Open Thread

10 Comments

1. 

   idredit on August 30, 2007 at 8:07 pm

   been thinking we live in interesting times.  
   Two articles on potential war crimes my eye. Do you suppose these guys will travel outside the USA?  Set well your chair….it may air on your tv or computer.

   Suing Gonzales

   Nearly-“former” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is reasonably accused of abetting war crimes with respect to law of war violations concerning the status, secret detention, rights, and treatment of detained persons..

   Is he subject to civil suit for such alleged violations of international law? With respect to foreign plaintiffs who were harmed as a result of his abetments – especially during his chairing of inner circle meetings where decisions were made as part of a common plan to deny Geneva law rights and protections and to authorize secret and “coercive interrogation” of detainees that might include anything short of “torture” – civil suits can be brought in a federal district court under the Alien Tort Claims.”

   and this

   History Will Not Absolve Us

   “Leaked Red Cross report sets up Bush team for international war-crimes trial.“

   If and when there’s the equivalent of an international Nuremberg trial for the American perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the CIA’s secret prisons, there will be mounds of evidence available from documented international reports by human-rights organizations, including an arm of the European parliament…–

   While the Democratic Congress has yet to begin a serious investigation into what many European legislators already know about American war crimes, a particularly telling report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has been leaked that would surely figure prominently in such a potential Nuremberg trial. The Red Cross itself is bound to public silence concerning the results of its human-rights probes of prisons around the world–or else governments wouldn’t let them in.

   But The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer has sources who have seen accounts of the Red Cross interviews with inmates formerly held in CIA secret prisons…”

2. 

   Renee in Ohio on August 30, 2007 at 8:10 pm

   Head spinning. Kids just got back in school yesterday, and I’ve been busy trying to help Son in Ohio get his summer homework finished. Things keep happening “suddenly”.

   Suddenly the project Demetrius is working on has its deadline moved up. Suddenly I’m filling in for one of the psych instructors at the community college this morning. Suddenly Daughter is singing her first solo in church this Sunday–at two services, and I have to get her there at 8:30 in the morning.

   Suddenly, we’re out of groceries and clean dishes.

   Not so suddenly, I’m feeling exhausted and would like to lie down…

   • 

     blksista on August 30, 2007 at 10:27 pm

     …after doing a night temp job and suffering through a lousy interview, I landed a part-time position as a English comp instructor at a local college.  Yes, I am busy, too busy to talk and think about New Orleans, even though I have seen some wonderful remembrances like this one:

     And this article from Palast:  http://www.gregpalast.com/%e2%80%9cthey-wanted-them-poor-niggers-out-of-there%e2%80%9d/#more-1843

     Will Hillary or Obama or Edwards do anything to save New Orleans for its poor people?

     • 

       blksista on August 30, 2007 at 10:33 pm

       Oops, sorry about that link, folks; it threw everything out of sync.

     • 

       sbj on August 31, 2007 at 12:52 pm

       Reviewing this Senate bill;

       [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1668]

       watching this video and then signing this petition might be useful to advance the cause of the disenfranchised in the Katrina zone.

       [http://whenthesaints.org/]

3. 

   on August 30, 2007 at 8:54 pm

   Remeber when the internet was young and scores of free services and databases where available online?

   Well now you have to pay.
   http://www.find-court-records.org/court_records.php?kw=Probate+Court+Records&gclid=CKuHncvSm44CF
   QGRPAoddnzoaQ
   And I did.
   And the clickbank receipt number came back so I went to access the “service”.
   Invalid name/password.
   A call to Discover yeilded an actual phone number for clickbank whereupon after some acceptable phone data entry actually yeilded a REAL LIVE PERSON who refunded the money!

   Still, highly in need of the “information” futher searching confirms the above source as highly rated.  I search for other sites advertizing the same features and input some data I know to be true.  This time the search spits back all kinds of irrelevant data but omits the facts I know to be true.

   ASSuming some kind of computer error I go back to the original site and try again.
   “Invalid name and password”.
   This time however clickbank is closed.

4. 

   sbj on August 30, 2007 at 9:18 pm

   Up until recently I didn’t think the Bush regime would be able to actually get away with attacking Iran. Now however, after a couple of months of interpreting events and propaganda in the political and media arena, I think in fact that BushCo may very well be attacking Iran sooner than we think.

   So, I’d like to see the so-called ‘leaders’ of the Democratic Party warning of this every day, shouting it from the rooftops and making such a noise that the corporate media can’t ignore them.

   How do we get them to make this effort to pre-empt what would be the absolute worst disaster possible by the Bush regime? Can we shame them into it? Can we embarrass them into stepping up and describing the insanity of such a course?

5. 

   eodell on August 30, 2007 at 11:48 pm

   While I was engaged in some hard-core schadenfreude over Larry Craig’s well-deserved demise at the hands of his own hypocrisy, a question popped into my head:

   Why exactly is it illegal to solicit consensual sex?

   The answer, of course, is that it’s not. It happens all the time in bars, at parties, over dinner, etc. It’s just illegal if you’re soliciting gay sex. Then it’s a lewd act, but not if you’re drunk and behaving boorishly towards a member of the opposite sex in a bar.

   Larry Craig deserved to go down for being a hypocrite. But the reason he went down is because our laws themselves are hypocritical. There may be some poetic justice in that, but those laws are used against plenty of people who aren’t hypocrites and who are doing what should be no one’s business but their own.

   • 

     blksista on August 31, 2007 at 7:39 am

     in a public place which is against the law as well.  Having sex in city parks (or city park bathrooms, as it occurred to George Michael) is illegal, too.

     Many cities have gotten rid of some of their antiquated ordinances about gays.  That being said, the old adage of get a room should work here.

     Somebody like Craig wanted to get caught eventually.  It’s risky behavior.  And he must have known that his number would come up snake eyes–United States Senator or no United States Senator.

6. 

   stormkite on August 31, 2007 at 8:52 am

   White House cool on Iraq report

   The Bush administration has challenged a report for the US Congress which says Iraq has met only three of the 18 targets used to measure progress.

   The Government Accountability Office findings contrast with a White House study saying eight goals have been met.

   They’re already spinning their own reports and it ain’t even September.