Intelligence Committee investigates the CIA's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects. The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed three years later, over fears they would leak. They depicted the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques against two of the three men known to have been waterboarded by the CIA.
As McConnell describes it, a prisoner is strapped down with a wash cloth over his face and water is dripped into his nose.
"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.
A spokesman for McConnell said he does not dispute the quotes attributed to him in the story by Lawrence Wright, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for "The Looming Towers", a book on al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.
McConnell said the legal test for torture should be "pretty simple."
"Is it excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain?" he said.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto refused comment Saturday on waterboarding.
"We don't talk about interrogation techniques. And we are not going to respond to every little thing that shows up in the press," he told The Associated Press. "We think McConnell is doing an incredible job heading up the intelligence community, reforming it and making it incredibly effective in being able to provide the president the best intelligence on threats to the nation. We think it's vitally important he and the intelligence community have all the tools they need."
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has declined to rule on whether waterboarding is torture. An affirmative finding by Muksasey could put at risk the CIA interrogators who were given permission by the White House in 2002 to waterboard three prisoners deemed resistant to conventional techniques. The CIA has not used the technique since 2003; CIA Director Michael Hayden prohibited in 2006.
The House and Senate intelligence committees want to prohibit the CIA from using any interrogation techniques not allowed by the military. That list includes waterboarding. If their bill authorizing intelligence activities for 2008 is approved by Congress, it almost certainly will face a veto from President Bush.
Last summer he issued an executive order allowing the CIA to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" that go beyond what is allowed in the 2006 Army Field Manual.
The House has approved the bill. The Senate has not yet voted on it because of objections to that restriction.
Wright disclosed in his article that the government has eavesdropped on his own telephone conversations with sources at least twice.
One was with a relative of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, who wanted to know if all of Zawahiri's children were dead. Wright was told by an intelligence source that a summary of that phone call was contained in an intelligence database. Under the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, if the government did not have a court order to monitor Wright, his name should have been concealed in the database.
Wright also was approached by FBI officials about calls he made to the lawyer of several men he had interviewed for his book on al-Qaida. Wright says the FBI erroneously believed his daughter, who had just graduated from college and was in Paris, had placed the calls. That landed her in FBI files as an al-Qaida connection.
McConnell told Wright he did not know how his daughter's name would have become known to the agency.
It is unclear under what authorities those intercepts were conducted.
"It may be troublesome, it may not be," McConnell said. "You don't know."
Wright told the AP the conversation with McConnell disturbed him because he realized his calls - and therefore his sources - could be exposed to government eavesdropping.
The Senate returns to work this month on a domestic surveillance law to replace the one Congress hastily passed in August. That law, which expanded the government's authority to listen in on American communications without court permission, expires Feb. 1. There are deep political divisions over whether telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on U.S. citizens' calls should be protected from lawsuits.
In discussing Osama bin Laden, McConnell said if the U.S. got a read on the al-Qaida's leader's precise location, it would not hesitate to cross the Pakistan border to capture or kill him. "You cannot indiscriminately attack a sovereign nation," McConnell said, but said "we'll bring it to closure." He says bin Laden is in the lawless region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
-------
McConnell Weighs In on Waterboarding
By Pamela Hess
The Associated Press
Sunday 13 January 2008
Washington - The nation's intelligence chief says waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him or if someone under interrogation actually was taking water into his lungs.
But Mike McConnell, in a magazine interview, declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.
"If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," McConnell told The New Yorker, which published a 16,000-word article Sunday on the director of national intelligence.
The comments come as the House Intelligence Committee investigates the CIA's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects. The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed three years later, over fears they would leak. They depicted the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques against two of the three men known to have been waterboarded by the CIA.
As McConnell describes it, a prisoner is strapped down with a wash cloth over his face and water is dripped into his nose.
"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.
A spokesman for McConnell said he does not dispute the quotes attributed to him in the story by Lawrence Wright, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for "The Looming Towers", a book on al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.
McConnell said the legal test for torture should be "pretty simple."
"Is it excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain?" he said.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto refused comment Saturday on waterboarding.
