Torture, Why Not?

Let’s Talk About Torture For Just A Second-


As the debate continues on who knew what and when, whether it was effective or not and did it make us safer. It seems as though we are being coddled into taking our eye off the ball, again, and losing site of the fact that what we are talking about is TORTURE. There are a few things that we, Americans, are forgetting.

Did members of Congress know?. Not withstanding that none of us know the full truth of the matter yet, and without pointing fingers, whether I want to or not, at either Republicans or Democrats, I do believe that there was some understanding of the fact that these types of methods were being entertained. With that belief, a factor of degradation to the ‘American morality’ begins to rear it’s ugly head. People somewhere, long before we knew, were contemplating the compromise of our values.

Now we learn over the last few days that there were orders for ‘enhanced interrogation’ coming directly from the White House in advance of any Top Secret CIA memo’s. That the Office of the Counsel to the President, Alberto Gonzalez, was signing off on requests for these methods very early on. The precedence for the Presidents attorney delivering the ‘okay’ for the engagement of torture is unknown to me, but I challenge any reader to find any more serious an example in our history. Again, our values compromised.

So it seems that, almost from the beginning, there was clear desire, if not intent, to use ‘ways of making people talk’ that Americans have rejected in the past and will continue to reject in the future.

The argument has been made by those on the right that ‘enhanced interrogation’ was needed because these were hardened men, terrorists, and they had no intention of giving us any answers, ‘the truth'. Inside that, they have also tried to lay the foundations for the future use of these techniques by touting them as acceptable, necessary, and effective. There are, however, glaring problems to be addressed with each of these statements.

We now know that waterboarding was used as persuasion to develop a link between Al Queda and Iraq. First being used over 180 times on a man who was completely cooperative with the U.S., short of one area, ‘the link’.

Why did they waterboard him?. Because it’s true, it is effective. The question you must ask yourself is how is it effective. Only when you KNOW THE ANSWER to the question you are asking does torture become useful. A mindset focused on a specific response is the bare bones of torture. Extreme pain and fear will be inflicted until the ‘right’ information is given, even if it’s a lie. A man can be interrogated for an indefinite period of time through conventional means, all the while providing you information that is for you to determine the truthfulness of, for you to decipher reality from. One does not torture because they can not get an answer, but because they don’t get the answer they want to hear. So torture is effective, employ these means and you will hear what you ‘want to hear’.

Addressing the acceptability of such practices should be fairly cut and dry. People that subscribe to the viability of torture do so out of fear. Without a level of understanding to the way the World and ‘the enemy’ view America when we behave in a hypocritical manner, they listen to and believe the things they hear from right-wing extremists.

Having become nouveau chique inside the GOP, torture has been dumbed down and softened to remove the sting of what it is they are advocating, new terminology has been applied to cover the harsh connotation of the word, and pundits use their shows as platforms to shrug their shoulders, smile and say ‘enhanced interrogation’ methods have made us safer. Let’s be very clear about something here, ‘enhanced interrogation’ IS torture and all the things that go with it. Just the same as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is shellshock, the more abrasive and brain jarring term used to describe the condition during the 1st and 2nd World Wars. In the immortal words of George Carlin, “maybe if we still called it shellshock, then some of these Vets would be getting the help they need”.

I don’t need to have the word torture softened for me. It is Americas right and responsibility to maintain the level of emotion and outrage that comes along with that type of behavior.

In conclusion, focused on safety, I would ask of you just one question. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was the Afghans (just as an example) who were indefinitely holding Americans prisoner and continuously torturing our men and women, your sons and daughters, stripping them, hanging them by their arms, waterboarding them, and all in full sight for us to see....how safe do you think those people would be? Same goes for us.

Gay American Heroes

Made this for Gay American Heroes
Designed in C4D and After Effects (created by 'nonameplayer')



From their site:

The Gay American Heroes Memorial is a tribute to the lives of the hundreds of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender victims of hate crimes. Through this traveling memorial, we will insure that the lives of these heroes will be celebrated and never forgotten.The multidimensional, mobile Memorial is over 7 feet high and more than 75 feet in length.

