I first grew to respect Amnesty International in 1985 when they worked to release the husband of a family friend of ours from a prison in Vietnam.

When Saigon fell in 1975, our soon to be friend, her daughter and son escaped the city which was later renamed Ho Chi Mihn and arrived as refugees in California. As part of our church, we helped them survive and become established. This damaged but incredibly strong family is in some of my earliest memories.

Her husband wasn't so lucky. For the crime of being a well off doctor, he was thrown into a reeducation camp and badly abused.


Amnesty International produced a video marketing water boarding as torture.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7lSPA9g8s

Is this sensationalist? Fuck yes it is!

Every season of "24" we give torture a bad name by pretending it produces accurate and usable intelligence and is only used on people who either deserve it or are in the business.
IQ2 US Debate
NY Times Article


At least someone has the balls to produce messages to compete with all the bullshit on Fox that tries to dupe Americans into believing torture is acceptable.

The Unites States sentenced a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano to 15 years of hard labor for war crimes over water boarding a US civilian in WWII.
NPR article

Guess we don't like other countries to torture our own innocent taxi drivers.

I am shocked and awed that this great nation has been reduced to confusion over something that so violates its core values.

...until the ride has come to a full and complete stop.
I apparently have some trouble getting that concept 8-}



Rob @ 13000 feet, upside down and falling.



You can still stick your tongue out at 120mph.

Its a good thing this was a tandem jump - it was so much fun I almost forgot about that parachute part.

Two excellent dives at "The Pinnacles" in Carmel Bay off the Monterey Express boat. Dry suit with dry gloves and a warm-neck collar were nice and comfy in the 51 degree water 8-).

Rescue class a few weekends ago included finding an unconscious (practice) diver under water in 2 to 3ft visibility in the kelp while being rolled by surge, brought them to the surface, rescue-breathed them to shore in 3ft to 5ft waves, and then started CPR. Excellent class practice but not so good for fun diving. Conditions this weekend were great for fun diving. Spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out watching the Great White Shark at Monterey Bay aquarium.

But that's not what we're here to talk about...

As the boat rounded out of Monterey Bay we saw a pod of Risso's Dolphins making a slow swim South. Dolphins! Marvelous - the boat slowed down to match the pod and we just watched them for a few minutes. Wow. And we moved on...

Another pod of Risso's Dolphins. Dolphins! Marvelous - the boat slowed down to match the pod and we just watched for a few minutes. Wow. And we moved on...

Then we found a super-pod traveling South. Dolphins! Communal guess on the boat was over a 100 dolphins in the pod. Amazing watching the ocean covered with fins gracefully rolling in and out of the water - an occasional spy-hop just for the fun of it. Incredible sight.

http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/RissosDolphin.htm

There's a bird hopping branches in a tree just outside my window. The curtains are closed. Sunlight through the tree makes a play of shadows on the curtains. The bird flying around is expressed as a shadow darting back and forth - changing shape.

This makes for a really nice way to start working on today's projects.

Budding Realtors, or people who wish to retain clients in any business which applying expertise on behalf of a client is part of the job...

All right, all right. Meme time.

Borrowed from vond, who got it from vt_komainu, who got it from quasiskunk, ...:

Name a CD you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.

I'm going to bet someone else has an Autechre collection... The Laurie Anderson, "United States live" CD set should be reasonably unique enough not to resort to talking more about Huun-Huur-Tu, "60 Horses in my Herd" 8-).

Name a book you own that you think no-one else on your friends list does.

I'm cheating and using a magazine. 1939 Italian fascist movement magazine titled Giovinezza, with an introduction from Benito Mussolini in the front. Obviously, I'm not a big fan of that particular movement. Its an interesting piece of history from the Sicilian/Spanish side though.

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that you think no-one else on your friends list does.

This group is weird enough that someone else probably has a copy of "Delicatessen", but I'm sticking to it.

Name a place that you have visited that you think no-one else on your friends list has.

The KEKB accelerator ring tunnel.

Name a piece of technology or any sort of tool you own that you think no-one else on your friends list has.

Small prototype for the Resistive Plate Counter (RPC) used at BELLE. Similar detector will be used at the CERN LHC project.

Its funny how this played out.


2:00am ish: Crash. Give brain(tm) a chance to sleep on the CEO's foot traffic patterns over the past few days.

4:30am: Brain arrives at solution: high probability of loosing job today. Brain issues wake up SIGALRM.

5:00am: Review resume and look over job contacts to plan next step.

6:00am: Flippant remark to cblack on the topic 8-).

8:00am: Observe that my office has been inventoried in a subtle manner.

10:00am: CEO schedules meeting.

2:00pm: CEO tells me I have no job.

3:00pm: Beer from company fridge.


Yep.

John Kerry has been building support for a filibuster of the Alito nomination since Thursday afternoon.

For more background as to why, here's Ted Kennedy's closing statements:
http://www.tedkennedy.com/journal/576/senator-kennedys-closing-statement-at-the-alito-confirmation-hearings

For starters, Alito is against abortion and has endeavored to give it a "death by a thousand cuts" in his career.

http://plannedparenthood.org/pp2/portal/files/portal/media/pressreleases/pr-051202-alito.xml


Second, Alito is in the "Original Intent" camp. Having the audacity to put your words into the mouth of Jefferson or Washington and claim its theirs is only slightly less creepy than putting your words into the mouth of God and claiming its Ultimate Truth.

Third, and this one outright scares me, Alito is for the notion of the "Unitary Executive".

And why, boys and girls does the "Unitary Executive" so bugger my wits? This unitary executive is reminding us the danger of having that kind of power to wield even before the blood has dried on the debate.

NSA is bypassing FISA under white house orders even though FISA is notorious for offering blank checks (no request in 2004 was turned down). Who, prey tell is the president having them spy on that they think FISA would say no to?

The executive claims the authority to bypass federal law against torture even after changing the definition so that medieval techniques like water-boarding are legal. Guess Cheney is mad he didn't get to keep the electrode collection and shackles.


Why not just vote no and see where the majority lands?

This takes us back to the original subject.

Bush has time to make more nominations. This filibuster is gaining momentum, but the time is deliberately short and Rove is heading a counter media campaign. And lets not kid ourselves here, the Republicans are in the best position to keep seats in November that Tom "The Hammer" DeLay could engineer.

Besides, the supreme court isn't the only court that Bush has been busy stuffing friends and ideologues into.

As of this morning (http://www.democrats.com/we-can-stop-alito) there are 13 votes behind the filibuster. In order to succeed, 41 are needed by Monday. Call campaigns are in motion this weekend to gain more support.

Valiant effort.