Defense contractor claims immunity in Iraq torture.
Defense contractor CACI is claiming immunity from an Abu Ghraib torture lawsuit because it was doing the government’s work by supplying interrogators to the U.S.-run prison in Iraq, according to court documents.
Ah yes, the old “just following orders” ploy.
CNN’s Jack Cafferty summarizing his thoughts on Sarah Palin’s recent interview by CBS news anchor, Katie Couric:
“I’m 65 and have been covering politics [...] for a long time, and that is one of the most pathetic pieces of tape I have ever seen from someone aspiring to one of the highest offices in this country”
Here are more reasons why they keep Palin away from professional interviewers:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DzJ9JixTrIs&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nokTjEdaUGg
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0rXmuhWrlj4
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XbQwAFobQxQ
Both McCain and Palin should be ashamed of their cynicism toward the political process and the American people. Palin is so far out of her depth, so ill-prepared, that it makes you wonder if McCain had taken leave of his senses when he decided to appoint her. Listening to those interviews is as embarrassing as it is disturbing. If Palin was a person of integrity she’d know that as intoxicating and as exciting as it must be to find herself in the position she’s now in, her own personal ambition must come second to the needs of her nation. It’s simply irresponsible of her to continue with this laughable charade. In appointing Palin, McCain has already demonstrated that his judgement is seriously suspect. Obama, these jokers are there for the taking.
Matt Damon’s exasperation and concern here sums up my feelings perfectly:
“I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago, I really do, because she’s going to have the nuclear codes”.
And not before time!
Open Source makes historic UK breakthrough
Becta green lights open source software in schools, at last
Commercial software licenses have been between our children and their education for a long time now and these days it’s absolutely unnecessary. Refusing to help schools wean themselves off unnecessary, commercial software is unconscionable. There is no good reason why children (or educational staff, for that matter) need be forced to agree to potentially criminalizing licensing terms with irrelevant third parties before they may engage in such fundamental educational activity as essay writing.
It’s a great day for empowerment and software freedom. If schools, their staff and students begin participating in open source projects and building and contributing to open, social applications, they could make some very valuable contributions and develop some deep computing skills on the way (skills the usefulness and relevance of which will degrade gracefully over decades, and not be curtailed in a year or two’s time by the next round of gratuitous commercial upgrades).
Providers of commercial, commodity software have no doubt dreaded this day for they must suspect that children who spend their entire education using unrestricted, open source software are going to be far less likely, upon becoming wage earners, to want to purchase “permit-ware” with its attendant restrictions and costs.
I’ll be interested to see who the other 12 suppliers are tomorrow.
Update: And here they are:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/23/open-source-uk-80m-competition
I’d almost fogotten how attractive Amy Winehouse used to be. Very sad.
(*for some reason the Daily Mail has the older image horizontally flipped)
Reading about the latest developments with regard to the ACTA conspiracy* finally persuaded me to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation, making a small donation in the process. It’s something I should have done years ago.
At the top of the membership confirmation page was the line:
“Hi Friend of Freedom”.
It’s a rhetorical, trite phrase, but it made me feel good. I shall endeavour to donate whenever funds permit.
A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.
The latest move by the technology-drunk New Authoritarians. The latest strap to be tightened on the surveillance, tracking and control straightjacket.
The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the “IP Traceback” drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.
“Declined to release key documents”, and “meetings are closed to the public”? Doesn’t that make it about one step away from a conspiracy?
The potential for eroding Internet users’ right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates.
I feel alarmed too, that a meeting being conducted behind closed doors has such serious potential ramifications for personal liberty.
Bellovin said in a blog post this week that “institutionalizing a means for governments to quash their opposition is in direct contravention” of the U.N.’s own Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The UN’s commitment to the “principles of reason” depends upon the views of a variety of people, many of whom actually have little such commitment. If the clauses within the Declaration were in safe hands, we wouldn’t see developments such as these or these.
I think it was Yamamoto Tsunetomo writing in the Hagakure who likened allowing sufficient public license to the presence of flora and rocks in a pond. A pond that has nowhere for fish and other animals to hide contains little life. Stamp down too hard, stamp down everywhere you see the potential for wrongdoing, and the citizens will end up creeping around, fearful of the state, wary of stepping out of line. Society will be populated with cowed, nervous sheep, waiting to be herded, fearful of acting without permission. It’s not only Orwellian, it’s H.G. Wellsian!
Who wants to live in such a society? Have our politicians and bureaucrats forgotten their history? Don’t they have any common sense? As the often repeated joke goes, 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a blueprint for government!
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
—Thomas Jefferson
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content.
The sooner we wean ourselves off oil, the better for all modern, civilized people, methinks.
Mrs Palin is such a hot property that ABC was planning to roll out the interviews over Thursday evening and Friday. Aides to Mr McCain said more interviews were scheduled for next week, but made it clear hostile networks would not be selected. (Source)
They would be the networks that refuse to act as an extension of Palin’s publicity machine, would they? The ones whose refusal to uncritically accept her scripted speeches is essential for a modern, functioning democracy?
Factoid: Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband, works for BP (British Petroleum).