Category: Blog

Amazing photos from Boston.com.

Snowball fight! « Flickr Blog

Sign Stolen From Auschwitz Is Found

How sick do you have to be to steal that sign? As sick as the people who put it up? Maybe not that sick, but…sheesh.

So, I haven’t actually written anything on this blog in, oh, let’s just say forever. But, I just got back from a trip to Barcelona and thought I’d share a bit. If you want to read about all the fabulous food I ate or the fun shopping I did, this isn’t the place. I just eat what’s convenient and rarely go shopping on vacation. Yeah. I’m weird.

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CNN.com

The number of people with dementia globally is estimated to nearly double every 20 years, according to a report released Monday for World Alzheimer’s Day.

Much of the growth will be fueled by longer life spans and population growth, especially in developing nations.

Astrophysicists puzzle over planet that’s too close to its sun — latimes.com

Scientists have discovered a planet that shouldn’t exist. The finding, they say, could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago.

Report Shows Tight C.I.A. Control on Interrogations – NYTimes.com

Two 17-watt fluorescent-tube bulbs — no more, no less — illuminated each cell, 24 hours a day. White noise played constantly but was never to exceed 79 decibels. A prisoner could be doused with 41-degree water but for only 20 minutes at a stretch.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program operated under strict rules, and the rules were dictated from Washington with the painstaking, eye-glazing detail beloved by any bureaucracy.

The first news reports this week about hundreds of pages of newly released documents on the C.I.A. program focused on aberrations in the field: threats of execution by handgun or assault by power drill; a prisoner lifted off the ground by his arms, which were tied behind his back; another detainee repeatedly knocked out with pressure applied to the carotid artery.

But the strong impression that emerges from the documents, many with long passages blacked out for secrecy, is by no means one of gung-ho operatives running wild. It is a portrait of overwhelming control exercised from C.I.A. headquarters and the Department of Justice — control Bush administration officials say was intended to ensure that the program was safe and legal.

Managers, doctors and lawyers not only set the program’s parameters but dictated every facet of a detainee’s daily routine, monitoring interrogations on an hour-by-hour basis. From their Washington offices, they obsessed over the smallest details: the number of calories a prisoner consumed daily (1,500); the number of hours he could be kept in a box (eight hours for the large box, two hours for the small one); the proper time when his enforced nudity should be ended and his clothes returned.

The detainee “finds himself in the complete control of Americans; the procedures he is subjected to are precise, quiet and almost clinical, ” noted one document.

The records suggest one quandary prosecutors face as they begin a review of the C.I.A. program, part of the larger inquiry into abuse cases ordered Monday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Any prosecution that focuses narrowly on low-level interrogators who on a few occasions broke the rules may appear unfair, since most of the brutal treatment was authorized from the White House on down.

Stupid thing is supposed to roll around on its own…it did for about 5 seconds and then died. *sigh* Piece of crap. In the end, he finds a bug to be more interesting.