"We don't talk about interrogation techniques. And we are not going to respond to every little thing that shows up in the press," he told The Associated Press. "We think McConnell is doing an incredible job heading up the intelligence community, reforming it and making it incredibly effective in being able to provide the president the best intelligence on threats to the nation. We think it's vitally important he and the intelligence community have all the tools they need."
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has declined to rule on whether waterboarding is torture. An affirmative finding by Muksasey could put at risk the CIA interrogators who were given permission by the White House in 2002 to waterboard three prisoners deemed resistant to conventional techniques. The CIA has not used the technique since 2003; CIA Director Michael Hayden prohibited in 2006.
The House and Senate intelligence committees want to prohibit the CIA from using any interrogation techniques not allowed by the military. That list includes waterboarding. If their bill authorizing intelligence activities for 2008 is approved by Congress, it almost certainly will face a veto from President Bush.
Last summer he issued an executive order allowing the CIA to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" that go beyond what is allowed in the 2006 Army Field Manual.
The House has approved the bill. The Senate has not yet voted on it because of objections to that restriction.
Wright disclosed in his article that the government has eavesdropped on his own telephone conversations with sources at least twice.
One was with a relative of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, who wanted to know if all of Zawahiri's children were dead. Wright was told by an intelligence source that a summary of that phone call was contained in an intelligence database. Under the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, if the government did not have a court order to monitor Wright, his name should have been concealed in the database.
Wright also was approached by FBI officials about calls he made to the lawyer of several men he had interviewed for his book on al-Qaida. Wright says the FBI erroneously believed his daughter, who had just graduated from college and was in Paris, had placed the calls. That landed her in FBI files as an al-Qaida connection.
McConnell told Wright he did not know how his daughter's name would have become known to the agency.
It is unclear under what authorities those intercepts were conducted.
"It may be troublesome, it may not be," McConnell said. "You don't know."
Wright told the AP the conversation with McConnell disturbed him because he realized his calls - and therefore his sources - could be exposed to government eavesdropping.
The Senate returns to work this month on a domestic surveillance law to replace the one Congress hastily passed in August. That law, which expanded the government's authority to listen in on American communications without court permission, expires Feb. 1. There are deep political divisions over whether telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on U.S. citizens' calls should be protected from lawsuits.
In discussing Osama bin Laden, McConnell said if the U.S. got a read on the al-Qaida's leader's precise location, it would not hesitate to cross the Pakistan border to capture or kill him. "You cannot indiscriminately attack a sovereign nation," McConnell said, but said "we'll bring it to closure." He says bin Laden is in the lawless region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
-------
A Battle is Not the War
Washington - "President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan warned in an interview published Friday that any unilateral attacks by the United States against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in his country's tribal areas would be treated as an invasion."
Does it seem to anyone else that Bush wants a nuclear war so bad he can taste it? I was fearful then he was appointed to the Presidency in 2000. Little did I know at the time how much there was to fear.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011208A.shtml
Does it seem to anyone else that Bush wants a nuclear war so bad he can taste it? I was fearful then he was appointed to the Presidency in 2000. Little did I know at the time how much there was to fear.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011208A.shtml
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Forever Bombing People to Save Them
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080111/bush-israel-holocaust/
I could not let this one go by. I am beyond words.
I could not let this one go by. I am beyond words.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Need a Good Laugh?
FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011108N.shtml
Lara Jakes Jordan reports for The Associated Press, "Telephone
companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals
because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time."
These clowns are killing me.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011108N.shtml
Lara Jakes Jordan reports for The Associated Press, "Telephone
companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals
because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time."
These clowns are killing me.
The Word is Out
It is official. The US ranks dead last in healthcare in the developed world. Way to go Bush.
Forgive Me For Laughing
Does anyone really believe that the Iranian Navy would be stupid enough to approach American war ships with the intention of attacking them in speed boats. OMDog, that is actually funny. Yet Dubya was audacious enough to stand up on National television yesterday and suggest just that. This guy, like most crazy people is often a hoot in a twisted sort of way.
If you would like to see what really happened? Look here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011108J.shtml
If you would like to see what really happened? Look here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011108J.shtml
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The New Year Finally Arrives
Somehow the arrival of a new year, an election year, gives me a sense of hope. Call me crazy. You won't be alone. I feel a sense of change in the air even with all that is happening on the campaign trail.
