Jena, Louisiana

“There’s a bomb in the building start clearing out”

Who killed Mychal Judge?

Same old song

First a bullshit terror emergency, and now:

Hardline anti-terror laws are to be proposed by Gordon Brown – including an extension of the 28-day limit on detention without charge – as the Chancellor sends a powerful signal that he will take a harder line on terrorism than Tony Blair. In an intensification of Brown’s plans for Number 10, which follows criticism that he has failed to flesh out his thoughts on terrorism, he will call this week for a series of measures that will infuriate his party’s left wing.

Isn’t that special?

Even “reasonable conservatives” forget the first half of the second amendment

Jon Swift has an idea:

It is the Second Amendment that makes our country free. A Global Second Amendment would make the world free. Nuclear proliferation could be the key to making the world safe for democratic proliferation.

We’d have to accept a Nuclear Regulatory Body, being necessary to the security of a free World.

Related posts:

• RKBA:
• Regulate the militia.

Congress has exclusive authority to issue letters of marque and reprisal

“Congress owes it to the American people to take down the curtain of secrecy surrounding these shadow forces that often act in the name and on the payroll of the people of this country.”

Hat-tip Cookie Jill.

What is an acceptable level of violence?

Hat-tip Maha.

Related post:

• Pelosi ’07

Congress must investigate this.

Arpaio believes that inmates should not be treated better than the average citizen. Thus, upon his initial election Arpaio began instituting the controversial changes for which he would later become noted.Arpaio began to serve inmates surplus food (mainly outdated and oxidized green bologna) and limited meals to twice daily. Meal costs would be reduced to 90 cents per day; as of 2007 Arpaio claims that he has managed to reduce costs to a mere 15 cents per day. Certain food items were banned from the county jail, mainly coffee (which also reduced ‘coffee attacks’ on guards), but later salt and pepper were removed from the jail (at a purported taxpayer savings of $20,000/year).

Full stop. It gets worse.

P.S. Burton has more.

Update: Here he is. The first three minutes are a little bit slow, but it gets interesting from there.

He might want to postpone that some more…

ABC News:

April 16, 2007 — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned.

That e-mail said that Gonzales supported firing one federal prosecutor six months before she was asked to leave.

Gonzales was scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, but his testimony was postponed until Thursday because of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University.

How are they doing? We don’t ever hear…

Hat-tip baronette

War. What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Hat-tip Nicole Belle.

Save this city.

Hat-tip D.R. Scott.

Press release

From United States Senator Russ Feingold.

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER COSPONSORS FEINGOLD BILL TO REDEPLOY TROOPS FROM IRAQ
April 2, 2007

Washington D.C. -­ U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced today that they are introducing legislation that will effectively end the current military mission in Iraq and begin the redeployment of U.S. forces. The bill requires the President to begin safely redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq 120 days from enactment, as required by the emergency supplemental spending bill the Senate passed last week. The bill ends funding for the war, with three narrow exceptions, effective March 31, 2008.“I am pleased to cosponsor Senator Feingold’s important legislation,” Reid said. “I believe it is consistent with the language included in the supplemental appropriations bill passed by a bipartisan majority of the Senate. If the President vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period.”

“I am delighted to be working with the Majority Leader to bring our involvement in the Iraq war to an end,” Feingold said. “Congress has a responsibility to end a war that is opposed by the American people and is undermining our national security. By ending funding for the President’s failed Iraq policy, our bill requires the President to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq.”

The language of the legislation reads:

(a) Transition of Mission – The President shall promptly transition the mission of United States forces in Iraq to the limited purposes set forth in subsection (d).

(b) Commencement of Safe, Phased Redeployment from Iraq – The President shall commence the safe, phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq that are not essential to the purposes set forth in subsection (d). Such redeployment shall begin not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.

(c) Prohibition on Use of Funds – No funds appropriated or otherwise made available under any provision of law may be obligated or expended to continue the deployment in Iraq of members of the United States Armed Forces after March 31, 2008.

(d) Exception for Limited Purposes – The prohibition under subsection (c) shall not apply to the obligation or expenditure of funds for the limited purposes as follows:

(1) To conduct targeted operations, limited in duration and scope, against members of al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations.

