Waterboarding Firsthand

First, read this:

A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded

Then, watch this:

http://current.com/items/86417301_kaj_larsen_goes_waterboarding

I've been very busy so here's a compilation of interesting videos and a few other things to set the mood:

Please visit: http://makethestand.com/

Please follow this link and watch: ZEITGEIST, The Movie

and: The Secret History of Impending War with Iran









Turn off the music on this last one or it will ruin it for you:

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Dick In a Nutshell

All you ever wanted to know, even if you didn't know it yet, about Richard Cheney.

Both Dick and I are from WY, so believe me when I say this shit be pertinent.

Thanks Frontline.

From The Dark Side:

"Amid revelations about faulty prewar intelligence and a scandal surrounding the indictment of the vice president's chief of staff and presidential adviser, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, FRONTLINE goes behind the headlines to investigate the internal war that was waged between the intelligence community and Richard Bruce Cheney, the most powerful vice president in the nation's history."

From Cheney's Law:

"For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power. Finally, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and his lawyer David Addington, the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review."

Band-aids For Int'l Whoopsies

Band-aids for Int'l Whoopsies. Ed might really appreciate that. ;[

Ed Brown Nearly Martyred

Heroic Ed and Elaine Brown caught my eye with this Raw Story article dated June 7, 2007.

I kept my eye open and only caught one article claiming that supporters had begun to rally and camp at the Brown household. I didn't doubt it.

All quiet until this IHT (I'm not sure who broke the story) article was posted online on October 4th.

And silence. I stumbled upon and "Official Ed Brown Blog" which speculated on whether or not they were alive.

Well it turns out they are - and they're not well. Have you been worried about torture here on US soil? I have been - and you know now that you better watch your ass. The live audio from the phone interview is available at the "Official: Ed Brown Video Blog". It's some of the most terrifying and thought provoking conversation I've ever heard. Just sickening.

If you're wondering what being "dieseled around" is, check out this link.

Poor, poor Ed and Elaine (if you have the free time - go ahead and update this).

... my heart goes out.

And remember, they can do it to you too, nation.

Thanks for citing your sources, coporate media

I remember being called crazy for suggesting this to a work group a while back. However, the truth has finally came out. I never thought I would say this, but thank you FCC.

Just another told-ya-so moment.

Sound Sonata

Posted a new song. Again.

I'm on a roll.

It's settled

So now we know who the ultimate authority is. Who will protect the army from Blackwater? Not me.

Who will protect Blackwater from me?

Seventeen for crying out loud

We have had seventeen interglacial periods; these are the ten thousand year long intervals between the last four 40 to 100 thousand year long ice ages our planet has experienced. This is a fact. It has been ten thousand years before the start of the current interglacial period. This is also a fact.

The amount of CO2 here on Earth determines the extent of the greenhouse effect; atmospheric conditions determined in part by variable CO2 levels and solar radiation patterns are certainly not finitely predictable over a very long period of time; but there has been a rhythmically predictable pattern to terrestrial temperatures for about the last 1.2 million years. That is a fact.

Beginning in the 16th century there began a Little Ice Age which very well could be interpreted as a sign of the coming ice age. What saved us? It seems to be both solar patterns and huge increases in CO2 and methane in our atmosphere.

If there is another ice age, we will probably not survive as a species. At least all the poor people in third world countries; and all the poor people in capitalist countries. Probably.

Support global warming.

WAOTD

The Eleusinian Mysteries were a series of initiation rituals that every Greek and Roman name you know, emperors and all, went through.
These guys say it was all one big acid trip. (Note Albert Hoffman.)

Octaplast

Today, in honor of the administrations ultimate victory in the second to last battleground for civil rights, I uploaded a new song onto the truckbed of the internets.



It's called Octoplast because that's what if feels like to be waterboarded. Sucks to be an extrajudicial prisoner.

Stay Vector

A very interesting documentary featuring a man who pirated NASA space shuttle video feeds for over five years; the man who did it, Martyn Stubbs, documents thousands of instances of unexplainable phenomena from live footage and shares his findings here.
Try not to crap yourself.

Taken with an extraterrestrial grain of salt.

Heffalumps and Woozles

Tomorrow, I will be attending the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival. It is the biggest festival of its kind and reputed to be the most photographed single event in the world; so I'm taking my Canon A1, some UC and Delta, and we'll see where I get. Just thought I'd share.

There are some interesting, and enlightening, pictures and movies available...

UPDATE:
Almost as much hot air as the RNC. Pretty neat.

WAOTD

A tasty Wikipedia article:

Allegations of state terrorism committed by the United States

St. Lowery

For gov't priorities, follow the money.

Thanks for the wonderful commentary, Rude Pundit.

