an email from Senator Patrick Leahy:

The world community has spoken with one voice, and once again the Bush-Cheney Administration has yet to hear the call.

I just returned from Dublin Ireland where I supported international negotiations which ultimately produced a treaty to rid the world of indiscriminate "cluster" munitions -- dangerous weapons which pose an unacceptable threat to civilians in warzones. This groundbreaking treaty will require all signatory nations to halt production of these devastating weapons, and destroy their stockpiles within eight years.

In high school, I read with interest Joan Baez's autobiographical musings Daybreak. At the time, 1968, I was quite involved with questions of non-violence and pacifism, and was constantly challenged by “what would you do if” questions that tried to force me to admit a hypothetical limit to my unwillingness to use violence. Baez, not surprisingly, had faced similar types of grilling. Unlike me, however, she didn't fall into the trap, sidestepping the questions by showing the absurdity by turning the questions themselves into a series of laughable impossibilities.

Her point was that one cannot set up principles as absolutes, that one cannot claim that he or she will act unequivocally in one fashion or another, regardless of the details of the situation. Principles provide guidelines for the future and a means for analyzing and even judging the past. No matter how much we want them to, they do not restrict one from particular actions in the moment. They cannot, for each situation differs from every other, as universals do not.

I haven't put together a video to song in awhile, than I came across "Lock Them Up"

The song in video is by 'Nam Veteran Pat Scanlon brother member of Vietnam Veterans Against The War and Veterans For Peace.

Originally posted Sat, 04/12/2008 - 04:40, bumping and longing for a simpler America like we knew in Mayberry USA - standingup

Scott Horton - No Comment:

So why is it harmless when Dick Cheney talks about the CIA’s use of waterboarding, but a violation of national security concerns when Kiriakou does? The answer to that is fairly obvious. If you disclose things classified as “secret” for purposes of advancing the political agenda of the Bush Administration, things are fine. If you disclose things classified as “secret” and articulate even the slightest criticism, then you’re obviously a criminal. We call this using the criminal justice system to attack perceived political adversaries. A Bush Justice Department specialty.

[Also see: Jonathan Landay's article in the Miami Herald.]

The good ol' days:
. . . several agents contended that military interrogators impersonated FBI agents, suggesting that the ruse was aimed in part at avoiding blame for any subsequent public allegations of abuse, according to memos between FBI officials. [Dan Eggan+Jeffrey Smith/WP:
FBI Agents Allege Abuse of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay, 30 Dec 2004.]
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Paul Rincon/BBC: Black hole 'bully' blasts galaxy
"Black holes are famous for wreaking havoc on their environment. This particular black hole is disrupting its local region by dining on matter that wanders too close . . it is like a black hole bully, punching the nose of a passing galaxy."
[Image: BBC/Nasa]
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Scott Horton: Obligations Ignored (18 Dec '07):
Remember that young man with the alcohol and coke habit who totaled two cars in the course of a single year before being sent off to Alabama to dry out? He’s now in the White House. And he seems to have found a new drug: raw political power.
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Joe Hanel/DurangoHerald: State disallows some voting machines
DENVER - Secretary of State Mike Coffman decertified voting machines used across the state Monday, but most of Southwest Colorado's machines passed the test. . . Only Premier (Diebold) Election Systems passed all of Coffman's tests.
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Dave Dilegge/SWJ: Zinni's Considerations Revisited
General Zinni offers basic, common-sense guidelines here. Unfortunately, many of these guidelines are left behind at our military think-tanks and schoolhouses once the first round goes downrange. [On guidelines written by Zinni in February 2003.]