It includes the name, age, and geographical information of the hero on a star-shaped plaque attached to color panels. Separating the six panels are panels of photos corresponding to the heroes named. A Welcome Tent will provide visitors with literature, videos, and other educational materials. It provides an interactive experience, with activities such as submitting names of heroes for inclusion in the exhibit, the “Adopt-A-Hero” fund-raising drive to help families of victims, and information on local organizations and resources for the community.

http://www.gayamericanheroes.info/

This video was created by 'nonameplayer' and uploaded to Flickr on Oct. 18, 2008-
Link to Photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/noname/

Map Of The Fallen

FALLEN

Ellen Rogers

Performed 6 May 2008
Monument Square, Portland, Maine








This project remembers the American military men and women who have died in Iraq over the last five years.

The war is on-going, yet, for those of us with no direct personal connection to the military, it is all too easy to forget about the war, the fighting, and the people in everyday life.

More than 4,070 soldiers have been killed in Iraq. How can we begin to understand a loss of this magnitude? This artwork marks each death with a drop of paint on the fallen soldier’s home state, giving us one way to see the human cost of the war.

I made this map in Monument Square hoping people would pause to watch drop after red drop hit the white fabric, knowing that each represents a person lost and a family devastated.


www.EllenRogers.com
info@EllenRogers.com

The First American

Virgina Dare - Born 1587


The August 24, 1587 baptism of Virginia Dare, the first born in the New World. (Image courtesy of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC)







On August 18, 1587, Virginia Dare was the first European to be born in America. Her mother, Eleanor White Dare, was the daughter of John White, the governor of what became the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke Island. Ananias Dare, Virginia’s father, was one of Governor White’s assistants.

On what is now called the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Sir Walter Raleigh established three separate colonies at Roanoke Island. In 1587, the third and final settlement, consisting of 120 men, women, and children, was sent to Roanoke Island under the leadership of John White. Less than a month later, Eleanor Dare birthed her first child. She named her Virginia because the child was the first Christian born in the colony of Virginia. The August 24 baptism, however, was the second one observed in the colony. The first occurred eleven days earlier; Manteo, and Algonquian Indian convert to Christianity, was christened and recognized as the colonists’ friend.

Exactly what happened to Virginia Dare is unknown. When Governor White returned to Roanoke Island in 1591, there was no trace of the colony or its inhabitants. Today, on Roanoke Island, North Carolinians celebrate annually the birth of Virginia Dare.


Sources:

Alex Matthews Arnett, Story of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 1933) and William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries (Chapel Hill, 1989).

F-15 Eagle

Check out the sick detail on this picture-

(hi-res image - click on photo for larger size)
An F-15 Eagle fighter receives fuel from a KC-10 Extender during Red Flag-Alaska on Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, April 29, 2009. Red Flag is a combat operations exercise conducted on the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex, which provides 67,000 square miles of airspace. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Christopher Boitz)

Twitter Top Ten

Top Ten Things I Don't Need To Know via Twitter

1. That you need to pee.

2. Whether or not you washed your hands after you went pee.

3. That they put the wrong pickles on your Chic fil A sandwich.

4. That you can tweet 74 bible verses in a row via twitter.

5. That your dog just peed on the floor (actually, that was rather amusing).

6. That my dog is plotting against me.

7. That you got a really crappy parking spot at the mall.

8. That you cleaned your barn with a leaf blower.

9. That you are now following me and 20,000 of your closest friends. (Unless you are @kickbuttcoffee: "We triple filter our water then Chuck Norris grinds the beans with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.")

10. That you are back from Wal*Mart.

Source: No Charges Seen Over Interrogation Memos

Where Is Justice

(courtesy AP)

Justice Department investigators say Bush administration lawyers who approved harsh interrogation techniques of terror suspects should not face criminal charges, according to a draft report that also recommends two of the three attorneys face possible professional sanctions.

The Obama administration decided last month to make public legal memos authorizing the use of harsh interrogation methods but not to prosecute CIA interrogators who followed the advice outlined in the memos.

That decision angered conservatives who accused President Barack Obama of selling out the CIA, and from liberals who thought he was being too forgiving of practices they _ and Obama _ call torture. The president's rhetoric, if not actual policy, shifted on the matter as the political fallout intensified.

Officials conducting the internal Justice Department inquiry into the lawyers who wrote those memos have recommended referring two of the three lawyers _ John Yoo and Jay Bybee _ to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was not authorized to discuss the inquiry.

The person noted that the investigative report was still in draft form and subject to revisions. Attorney General Eric Holder also may make his own determination about what steps to take once the report has been finalized.

The inquiry has become a politically loaded guessing game, with some advocating criminal charges against the lawyers and others urging that the matter be dropped.

