Evidence of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes at Guantánamo Bay reached the highest levels of the Bush administration as early as Autumn 2002, but Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, chose to do nothing about it, according to a new investigation published exclusively in the Guardian.
Archive > September 2004
In the 2000 Presidential election there was some confusion regarding the votes in Florida. This election they have made the process much simpler. State law required that the Governor of Florida certify a list of Presidential candidates for each Party by September 1st. The paperwork for the Republicans was not submitted until September 2nd, and therefore they will not be on the ballot in Florida.
Well, except that they will, since the rule of law is only a ‘technicality’ when it comes to keeping Bush in office. They didn’t submit their paperwork in time, but that is being ignored and the Republicans will be on the ballot anyway.
Itty bitty movie animated by Chris Ware here.
More than once growing up I had a water-powered rocket. I grew up, and so did water-powered rockets.
The seal of Los Angeles has a cross on it, and to stem criticism that this was an exclusive endorsement of Christianity by the city the seal has been changed. What’s the best way to replace an image of a cross? Apparently, with an image of a Christian church. And while they were at it, they removed an image of a Roman goddess to replace it with a Native American woman, lest anyone be put off by Los Angeles promoting the worship of Roman goddesses. This seems like some sillyness on many fronts.
IF. THEN. Two words that have a relation – causality. IF I keep sitting around all day, THEN I will never get thinner. IF I save my money, THEN I can buy more expensive things. IF I don’t get my way, THEN you will get hurt. Wait a minute, that last IF/THEN statement has a twist – it is a causal statement that is a threat. Threats can be credible, in which a person really will cause harm or have harm caused, or they can be fantastic, in which a person merely uses the threat of harm to ge their way. Whether credible or fantastic, threats are not the preferred means of discourse.
Unless you are Dick Cheney. “IF we make the wrong choice, THEN the danger is that we’ll get hit again – that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.” Mr. Cheney is saying that a vote for John Kerry is the IF and an attack by terrorists is the THEN. How in the world is that not a threat – a statement that Cheney is working with terrorists to make sure George Bush wins his first Presidential election? Why is it that people who do make threats against the USA, like Cheney, are in positions of power, while people who have never posed any threat to the USA are rotting in orange jump suits in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq?
This nation has become tyrannical. I’d quote the Second Amendment here, if I had the courage.
Looking back, perhaps you were once told to clean your plate before you asked for more. This is a good lesson to learn, the earlier the better. That lesson came to mind while reading the Transhumanist FAQ recently. Part of the goal of transhumanism is to increase one’s intelligence beyond current biological limits. This FAQ was written by the oldest group that identifies itself as transhumanist, and it was updated for 2004 – so there is really no excuse at all for them to not correctly spell threshold, possibilities, or use apostrophes correctly. I ran the FAQ through the weakest spell-check program I have, then confirmed the possible errors as errors with a US$4 dictionary. I could have also given the text to a friend and asked them to look over it. And you better believe I would have done all three and more before I published it as the statement of a group seeking more intelligence. First use the brains your monkey ancestors gave you to their limits and then we’ll see if there’s more in the cupboard.
Ooh, the yard looks lovely… and there’s the dining room, yes, very nice… here’s the third photograph, of the den… just a minute… !
Pleasanteer Trevor Blake will be participating in the 18th Annual AIDSWalk on September 26th in support of the Cascade AIDS Project. Support the power waddle stylings of Trevor here.
Visoda is a delicious drink in a pretty bottle that is made in Portland (but a word of advice to the visodaians: flash-only Web sites are alienating to the blind and the slow-modemed). It claims many healthy ingredients, but for all I know it is made with the spittle of a leperous spotted owl – what matters to this rube is that it comes in a pretty bottle and tastes good. I bought a Visoda at Big City Produce but perhaps they are elsewhere as well.
