Pinging stuff I care about.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Rendition prisoner ‘invented Iraq-al-Qaida link’
Supposed evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaida, used by the US as a justification for going to war, was invented by a prisoner in Egyptian custody to avoid harsh interrogation, according to government sources quoted today in the New York Times.
The beatings will continue until justification for war improves.
New RISC OS machine coming soon
This sounds like an amazingly fun, cool machine. Though it’s nothing to do with Amiga it reminds me of the Amiga in being a cool rogue computer with an awesome OS and custom hardware that does more with less.
I will never be able to justify buying one.
But I want one.
(RiscOS inspired the awesome ROX desktop for Linux.)
New York Daily News – Home – $15M suit for burns from java
The 1986 McDonalds coffee lawsuit was widely mocked, but the woman suffered third degree burns. That’s serious, like having your clothes set on fire kind of serious. And McDonalds had the hottest coffee in the fast food industry and had already settled out of court many lawsuits involving previous customers burned by their coffee (including previous incidents of third degree burns) and consciously chose to keep the coffee that hot for the sake of taste.
This incident also includes third degree burns, and 200 degree coffee (comparable or greater in temperature to the McD’s coffee).
I hope this woman doesn’t become a national joke too.
Obviously, to defeat our enemies we need intelligence, but intelligence that is reliable. We should not torture or treat inhumanely terrorists we have captured. The abuse of prisoners harms, not helps, our war effort. In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear—whether it is true or false—if he believes it will relieve his suffering. I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the names of the members of my flight squadron, information that had little if any value to my enemies as actionable intelligence. But I did not refuse, or repeat my insistence that I was required under the Geneva Conventions to provide my captors only with my name, rank and serial number. Instead, I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line, knowing that providing them false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse. It seems probable to me that the terrorists we interrogate under less than humane standards of treatment are also likely to resort to deceptive answers that are perhaps less provably false than that which I once offered.
— John McCain via Reddit.
CNN.com – ‘Can I quit now?’ FEMA chief wrote as Katrina raged – Nov 3, 2005
You know, people are outraged about this but I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy. He knew he was not close to competent to do the job he’d been given. He wanted to get the hell out but felt trapped, as everything was falling apart around him. He was a normal weak human being and retreated from responsibilities that overwhelmed him. I completely feel for the guy.
I bet when Bush said “Brownie, you’re doing a heckova job” he wanted to punch Dubya right in the face.