Kucinich has filed a law suit in Texas due to the fact that he is not being allowed to have his name on the ballot! WTF? Gravel, Hunter and Kucinich are being blocked from debates in New Hampshire. Obama takes the lead in the Iowa Caucus (most likely because he was given the votes that would have been for Kucinich at the bidding of Dennis himself). My head is spinning. Huckabee, that scary little worm, wins in Iowa with Mitt taking second place. Geeze, what is wrong with Iowa? Of course the ReThugs really did not have much to choose from. Yet, I feel hopeful. Okay, I admit it, I am crazy.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Dubya continues to tout his tax cuts for the rich. Banks are being bailed out by the government, the dollar is little more than worthless and the stock market would have crashed long ago had it not been for being artificially inflated.
The occupation in Iraq rages on. Our fearless leader continues to lie to us via HIS media by saying things are getting better. While it is true things are going his way, I would not call that *better*. Millions of lives have been ruined forever while Americans continue to drive their SUVs. Oh boy, Americans love those SUVs. McCain, the twisted old man, says it would be fine to leave troops there for 100 years. Good Grief. Still I am hopeful. Call me a doctor. No, I mean call a doctor for me.
Speaking of doctors, Glenn Beck, whose recent surgery went wrong, now sees how bad health care in America is and believe it or not, now says he understands compassion. Being a nurse and having been a patient, I can tell you all about our health care system but that would be a book. It is bad and has been for a very long time now.
I suppose I feel hopeful because I think things cannot possible get worse so surely they will get better.
Poverty and joblessness are up while we have more billionaires then ever before. Can you say banana republic? Prices are out of sight. Green peppers $1.50 each? Bread almost $4 a loaf? Imported food from China tainted with heaven knows what? Where will it end? Sometimes I think *they* are trying to kill us all by starvation.
Oil companies are doing well. Gas is now $3.21 a gallon here in my area. Still we drive our SUVs. Crude now $100 a barrel. Think of this, we could have been getting that same barrel of crude for $50 if King George the Myopic could play nice with Chavez.
Every day we hear of another cover up, another dirty deal. Think of the millions we don't hear of. Stop the world, I wanna get off.
But, crazy me, I feel hopeful. I will tell you why. I think the day is close where Americans will understand that it is up to us to change things. Damnit people, lock that SUV in the garage and take to the streets. Only YOU have the power to make change happen.
Rise Up!
Are you angry? Rise up!
They are stealing your freedom away.
If you’re angry, rise up.
We have a chance if you do it today!
They have stolen elections,
Lowered your wage, inflation is on the rise.
Rise up! Rise up!
Or the fat cats will be our demise.
Had enough yet? Rise up!
Honor the ones who have died
They gave their lies free,
For you and for me.
Rise up!
Are you angry? Rise up!
Our children are dying for oil.
If you’re angry, rise up!
Don’t let your freedom be spoiled.
They have lied for their ends,
And the truth is they spend
what we need for the hungry on war.
Rise up! Rise up!
Our nation will soon be no more.
Had enough yet? Rise up!
Does the patriot act make your blood boil?
They seize liberties,
We are no longer free.
Rise up!
Pay attention! Rise up!
We’re destroying the air that we breathe.
You should be angry. Rise up!
Our planet may soon cease to be.
For we are fouling the land,
As we drive our SUV’s
making oil companies richer than ever before.
Come on now, Rise up!
Our ruin is down to the core.
Does it irk you? Rise up!
The Bill of Rights is being ignored.
The law does not apply,
To those that will lie.
Rise Up!
Don’t accept it. Rise up!
Torturing prisoners is not our way.
You should be angry. Rise up!
As you read this it’s happening today.
For years without benefit of counsel
Hundreds being held in a tiny, dirty cell,
and no charges are brought
So rise up!
This is not a democratic line of thought.
General Hayden, Can you hear me?
Are you upset with my point of view?
Will you lock me in a cell,
Leave me there for years to dwell?
I can’t let you. I must rise up!
I am angry, I rise up!
I will block you at every given chance.
I will shout and I will sing.
I will chant and I will bring
a message from the people as I dance.
You will see me on the street, marching to a simple beat
And you will always know I’m there.
I rise up!
For the people have the power when they dare!
