War does not prove who was right or wrong, only who is left
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/7500/realityfantasy.gif

"Humor is just another defense against the universe."
-- Mel Brooks

"The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning
and a good ending, then having the two as close together
as possible."
-- George Burns

"When everyone is against you, it means that you are
absolutely wrong-- or absolutely right."
-- Albert Guinon

A dance for Spring
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkQenQofxs8

Barry's Auto Emporium (Fiore)
http://www.markfiore.com/political/barrys-auto-emporium

Parody of West Side Story...Worst Slide Story
http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/opinion/walthandelsman/blog/2009/04/a...

Let's call it the Obama plan Socialism and
return to the Free Market with no regulation. (Fiore)
http://www.markfiore.com/political/newly-frugal-guy

This means something and is very well done...does evil exist in this
world?  How about politicians who lie to start unnecessary wars against
a country which was no threat and not responsible for 9-11.?
http://vimeo.com/4265644

Frog backed securities (Fiore)
http://www.markfiore.com/political/leverage-me-tender

Time for reflection...as Bush said "we do not (call it) torture. (Fiore)
Bush lied and thousands have died
http://www.markfiore.com/political/fuzzy-conciliation-caterpillar
Bush/Cheney violated international law and Article VI of the
Constitution
Time for accountability for illegal immoral unnecessary wars and human
rights violations.

Champions...the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive wars
http://www.vimeo.com/941446

Farewell to the worst President in American history: George W. Bush
Olbermann | 8 Bush Years in 8 Minutes
16 January 2009
http://www.truthout.org/011809Z
video link and transcript

The best way to support our troops
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5821/supporttroopspk6.gif

Senate Committee report and Scott McClellan (former Bush press
secretary) both confirm the obvious---what we already knew: Bush lied
and thousands have died. It is now time for accountability? Or should
we allow the Bush administration to pardon themselves and give each
other medals of freedom?

All the reasons given by Bush for the war have proven false or illegal.
Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law, as is war for regime
change. Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, (and violated
Article VI of the Constitution) says Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of
the United Nations
September 16, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1305709,00.html

Bush response to 9-11: two illegal immoral unnecessary wars.
Before the invasion of Iraq, what were the facts on the ground? We knew
that there were no WMD, stockpiles or active weapons programs. The UN
Inspectors had free access to all parts of Iraq for four months, using
all the intelligence furnished by the USA, and reported nothing was to
be found. The inspectors were pulled out so Bush could start his "shock
and awe" bombing campaign. Those who read the classified version of the
National Intelligence Estimate concluded that it did not support the
unclassified version, and that Iraq was no imminent threat. There was NO
evidence that Iraq had any connection to 9-11 or to Al Quaeda in spite
of a massive campaign of lies by the Bush administration which made
those claims. The USA was not authorized to use military force by the
UN, and doing so was a violation of the UN Charter and article VI of the
US Constitution. Pre-emptive war is a war crime and a violation of
international law. The attack on Iraq did not meet the historical
standards of a "just war" and was clearly immoral. The war may end up
costing 3 trillion dollars, all for no valid purpose. A massive waste of
human life, property and loss of world respect. (Documentation is in my
four part research linked below.) Documentation of hundreds of Bush
lies. And more details about the illegal Afghanistan invasion.
http://www.hamiltongirls.com/BushWar.htm
--C Hamilton

Will there be any accountability for the Bush administration's many
violations of US and international law, in particular, multiple
violations of Article VI of the Constitution.?
Your silence means Bush got away with all of those crimes. Impeachment
is no longer possible, but investigations are now in order.

John Cory | We do not (call it) Torture
http://www.truthout.org/042409J
John Cory, Truthout: "Harsh interrogation techniques, coercive tactics,
enhanced techniques - These are the rebranding tools for torture. In
order to avoid turning our eyes away or burying our heads in the sand,
we grab politically acceptable words and terms to diminish the sting and
shame of actual torture, so we can brag about being a moral society open
to the discussion of stressful questioning of enemy combatants. Sterile
words remove us from the very real sins of torturing human beings."

