Mood:  cheeky

 Z3 Readers check this article out. I had heard a young kid at a school had asked Condi Rice a torture question... well it was more than "one question" ... read here how Rice was "grilled" and how she "tries to" control the questioning with 911 SCARE tactics and "tough" 'We Dont Torture' .... problem was this child and me and millions other all "know better" .... this is an excellent account of one small kid standing up to the crime family of America and the torture provocateurs

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Babes in Torture Land

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_{http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/139896/babes_in_torture_land%3A_it_took_a_bunch_of_kids_to_grill_condi_the_way_the_media_should_have/?page=entire}

It Took a Bunch of Kids to Grill Condi the Way the Media Should Have

By Rory O'Connor, MediaChannel.org. Posted May 7, 2009. 

On April 6, 1977, David Frost was having a particularly difficult time interviewing former President Richard Nixon. Frost's colleague James Reston, Jr. suggested a new line of questioning, one used earlier in the trial of former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman: Were there no limits to what a president can do, even if it's plainly illegal? Could he do anything despite the law?

"If the president does it,that means it's not illegal," Nixon notoriously replied, arguing, "that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution"

While speaking recently at Stanford University, where she steadfastly defended the Bush Administration's "enhanced interrogation" policies, ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice revealed herself to be a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the Richard M. Nixon School of Government.

"We did not torture anyone," Rice told the Stanford students. "The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."

From Nixon to Bush and beyond, such contentions have seemingly passed muster with large swaths of both America's citizenry and its press. Now, however, challenges are finally emerging to such dangerous and unconstitutional ideas -- albeit from some unlikely sources. Have you ever heard the saying, for example, "Out of the mouths of babes?" Biblical in origin, the phrase is most often used when truth bubbles up unexpectedly -- such as when a young person says something that surprises because it shows what we expect to be an adult's wisdom and understanding

And so it was recently in our nation's capital, as Secretary Rice made "her first Washington appearance since leaving office" to speak to students at the Jewish Primary Day School -- only to be pressed once again on the troublesome topic of torture, just days after telling the Stanford undergraduates that the gruesome form of torture euphemistically known as waterboarding was "by definition" legal "if it was authorized by the president."

After years of facing softballs from a doting Washington press corps, Rice must have been taken aback as she fielded still more questions about torture -- from a 4th-Grader no less! As reported in the Washington Post, Rice "held forth amiably before a few dozen students about her love of Israel, travel abroad and the importance of learning languages" before opening the floor to their questions. The inquiries, developed by students with the assistance of their teachers, had not been screened in advance by Rice.

"At first, they were innocuous," noted Post Staff Reporter Alec MacGillis. "What was it like growing up in segregated Birmingham, Ala.? What skill did she want to be best known for?"

Then a fourth-grader named Misha Lerner asked a tough one: what did Rice think about the things President Obama's administration had been saying concerning methods used by the previous administration to get information from detainees? (According to Misha's mother, Inna, her son had originally come up with an even tougher question: "If you would work for Obama's administration, would you push for torture?" But Misha's teachers apparently acted as editors: "They wanted him to soften it and take out the word 'torture,'" Ms. Lerner explained. "But the essence of it was the same.")

"Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country," Rice responded. "After September 11, we wanted to protect the country. But he was also very clear that we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally. So the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country."

Rice's response to the Babes in TortureLand echoed what she had said earlier at Stanford, while pleading for sympathy: "I hope you understand that it was a very difficult time. We were all so terrified of another attack on the country." Nevertheless, she reiterated, "Even under those most difficult circumstances, the president was not prepared to do something illegal"

Despite her contention, one student still demanded, "How are we supposed to continue promoting America as this guiding light of democracy and how are we supposed to win hearts and minds in the world as long as we continue with these actions?"

"Well, first of all, you do what's right," Rice replied. "That's the most important thing -- that you make a judgment of what's right.

"And I'll tell you something," she continued. "Unless you were there in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans. And I know a lot of people are second-guessing now, but let me tell you what second-guessing would really have hurt me -- if the second-guessing had been about 3,000 more Americans dying because we didn't do everything we could to protect them." Apparently when you're in that position of responsibility, it helps to be 'tough-minded" like Bush and Rice.

"Foreign policy is full of tough choices. Very tough choices," Rice explained. "The world is not a bunch of easy choices in which you get to make ones that always feel good."

Rice's student questioner then pointed out that our government had never resorted to torture, "Even in World War II, as we faced Nazi Germany -- probably the greatest threat that America has ever faced."

She quickly shot back, "And we didn't torture anybody here either. Alright?"

"Is waterboarding torture?" the student then asked.

"I just said -- the United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture," Rice maintained. "And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture."

