For the first time, the European Court of Human Rights has found the US Central Intelligence Agency guilty of torturing and sodomizing an innocent man. German national Khalid El-Masry (of Lebanese ancestry) was kidnapped (“rendered”) from Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan and placed in the “salt pit.” He was beaten, sodomized and tortured until 2004, […]
Firearms used in 300,000 crimes a year in US (Poster)
reprint edn. Some 300,000 violent crimes are committed each year in the US with the aid of a firearm.. One of the arguments for not banning the sale of military weapons to any old civilian (crazy ones included) in the US that one often hears from gun rights fundamentalists is that they need the guns […]
Semi-Automatic firearms are Military Weapons: Lets at least Limit the Magazines
One of the two guns the Connecticut shooter used to murder 20 children and 6 adults was a Glock semi-automatic. This datum is not surprising. The Glock is among the more popular pistols sold in the United States. The Glock semi-automatic was developed in 1982 for the Austrian army. It was not envisioned that it […]
NASA: Portrait of a Polluted Atmosphere
From NASA: portrait of global aerosols (particulate matter in the atmosphere, including pollution): Note that the image is a simulation created with high-powered software to make the aerosols we (and sometimes nature) put into the atmosphere clear. hat tip Extreme Tech
Questions I ask myself about Connecticut School Shooting
I ask myself, “Why?” Why do US cable news networks intensively cover these mass shootings, making it the only story for a day or two and prying into every detail of them, when they aren’t interested in preventing them from happening again through banning semi-automatic weapons? Is it just, like, a natural disaster to them? […]
39 Murders by Gun Annually in Britain; 9,000 in US
Reprint edn. Number of Murders, United States, 2009: 15,241 Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146 Number of Murders, Britain, 2008*: 648 (Since Britain’s population is 1/5 that of US, this is equivalent to 3,240 US murders) Number of Murders by[pdf] firearms, Britain, 2008* 39 (equivalent to 195 US murders) *The Home office reported […]
Top Ten GOP Myths about Libya that Sank Susan Rice
The charge against US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was led by a handful of Republican senators and congressmen, and based on the alleged deficiencies of her account of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11. She withdrew her name from consideration for secretary of state on Thursday. The […]
Why HSBC “money-laundering” is Mostly about US Bullying Foreign Policy
The “money-laundering” scandal about British bank HSBC is a mixed picture. On the one hand, bank officials laundered money for Mexican drug cartels, allegedly knowingly, which only pond scum would do. Still, the cartels are only in business because the US government irrationally opposes legalization of innocuous agricultural products such as marijuana (the US goes […]
Will Egyptian Left & Liberals Urge a “No” vote on Constitution or Boycott?
The left, liberal and centrist parties grouped in the National Salvation Front have decided to campaign for a “no” vote on the constitution in the two-part referendum that begins on Saturday, rather than boycotting it, assuming certain conditions are met. The decision came in the wake of large dueling demonstrations on Tuesday by the left […]
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