======================

The shaming of America
Judge Jay S. Bybee provided the legal framework for torture to the Bush
administration. If he had even a particle of decency, he'd resign.
By Gene Lyons
Apr. 23, 2009
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/23/lyons/print.html

Anybody with an active conscience can understand why President Barack
Obama ordered the Bush administration's "terror memos" released,
overruling his own CIA director. No intelligence secrets were revealed.
Much of the information in the documents had previously been widely
reported. They weren't classified "Top Secret" to protect national
security, but the craven careerists who wrote them, and the White House
officials who ordered it done.

To a one-time constitutional-law professor like Obama, the memos'
legalistic rationalization of methods indistinguishable from those of
the Soviet KGB or South African secret police must have been sickening.
Besides shaming themselves and their country, their authors have sullied
their profession.

In a 2002 advisory, Jay S. Bybee, subsequently appointed to the U.S. 9th
District Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush, notes dryly that
the practice of "waterboarding" -- recognized as torture since the
Spanish Inquisition -- "constitutes a threat of imminent death," but
says it's nevertheless legal because it doesn't cause "prolonged mental
harm" in a psychologically healthy subject.

So here's my question: Would Bybee, in his capacity as a federal judge,
uphold a murder conviction in which witnesses had been waterboarded? A
rape confession? Would it be all right for police to induce confessions
by keeping suspects awake for 11 days by shackling them naked in a
standing position, dousing them with ice water and smashing their heads
into a wall? How about cramming them into coffin-size boxes for weeks?
He thought that appropriate for terror suspects.

If not, why not? Are rape and murder not the gravest of crimes? The
answer, of course, is that criminal law recognizes that people can be
tortured into confessing damn near anything. The "intelligence"
implications, however, were lost on Bybee and the Bush White House.

FBI interviewers who obtained the only useful intelligence ever provided
by al-Qaida functionary Abu Zubaydah before CIA toughs got hold of him
described the man to author Ron Suskind as psychologically fragile.
Suskind's CIA sources found Zubaydah an "insane, certifiable, split
personality," whom the agency nevertheless waterboarded 83 times.

Zealots in Washington, see, refused to accept his handlers' insistence
that Zubaydah had already told them everything he'd known.

Ironically, Bybee's successor, Steven Bradbury, noted in a 2005 memo
that the U.S. State Department regularly "condemns coercive
interrogation techniques ... employed by other countries." Also, that
"certain of the techniques appear to bear some resemblance to some of
the CIA techniques." Others appear to have been borrowed directly from
George Orwell's novel "1984."

Nevertheless, Bradbury concluded that "Diplomatic relations with regard
to foreign countries are not reliable evidence of United States
executive practice and may be of only limited practice here." In other
words, Big Brother, aka President Bush, could order any creative methods
he (or Dick Cheney) thought suitable. In a classic example of lawyerly
butt-covering, Bradbury also conceded that due to lack of precedent --
the United States having regarded torture as illegal and
unconstitutional since 1789 -- "we cannot predict with confidence
whether a court would agree with this conclusion."

That said, anybody with an ounce of political sense can also understand
why Obama has said that his administration will seek no prosecutions.
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution  ... We have been
through a dark and painful chapter in our history," he said in a
prepared statement. "But at a time of great challenges and disturbing
disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying
blame for the past."

Others cogently argue that this is about the future, not the past. Many
of the practices described in the memos clearly violate the U.N.
Convention Against Torture negotiated by Ronald Reagan and ratified by
the Senate. It stipulates that orders from superiors constitute no
defense for the crime of torture.

Furthermore, no matter what you may hear from Sean Hannity and Rush
Limbaugh, Salon's indefatigable Glenn Greenwald points out that Article
VI of the U.S. Constitution states that "(A)ll Treaties made ... under
the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the
Land." How then can the United States plausibly condemn a show trial in,
say, Iran, if it flouts its own laws? The answer is that it cannot.
That's the Bush legacy.

