May 10 2008
Judge to review torture memo.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein wants to read the 2002 CIA torture memo. He wants to read it in order to decide whether or not to grant the ACLU request to make it public. From the CommonDreams writeup:
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein issued the order after he had earlier said the 18-page memo did not have to be turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union because it was protected by attorney-client privilege. The ACLU said it believes the memo includes a section addressing the subject of waterboarding, which simulates drowning.
Hellerstein said he reconsidered his ruling after hearing from both sides again on the subject. The CIA must turn the item over for review on Monday.
Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for government lawyers representing the CIA, said the government had no immediate comment.
Hellerstein said he realized he did not give sufficient consideration to an earlier court ruling related to the legal issue and to ACLU evidence indicating all or parts of the memo may have been incorporated into or used to justify official practice and policy.
Thanks to the work of the ACLU, over 100,000 pages of government documents have been released concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad. The Freedom of Information act, FOIA, is what has enabled the ACLU and others to request access to all types of records. 
i do not keep it a secret. so- his latest song- ‘carry you home’ is on the rotating playlist- i posted it here not to long ago. but it’s the song-’
Americans are among the most uninformed people on the face of the earth. We are surrounded by media of all sorts. We have access to newspapers,magazines, television, and the internet,and yet we are among the least educated people in the entire world. By the same token we also watch a disproportionate amount of television.
yep- put a fork in me- i am done. i am giving in and just living and let live. i can’t fight it anymore- the elitist in me has decided that i will acquiesce to the 1/3 of the american people who really think that another clinton in the white house will be what this country needs after 8 years of neo cons; to the 1/3 of the american public who will vote for mccain for reasons i just can’t wrap my mind around. minorities in this country are not well received- apparently, not even by each other as evidenced by the nasty campaign that hillary clinton has waged against barack obama. the people who are clinton supporters think bowling and 
boot licking media insist on calling this blood bath an insurgency?
like it or not- human nature doesn’t change. it isn’t that it isn’t capable of change- it just doesn’t. anyone who has read any history- whether it be american or global- sizes up our current situation fairly quickly. it is one reason that words like ‘fascism’ and ‘nazism’ are bandied about. my thought is- this particular crew had history as their oyster- they have picked and chosen the worst components of all of the ‘isms’ and rolled them into a bastardized form of capitalism i like to call a corporatocracy. what folks don’t realize- they are just tools and are being used. americans tend to be reactionary folk. easily manipulated comes to mind also. we aren’t the world’s deepest thinkers and we have always been people of action- moving, moving, moving- which is probably how new york got the moniker ‘city that doesn’t sleep’- but i digress. i don’t really have much to say these days as i read words written by other americans. not the politicians- i checked out on that one. many folks are throwing terms around like ‘country falling into an abyss’ and there’s the matter of something like 81 % of the country believes this country is headed in the wrong direction- to which a firm, smirky ’so?’ was the response. how can i say that these folks are wrong? i can’t. they aren’t. the world has ridden out regimes before- this country revolted once against a monarch and has assisted other countries in their fight as well (to what end i now question but i will save that for another time). this century’s greatest single issue is global climate change. we probably have enough oil- but as that’s part of the bigger problem- along with coal- it’s all pretty moot. i guess i just wasn’t expecting things to happen quite so quickly- food and water shortages were not part of the msm’s news array and we have all been kept in the dark as to how bad the state of the world truly is.
I don’t think any of us really believe the dog & pony show, otherwise known as the testimony from Petraeus & Crocker would yield any earth shattering revelations. They are kind of like wooden dummies on the lap of the bushco ventriliquists- they are told what to say & how to say it.
This is a college town: a private college, a state university, something marginally better than a diploma mill, and a community college are all located within about a five-mile radius.The town is divided into the visible, reputable, upper-middle class and the less visible, but far larger class that is considerably below a level of economic comfort.The better people for the most part work in middle or upper management at one of the several huge, multi-national services companies in town. Everyone else gets by. The layoffs at the big factories on the outskirts of town have left a quiet wasteland of older people trying to find work and younger people trying to find a future.The bright kids from the right side of the tracks go to the state university or leave town entirely. The rest of the kids find work where they can, and quite a few stop by the community college on their way to adulthood. They join the ranks of older people taking classes because the old-timers, like their younger counterparts, believe that the key to a job—a real job with permanence and benefits and meaning—lies in education. Many of them, young and old alike, vow to go on to the state university to complete four-year degrees. Most will not.
i read quite a few bloggers every day and i scan headlines of the msm and alternative news sources. and i think about what i read in the context of what is. when i started blogging, i thought i could reach out and change the way people thought by giving them information and suggestions and strategies- and what i found was- the online communities are simply extensions of the ‘real’ communities. and i started really thinking about why people think the way that they do and why they seem to live in a delusional world where all is fine and things will work themselves out- and how we went from a nation of pioneers to couch potatoes. and there are probably an infinite number of reasons but the biggest one that steps out at me– we are human beings. we aren’t any different than the ancient civilizations that took off and were leading edge centers for commerce and technology and education- and then flamed out. the only difference is that this time- we have used up our world and its resources so- this is truly the end of civilization as we have come to know it. and i can’t help but wonder if the ancient peoples saw the writing on their walls too. if they sighed with relief that all of the greed and decadence was on the downward slope and humans would have to start over. i find myself wondering how they felt and what they thought- because people are people. doesn’t matter what era they live in or what clothes they wore or what technology they had- the fundamental core of humanity has always been the same. there have always been the haves and have nots; the powerful and the weak; the greedy and the generous; the people who love and cherish one another and those who kill with impunity. people are people. change takes time and doesn’t always happen. i can’t help but wonder if that’s why buddhism was started- with its emphasis on inner peace and social work- and karma and reincarnation. maybe that ancient civilization saw the writing on its wall and wanted to try again- or have something lasting to leave their posterity.
The summer of love was buried Oct. 6.1967, the funeral “Death of a Hippie” conducted by those left in the Haight, signaled the end of the grand experiment. The next year 1968 would demolish any remnants left and encase them in cement.
