So Noted

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/industrial-cont.html

"On June 10th, 1999 a 16-inch diameter steel pipeline operated by the now-defunct Olympic Pipeline Co. ruptured near Bellingham, Washington, flooding two local creeks with 237,000 gallons of gasoline. The gas ignited into a mile-and-a-half river of fire that claimed the lives of two 10-year-old boys and an 18-year-old man, and injured eight others.

"Wednesday, computer-security experts who recently re-examined the Bellingham incident called its victims the first verified human causalities of a control-system computer incident. They argue that government cybersecurity standards currently under debate might have prevented the tragedy."

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http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4583256

"Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

"The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic."

Throughout history, torturers, secret police forces, para-militaries and the like nearly always have one thing in common - for some reason they are compelled to keep extrodinarily detailed records. From the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis, to the special police arms of the Soviet states recent Latin American dictators, and the "good guys" working for modern western nations... They all do "what must be done" to protect the state, the people, a way of life, whatever, and they keep very detailed records.

Perhaps red tape and mundane bureaucracy somehow dull their inhumane acts.

What was done, it will all come out.
And history will not be kind to George W. Bush.

* * *

This entire article it well worth a read.

http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=9WdWMfPrdR9HJDmcJcW5pMkf4bvmpvgp

"I teach a seminar called "Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge." I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word "rendition."

"Not one hand went up.

"This is after four years of the word appearing on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, on network and cable news, and online. This is after years of highly publicized lawsuits, Congressional inquiries, and international controversy and condemnation. This is after the release of a Hollywood film of that title, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, and
Reese Witherspoon."

A shocking story? Not really, but it is a disturbing one. People are stunningly stupid.

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http://pressesc.com/01179641589_republicans_turn_clock_back_on_human_rights

"In 1947, the U.S. sentenced a Japanese military officer, Yukio Asano, to 15 years of hard labor for using a form of water-boarding"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15433467/

"[It's] a direct affront to the primary authors of the Military Commission Act in the Senate - John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner - all of whom have publicly stated that the legislation signed by the president last week makes water boarding a war crime," said Jennifer Daskal, advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "This is Cheney ignoring the consensus of his own Pentagon," she said, referring to comments by senior officials that harsh interrogation techniques do not produce reliable intelligence."

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Vote2008/story?id=4481249

"So?"

-- Vice President Dick Cheney