(2) To provide security for United States infrastructure and personnel.

(3) To train and equip Iraqi security services.

# # #

Related post:

• Mensch

Copyright be damned, and torturers go to hell real quick

Here is Terry Jones. Via Why Now?

Call that humiliation?

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian

I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this – allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world – have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe – especially with a bag over their head – but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting “stress positions”, which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is “unhappy and stressed”.

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her “unhappy and stressed”. She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer – whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net

Do you prefer plagues of locusts?

Ever seen a sandstorm?

Ellroon says, “Try fighting in this.”

Impeachment testimony

Hat-tip Glen.

Related posts:

• Is that a “Known Unknown?”
• Who investigates himself?

iRaq is not an Apple product

But what if it was?

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit? Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?

Watching my recent visitors compared to those who have been reading this blog for awhile, we are becoming more of a musical tribe and less of a political one. Unfortunately for my desire to abstain from national politics, I cannot put out of my mind the pictures of torture that have been committed. And it is not the actual photographs, which I would not care to see more than I must, but the knowledge that it is going on even now and worse.

This is still a political blog, until the administration and those who continue to dehumanize the world with such foulness are removed from power. We must restore civilization now.

Nine years old.

Related post:

• What kind of shameful regime puts an innocent 9-year old child in a prison for two years?

Climate control

Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, have a certain “half-life” in the atmosphere before they are eliminated by natural processes, such as by plant respiration. When the production of new greenhouse gases has equilibrium with the elimination of circulating greenhouse gases, the climate is kept in balance.

Much discussion of reducing and controlling global warming has focused on how we may regulate the production of new greenhouse gases, and we must do so or we could never eliminate them quickly enough to prevent their building without limit and turning the earth into a place uninhabitable to humans.

It would also be helpful to begin encouraging the reduction of circulating greenhouse gases by broad based home agriculture. One green plant can reduce the carbon footprint of one person by a significant amount. If climate science has taught us anything, it’s that small changes over a large population make a huge difference.

What kind of shameful regime puts an innocent 9-year old child in a prison for two years?

Ask yourself.

First they hurt our children, then deny them medicine

Yesterday, Shakes wrote,

I missed it last night, but watched the whole thing in six pieces on ABC’s website: In an Instant: The IED Explosion, Bob Woodruff’s 36-Day Coma, Wounded Warriors, Are We Ready for Our Injured?, The Human Cost of War, and Woodruff’s Closing Thoughts. It’s absolutely staggering, and I highly recommend it, with the warning that it is deeply upsetting, so be prepared. But it’s a must-see. Truly.

I finally finished watching it today, and recommend you watch the whole thing from beginning to end.

Incidentally, I read that veterans overwhelmingly support medical marijuana. For the pain and suffering that it can relieve those suffering traumatic brain injuries, nothing else in the world would help more.

I’m very happy for Bob Woodruff and his family, and glad that he received the best quality medical care in the world. But people not so visible in the public eye are more likely to fall through the cracks, and those with internal brain damage are hard to treat with any technique; often the risks in trying to correct it with surgery are higher than the damage could possibly justify if we even had the diagnostic capability to know precisely what was wrong in all cases. Cannabis helps the neurons in the brain that still work.

Briefly noted

Henry Edward Hardy points to a report from Simon Tisdall in the Guardian today,

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq – or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.

That’s only one Friedman Unit away. All snark aside, it’s not good for American soldiers to be put in this situation, which could rapidly turn into a meat grinder if their supply lines get cut, especially with the British now withdrawing from the south of Iraq. I’d give some credit to the administration if they’d withdraw under the pretense of a surge, but I don’t rate it as being very likely.

A penalogical approach to family values?

Please read an update on the unAmerican concentration camps by Peterr.

Adult content

Hat-tip Ellroon.

Habeus corpus ad testificandum

Produce the body.

(Hat-tip The Heretik.)

Who is being protected or served?

Hat-tip Radley Balko.

John Conyers will uphold the constitution

Pelosi in ’07

Maha has t-shirts.

Intervention

Glenn Greenwald writes about the case of Maher Arar, an innocent Canadian man who was tortured on behalf of the Cheney/Bush maladministration, in a case of mistaken identity.

