All posts by Chris

the real face of gitmo

If you aren’t outraged, you’re not paying attention. Either way, read “Detainees Deserve Court Trials”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/13/AR2005111301061.html, an outstanding opinion piece in today’s Washington Post.

bq.. As the Senate prepared to vote Thursday to abolish the writ of habeas corpus, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl were railing about lawyers like me. Filing lawsuits on behalf of the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Terrorists! Kyl must have said the word 30 times.

As I listened, I wished the senators could meet my client Adel. Adel is innocent. I don’t mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist.

The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. And these facts would still be a secret but for one thing: habeas corpus.

p. This deserves to be read far and wide. I’m ashamed that my government is doing this in my name, and I want it stopped right now.

inherit the wind (power)

Now _that’s_ what I’m talkin’ about. The UK government, which recently started supporting wind power in a big way, just completed a study that shows that “wind is a stable, continuous source of energy”:http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article326907.ece in the UK, and has been for as long as they have records. In fact, it seems to provide more energy during winter, when it’s needed most. Imagine that: a fact-based approach to evaluating energy resources. What a novel idea.

skullcrusher mountain

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you donít like it
Whatís with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you donít like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isnít it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

–Jonathan Coulton, Skullcrusher Mountain

torture: it’s what’s for dinner

US PEOPLE: Torture is really really really really really bad, and we shouldn’t do it.

US GOVT: OK, makes sense. We’ll outlaw it from this day forward.

CHENEY: “Except when the CIA wants to do it”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102402051.html.

US GOVT: Yes, except when the CIA wants to do it.

US PEOPLE: Nooooo!

ORWELL: Oh, fer crissakes.