Saudi Halloween

Just Happy Being Yourself

Tori Spelling, who's father fixed her nose, boobs and put her on his TV show wrote a children's book encouraging kids to be happy being themselves.

Presenting ... Tallulah, the "sweet tale of a young girl who really just wants to be herself," is being pushed out her thought hole in September. Spelling, star of the reality series Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, also has written the memoirs Mommywood and sTORI Telling.

I'm shocked that she's verbal, let alone could hold the crayon long enough to be called a 'writer' in any sense of the word.

Oh, and yeah, she's in the running for BLASPHEME'S HYPOCRITE of THE WEEK!

...and to be clear, when I say 'fixed' I mean spent a fortune on plastic surgeons to disfigure her so that she looked less, eh, ethnic? Maybe just less like her father? Before rhinoplasty Tori Spelling had wider nostrils and wider tip. Now her nose looks more defined both in the tip and in the bridge, but suprisingly it looks more twisted than before. Why isn't she going for a revision rhinoplasty to correct the deviation? Honestly, she looked better before.

Loophole Win-Win at Gitmo

U.S. Could Let Detainees Plead Guilty Without Trials

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged
with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain their martyrdom.

Hey, now that's a win-win for everyone! We get five fewer terrorists and don't have to air dirty laundry - they get seventy two virgins for all eternity. Except, guys, by my math those virgins only last about two and a half months at best... wouldn't you rather make the US look bad first with a showy trial exposing the Bush Adminis- 72 virgins it is. This way to the gallows, boys...

Read More: Linko

The Ultimate NIMBY

Again, housing bad guys has turned into the ultimate NIMBY - that is Not In My Back Yard - for you non-Carlin fans out there.

As some of you know, I have zero problem with keeping the Gitmo facility open. No one else wants them, after Bush asked, pleaded and begged the allies to take them.

Not too surprising, no one wants these nice terrorist folks to come to US soil either.

But wasn't this supposed to be about how the Bush administration treated the prisoners there?

What about detaining a bad guy indefinitely without any legal recourse - the legal and physical Phantom Zone or Catholic Limbo? I thought that the original argument had been about flimsy or poor evidence against against the prisoner picked up off the battlefield? The problem starts with a national from another country, say, Saudi Arabia, illegally in Iraq or Afghanistan, aiming weapons at US Soldiers and civilians of the host country? Instead of shooting said illegal alien aggressor war monger, we decided that we should take them out... to sunny Cuba.

There's a discussion of ambiguous and gray-possibly-illegal torture methods used on three bad guys, but that discussion has become a smokescreen for both sides of the political-do-nothings in Congress. What did you know, and when did you know it means NOTHING. As much as I tire of Lady Pelosi - it's a boring argument. She's incompetent. We already know that. Can we move on? She should have just said I didn't understand - not accuse the CIA of misleading or lying to her and Congress. We would have believed that she was an idiot. That's called transparency.

Look, Gitmo has morphed into a symbol, more than anything else. A symbol to the world of America's undiagnosed bipolar disorder. On one hand, America is a bastion of democracy and liberty, free markets and possibility of greatness for everyone who wishes to participate. On the other, we'll do anything -anything- to keep our place as the world's ultimate super power. We'll keep all threats against our crazy lifestyle that we'll assassinate and destabilize your country, even invade it, and if you really piss us off, we'll waterboard you... hell if you attack us, we'll nuke you, twice.

And what would happen if you DID bring these nice terrorists to the US prison system? Haven't you ever seen a documentary about how bad American prisons are? Haven't you seen Frontline: The Released? Up The Ridge? What about all those shows on MSNBC Sunday night? HBO's OZ? At least at Gitmo the prisoners have nice Caribbean weather and access to other prisoners, prayer rugs, and - most importantly - media attention.

Now compare the conditions at Gitmo with a SuperMax. In a SuperMax, the bad guys are held uncommunicado in isolation cells, no visitors, no contact with the outside world, and likely worse food. [Maybe even a processed pork product?! Oh no!] Hell, compare conditions at Gitmo with just a regular US prison? Rapes, racism, gang warfare, overcrowding, limited funding, you know, OZ!

I can imagine that Gitmo, while being limbo, has got to be better than a regular US prison? Got an opinion on it? Go on...

Gitmo Soundtrack

Here's the link to the Gitmo Soundtrack!
Now you can re-create a Gitmo torture session in the privacy of your own home!
Now your "Where were you last night" inquiries can be complemented with the piercing "I love You" from Barney the Dinosaur the same way America tortures Al Queda suspects!

Click here for the soundtrack!

That's right, Barney!

The song's composer, Bob Singleton, tells today's Guardian:

"I would rate the annoyance factor to be about equal with hearing my neighbour's leaf blower. It can set my teeth on edge, but it won't break me down and make me confess to crimes against humanity. Will Barney songs break your psyche? I think that idea turns music into something like voodoo, which it certainly isn't. If that were true, then the inverse would be true. Playing hymns to someone strapped to a chair would make them a Christian."

Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith reports the effect intentionally nauseating music had on Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib inmates.

Binyam Mohamed, the British resident still held in Guantánamo Bay, was rendered by the CIA to Morocco, where his torturers repeatedly took a razor blade to his penis.

Stafford Smith writes:

"When I later sat across from him in the cell, he described how psyops methods were worse than this. He could anticipate physical pain, he said, and know that it would eventually end. But the experience of slipping into madness as a result of torture by music was something quite different. 'Imagine you are given a choice,' he said. 'Lose your sight or lose your mind.'"

U.S. military interrogators have often blasted music at detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. According to the British law group Reprieve, these are among the songs they have used most frequently:

» "Enter Sandman," Metallica.

» "Bodies," Drowning Pool.

» "Shoot to Thrill," AC/DC.

» "Hell's Bells," AC/DC.

» "I Love You," from the "Barney and Friends" children's TV show.

» "Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen.

» "Babylon," David Gray.

» "White America," Eminem.

» "Sesame Street," theme song from the children's TV show.

Other bands and artists whose music has been frequently played at U.S. detention sites: Aerosmith, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Don McLean, Lil' Kim, Limp Bizkit, Meat Loaf, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tupac Shakur.

I really like the irony of Rage and the Meow Mix jingle being used as torture.

Ask How YOU Can Win a Free Trip to Gitmo!

Gitmo 'Justice' for US Citizens?

Most of this was Cutn'Pasted from a story by Robert Parry. July 21, 2008

The conservative-dominated U.S. Appeals Court has opened the door for President George W. Bush or a successor to throw American citizens – as well as non-citizens – into a legal black hole by designating them “enemy combatants,” even if they have engaged in no violent act and are living on U.S. soil.

The federal Appeals Court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled 5-4 on July 15 that Bush had the right, while prosecuting the “war on terror,” to hold Qatari citizen (and Peoria, Illinois, resident) Ali al-Marri indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”

But some of the court’s more liberal judges expressed alarm, saying the legal reasoning that denied al-Marri meaningful due process not only trampled on American legal traditions but could be used to lock up U.S. citizens as well.

“For over two centuries of growth and struggle, peace and war, the Constitution has secured our freedom through the guarantee that, in the United States, no one will be deprived of liberty without due process of law,” wrote Judge Diana Motz, a Bill Clinton appointee, who dissented against the court’s approval of sweeping presidential powers.

Motz noted that al-Marri has been imprisoned for more than five years, “without acknowledgement of the protection afforded by the Constitution, solely because the Executive believes that his indefinite military detention – or even the indefinite military detention of a similarly situated American citizen – is proper.”

Al-Marri’s lawyers plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the case underscores one of the biggest issues at stake in the November elections: whether Republican John McCain will get to fulfill his promise to appoint more Supreme Court judges like Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who have embraced Bush’s vision of an all-powerful President.

Here's the rest of the entire story, which I suggest you please read. It is from the Consortium News - which claims Independent Investigative Journalism. So, I'm a bit troubled by this... a bit more than 'troubled' actually.

As you know, I've been a champion of Gitmo - mostly because the alternative throughout human history has been to just kill your enemies. Gitmo is an evolution of war - where instead of battlefield deaths, and left for the flies, the United States has taken the people who have shot at them to a beautiful communist tropical island paradise. Yes, to torture them like Kiefer Sutherland on a bender, but they're ALIVE... I guess we can't agree that this is a step forward? Okay. And seeing as how the due process that was granted to the folks being held in Gitmo have been granted by the SCOTUS - there's a real doubt that this situation will move forward.

But there's real doubt there.

Also, what the hell was this guy doing in Peoria IL?

Al-Marri entered the United States on a legal student visa, along with his wife and children, only a day before the 9/11 attacks. He was arrested amid the panic and fear that followed the attacks, and was charged criminally in a credit-card scheme.

But the Bush administration then asserted that al-Marri was an al-Qaeda “sleeper cell” agent planning follow-up attacks, declared him an “enemy combatant,” and locked him up at a Navy brig in South Carolina, where he was held incommunicado.

Eventually, al-Marri challenged his indefinite detention through a federal court suit. Bush’s lawyers countered by citing the Military Commissions Act in seeking to deny him access to civilian courts.

In an affidavit submitted to a District Court, a U.S. counter-terrorism official alleged that al-Marri had received al-Qaeda training, was prepared to engage in a suicide attack, and had met personally with Osama bin Laden and other senior terrorist leaders.

He was going to suicide bomb Peoria? Who the hell would have noticed that?
Either that, or that was the best attempt to hide I've ever heard of. In light of this new information perhaps, maybe just perhaps we shouldn't underestimate these terrorist sh*theads?