But Obama wasn't elected to avenge his predecessor's sins. To bring such
prosecutions would tear the country apart -- creating a political and
media spectacle that would make the Clinton-Lewinsky follies of 1998-99
resemble last week's farcical "tea parties." It would tear the
intelligence agencies to pieces, producing a veritable army of would-be
Oliver Norths tearfully regretting that they could no longer practice
sadism on behalf of their country.

The tribal passions unleashed could turn torture from a shameful
embarrassment into a partisan issue, almost surely dooming President
Obama's domestic agenda.

This Jay S. Bybee joker on the federal bench, however? Congress should
impeach him forthwith. If he had a particle of shame, he'd resign.
© 2009, Gene Lyons. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

=================

Torture works sometimes -- but it's always wrong
The "ticking bomb" scenario only happens on TV. Those, like Dick Cheney,
who cite it are leading society down a fatal slippery slope of abuse.
By Gary Kamiya
Apr. 23, 2009
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/04/23/torture/print.html

We know and have known for years that since 9/11 we have been a nation
of torturers. We have also known, in large part, what those tortures
consisted of -- waterboarding, slapping, sleep deprivation, the
withholding of pain medication. With the Obama administration's release
of the four "torture memos," we have learned about other disgusting
practices, such as slamming prisoners into walls and locking them in
boxes with insects, and gained further insight into the nauseating legal
arguments used by Bush administration lawyers to justify the
unjustifiable.

Torture is wrong. It is condemned by every civilized nation and by
international law. There is, however, one situation in which torture
might theoretically be morally justified. This is the so-called "ticking
bomb" scenario, which in one form or another has been debated by
philosophers and ethicists for hundreds of years. Suppose we know that a
captive has planted a bomb in a school, which is due to explode in a few
hours. The captive refuses to say in what school he planted the bomb.
Are we justified in torturing one depraved individual to save the lives
of hundreds of innocent children?

In their response, philosophers divide into two camps. The Kantians,
those who believe that human beings have a categorical imperative to
treat other humans as ends, not as means, say we are never justified in
torturing, no matter how legitimate the goal. The Benthamites or
utilitarians say that we are justified, because in this case torture is
the lesser of two evils.

Defenders of the Bush administration's use of torture, most notably
former Vice President Dick Cheney, would like to pose as high-minded
Benthamites. Calling for the release of additional classified memos,
Cheney said, "There are reports that show specifically what we gained as
a result of this activity." Obama's intelligence director, Dennis Blair,
echoed this argument in a memo, writing, "High-value information came
from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a
deeper understanding of the Al Qaeda organization that was attacking
this country." Former Bush intelligence chief Michael Hayden said, "The
use of these techniques against these terrorists really did make us
safer, it really did work."

The argument that torture works cannot simply be dismissed. During World
War II, for example, the Gestapo used torture with considerable
effectiveness on captured agents working for Britain's Special
Operations Executive, the top-secret organization dedicated to sabotage
and subversion behind Axis lines. A number of agents, unable to
withstand the pain or, in some cases, even the prospect of pain, told
their captors everything they knew, including the identity of other
agents, the arrival time of flights, and the location of safe houses.
During France's brutal war in Algeria, the colonial power used torture
effectively. As historian Alistair Horne, the author of the classic
analysis of the French-Algerian war, "A Savage War of Peace," told me in
a 2007 interview, "In Algeria, the French used torture -- as opposed to
abuse -- very effectively as an instrument of war. They had some success
with it; they did undoubtedly get some intelligence from the use of
torture." That intelligence included information about future terrorist
strikes and the infrastructure of terror networks in Algiers.

So the easy argument against torture, that it is ineffective, is wrong.
Torture can work. Nor can one simply dismiss the philosophical "ticking
bomb" debate. Even ethicists bitterly opposed to torture acknowledge
that if that hypothetical situation -- endlessly depicted in Fox's TV
show "24" -- actually existed, there would be a compelling moral and
philosophical argument for torture in that instance.

