You Could Be an Enemy Combatant

The case of Ali Saleh al-Marri has moved to the Fourth US Circuit Court:
Mr. Marri has been held in an isolated wing of the naval brig in Charleston, S.C., for more than four years after being designated an enemy combatant by Mr. Bush in June 2003.
Government officials suspect Marri came to the US as an [...]

Mukasey and Waterboarding

It seems like Mukasey might be in a bit of trouble for refusing to call waterboarding torture. Why is he reluctant to just come out and say it’s torture?
No one will have a fixed count of votes until Mukasey responds to Durbin, but if he refuses to declare waterboarding expressly illegal, he looks likely to [...]

Iraq

The latest news out of Iraq seems to be better, but the GAO report still finds that there is not a coherent strategy. Here is their summary:
• Since GAO last reported on the status of the 18 Iraqi benchmarks in September 2007, the number of enemy attacks in Iraq has declined. While political reconciliation will [...]

He Says Waterboarding Is Torture

Malcom Nance:
Malcolm W. Nance is a counter-terrorism and terrorism intelligence consultant for the U.S. government’s Special Operations, Homeland Security and Intelligence agencies. A 20-year veteran of the US intelligence community’s Combating Terrorism program and a six year veteran of the Global War on Terrorism he has extensive field and combat experience as an field intelligence [...]

Is This Hypocrisy?

Egypt, a country with a dictator that tortues its own people, has said that they will build several nuclear power plants.  What doe the Bush administration say?
“Countries that are members in good standing of the NPT and enter into agreements with IAEA regarding safeguards for peaceful nuclear energy, we have no problem with that,” spokesman [...]

Somalia

Unfortunately, Somalia is again getting a bit worse. If you remember, when Ethiopia first was invited in to help get rid of the Islamists, some people were noting how well it went and said the US should emulate the ruthlessness of the Ethiopians.  I wonder if they still think that?

Social Security

Republicans (as well as others) are pushing the ‘Social Security is in crisis’ story and try to convince us that it’s not really necessary.  It’s not true.  Here’s a good story about why it’s necessary:
Social Security benefits are vital to nearly all recipients. About a third of the elderly rely on Social Security for 90 [...]

Larouche

The Washington Monthly has an interesting story about Lyndon Larouche, the perennial Presidential candidate who has been a Marxist and a right wing advisor in the Reagan administration. Go look, it’s a very interesting piece (I remember seeing his half hour ads on TV in the early 1980s).

They’re Back

Two people who were given power in Iraq because of their influence in the Bush administation are back:

Ahmed Chalbi, who has been convicted of bank fraud in Jordan, was one of the main figures who fabricated information in the run-up to the war in Iraq and might have spied for Iran, is now back as [...]

Spanish Martyrs

On October 28, the Vatican beatified 498 Spanish martyrs who were killed during or before the Spanish civil war (the war was from 1936-1939 while the killing of Catholics, up to 7000 were killed, started in 1931 and were used by Franco as a reason to rebell). Many people are upset that the church is only honoring [...]

Red Sox and Patriots

Well now.  The Red Sox are world champions for the second time in four years (the rally is tomorrow) and there were no real riots. I guess Boston fans are finally used to winning.
Oh yeah, the Patriots also won (52-7 against a decent Washington team) and now are starting to make an argument that they [...]

Educating Babies

I’ve always thought it was weird that our educational system is, at least partially, built on the idea that children are educated according to age. After all, we don’t mature physically all at the same age (I was under 5 feet tall when I entered high school, one of the shortest boys, but when I [...]

Same Sex Classrooms

I have written a couple posts about same sex classrooms, basically arguing that there is little difference between sexes in how people think.  This article in today’s Boston Globe does the same thing, although with more detail and she does a better job. Here are some excerpts:
But their scientific-sounding lingo turns out to be not [...]

Miscellany

Turkey is still bombing the Kurdish region in Iraq, but says they’ll wait to invade until they talk to Rice.
Putin says that the placement of missiles in Europe is similar to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (where the world was very close to a nuclear war, without Kennedy we might have). He does say that [...]

Iran–Democracy?

These two articles show the contradictions in Iran.  Both of them show that there is some freedom in Iran and that the next election will have candidates that are quite different (Khatami and Ahmadinejad and others).
In the first article, we get:
“Unfortunately, it has become customary that the real issues are concealed and portrayed in some other [...]

Mukasey–Not So Fast?

This is good to see:
“A number of issues need clarification,” Senator Specter said in a telephone interview today. “I’m troubled by the depth of his assertion of executive powers.” He said he was worried specifically about whether Mr. Mukasey would give advice to President Bush to disregard acts of Congress, including a proposed law that [...]

Random 10 and Poem

I’m stealing this link (from Amanda)–it shows a cat waking up it’s ‘owner’ (my ex-cat didn’t really do this to me, but did to my sister, she (my cat) liked to lie down next to your ear and purr very loudly).
Since Amanda had the video in with her random ten, I thought I would throw [...]

Waxman Investigates

The Washington Post has an article about Rep Waxman:
For months, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, has been threatening, subpoenaing and just plain badgering Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come before his panel to answer questions about the run-up to the Iraq war, corruption and State Department contracting.
Today, Rice will [...]

The Congo

Unfortunately, it seems the problems in the Congo are getting worse again:
Earlier this year Joseph Kabila, Congo’s president, tried to negotiate with Mr. Nkunda. Then, a few weeks ago, Mr. Kabila gave him an ultimatum, threatening to wipe out his troops unless they turned in their guns or joined the national army. It seemed that [...]

US Terrorist List

I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the do not fly list, but if it does, the list of 300,000 names will be riddled with numerous errors with no way to get your name off the list or even know why your name is on the list. I like this:
Despite the precautionary zeal, [...]