Yes, but is waterboarding torture? And if so, is it illegal -- even when the president condones it? Or are there no limits to what a president can do, even if it's patently illegal? Can the president do anything despite the law? Unless someone in the Obama Administration soon starts asking uncomfortable questions like those coming out of the mouths of babes like Misha Lerner, the Nixon/Bush/Rice position that we live in a nation ruled by men -- and not laws - may yet prevail.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 1:13 PM PDT

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Mood:  happy

Z3 Readers check out these words, that I bet ya didnt know stright from the White House Jargon book. Ok well actually, Mother Jones passed them along from this website link here:

http://www.motherjones.com/riff/2009/05/drug-control-policy-offices-helpful-list-drug-street-terms

— By Daniel Luzer | Wed May 6, 2009 10:55 AM PST

I've recently had to spend a great deal of time on the Web site of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The ONDCP is, frankly, fascinating. It's a source of an incredible amount of information. Of course, it is not always the information you're actually looking for, but it is thrilling all the same.

It contains, for instance, the office's official list of drug street names. Below, let's see what the least drug friendly institution on the planet has decided to let concerned citizens know about the "word on the street." What's today's lingo?

Some of these street names are major revelations. "Bag Bride" is a term to describe a crack smoking prostitute. "Ghostbusting" is apparently the word for searching for white particles in the belief that they are crack. And in a hard to believe disclosure, "Geezin a bit of dee gee" is slang, somewhere, for injecting a drug.

One wonders about the purpose of this sort of list. The site explains that:

The Street Terms database contains over 2,300 street terms that refer to specific drug types or drug activity. The database is used by police officers, parents, treatment providers and others who require a better understanding of drug culture.

Of course, the fact that the street terms can appear on the Web site of Office of Drug Control Policy seems to indicate that these street terms are not exactly top secret. And I pity the person who, in an effort to figure out if his son has a drug problem, consults this page as a guide for terms to use when confronting the issue: "Are you a 'Cabbage head,' son?"

There are some terms here that ONDCP just gets wrong. The list defines "Bump" as "Crack; fake crack; cocaine; boost a high; hit of ketamine ($20)." That's puzzling; the most common definition of the word is simply "to snort cocaine." ONDCP also defines Bong as a "Pipe used to smoke marijuana." Well, not really.

Seriously, the marijuana page alone could be a whole chapter in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It ends with another helpful list of street terms, including: Blunt, Bud, J & Sinsemilla. Sinsemilla. Really?

This whole database of street terms, with its unlimited size, narrow impact, and imperviousness to verification, has "intern project" written all over it; you've got nothing for the intern to do, why not have her update the street terms for drugs? "Seriously, we need more about crystal meth. I hear that's big now." A partial list:

1. Abandominiums: Abandoned row houses where drugs are used
2. Author: Doctor who writes illegal prescriptions
3. Cabbage head: An individual who will use or experiment with any kind of drug
4. Chasing the tiger: To smoke heroin
5. Dinosaurs: Populations of heroin users in their forties and fifties
6. Flame cooking: Smoking cocaine base by putting the pipe over a stove flame
7. Happy stick: Marijuana and PCP combination
8. Ice cream habit: Occasional use of drugs
9. Junkie kits: Glass pipe and copper mesh
10. Kiddie dope: Prescription drugs
11. Lipton Tea: Poor quality drugs
12. Mighty white: A form of crack cocaine that is hard, white, and pure
13. Nickelonians: Crack addicts
14. Old navy: Heroin
15. Panic: Drugs not available
16. Rock star: Female who trades sex for crack or money to buy crack; a person who uses rock cocaine
17. Sextasy: Ecstasy used with Viagra
18. Tecatos: Hispanic heroin addict
19. Tweaker: Crack user looking for drugs on the floor after a police raid
20. Woola blunt: Marijuana and heroin combination

View the full 38 pages of street terms here (pdf).

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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Mood:  crushed out

 GOOD GREIF Z3 Readers....

Rice takes question from 4th-grader on torture

_{http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090504/US.Rice.Fourth.Grader/}

To see more photos click link below

_{http://www.comcast.net/slideshow/news-general/news-general-20090504-US.Rice.Fourth.Grader/}

 

WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Jewish elementary school students that the Bush administration did not use illegal interrogation tactics. Her remarks were in response to a question from Misha Lerner, a fourth-grader at the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Rice spoke at the school Sunday before giving a lecture at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

Lerner asked Rice what she thought about the Obama administration's remarks on interrogation methods authorized by its predecessors.

Rice responded that she didn't want to criticize President Barack Obama. But she also said that President George W. Bush assured his administration that "we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally."