But in the real world, the "ticking bomb" situation never arises. It is
never the case that we know we can automatically avert mass slaughter by
torturing someone. Reality is not that neat. Guilt and knowledge are not
established in advance. Those whom we torture may or may not be planning
nefarious deeds. As the British political scientist Henry Shue pointed
out in his classic 1978 essay "Torture," "Notice how unlike the
circumstances of an actual choice about torture the philosopher's
example is. The proposed victim of our torture is not someone we suspect
of planting the device: he is the perpetrator. He is not some pitiful
psychotic making one last play for attention: He did plant the device.
The wiring is not backwards, the mechanism is not jammed: the device
will destroy the city if not deactivated." Shue concludes that "The
distance between the situations which must be concocted in order to have
a plausible case of morally permissible torture and the situations which
actually occur is, if anything, further reason why the existing
prohibitions against torture should remain and should be strengthened by
making torture an international crime."

As Shue suggests, the "ticking bomb" situation should be left in the
classroom, for ethicists and philosophers to ponder. It has nothing to
do with the real world. And those who invoke it are leading society down
a fatal slippery slope, which ends with the wholesale justification of
torture. Their arguments, which appeal to and are based in fear and
anger, not considered analysis, would return us to the Middle Ages.

In a recent Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, Hayden and former Bush
Attorney General Michael Mukasey asserted that Abu Zubaydah was "coerced
into disclosing information that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al
Shibh, another of the planners of Sept. 11, who in turn disclosed
information which -- when combined with what was learned from Abu
Zubaydah -- helped lead to the capture of KSM [9/11 mastermind Khalid
Sheikh Mohammad] and other senior terrorists, and the disruption of
follow-up plots aimed at both Europe and the U.S." According to the
Washington Post, Hayden and Mukasey's account is false: Zubaydah gave
most of his useful information before being waterboarded, and the CIA
was unable to provide any examples of specific leads acquired by the use
of torture.

But let us, for the sake of argument, assume that Hayden and Mukasey are
correct, and that torturing Zubaydah led him to give information that
resulted in the arrest of KSM and other terrorists. That still would not
constitute a "ticking bomb" situation. No one can say whether those
captured would have carried out other terrorist attacks. There are too
many unknown factors. Dick Cheney recently argued that classified
documents will show that the use of torture stopped "a great many"
terrorist attacks. But unless those documents reveal a "24"-like
situation in which the use of torture somehow actually stops an imminent
attack from taking place, a situation that has never come up in the real
world, his statement is false. Breaking up terror networks is not the
same thing as "stopping" terrorist attacks.

Torture is not morally justifiable. In addition, it has severe negative
consequences. Once a nation embraces torture, it forfeits any claim to a
moral high ground. It becomes no better than those it is fighting. It
may win a battle, but it will lose the war. As America struggles to win
hearts and minds in the Arab/Muslim world, the use of torture is more
harmful in the long run than any "high-value" intelligence gained by its
use. And U.S. torture not only builds hatred in the Muslim world, it
turns our allies against us -- and erodes us from within. As historian
Horne pointed out, "When the news came out in France of what the army
was doing, it caused such a revulsion that it led directly to the French
capitulation. And not only revulsion in France, but revulsion here. JFK,
as a senator, took up the Algerian cause quite strongly partly because
of the human rights issue." Horne's conclusion: "I feel myself
absolutely clear in my own mind that you do not, whatever the excuse,
use torture, let alone abuse."

The Chilean writer and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman wrote,
"Torture is, of course, a crime committed against a body. It is also a
crime committed against the imagination. Or rather, it presupposes, it
requires, it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine others'
suffering, dehumanizing them so much that their pain is not our pain."
Torture shatters the lives of those subjected to it, Dorfman writes. It
corrupts not only the torturer, but all of society. "Torture obliges us
to be deaf and blind and mute."

Led astray by leaders who played on their fear and anger, Americans have
been deaf and blind and mute for too long. It is past time for our
country to say an absolute no. No torture today, no torture tomorrow, no
torture ever.
-- By Gary Kamiya

======================

Notice me now rocket (Fiore)
http://www.markfiore.com/political/notice-me-now-rocket

Chains we can believe in...or will there really be accountability
for violations of US and international law?
http://www.markfiore.com/chains_we_can_believe_0

Katrina vanden Heuvel | 100 Down, 900 to Go
http://www.truthout.org/042409M
Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation: "As we mark the first 100 days of his
presidency, it is staggering to consider the enormous challenges
President Obama inherited from his predecessor, arguably the worst
President ever. Can the devastation wrought by an eight-year
(Bush-Cheney) nightmare be sorted out in 100 Days? Of course it can't.
That's why Obama himself talked about needing to measure his
accomplishments not by the first 100 days, but by the first 1,000."

