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Monday, March 12, 2007 |
RawStory: "'The administration has been almost pathological in trying to find ways to keep these people from ever seeing a real judge or a real lawyer,' John Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the Associated Press, 'and the reasons are obvious'.
Turley, among many legal analysts, believes that the likelihood that torture tactics were used on the detainees has heightened the administration's state of secrecy for fear of public retribution. The law professor also suggested that President Bush not only knew about the torture program but may have ordered it."
As 'commander-in-chief' Bush is by all means responsible and it is highly probable (99.99%) that Bush ordered the torture program.
BrusselsTribunal: "In Iraq (with its much smaller population) the US has already matched in scale the violence perpetrated on Vietnam and the war goes on, although there is little indication that it has given up its economic interests. Undoubtedly a very great part of this violence is conducted directly by US forces (the extremely credible Lancet study suggests from 30-40%), but, despite surges, that proportion appears to be falling. That leaves perhaps as many as 500,000 violent deaths unattributed to Coalition military action.
I think it is vital that we all remember that this inter-communal sectarian warfare still consists of anonymous bombs that target the Shia and which most Iraqis for good reason believe are the work of the occupation and sectarian killings of Sunnis by members of the security forces - along with academics, engineers, lawyers, trade unionists, imams, doctors, teachers and other state functionaries by paramilitary forces operating from the Ministry of the Interior. This is indeed the application of the Salvador Option and it contributes an essential part of the ongoing genocide in Iraq."
OurMidland: "March 21 will mark the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. During those four years more than 3,200 American soldiers have died, almost 24,000 have been wounded, at least 58,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed (with some estimates as high as several hundred thousand) and the U.S. has spent well over $400 billion. In spite of that tremendous cost in lives and dollars, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group Report concluded in the fall of 2006 that the 'situation (in Iraq) is grave and deteriorating'."
Observer: "In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.
In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft."
TorontoStar: "When the deal went down in Las Vegas, the seller was introduced only as 'Mr. E'. In a room at Caesars Palace hotel, Mr. E exchanged a 650-gram bag of heroin for US$65,000 cash - unaware that the buyer was an undercover detective. The sting landed him in Nevada state prison for nearly four years.
Twenty years later and Mr. E, whose real name is Izzatullah Wasifi, has a new job. He is the government of Afghanistan's anti-corruption chief.
Wasifi leads a staff of 84 people charged with rooting out the endemic graft that is fuelled in part by the country's position as the world's largest producer of opium poppy, the raw ingredient of heroin."
DoctorTom: "George Bush's irrational consideration of a surge in the wake of the Iraq Study Group report - which apparently defies all credible counsel - has begun to generate speculation regarding his sanity. References to Bush's delusions have appeared in the mainstream media and throughout the blogosphere.
As a psychiatrist, I understandably get concerned when I see clinical terminology bandied about in political discourse, and thought it might be of interest to share a professional perspective on this question. I have adistinct clinical impression that I think explains much of Mr. Bush's visible pathology. First and foremost, George W. Bush has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
What this means, is that he has rather desperate insecurities about himself, and compensates by constructing a grandiose self-image. Most of his relationships are either mirroring relationships - people who flatter him and reinforce his grandiosity - or idealized self-objects - people that he himself thinks a lot of, and hence feels flattered by his association with them.
Even as a narcissist, Bush knows he isn't a great intellect, and compensates by dismissing the value of intellect altogether. Hence his disses of Gore's bookishness, and any other intellectual who isn't flattering him. Bush knows that his greatest personal strength is projecting personal affability, and tries to utilize it even in the most inappropriate settings.
That's why he gives impromptu backrubs to the German Chancellor in a diplomatic meeting - he's insecure intellectually, and tries to make everyone into a 'buddy' so he can feel more secure. The most disturbing aspect about narcissists, however, is their pathological inability to empathize with others, with the exception of those who either mirror them, or whom they idealize. Hence Bush's horrifying insensitivity to the Katrina victims, his callous jokes when visiting grievously injured soldiers, and numerous other instances. He simply has no capacity to feel for others in that way. When LBJ was losing Vietnam, he developed a haunted expression that anybody could recognize as indicative of underlying anguish. For all his faults, you just knew he was losing sleep over it.
By the same token, we know just as well that Bush isn't losing any sleep over dead American soldiers, to say nothing of dead Iraqis. He didn't exhibit any sign of significant concern until his own political popularity was sliding - because THAT'S something he CAN feel. Which brings us to his recent delusion. To be blunt, I don't see any indication that Bush has any sort of psychotic disorder whatsoever. The lapses in reality-testing that he exhibits are the sort that can be readily explained by his characterological insensitivity to the feelings and perceptions of others, due to his persistently self-centered frame of reference.
Also, the way that Bush embraces Christianity is characteristically narcissistic. Rather than incorporating the lessons of humility and empathy modeled by Jesus, Bush uses his Christian faith to reinforce his grandiosity. Jesus is his powerful ally, his idealized 'buddy' who gives a rubber stamp to anything he thinks. Finally - and this will sound VERY familiar to many readers - those persons with NPD are notoriously unable to say they're sorry."
10:44:13 AM 
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Observer: "A Leading US climate scientist is considering legal action after he says he was duped into appearing in a Channel 4 documentary that claimed man-made global warming is a myth. Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, was 'grossly distorted' and 'as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two'.
He says his comments in the film were taken out of context and that he would not have agreed to take part if he had known it would argue that man-made global warming was not a serious threat. 'I thought they were trying to educate the public about the complexities of climate change,' he said. 'This seems like a deliberate attempt to exploit someone who is on the other side of the issue.' He is considering a complaint to Ofcom, the broadcast regulator."
10:13:50 AM
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RD: On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board of the Library of Congress announced the new royalty rates that all Internet broadcasters must pay to SoundExchange through the year 2010 in order to legally play copyright sound recordings. Traditional AM/FM broadcasters, by the way, are exempt from having to pay such royalties.
For even the most successful and profitable webcasters, these new royalty rates would consume 125 percent or more of the webcasters' current revenue. The new royalty rates also eliminate the Small Webcasters Settlement Act provisions that Congress put in place several years ago to address the fact that the old royalty rate structure would have otherwise forced small webcasters to cease operations.
This is a very grave situation. If changes are not quickly made to the new rate structure, it is very likely that most webcasters, including Radio Dismuke's service providers Live 365 and LoudCity will be forced into bankruptcy and have to suspend their operations."
Dismuke blog.
Radio Dismuke.
10:09:15 AM
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