"I hope you understand that it was a very difficult time. We were all so terrified of another attack on the country," she said. "Even under those most difficult circumstances, the president was not prepared to do something illegal, and I hope people understand that we were trying to protect the country."

Last week the former secretary of state told Stanford University students that "we did not torture anyone."

Posted by Joe Anybody at 8:25 PM PDT

Updated: Monday, 4 May 2009 6:26 PM PDT

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Mood:  incredulous

Hey Now...  (everybody got their mask n gloves on?)

Here is 3 tid-bit swine morsals for those Z3Readers that are not in deep hiding for fear of catching this HiN1 virus. Lets dtart with an older propganda video to get our bearings ..then read the two articles I linked to below

~joe 5/4/09

 http://cryptogon.com/?p=8321

Via: Los Angles Times:  As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza — at least in its current form — isn’t shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics. In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare. READ MORE   

 http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=4062 

If we are to believe what our trusted international media report, the world is on the brink of a global pandemic outbreak of a new deadly strain of flu, H1N1 as it has been labelled, or more popularly, Swine Flu. As the story goes, the outbreak of the deadly flu was first discovered in Mexico. According to press reports, after several days, headlines reported as many as perhaps 150 deaths in Mexico were believed caused by this virulent people-killing pig virus that has spread to humans and now is allegedly being further spread from human to human. Cases were being reported hourly from Canada to Spain and beyond. The only thing wrong with this story is that it is largely based on lies, hype and coverup of possible real causes of Mexican deaths. READ MORE

Posted by Joe Anybody at 1:06 PM PDT

Updated: Monday, 4 May 2009 1:12 PM PDT

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Mood:  celebratory

Z3 Readers, know all too well that I CANT STAND TORTURE.

Here is an email link to a website that is urging Obama to "do something"

http://www.commissiononaccountability.org/

 
Waterboarding. Slamming into walls. Excruciating physical positions.
The United States tortured detainees after September 11, 2001. Make
sure this does not happen again. Call on the President to create a
non-partisan commission to investigate the torture and abuse of
detainees. Help protect America’s national security and re-establish
its standing in the world.

[Petition text]

We call on the President of the United States to establish an
independent, non-partisan commission to examine and report publicly on
torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in the
period since September 11, 2001. The commission, comparable in stature
to the 9/11 Commission, should look into the facts and circumstances of
such abuses, report on lessons learned, and recommend measures that
would prevent any future abuses. We believe that the commission is
necessary to reaffirm America ’s commitment to the Constitution,
international treaty obligations, and human rights. The report issued
by the commission will strengthen U.S. national security and help to
re-establish America’s standing in the world.


Co-Sponsors for COMMISSIONonACCOUNTABILITY.org

* Amnesty International USA
* The Brennan Center for Justice
* The Carter Center, Human Rights Program
* The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, New York
University, School of Law
* Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, UC Davis
* The Center for Victims of Torture
* The Constitution Project
* Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley
* Human Rights First
* Human Rights Watch
* International Center for Transitional Justice
* International Justice Network
* The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
* Jewish Council for Public Affairs
* National Institute of Military Justice
* National Religious Campaign Against Torture
* The Open Society Institute
* Physicians for Human Rights
* The Rutherford Institute

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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Mood:  don't ask

Sheriff Jack McDaniel of Alpine, Texas, On July 18, 1996 arrived to arrest Alvaro at his home on a trumped up charge of aggravated robbery  When the unarmed Alvaro questioned the sheriff's action, the officer drew his weapon. Before he could shoot, Alvaro disarmed him and fled. (At the trial for robbery, Alvaro represented himself and had the charge dismissed.). No warrant for the arrest had been issued.

Later after the trial decision, without identifying themselves, police began shooting indiscriminately at the house, cars parked in front and at the public streetlights.  At a new trial, witnesses explained, that the police shooting resembled a "war zone."  Alvaro returned fire in self-defense and never shot or injured anyone.  Alvaro dialed 911 (emergency) and notified other officials that police were firing at him and others would not allow them to surrender.

Alvaro was convicted of "threatening" the sheriff, but acquitted on the charge of shooting Sgt. Hines on June 29, 1997.  He received a 50-year sentence. His case is currently on appeal.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 1:58 PM PDT

Updated: Wednesday, 29 April 2009 2:00 PM PDT

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Mood:  crushed out

Time Warner Cable Wants to Take Internet Away From N.C. Residents

April 24th, 2009 by Megan Tady

http://tinyurl.com/dg6rto

Farmer Jay Foushee has pleaded with his phone company for years to bring high-speed Internet to his rural area of Roxboro, N.C. And across the state, where nearly five million people are offline, desperate residents have petitioned phone and cable companies to finally deliver this necessary lifeline.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:01 AM PDT

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