Scientists Speak Up for MIT's Postol

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology should assert itself more vigorously on behalf of MIT professor Ted Postol in his continuing dispute with the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) involving allegations of scientific fraud at an MIT laboratory, three senior scientists urged the university.
The dispute has become a case study in the incompatibility between classified research and ordinary academic standards and practices.
..."In our view, MDA's position that MIT has no need to know whether fraud is occurring in the research that it manages for the federal government is unacceptable and flies in the face of one of the fundamental rationales for having universities manage such research," they wrote.

DoD Defends Guantanamo with Info from Mohamed al Kahtani

More importantly, he [Mohamed al Kahtani] provided valuable intelligence information helping the U.S. to understand the recruitment of terrorist operatives, logistics, and other planning aspects of the 9/11 terrorist attack. He also provided information that:
* Clarified Jose Padilla’s and Richard Reid’s relationship with al-Qaida and their activities in Afghanistan
* Provided infiltration routes and methods used by al-Qaida to cross borders undetected
* Explained how Osama Bin Laden evaded capture by U.S. forces, as well as provided important information on his health
* Provided detailed information about 30 of Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguards who are also held at Guantanamo
Guantanamo houses enemy combatants ranging from terrorist trainers and recruiters to bomb makers, would-be suicide bombers and terrorist financiers. Guantanamo provides a strategic interrogation center where enemy combatants can be questioned and where the results of those interrogations has undoubtedly produced information that has saved the lives of U.S. and coalition forces in the field as well as thwarted threats posed to innocent citizens in this country and abroad.

Feds Lied - TSA Collect Extensive Information on Air Travelers

A federal agency collected extensive personal information about airline passengers although Congress told it not to and it said it wouldn't, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
A Transportation Security Administration contractor used three data brokers to collect detailed information about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in June 2004 in order to test a terrorist screening program called Secure Flight, according to documents that will be published in the Federal Register this week.
The TSA had ordered the airlines to turn over data on those passengers, called passenger name records, in November.
The contractor, EagleForce Associates, then combined the passenger name records with commercial data from three contractors that included first, last and middle names, home address and phone number, birthdate, name suffix, second surname, spouse first name, gender, second address, third address, ZIP code and latitude and longitude of address.
...According to previous official notices, TSA had said it would not store commercial data about airline passengers.
The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from keeping a secret database.
"I'm just floored," said Tim Sparapani, a privacy lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. "This is like creating an FBI file, not just some simple check, and then they're storing the data."

British Official: WMD claims were 'totally implausible'

A key Foreign Office diplomat responsible for liaising with UN inspectors says today that claims the government made about Iraq's weapons programme were "totally implausible".
He tells the Guardian: "I'd read the intelligence on WMD for four and a half years, and there's no way that it could sustain the case that the government was presenting. All of my colleagues knew that, too".
Carne Ross, who was a member of the British mission to the UN in New York during the run-up to the invasion, resigned from the FO last year, after giving evidence to the Butler inquiry.

Psychological and Sociopolitical Factors Contributing to the Creation of the Iraqi Torturers: A Human Rights Issue

What kind of people are these torturers? Are they the bad apples of the American military, as the Bush administration has alleged, or is it the whole barrel that is bad, as Philip Zimbardo, former president of the American Psychological Association, declared? Back in 1975, one year after the fall of the military dictatorship in Greece, I received special permission to attend the trials of the Greek military police's torturers. I thought I was going to study sadistic personalities. But what I discovered was a carefully planned system of training. I discovered that these state torturers were probably not dispositionally marked individuals—sadists who thrived on torturing prisoners—but that they were “ordinary” people who, under particular socio-political circumstances, were systematically trained to become torturers by obeying an “authority of violence.” These torturers were made, not born, to torture. The Greek paradigm involved tough initiation processes, physical and psychological abuse, special rewards and punishments, and group bonding in which the pressure to conform is enormous. All these contributed directly to the acquisition of a new, special identity. These young men, who were doing their mandatory military service, were trained to believe, with absolute conviction, in the higher cause of their state-directed mission and to blame and dehumanize their potential victims. This allowed a high degree of disengagement from their past values and beliefs. Only by these means were they able to perform such atrocious acts, acts that were ordered by what I have called the “authority of violence.” These transformations from “ordinary” young men to fierce perpetrators are paralleled in other studies that I and my colleagues have carried out on Brazilian military and civil policemen and on elite special forces training in the US and elsewhere (Haritos-Fatouros 2003; Huggins, Haritos-Fatouros & Zimbardo 2002; Gibson & Haritos-Fatouros 1986).

