Archive for December, 2010
Democrats, Not Republicans, Added Ban On Gitmo Detainee Transfer To Omnibus Spending Bill
Detainees at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay.
Rachel Slajda writes at TPMMuckraker:
The Obama administration has loudly opposed a provision of the omnibus spending bill, passed last week by the House, that would ban the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. soil, even for trial.
“This provision goes well beyond existing law and would unwisely restrict the ability of the Executive branch to prosecute alleged terrorists in Federal courts or military commissions in the United States,” Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter to Senate leadership, calling the provision “dangerous” and asking that it be stripped before the Senate votes on the bill this week.
“We strongly oppose this provision. Congress should not limit the tools available to the executive branch in bringing terrorists to justice and advancing our national security interests,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said just before the bill passed.
So you would think, then, that this was perhaps a provision snuck…
Jon Stewart to Republicans: You Can’t Exploit 9/11 Anymore (Video)
The Lee Greenwood montage at the end is priceless. Seriously how in bed does a political party have to be with lobbyists to oppose a health care bill for 9/11 responders?!? Via The Daily Show:
BrumiLeaks, CCTV and the Attempted Murder of Democracy
Brummie: a native of the British city of Birmingham.
— Oxford English Dictionary
Whilst the WikiLeaks founder was languishing in a prison cell in London, a storm was brewing in England’s second largest city Birmingham, where leaked emails reveal the lengths that advocates of surveillance cameras will go to further their agenda. The BrumiLeaks may appear less controversial than the WikiLeaks that have dominated mainstream headlines in recent weeks, but they do more to lift the lid on just how the surveillance state continues its steady creep forward and why eternal vigilance is required by freedom loving citizens. A perfect example of what is happening the world over – for Birmingham read a town near you.
The Birmingham story so far …
Last month Birmingham City Council was named and shamed as the UK local authority that had spent the most on surveillance cameras between 2007 and 2010 [1]. The council and police in Birmingham…
WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange is Free (For Now): Speaks After Release On Bail
This man certainly doesn’t sound like a “terrorist”…
EU Challenges Britain’s Fingerprinting Of Children In Schools
It’s nice to know that the classroom is preparing kids for the future. In one out of every seven British schools, pupils are compulsorily fingerprinted, with finger scanners being used in lunch rooms and libraries, the Telegraph reports:
The European Commission has demanded Britain justifies the widespread and routine fingerprinting of children in schools because of “significant concerns” that the policy breaks EU privacy laws.
The commissioner is also concerned that parents are not allowed legal redress after one man was told he could not challenge the compulsory fingerprinting, without his permission, of his daughter for a “unique pupil number”.
In many schools, when using the canteen or library, children, as young as four, place their thumbs on a scanner and lunch money is deducted from their account or they are registered as borrowing a book.
Research carried out by Dr Emmeline Taylor, at Salford University, found earlier this year that 3,500 schools in the…
Suppose Suicide Bombers Are Motivated By Suicide, Not Religion?
What makes a person willing to give their life in the name of holy war? A Boston Globe piece offers a novel theory on the inspirations of suicide bombers: rather than being the most rabid of true-believer fanatics, many may be individuals who are severely depressed and eager to kill themselves, and see “martyrdom” as not technically being suicide:
Williams is among a small cadre of scholars from across the world pushing the rather contentious idea that some suicide bombers may in fact be suicidal. At the forefront is the University of Alabama’s Adam Lankford, who recently published an analysis of suicide terrorism in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. Lankford cites Israeli scholars who interviewed would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. These scholars found that 40 percent of the terrorists showed suicidal tendencies; 13 percent had made previous suicide attempts, unrelated to terrorism. Lankford finds Palestinian and Chechen terrorists who are financially insolvent,…
The Ke$ha Kult Tarot Book
The KE$HA KULT TAROT BOOK is the result of a process. This is the story of that process.
The KKTB started life as three separate books. (In the order they were produced: The K.oM. BOOK1 (55 pages), The K.oM. BOOK0 (20 pages) & Introducing Metabolic Chambers (46 pages).
“KE$HA KULT” began exactly how I describe it in the book; I was a fan of KE$HA’s music, started noticing how our artistic vibes ‘meshed,’ read an article where she said ‘pop stars are like cult leaders,’ freaked out, created KE$HA KULT. KE$HA KULT then started assimilating all my previous works. And it was good. A KE$HA KULT BOOK (25 pages) was produced … and nothing happened … until Black Friday, 2010 when the Disinformation Company finally released ‘Introducing Metabolic Chambers’ on their website. I meant for it to be released on Halloween (culmination of the 7 Sisters), but what/ev, it worked out because one…
Happy Saturnalia To All!
A celebration dear to the hearts of the Disinformation team at this time of year is Saturnalia, one of the most popular Roman festivals. It was marked by tomfoolery and reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters ostensibly switched places, with expectantly humorous results. Saturnalia was introduced around 217 BC to raise citizen morale after a crushing military defeat. Originally celebrated for a day, on December 17th, its popularity saw it grow until it became a week-long extravaganza, ending on the 23rd.
Our favorite exposition of Saturnalia has long been the Electric Sheep comic strip, no longer easily available on the web, but we dug in the crates and are pleased to bring it to you. We did find it here and in a video created from the original website posted to Funny or Die:
Italian Court Ups Sentences for 23 CIA Agents
The AFP reports, via Yahoo! News:
An Italian court on Wednesday upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US “extraordinary rendition” program.
