Link Salad, size: small

Public Lands, Recreational Opportunities, and Natural Resources Or, yes, Virginia, global warming is real, the EPA knows it, and it's having a dramatic effect on Alaska, my much-loved home, that will never be the same again, gods curse every damn polluting one of us.

Drivers stranded by car signals. See? This is why I want a damn *KEY*.

The Last Word on Waterboarding -- It's Torture, Pure & Simple

Waterboarding is Torture… Period, from Malcolm Nance at the Small Wars Journal.

As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.

Once at SERE and tasked to rewrite the Navy SERE program for the first time since the Vietnam War, we incorporated interrogation and torture techniques from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia into the curriculum. In the process, I studied hundreds of classified written reports, dozens of personal memoirs of American captives from the French-Indian Wars and the American Revolution to the Argentinean ‘Dirty War’ and Bosnia. There were endless hours of videotaped debriefings from World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War POWs and interrogators. I devoured the hundreds of pages of debriefs and video reports including those of then Commander John McCain, Colonel Nick Rowe, Lt. Dieter Dengler and Admiral James Stockdale, the former Senior Ranking Officer of the Hanoi Hilton. All of them had been tortured by the Vietnamese, Pathet Lao or Cambodians. The minutiae of North Vietnamese torture techniques was discussed with our staff advisor and former Hanoi Hilton POW Doug Hegdahl as well as discussions with Admiral Stockdale himself. The waterboard was clearly one of the tools dictators and totalitarian regimes preferred.

It's torture, and the DOJ and White House know it because an Assistant Attorney General went out to assess it, had it inflicted it on himself to truly understand it, and concluded that yes, it's torture. Legally and ethically, it's torture. And he got fired for it.

Climate Wars

Climate Wars Threaten Billions

Retired JAG Officers on Mukasey, Waterboarding

Retired JAGs Send Letter to Leahy

While Bush says shit like this:

In a time of war, it is vital for the President to have a full national security team in place -- and the Attorney General is a key member of that team. The Attorney General is America's top law enforcement officer, with critical responsibilities for preventing terrorist attacks and protecting our Nation.

but doesn't mean it, since he wants the nation's top law enforcement officer to condone torture.

Busy Couple of Days

Well, Thursday night, as all my rabid reading audience (all what, 3 of you?) know, I got notified I'd passed the bar exam for Massachusetts. I get sworn in after Thanksgiving. I confess I'm tempted to take another bar for a different state, yet I'm glad I didn't try to do two at once -- the folks I saw doing that in July looked *DAMN* tired by day 3.

Friday I went to cheer for Delynn at the Student Award Ceremony as she picked up her CALI Award for Trial Practice. It was great to see so many grads return to pick theirs up.

My parents called during the ceremony, having finally gotten my message (left on m'mom's cellphone Thursday night) about passing the bar, and of course I couldn't talk just then.

Then D&D took me out to dinner to celebrate her CALI and my passing the bar, and we found some little middle eastern restaurant off Boylston, and ate shawarma and other good stuff.

And I just knew I had to tell the Internet all about it. You're so lucky.

In other news:

George Bush saying (caught this on NPR in my sleep Friday morning) that Mukasey doesn't have to answer a question about a torture technique being torture, because he's not briefed on whether the technique is in use, is quite possibly the most ridiculous attempt to sidestep a question I've ever heard. Regardless of whether the technique is used currently in or by the US, IT'S TORTURE.
The SOBs are caving on Mukasey, because he's "far better than anyone could expect from this administration." They still don't get it. The Bush Administration is an aggressive bully in negotiating style - staking a claim for ALL power and then backing off if you refuse. YOU HAVE TO DO THE SAME IN RETURN. STOP COMPROMISING. STOP EXPECTING THEM TO COMPROMISE IF YOU SIMPLY 'SHOW GOOD FAITH'.
Mushareff imposes emergency rule in Pakistan. Oh, dandy.

Make Your Own Jabba the Hutt!

Awesome.

PASSED THE BAR EXAM

Passed the bar exam!

Halloween Celebration

I had one (expected) trick-or-treater last night, one of the boys who lives in my building -- he had a most excellent fireman's costume. I gave him some candy[*] and came outside so we could take some pictures. I think he had a good Halloween, and I also think it was his first. (He's not from the US originally.)

[*] Penny Candy at CVS isn't really a penny, but it's good old-fashioned stuff and there might be a ton of sugar in there, but at least there's no high-fructose corn syrup.

Then I watched Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow in honor of the occasion.

ENIAC's Coders were Women, and thus, Ignored

Typical.

Invisible Computers: The Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers

Cool Art

Spiders Made From TSA-Confiscated Scissors

More in the "Make You Cry" Dept

U.S. Could See a Water Shortage

Tip #1: LOSE THE FUCKING LAWN, PEOPLE! Christ! Grow local plants suited to the climate. *What* is this obsession people have with lawns?

Help an Animal

Dogs in Danger. Give money, give time, give a home.

Pro Publica: Journalism in the Public Interest

A non-profit journalism outfit. Interesting.

Things that make you go "Hm", laugh, or cry

Laugh:

Human race will 'split into two different species'. So sayeth Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics. (Those wacky economists!)

Top 10 Most Terrifyingly Inspirational 80s Songs

Hm:

Biofuels 'crime against humanity'.

The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said he feared biofuels would bring more hunger.

The growth in the production of biofuels has helped to push the price of some crops to record levels.

It was, he said, a crime against humanity to divert arable land to the production of crops which are then burned for fuel.

He called for a five-year ban on the practice. Within that time, according to Mr Ziegler, technological advances would enable the use of agricultural waste, such as corn cobs and banana leaves, rather than crops themselves to produce fuel.

and more 'hm':

The literary criticism of J.K. Rowling has begun. Potter is a lefty, says French philosopher ("Harry Potter is a left-winger and the seven books by J.K. Rowling are a diatribe against Thatcherite Britain, a French philosopher said Friday on the day of the last novel's publication in French.")

I like the phrase "Thatcherite Britain". Hard to say why.


Cry:

American kids, dumber than dirt

FEMA "Sorry" Faked Newscast. No, they're not. They're just sorry they got caught. Typical of this Administration.

The collapse of Bush's foreign policy: From Turkey to Iraq to Pakistan, the mounting chaos proves the White House is just winging it (by Juan Cole):

Like a drunken millionaire gambling away a fortune at a Las Vegas casino, the Bush administration squandered all the assets it began with by invading Iraq and unleashing chaos in the Gulf. The secular Baath Party in Iraq was replaced by Shiite fundamentalists, Sunni Salafi fundamentalists and Kurdish separatists. The pressure the Bush administration put on the Pakistani military government to combat Muslim militants in that country weakened the legitimacy of Musharraf, whom the Pakistani public increasingly viewed as an oppressive American puppet. Iraqi Kurdistan's willingness to give safe haven to the PKK alienated Turkey from both the new Iraqi government and its American patrons. Search-and-destroy missions in Afghanistan have predictably turned increasing numbers of Pushtun villagers against the United States, NATO and Karzai.

Various Coolnesses

The Flushing Remonstrance, triggered by colonial Gov. Peter Stuyvesant being an intolerant dick. Read about it here. I love the Society of Friends (Quakers). I think, based on my scattered readings of Elaine Pagels The Gnostic Gospels, that Quakers are the most true to the form of early Christianity.

I'll gradually be changing my cosmetics usage (yes, I do wear cosmetics pretty regularly now) based on this site: http://www.safecosmetics.org/

Goth Raggedy Ann and Andy! My twin and I used to have RA&A. Not goth, though. Too bad.