Senate approves $150B in war funding; "Pentagon Issues Blackwater New $92 Million Contract" at Think Progress; We know GWB "doesn't care about black people", and now we can add kid's health to his list. This should make you madder than a Holocaust survivor; or a gay Iranian.

Telling it like it is:

"For war billions more but no more for the poor."
- Dr./ Rev. Joseph Lowery

More on the good Reverend at Blast the Right, podcast number 29.

Re: Re: UNCLASSIFIED////

Evidence to support my claim:

See, some Blackwater manager earns more than double what general Petraeus does: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001352.html
Thanks again,
Tyler

Re: UNCLASSIFIED////

I wrote back to the good SGT:

Sir,

I just don't know what to say. I've talked with a number of military representatives, both there in Lincoln and now here in Santa Fe. I have a strong history of significant military involvement and accomplishment in my family, especially during WWII, sure; but a lot has changed since then.

Honestly, if I were a proponent of using violence over diplomacy as a way to establish stability in the major oil supplying countries - I would certainly join Blackwater. The pay's better, and, unlike what we're to believe about our military, Blackwater cannot be held accountable! http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6849 & http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Blackwater_guards_fired_unprovoked__09302007.html. Good news for the good guys. But, as with most things, we're slowly moving away from that which holds us back: http://www.theaircar.com/ & http://www.zapworld.com/. I do suspect, however, that it isn't oil that's important to the US, but rather the profits gained from the processing and sale of oil products.

Surely I would be needed in Iraq, but I just read a news piece that names a few US Generals who actually oppose the re-colonization of Iraq: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6920. The British had their turn, now we have ours! What I like is that Venezuela has offered oil and gas to low-income neighborhoods for heat and electricity at an incredibly reduced rate, something like fifty bucks a barrel.

Most significantly, I don't believe in any use of an offensive military; none at all. I think that those people who willingly help an offensive military (knowingly or unknowingly) are the worst moral deviant sinners our great land has ever had the good opportunity to support. Think about this: if we had been giving two billion dollars a day to a pro-democratic regime in Iraq, rather than spending it militarily, that person/group could have toppled Saddam purely with the resources that would have been available to them.

And what's this I hear about some guy named Bremmer taking out all the social-justice measures in the Iraqi constitutional draft? That's just plain evil.

The problem I think I've run into is that I'm a socialist - not a communist - a socialist. I would describe myself as a Anti-Authoritarian Anti-Republic Democratic Socialist. These beliefs are fundamental to who I am, and because I firmly believe in anti-authoritarianism, how could I endorse a pre-emptive military? How could I contribute to an ultimately oppressive force like that?

And what about Iran? I've heard civilian death toll in Iraq is something like eighty-one thousand on the most conservative estimates http://www.iraqbodycount.org/. I have to think about this when I wake up; when I get ready for work; when I come home; while I eat dinner; while I go to school... How many innocent people will we kill in Iran? And will we use nuclear weapons (outside of DU)? This saddens me so. Can we justify this?

Why does Israel get nukes? Why does the UK, France, China, Russia, India and Pakistan get nukes? I'm more scared of Israel than I am of Iran. And do we know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran has or is planning for nukes outside of electricity? Like we knew Saddam had WMD (well, we did, but they were the ones we sold them that they forgot about and we couldn't find later)?

What about women's rights in Saudi Arabia? Why haven't we issued sanctions against them? None of this adds up and I am always searching for answers. If the liberal media is so liberal, why don't they discuss these things? Why can I only find solace with the progressive peace movement?

Why am I uninsured? I work fourty-eight hours a week and am full time in school? If I lived in, literally, any other industrialized nation I wouldn't have to worry about getting sick.

There are just so many things that I see wrong with this country, why does our military even worry about solving problems in other countries?

Often, when approached by the military, I have asked many of these questions, and sure you're reading all of it in its most tangential state; I don't have the time to go connect all of it properly, but they are all things I have to consider when I'm asked to enlist.

If you could answer these questions for me, and please, tell me what you thought about before you enlisted, I would love to read it.

Thank you so much for your time,
Forever patriotic,
Tyler

Aggressive Progressive

"Presidential campaigns aggressively competed for dollars up to the last minute of the third quarter, eager to build their bank accounts for an expensive stretch of media advertising and voter outreach." Thanks for the news, Huffington Post!

These candidates aren't important - but their checkbooks are. Imagine if we raised hundreds of millions to feed the 30,000 children that die every day across the world from hunger and preventable disease. But hey, they die so we can watch Fox on broadcast; so we can buy a double bacon cheeseburger for only $1.99; they die so we can work ever so slightly less - unless you're poor here too.

More on this from Blast the Right; check out podcast numbers 61 and 60 for more on this.

What is the statistic? Something like, the richest 400 adults in America possess as much wealth as the poorest 54 million. Go look it up and then get angry.