In a letter to two senators, the Justice Department said a key deadline in the inquiry expired Monday, signaling that most of the work on the matter was completed. The letter does not mention the possibility of criminal charges, nor does it name the lawyers under scrutiny.

The letter did not indicate what the findings of the final report would be. Bybee, Yoo and Steven Bradbury worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and played key roles in crafting the legal justification for techniques critics call torture.

The memos were written as the Bush administration grappled with the fear and uncertainty following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Over the years that followed, lawyers re-examined and rewrote much of the legal advice.

In the memos released by the Obama administration, the Bush lawyers authorized methods including waterboarding, throwing subjects against walls and forced nudity.

In releasing the documents, Obama declared that CIA interrogators who followed the memos would not be prosecuted. The president left it to Holder to decide whether those who authorized or approved the methods should face charges.

When that inquiry neared completion last year, investigators recommended seeking professional sanctions against Bybee and Yoo, but not Bradbury, according to the person familiar with the matter. Those would come in the form of recommendations to state bar associations, where the most severe possible punishment is disbarment.

Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, called the decision not to seek criminal charges "inconceivable, given all that we know about the twisted logic of these memos."

Warren argued the only reason for such a decision "is to provide political cover for people inside the Obama White House so they don't have to pursue what needs to be done."

Bybee is now a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Yoo is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley. Bradbury returned to private practice when he left the government at the end of President George W. Bush's term in the White House.

Asked for comment, Yoo's lawyer, Miguel Estrada, said he signed an agreement with the Justice Department not to discuss the draft report. Lawyer Maureen Mahoney, who is representing Bybee, also declined to comment.

"The former employees have until May 4, 2009 to provide their comments on the draft report," states the letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Whitehouse has scheduled a hearing on the issue next week.

Now that the deadline has passed, there is little more for officials to do but make revisions to it based on the responses they've received, and decide how much, if any, of the findings should be made public.

Both Whitehouse and Durbin have pressed the Justice Department for more information about the progress of the investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

The office examines possible ethics violations by Justice Department employees. On rare occasions, those inquiries become full-blown criminal investigations.

The language of the letter, dated Monday, indicates the inquiry will result in a final report.
The letter notes that Holder and his top deputy will have access to any information they need "to evaluate the final report and make determinations about appropriate next steps."

The results of the investigation were delayed late last year, when then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey and his deputy asked investigators to allow the lawyers a chance to respond to their findings, as is typically done for those who still work for the Justice Department.

Investigators also shared a draft copy with the CIA to review whether the findings contained any classified information. According to the letter, the CIA then requested to comment on the report.

1/5 of US Homes Have Cell Phones & No Landlines

Cell Phones Killed The Landline

For the first time, the number of U.S. households opting for only cell phones outnumber those with traditional landlines in a high-tech shift accelerated by the recession.

In the freshest evidence of the growing appeal of cell phones, 20 percent of households had only cells during the last half of 2008, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released Wednesday. That was an increase of nearly 3 percentage points over the first half of the year, the largest six-month increase since the government started gathering such data in 2003.

The 20 percent of homes with only cell phones compared to 17 percent with landlines but no cells.

That ratio has changed starkly in recent years: In the first six months of 2003, just 3 percent of households were wireless only, while 43 percent stuck to landlines.

Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the CDC and an author of the report, attributed the growing number of cell-only households in part to a recession that has forced many families to scour their budgets for savings.

"We do expect that with the recession, we'd see an increase in the prevalence of wireless only households, above what we might have expected had there been no recession," Blumberg said.

Further underscoring the public's shrinking reliance on landline phones, 15 percent of households have both landlines and cells but take few or no calls on their landlines, often because they are wired into computers. Combined with wireless only homes, that means that 35 percent of households _ more than one in three _ are basically reachable only on cells.

The changes are important for pollsters, who for years relied on reaching people on their landline telephones. Growing numbers of surveys now include calls to people on their cells, which is more expensive partly because federal laws forbid pollsters from using computers to place calls to wireless phones.

About a third of people age 18 to 24 live in households with only cell phones, making them far likelier than older people to rely exclusively on cells. The same is true of four in 10 people age 25 to 29.

Those likeliest to live in wireless-only households also include the poor, renters, Hispanics, Southerners, Midwesterners and those living with unrelated adults, such as roommates or unmarried couples.

Six in 10 households have both landline and cell phones, while one in 50 have no phones at all.

The data is compiled by the National Health Interview Survey, conducted by the CDC. The latest survey involved in-person interviews with members of 12,597 households conducted from last July through December.