===================

Dear Dr. Science,
Why do babies drool?
from Cathie Petit of " New York City, NY"

Dr. Science: Because they can. Drooling feels great, especially when you
get a large stream of really slippery stuff going. It's the liquid
equivalent of speech, a form of communication that emphasizes fluidity
and volume. The vocabulary is limited to saliva, but the syntax is
complicated enough to produce poetry. Child psychologists used to think
that drooling was a sublimated form of anger, but now they admit that
most psychologists are overly squeamish and somewhat paranoid, and that
poetry of any kind goes right by them.

======================

The United States of Whatever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz7_3n7xyDg

Sing along with Ray Charles
http://www.maniacworld.com/bird-loves-ray-charles.html

Mindless diversion: the potato peeling game
http://www.gorillaz.com/item.php?URL=potato

Today's gods: Gestin-Ana Chthonic goddess. Mesopotamian (Sumarian). The
sister of Dumuzi and consort of Ningisida. The so called "heavenly
grapevine," this minor goddesss involved in the acount of Dumuzi trying
to escape from the fate at the hands of Inana and Ereskigal. In her
house he is changed into a gazelle before being caught and finally
transported to the underworld.

Harakhti A form of the the god Horus. Egyptian. The aspect of the god
who rises at dawn in the eastern sky. According to the Egyptian texts,
the king is born on the eastern horizon as Harakhti, which contradicts
the more commonly held belief that the king is the son of Re, the sun
god.

One of my favorite gods: Lord Ganesh
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/1073/ganeshyb5.jpg

Parents and schools do not teach critical thinking, which leaves the
majority of people in the USA living in the world of myth, superstition
and unreason. Children have to be carefully taught.
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/5561/ifriendsk8.gif

God: generic term for any of 2,500+ imaginary supernatural beings in
human history. Note: the majority of voters in the United States
believe in imaginary supernatural beings and expect their elected
leaders to do the same. No agnostics or atheists (god-free rationalists)
need apply. I want my leaders to live in the world of reason where
evidence is required for belief. In the world of faith, NO evidence is
required for belief in imaginary supernatural beings. Faith-based
policies start with the conclusions, then "fit the facts" around the a
priori policies. For instance, the earth is 6,000 years old...or Iraq
has WMD...or only the "right" kind of Christians are acceptable for
public office.
--C Hamilton

================

Out of the office messages going around...

1: I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail
to get the position.

2: I'm not really out of the office. I'm just ignoring you.

3: You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the
office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at
all.

4: Sorry to have missed you but I am at the doctors having my brain
removed so that I may be promoted to management

5: I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send
me until I return from vacation on 4/18. Please be patient and your mail
will be deleted in the order it was received.

6: Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for
the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.

7: The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is
unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try
sending again.'
(The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see how many
in-duh-viduals did this over and over).

8: Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system.
You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in
approximately 19 weeks.

9: Hi. I'm thinking about what you've just sent me. Please wait by your
PC for my response.

10: Hi! I'm busy negotiating the salary for my new job. Don't bother to
leave me any messages.

11: I've run away to join a different circus.

12: I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical
reasons.
When I return, please refer to me as 'Loretta' instead of 'Steve'

==================

Mississippi Squirrel Revival
http://travisab1.multiply.com/video/item/73/The_Mississippi_Squirrel_...

Explore the Obama Inaguration (hyperphoto)
http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee8994966...

Explore Paris by night (hyperphoto)
http://www.hyper-photo.com/grandes/paris.html

C Hamilton
a moderator of
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new-continuum/
adult humor/opinion/pictures

If you want to change what your government is doing,
contact those who are acting in your name:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/misc.html