The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defence lawyers described as a “shocking blow” for the US.
They were also ordered to pay 1.5 million euros (2.0 million dollars) in damages to the imam and his wife for the 2003 abduction.
Washington has refused to extradite the agents, who all remain at liberty but now risk arrest if they travel to Europe.
Osama Mustafa Hassan, a radical Islamist opposition figure better known as Abu Omar, was snatched from a street in Milan in 2003 in an operation coordinated by the CIA and…
FU Harrods!
A picture is definitely worth the 1,000 words of invective the disgruntled employee responsible for this prank no doubt would have added given the chance. Found at Dashperiod.
Senator Bernie Sanders Defends Regular Americans
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
The Estate Tax (which was given an Orwellian rename by the Republicans as the “Death Tax”) does and will not hurt you — unless it is abolished.
The Estate Tax affects only 3/10 of 1% of the richest Americans. We’re not even talking about the wealthy here, we’re talking about the OBSCENELY wealthy here.
To put this in context, if the Republicans get what they want, it would mean $30 BILLION in tax cuts for the Walton family (who own Walmart) alone.
So they barely pay their workers a living wage and abuse them in a hundred other ways, drive multiple small businesses out of the marketplace which are major drivers of economic growth in the country, and the Republicans in the Senate and an all-too compliant President Obama, want to rewards them for all that by giving them a tax cut that is more than the gross national product…
Even JFK’s Secretary Thought Lee Harvey Oswald Did Not Act Alone…
A handwritten note by JFK’s personal secretary is up for auction and it is very interesting. On it she lists people she believes were involved in the assassination of her boss. The first person she list in none other than LBJ!! As Susannah Cahalan writes in the NY Post:
John F. Kennedy’s closest aide was the queen of conspiracy theorists.
Evelyn Lincoln, his personal secretary, wrote down a list of suspects in her beloved boss’ assassination — and it included both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
The never-before-seen personal note, scribbled by Lincoln as she sat aboard Air Force One returning to Washington on the day of JFK’s death, lists those she thought might be behind the president’s murder.
The note, estimated to be worth $30,000, is now on the auction block.
Her note listed “Lyndon, KKK, Dixiecrats, [Teamsters boss Jimmy] Hoffa, [the] John Birch Society, Nixon, [South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh] Diem,Rightist, CIA in Cuban fiasco, Dictators [and] Communists.”
WikiLeaker Bradley Manning’s Brutal Detention
Here’s what America has in store whistle-blowers — Despite not being charged with a crime, 22-year-old Army private and alleged WikiLeaker Bradley Manning has spent the past seventh months imprisoned under some of the most extreme, brutal conditions possible: total isolation for 23 hours a day, every day, while being dosed with antidepressants to prevent his mind from snapping. Salon takes a look at Bradley’s background and his current fate, which it says is undoubtedly torture:
Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture.
Interviews with several…
Kosovo PM Heads Organ & Drug Ring According To Council Of Europe
Photo: Kosovo Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci
No, it’s not the plot to the next Hostel film. Hashim Thaçi has been identified as the head of an Albanian crime network that sells drugs, weapons, and organs. The Guardian reports:
Kosovo’s prime minister is the head of a “mafia-like” Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime.
Hashim Thaçi is identified as the boss of a network that began operating criminal rackets in the runup to the 1998-99 Kosovo war, and has held powerful sway over the country’s government since.
The report of the two-year inquiry, which cites FBI and other intelligence sources, has been obtained by the Guardian. It names Thaçi as having over the last decade exerted “violent control” over the heroin trade. Figures from Thaçi’s inner circle are also accused of taking captives across the border into Albania after…
Everyman Denis Ryan on What’s Wrong With Ireland’s Banks … And The World’s (Video)
I had this forwarded to me by a Canadian friend. If somehow you haven’t seen it yet, you’re welcome!
U.S. Called Vulnerable To Rare Earth Shortages
Photo: Peter Morgan
Via The New York Times:
The United States is too reliant on China for minerals crucial to new clean energy technologies, making the American economy vulnerable to shortages of materials needed for a range of green products — from compact fluorescent light bulbs to electric cars to giant wind turbines.
So warns a detailed report to be released on Wednesday morning by the United States Energy Department. The report, which predicts that it could take 15 years to break American dependence on Chinese supplies, calls for the nation to increase research and expand diplomatic contacts to find alternative sources, and to develop ways to recycle the minerals or replace them with other materials.
At least 96 percent of the most crucial types of the so-called rare earth minerals are now produced in China, and Beijing has wielded various export controls to limit the minerals’ supply to other countries while favoring its own manufacturers that use…
Florida Gunman Spraypaints Red ‘V’ On Wall, Opens Fire At School Board Meeting
Another day, another revolution nipped in the bud. MSNBC reports on an agrieved lunatic whose comic-book-esque showdown with a Florida school board ended with his being shot to death by authorities. Tape below:
New US Political Group “No Labels” Holds First Meeting In New York
Via BBC:
A coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents from around the US has created a new group in the hopes of reducing political partisanship.
About 1,000 people joined the group, called No Labels, in New York for its first meeting at Columbia University.
Independent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia were among those who attended the event.
The group says it hopes to have an impact on the 2012 presidential vote.
The founders of the organisation claim No Labels is not a third political party but rather a home for those in the US who have felt homeless amid the recent growth of both liberal groups and the Tea Party movement.
[Continues at BBC News]