Kucinich has filed a law suit in Texas due to the fact that he is not being allowed to have his name on the ballot! WTF? Gravel, Hunter and Kucinich are being blocked from debates in New Hampshire. Obama takes the lead in the Iowa Caucus (most likely because he was given the votes that would have been for Kucinich at the bidding of Dennis himself). My head is spinning. Huckabee, that scary little worm, wins in Iowa with Mitt taking second place. Geeze, what is wrong with Iowa? Of course the ReThugs really did not have much to choose from. Yet, I feel hopeful. Okay, I admit it, I am crazy.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Dubya continues to tout his tax cuts for the rich. Banks are being bailed out by the government, the dollar is little more than worthless and the stock market would have crashed long ago had it not been for being artificially inflated.
The occupation in Iraq rages on. Our fearless leader continues to lie to us via HIS media by saying things are getting better. While it is true things are going his way, I would not call that *better*. Millions of lives have been ruined forever while Americans continue to drive their SUVs. Oh boy, Americans love those SUVs. McCain, the twisted old man, says it would be fine to leave troops there for 100 years. Good Grief. Still I am hopeful. Call me a doctor. No, I mean call a doctor for me.
Speaking of doctors, Glenn Beck, whose recent surgery went wrong, now sees how bad health care in America is and believe it or not, now says he understands compassion. Being a nurse and having been a patient, I can tell you all about our health care system but that would be a book. It is bad and has been for a very long time now.
I suppose I feel hopeful because I think things cannot possible get worse so surely they will get better.
Poverty and joblessness are up while we have more billionaires then ever before. Can you say banana republic? Prices are out of sight. Green peppers $1.50 each? Bread almost $4 a loaf? Imported food from China tainted with heaven knows what? Where will it end? Sometimes I think *they* are trying to kill us all by starvation.
Oil companies are doing well. Gas is now $3.21 a gallon here in my area. Still we drive our SUVs. Crude now $100 a barrel. Think of this, we could have been getting that same barrel of crude for $50 if King George the Myopic could play nice with Chavez.
Every day we hear of another cover up, another dirty deal. Think of the millions we don't hear of. Stop the world, I wanna get off.
But, crazy me, I feel hopeful. I will tell you why. I think the day is close where Americans will understand that it is up to us to change things. Damnit people, lock that SUV in the garage and take to the streets. Only YOU have the power to make change happen.
Rise Up!
Are you angry? Rise up!
They are stealing your freedom away.
If you’re angry, rise up.
We have a chance if you do it today!
They have stolen elections,
Lowered your wage, inflation is on the rise.
Rise up! Rise up!
Or the fat cats will be our demise.
Had enough yet? Rise up!
Honor the ones who have died
They gave their lies free,
For you and for me.
Rise up!
Are you angry? Rise up!
Our children are dying for oil.
If you’re angry, rise up!
Don’t let your freedom be spoiled.
They have lied for their ends,
And the truth is they spend
what we need for the hungry on war.
Rise up! Rise up!
Our nation will soon be no more.
Had enough yet? Rise up!
Does the patriot act make your blood boil?
They seize liberties,
We are no longer free.
Rise up!
Pay attention! Rise up!
We’re destroying the air that we breathe.
You should be angry. Rise up!
Our planet may soon cease to be.
For we are fouling the land,
As we drive our SUV’s
making oil companies richer than ever before.
Come on now, Rise up!
Our ruin is down to the core.
Does it irk you? Rise up!
The Bill of Rights is being ignored.
The law does not apply,
To those that will lie.
Rise Up!
Don’t accept it. Rise up!
Torturing prisoners is not our way.
You should be angry. Rise up!
As you read this it’s happening today.
For years without benefit of counsel
Hundreds being held in a tiny, dirty cell,
and no charges are brought
So rise up!
This is not a democratic line of thought.
General Hayden, Can you hear me?
Are you upset with my point of view?
Will you lock me in a cell,
Leave me there for years to dwell?
I can’t let you. I must rise up!
I am angry, I rise up!
I will block you at every given chance.
I will shout and I will sing.
I will chant and I will bring
a message from the people as I dance.
You will see me on the street, marching to a simple beat
And you will always know I’m there.
I rise up!
For the people have the power when they dare!
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