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November 9, 2005
'Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. US law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a ‘state of public emergency’) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension.’ (Report of the United States to the UN Committee against Torture, October 15, 1999, UN Doc. CAT/C/28/Add.5, February 9, 2000, para. 6.)
posted by alms at 8:57 PM PST - 59 comments
American Christianity has distorted the gospel and become spiritually bankrupt. ...
“Regardless of what the New Testament says, most Christians are materialists with no experience of the Spirit. Regardless of what the New Testament says, most Christians are individualists with no real experience of community.” He paused for a moment and then continued: “Let’s pretend that you were all Christians. If you were Christians, you would no longer accumulate. You would share everything you had. You would actually love one another. And you would treat each other as if you were family.” His eyes were piercing as he asked, “Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you live that way?”
posted by publius at 6:51 PM PST - 95 comments
Tax and Spend Conservatives. President George W. Bush and the current administration have now borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 U.S. presidents combined. Wow.
posted by caddis at 6:17 PM PST - 42 comments
She interviewed Mussolini. She wrote plays for Eugene O'Neill's Provincetown Players. She got letters from Trotsky. Freud and Helen Keller were in her address book. She married journalist
John Reed, and Diane Keaton played her in
Reds. And she was nearly forgotten. Now,
Louise Bryant is remembered.
More here and much more here.
posted by digaman at 3:55 PM PST - 4 comments
A filmmaker and festival director goes on a morning news show to promote his local theater and a traveling flim festival. Totally routine interview until - d'oh! A good reason not to go on tv when you're either super nervous or hungover (Quicktime movie). (
via)
posted by billysumday at 3:30 PM PST - 34 comments
Has the C.I.A. legally killed prisoners? Two years ago, Manadel al-Jamadi, a suspected Iraqi insurgent, walked into a Baghdad interrogation room. He was dead in 45 minutes, his head covered with a plastic bag, shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that led to his asphyxiation. U.S. authorities classified his death a homicide. His CIA interrogator has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency.
President Bush says
"We do not torture." But if that’s true, then why is Vice President Cheney
fighting to exempt CIA interrogators from a torture ban?
And al-Jamadi? His case is stalled in the
Alberto Gonzalez Justice Department, two years after soldiers posed for thumbs-up pictures next to his corpse.
posted by sacre_bleu at 10:59 AM PST - 49 comments
The grammatically poor 1 days linkfarm starts us off so quickly, on to 2 days of Japanese gadgets. 3 days, then 4 days and 5 days too are just farming links, while 6 days does so with the additon (allegedly) of AdorableCats. 7 days is farming too (but no cats) and The Beatles' 8 Days A Week is co-opted to a copy shop. 9 days will sell your house in 7 days (and keep 2 for their commission, I guess). Circumspection is the name of the game at 10 days and 11 days is back to farming links. 12 Days of Christmas, of course. Unluckily, 13 days is another farm... Gwen offers you 14 days of laminate samples for your library walls. 15 days is a link farm again. 16 Days Design "reserves the right to refuse service to anyone". It might take 17 days to look through Jenny's galleries, but much less than 18 days to realise this is just another link farm. There's "no website configured at [19 days]" - you sure? 20 days - links. You can earn $100,00 in a year - so that's $5,753.42 in 21 days. Try MobZilla for 14 days at 22 days (and do what for the other 8?) 81% of investors fall into The Three Most Dangerous Pitfalls because they didn't spend 23 days checking things out. (24 days is coming soon.) The AlphabetAcademy teaches you one letter a day... for 25 days - which one gets the chop I wonder? You can sell your home in 26 days or get $2,600!!! 27 days is back to linkfarming. In 28 days you might be on Reality TV. Want 29 days of "Internal Cleansing" with Blessed Herbs? NetSol aren't above 30 days of links. And finally, 31 days later, everything stops...
posted by benzo8 at 9:36 AM PST - 39 comments
Blair loses in the Commons for the first time since his election in 1997. MPs refused to pass laws allowing terrorist suspects to be jailed without trial for 90 days, and Blair's parliamentary majority of 66 turned into a minority of 31. The government has been holding back on the vote for months in an attempt to persuade their party to back the Prime Minister - they failed.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:19 AM PST - 38 comments
Who Is Lying About Iraq? A (thorough) editorial from
Commentary Magazine by
Norman Podhoretz examining the case for war, the allegations of Bush administration deceit, the yellowcake incident, Democratic party claims and backtracking, and Plamegate. Obviously partisan, obviously biased, but I've never seen such a clearly laid out rebuttal with citations of many of the allegations made against the Bush administration with respect to Iraq.
posted by loquax at 9:06 AM PST - 102 comments
More than a BMX - The StreetSurfer is a patented pedal-driven vehicle (think
BMX) that you ride like a surfboard in an urban setting. It consists of a normal bike frame, a rear wheel (duh) and four mini wheels on the front. These littler front wheels apparently track the surface of the ground better than a traditional bicycle and therefore give the rider a smoother, more controlled ride. More info via the StreetSurfer's awfully designed
website (ugly Flash warning), although there's
two chunky videos to download that also help to explain the product in further detail. Via
Beyond Tomorrow.
posted by sjvilla79 at 3:55 AM PST - 48 comments