Via Andrew Sullivan, here is a video about the case.

Here is Patrick Leahy examining the war criminal Alberto Gonzales (audio only).

As CNN reports,

Canada’s prime minister apologized to Maher Arar on Friday and announced the government would compensate him C$10.5 million (US$8.9 million) for its role in his deportation from the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured while held in prison for nearly a year. . . .

“On behalf of the government of Canada, I want to extend a full apology to you and Monia as well as your family for the role played by Canadian officials in the terrible ordeal that you experienced in 2002 and 2003,” Harper said. Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh, and their young son and daughter now live in Kamloops, British Columbia.

“I sincerely hope that these words and actions will assist you and your family in your efforts to begin a new and hopeful chapter in your lives,” Harper said, adding the compensation package would also pay for his estimated $1 million in legal fees.

When your friends have to apologize for your bad behavior, it’s time.

Vox populi

Now it’s just about time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode.

Hat-tip JC Christian.

Appointed caretaker

Hat-tip egalia.

Impeachment

If George Walker Bush goes before the American people this week to commit thousands more men and women, many of whom have already seen more than one tour of duty, to subject them to the serious risk of death or permanent disability if they have not been mentally scarred for life already, against the advice of his generals, the congress and the vast majority of the American people, he is non compos mentis.

Of course it may be suspected this has already long been the case.

The madness of King George places all of us in serious danger.

Peace Mom

Hat-tip maha.

Witness

Peter Gabriel.

Remember the stakes

Jose Padilla is an American citizen.

Movie time

What’s going on in Madrid?

Do not martyr prisoners

Saddam Hussein is no threat to anyone in the world now. Do not kill him.

This is my first commandment.

What’s next?

Four forced confessions,  three henchmen, two purple gloves, and a US body count higher than 9/11.

When the flood comes…

Lohachara island is no more. Submerged like the legends of Atlantis or Ys before, but this is real and historical and undoubted and it is happening now. 10,000 people lived there, 70,000 refugees are expected from other low-lying islands, and we’re just getting started if the seas continue to rise.

Hat-tip to Chris in Paris, via Ellroon.

I don’t even want to give him a name.

Blue Texan (guest posting at Unclaimed Territory) has assembled some quotes to put in context this surge idea, of sending more troops, escalating the conflict in Iraq — against the combined and unanimous judgment of the joint chiefs of staff, the senior American commander in Iraq, George Casey, Jr., and the senior American commander in the Middle East, John Abizaid.

The good judgment of the commanders being what that man said he would follow above all political considerations.

“Here’s a lump of coal for your stocking, kids. We’re bringing back the draft, too.”

Happy holidays, and anyone who thinks I’m at war with Christmas for saying so is insane.

Konzentrationslager

Just go read.

Is NutraSweet safe?

Don’t miss Part III, below…

Cannabis is prohibited?

Oh, but this is good:

• Nine percent of 8th graders sniffed glue, spray paints, cleaning fluids or other inhalants, down slightly.

Um. Here’s the thing, parents. Your kids are going to alter their consciousness, and don’t you pretend to me that you don’t alter yours. Everyone does it. Choose your poison, or learn what is good for you.

Sniffing paint is using dope, and it’s not good for you or your kids. Nine percent of 8th graders is way too many kids that are being permanently injured by these dangerous things.

Cannabis is not dope.

Better you should eat or drink or vaporize or smoke cannabis than drink alcohol, smoke tobacco or take prescription mood altering substances. God knows what is good for you, and you will find no better medicine than what God made for you.

Hat-tip.

American whistleblower tortured

Seriously. This has to stop. Five days ’til Christmas. Click the link.

Where did the buses go?

Where are the people being stored?

How many have been taken?

Ask now, there’s not much time.

Caldera rising

Yellowstone dunes are rising with huge uplift, forecasters are calling for a chance of eruption or earthquake. Please be safe. Not a drill.

Hat-tip to mayan.

Watch them fly away

In camera

Police are trying to keep secret what the public has a right to know. Via and hat-tip.

Aneurism

Tim Johnson should consider using cannabis as soon as possible. A lot of cannabis. Please help him.