Self-proclaimed waterboarding fan Dick Cheney called it a no-brainer in a 2006 radio interview: Terror suspects should get a “a dunk in the water.” But recently released internal documents reveal the controversial “enhanced interrogation” practice was far more brutal on detainees than Cheney’s description sounds, and was administered with meticulous cruelty.
Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.
The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.
This doesn’t surprise me. All states will torture if they deem it necessary and will have documented procedures to assist, which is in itself a moral failing. What particularly disgusts me is the Jack Bauer wannabees like Cheney who are not only proud of the use of torture, but find it morally defensible.
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This is Republican Florida Governor Charlie Crist on Greta Van Sustern’s show discussing his Republican primary opponent, Marco Rubio. If you watch the video, at one point he parrots a famous Democrat with “Jobs jobs jobs.” Ain’t politics fun? Aside from the screwing us part.
VAN SUSTEREN: And sort of a punch back which occurred previously is that you have said about your opponent, Mr. Rubio, that he is the greatest fraud perpetrated. So it sounds like you have had a couple of punches back as well. Why do you say that?
CRIST: Because he’s trying to pawn himself off as a fiscal conservative. And yet just in reason weeks, two weeks ago it has come out in news accounts he had a Republican Party of Florida credit card that he charged $130 haircut, or maybe it was a back wax — we are not sure what all he got at that place.
VAN SUSTEREN: Wait a second, stop. A back wax? Wait a second.
CRIST: I don’t know what it was, you know?
VAN SUSTEREN: I know, but was there a suggestion it was for a back wax or are you being flip?
CRIST: I don’t know what it was. Initially we were told it was a haircut. And then he said it wasn’t a haircut. Then he had the gall to go on Neil Cavuto’s show and said it was his money. It was a credit card from the Republican Party. It was party donors’ money.
The detachment from reality is stunning to me. And to try to say that you’re a fiscal conservative, yet you spend $130 for maybe a haircut and maybe other things, I don’t know what you do at a salon we you are a guy.
I get my haircut for $11 from a guy named Carl the Barber in St. Petersburg, Florida where I grew up. And to me that’s real fiscal conservatism.
All dogs are to be compulsorily microchipped so that their owners can be more easily traced under a crackdown on dangerous dogs to be unveiled today.
The package will include extending the dangerous dogs law to cover attacks by dogs on private property to protect postmen, and making third-party insurance compulsory so that victims can be financially compensated.
The measures will be set out by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, who will point to rising public concern that “status dogs” are being used by some irresponsible owners to intimidate communities or as a weapon by gangs.
[...]
Johnson is expected to give details of the package in a speech on crime and antisocial behaviour.
“Britain is a nation of animal lovers, but people have a fundamental right to feel safe on the streets and in their homes,” he said. “The vast majority of dog owners are responsible, but there is no doubt that some people breed and keep dogs for the sole purpose of intimidating others, in a sense using dogs as a weapon.”
Well, as you will see from the results, if you are going to mess around with bacon, it would be better to dedicate your energies to the bacon explosion.
Socialzed medicine in Australia.
Hewlett-Packard could be looking for a way to compete with IBM and Oracle in databases and with Cisco in routers. John C. Dvorak is sussing out the buyout candidates.
A new round of pad computers with various features all missing from Apple Inc.’s iPad is coming, writes John C. Dvorak.
To figure out where to invest in the mobile-phone market, first understand that a fundamental shift has taken place in the basic functionality of a mobile device.
While at least one stock analyst has targeted Apple Inc.’s stock price at $280, most people are targeting Apple itself, rather than the stock, writes John Dvorak.
As more research is done into the recall of certain Toyota vehicles, the more likely it is that the sudden-acceleration phenomenon may actually be a software glitch.
It's just a matter of time before old media disappears forever.
Google's troubles in Europe smell like the work of Redmond.
I would bet that half of the people who are writing about computers today have a Trojan on their machines.