Iraqis Found in Torture House Tell of Brutality of Insurgents

The men said they told the marines, from Company K, Third Marines, Second Division, that they had been tortured with shocks and flogged with a strip of rubber for more than two weeks, unseen behind the windows of black glass. One of them, Ahmed Isa Fathil, 19, a former member of the new Iraqi Army, said he had been held and tortured there for 22 days. All the while, he said, his face was almost entirely taped over and his hands were cuffed.
In an interview with an embedded reporter just hours after he was freed, he said he had never seen the faces of his captors, who occasionally whispered at him, "We will kill you." He said they did not question him, and he did not know what they wanted. Nor did he ever expect to be released.

Soldier Responds to Recruitment Tactics

It is duplicitous for recruiters to court high school students, downplaying he realities of what they are pitching and instead trying to get in good with the faculty and administration. This isn't someone who is just offering you a job you might not have thought of before. This is a way of life that right now is as real as it gets.
You WILL become a warrior. Your job will be to help your nation fight and win its wars. You will personally kill the others designated as "the enemy", or you will enable your comrades to do the same by providing support to them. You will rain destruction on others on command in the hopes of accomplishing a greater goal. There is great camaraderie , adventure, excitement, and unique experiences. But unless you come to grips with the first part, you are lying to yourself and will hesitate at the moment of truth. And unlike other jobs after high school, hesitation can result in
your death.
Some people say that these kids are making choices and that we should respect them. But who will not concede that these recruiters are being less than truthful with potential recruits? And do these 16, 17 and 18 year olds being courted really understand what they're getting into?

British sources confirm that meaning of "fixed" -- as in "manipulated" or "cooked" -- is the same in Britain and America

In a British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) documentary from March, which quoted the Downing Street Memo more than a month before the Sunday Times published it, BBC reporter John Ware explained: "By 'fixed' the MI6 chief meant that the Americans were trawling for evidence to reinforce their claim that Saddam was a threat." The headline of a Sunday Times preview of the documentary -- "MI6 chief told PM: Americans 'fixed' case for war" -- also makes it clear how the British understand "fixed."
Similarly, Sunday Times reporter Michael Smith, who first disclosed the memo on May 1, ridiculed the notion that "fixed" has a different meaning in Britain in a Washington Post online chat:

SMITH: There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed and as for the reports that said this was one British official. Pleeeaaassee! This was the head of MI6. How much authority do you want the man to have? He has just been to Washington, he has just talked to George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq. Fixed means the same here as it does there.

Gay teen from Tennessee is forced into therapy camp for 6 more weeks

The gay teen in Tennessee who “came out” to his parents last month and was promptly sent to a “Love In Action International Inc.” refuge for reparative treatment has to stay at the fundamentalist Christian institution for a further six weeks, DetourMemphis is reporting.
The sixteen-years-old known as “Zach” was expected to leave the “refuge” today (June 20). He is believed to live in suburban Memphis.
Zach used the internet to record his feelings after he “outed” himself on his “blog". After having his mobile (cell) phone taken away and his access to the internet denied, very little has been heard of the teen. In one of his last “blogs” on June 3, he wrote: “I don’t know how long I’m going to be on, because if they wake up, I’m screwed. The program starts June 6.”
According to someone who claims to be a friend of Zach’s, the teen is staying another six weeks at the LIA refuge because his parents find it “necessary and effective.”

Zimbabwe President Sweeping Poor from Capital City Harare

More than 22,000 people have been arrested in the recent crackdown on Zimbabwe's shantytowns, a police spokesman has told state media.
He said some of those made homeless when their shacks were demolished in the capital, Harare, were being sent back to their rural homes.
Residents and riot police clashed overnight in the second city, Bulawayo.
Meanwhile, the head of the World Food Programme has discussed Zimbabwe's food needs with President Robert Mugabe.

The Downing Street Memo and the Court of Appeal in News Judgment

About the Downing Street Memo--which I think deserves sustained news attention, real Congressional hearings, questions and answers at White House briefings, continued blogging, serious examination by all Americans (including the President's supporters) and the interest of future historians, essentially for the reasons articulated here--I have one thought to contribute.
"News stories," Joshua Marshall once said, "have a 24 hour audition on the news stage, and if they don't catch fire in that 24 hours, there's no second chance." His observation appears in the Harvard Kennedy School case study on the fall of Trent Lott (published in March 2004, a pdf.)
But that's not the way the world works anymore. The 24-hour audition still happens, and the big winners are still big news. But now there is a Court of Appeal in the State of Supreme News Judgment, and everyone knows the initial verdict can be reversed. Reversal on appeal came last week for the Downing Street Memo (now memos, plural) about 45 days after the first story broke.
We should use the opportunity to understand how the court works. (Other cases include the fate of Trent Lott, and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.) For if the news judgment of journalists is not final anymore, this only reminds us that it was never good enough to be as final as once it was.

Ex-top general in Iraq in line for promotion

The U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is considering new top command assignments that would possibly include promoting Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the former American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, U.S. military officials say.
Such a move, which has been urged by senior U.S. Army officers and civilian officials now that an Army inquiry has cleared Sanchez of wrongdoing, seems to reflect a growing confidence that the military has put the abuse scandal behind it. It is one of two changes being considered that would involve new posts for senior generals who had previously been ruled out for nominations to the commands because of the U.S. Senate's outrage over Abu Ghraib, the officials say.

Roy Lichtenstein's source material

Here's a gallery of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's paintings beside the original source images he culled from comics. Link

Vintage Sexploitation Posters

via we-make-money-not-art.com

What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)

[A]s I learned spending time among the cultural conservatives who are leading the anti-gay-marriage charge, they have their own reasons for doing so, which are based on their reading of the Bible, their views about both homosexuality and the institution of marriage and the political force behind the issue. In the words of Gary Bauer, president of American Values -- one of what is now a total of 61 organizations under the Arlington Group banner, with a combined membership of 60 million -- gay marriage is ''the new abortion.'' He meant that, as with abortion, conservatives see gay marriage as a culture-altering change being implemented by judicial fiat. But gay marriage is also the new abortion in that it is for groups like Bauer's a base-energizing and fund-raising issue of tremendous power.
...[F]or the anti-gay-marriage activists, homosexuality is something to be fought, not tolerated or respected. I found no one among the people on the ground who are leading the anti-gay-marriage cause who said in essence: ''I have nothing against homosexuality. I just don't believe gays should be allowed to marry.'' Rather, their passion comes from their conviction that homosexuality is a sin, is immoral, harms children and spreads disease. Not only that, but they see homosexuality itself as a kind of disease, one that afflicts not only individuals but also society at large and that shares one of the prominent features of a disease: it seeks to spread itself.

GOP Looks to Split Up 9th Circuit Court

The three-way split proposed last year and reintroduced this year in the House would lump together California, Hawaii, Guam and the Mariana Islands; Alaska, Oregon and Washington; and Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and Montana.
A split would not directly affect the jurisprudence of the 9th Circuit. But it might speed the day that Republican appointees become the majority in the new, smaller circuits. Also, any circuit (or circuits) created that excluded California could be more conservative.
Representatives of some other states are eager to distance themselves from California, whose issues are different, they said.

Google plans pay service to rival PayPal

Google Inc. this year plans to offer an electronic-payment service that could help the Internet-search company diversify its revenue and may heighten competition with eBay Inc.'s PayPal unit, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Exact details of the search company's planned service are not known, the report said, but quoted people familiar with the matter as saying it could have similarities with PayPal, which allows consumers to pay for purchases on Web sites by funding electronic-payment accounts from their credit cards or checking accounts.

Do Not Use Your Debit Card to Pay at the Pump

If you use your debit card at a pump that does not require a PIN, the station regularly will block out an amount -- often $50 or $75 -- on your card.
That amount doesn't "un-block" as you drive away. Instead, the hold remains until that evening, and sometimes for up to several days, until the station does a "batch" transaction, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
Each big oil company has a different policy:
* Shell places a $75 hold for gas purchases, and it can stay in place for as long as three business days.
* British Petroleum places a $75 hold on accounts when customers use debit or credit cards, but the hold is usually lifted after about two hours, said spokeswoman Sarah Howell. The same policy applies at its Amoco and Arco stations, Howell said.
* Chevron applies only a $1 hold to debit cards, to ensure that a card is active, says a spokeswoman.

Libraries Say Yes, Officials Do Quiz Them About Users

Law enforcement officials have made at least 200 formal and informal inquiries to libraries for information on reading material and other internal matters since October 2001, according to a new study that adds grist to the growing debate in Congress over the government's counterterrorism powers.
In some cases, agents used subpoenas or other formal demands to obtain information like lists of users checking out a book on Osama bin Laden. Other requests were informal - and were sometimes turned down by librarians who chafed at the notion of turning over such material, said the American Library Association, which commissioned the study.

Scott Ritter: The US war with Iran has already begun

Americans, and indeed much of the rest of the world, continue to be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the fact that overt conventional military operations have not yet commenced between the United States and Iran.
As such, many hold out the false hope that an extension of the current insanity in Iraq can be postponed or prevented in the case of Iran. But this is a fool's dream.
The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities.
The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the intelligence-gathering phase.
President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations inside Iran.
The most visible of these is the CIA-backed actions recently undertaken by the Mujahadeen el-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group, once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services, but now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations.
It is bitter irony that the CIA is using a group still labelled as a terrorist organisation, a group trained in the art of explosive assassination by the same intelligence units of the former regime of Saddam Hussein, who are slaughtering American soldiers in Iraq today, to carry out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq.