Ladywriter

nyawwwwwwwwwwwww cute I had to pick okie up and throw her out today I cant take this harassment and stalking!

It cant survive in the cold here even if he threw it into a lake and if he did something that retarded he'd be killed because every environmentalist in the area knows what he looks like mwahaha

Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails Secret Report Implies That U.S. Violated International Law By Joby Warrick, Peter Finn and Julie Tate Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, March 16, 2009; A01 The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document. The report, an account alleging physical and psychological brutality inside CIA "black site" prisons, also states that some U.S. practices amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Such maltreatment of detainees is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. The findings were based on an investigation by ICRC officials, who were granted exclusive access to the CIA's "high-value" detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 14 detainees, who had been kept in isolation in CIA prisons overseas, gave remarkably uniform accounts of abuse that included beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and, in some cases, waterboarding, or simulating drowning. At least five copies of the report were shared with the CIA and top White House officials in 2007 but barred from public release by ICRC guidelines intended to preserve the humanitarian group's strict policy of neutrality in conflicts. A copy of the report was obtained by Mark Danner, a journalism professor and author who published extensive excerpts in the April 9 edition of the New York Review of Books, released yesterday. He did not say how he obtained the report. "The ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture," Danner quoted the report as saying. Many of the details of alleged mistreatment at CIA prisons had been reported previously, but the ICRC report is the most authoritative account and the first to use the word "torture" in a legal context. The CIA declined to comment. A U.S. official familiar with the report said, "It is important to bear in mind that the report lays out claims made by the terrorists themselves." Often using the detainee's own words, the report offers a harrowing view of conditions at the secret prisons, where prisoners were told they were being taken "to the verge of death and back," according to one excerpt. During interrogations, the captives were routinely beaten, doused with cold water and slammed head-first into walls. Between sessions, they were stripped of clothing, bombarded with loud music, exposed to cold temperatures, and deprived of sleep and solid food for days on end. Some detainees described being forced to stand for days, with their arms shackled above them, wearing only diapers. "On a daily basis . . . a collar was looped around my neck and then used to slam me against the walls of the interrogation room," the report quotes detainee Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Walid Muhammad bin Attash, as saying. Later, he said, he was wrapped in a plastic sheet while cold water was "poured onto my body with buckets." He added: "I would be wrapped inside the sheet with cold water for several minutes. Then I would be taken for interrogation." ICRC officials did not dispute the authenticity of the excerpts, but a spokesman expressed dismay over the leak of the material. "We regret information attributed to the ICRC report was made public in this manner," spokesman Bernard Barrett said. "The ICRC has been visiting the detainees formerly held by the CIA," he added, "at Guantanamo since 2006. Any concerns or observations the ICRC had when visiting the detainees are part of a confidential dialogue." President George W. Bush acknowledged the use of coercive interrogation tactics on senior al-Qaeda captives detained by the CIA in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but he insisted that the measures complied with U.S. and international law. Former CIA director Michael V. Hayden confirmed last year that the measures included the use of waterboarding on three captives before 2003. President Obama outlawed such practices within hours of his inauguration in January. But Obama has expressed reluctance to conduct a legal inquiry into the CIA's policies. The report gives a graphic account of the treatment of Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaida, a Saudi-born Palestinian who was the first alleged senior al-Qaeda operative seized after Sept. 11 -- a characterization of his role that is disputed by his attorneys, who describe him as having a different philosophy of jihad than bin Laden. Abu Zubaida was severely wounded during a shootout in March 2002 at a safe house he ran in Faisalabad, Pakistan, and survived thanks to CIA-arranged medical care, including multiple surgeries. After he recovered, Abu Zubaida describes being shackled to a chair at the feet and hands for two to three weeks in a cold room with "loud, shouting type music" blaring constantly, according to the ICRC report. He said that he was questioned two to three hours a day and that water was sprayed in his face if he fell asleep. At some point -- the timing is unclear from the New York Review of Books report -- Abu Zubaida's treatment became harsher. In July 2002, administration lawyers approved more aggressive techniques. Abu Zubaida said interrogators wrapped a towel around his neck and slammed him into a plywood wall mounted in his cell. He was also repeatedly slapped in the face, he said. After the beatings, he was placed in coffinlike wooden boxes in which he was forced to crouch, with no light and a restricted air supply, he said. "The stress on my legs held in this position meant my wounds both in my leg and stomach became very painful," he told the ICRC. After he was removed from a small box, he said, he was strapped to what looked like a hospital bed and waterboarded. "A black cloth was then placed over my face and the interrogators used a mineral bottle to pour water on the cloth so that I could not breathe," Abu Zubaida said. After breaks to allow him to recover, the waterboarding continued. "I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless," he said. "I thought I was going to die." In a federal court filing, Abu Zubaida's attorneys said he "has suffered approximately 175 seizures that appear to be directly related to his extensive torture -- particularly damage to Petitioner's head that was the result of beatings sustained at the hands of CIA interrogators and exacerbated by his lengthy isolation." Danner said the organization's use of the word "torture" has important legal implications. "It could not be more important that the ICRC explicitly uses the words 'torture' and 'cruel and degrading,' " Danner said in a telephone interview. "The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, and when it uses those words, they have the force of law." He discounted the possibility that the detainees fabricated or embellished their stories, noting that the accounts overlap "in minute detail," even though the detainees were kept in isolation at different locations. Human rights groups echoed his assessment. "These reports are from an impeccable source," said Geneve Mantri, a counterterrorism specialist at Amnesty International. "It's clear that senior officials were warned from the very beginning that the treatment that detainees were subjected to amounted to torture. This story goes even further and deeper than many us of suspected. The more details we find out, the more shocking this becomes."

LEAKED MEMO: EPA PLANNING HISTORIC ACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING IN APRIL By Bruce Nilles, Sierra Club This is very big and very historic news. This action by EPA will set the stage for the first-ever national regulation of CO2 in US history. http://www.alternet.org/environment/132127/leaked_memo%3A_epa_planning_historic_action_on_global_warming_in_april/ The news from Greenwire today is excellent and unprecedented -- a leaked Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) document shows that the agency "is fast-tracking its response to the Supreme Court's 2007 climate decision with plans to issue a mid-April finding that global warming threatens both public health and welfare." (Greenwire article is here) This is very big, very historic, very exciting news -- this action by EPA will set the stage for the first-ever national regulation of CO2 in US history. This so-called endangerment finding is the first step the Obama administration must take to start regulating global warming pollution from cars, coal plants, and other sources. Once again, it is clear that the Obama Administration is serious about fighting global warming. EPA is planning to issue the endangerment finding on April 16, followed by a 60-day public comment period and two public hearings. When that happens, the EPA will need to hear from you, and everyone you know who cares about global warming, so stay tuned to this blog for further updates. These regulations will spell trouble for coal-fired power plants, which currently emit more than 30% of our nation's global warming pollution. It also paves the way for the EPA to grant a waiver allowing California and more than a dozen other states to set landmark global warming emissions limits for vehicles. This action was set in motion by an April 2, 2007, Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which found that carbon dioxide (CO2) was a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. The Court decision ordered EPA to determine whether CO2 endangered public health or welfare, and, if so, to begin regulating CO2. The Bush administration unlawfully ignored the decision for nearly two years, continuing its long campaign of denial, obfuscation, and foot-dragging on global warming and other key environmental issues. The information revealed today sends a clear signal to new coal plant developers that the foot-dragging is over and that they will soon be held responsible for their global warming emissions. With carbon capture and storage technology still years away (if it's possible at all), coal plants are becoming an increasingly risky and poor investment. Today's document leak also comes on the heels of the EPA also announcing the first comprehensive national system for reporting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by major sources in the United States. From the EPA news release "The new reporting requirements would apply to suppliers of fossil fuel and industrial chemicals, manufacturers of motor vehicles and engines, as well as large direct emitters of greenhouse gases with emissions equal to or greater than a threshold of 25,000 metric tons per year….The vast majority of small businesses would not be required to report their emissions because their emissions fall well below the threshold." This clarification from the EPA rules out a commonly made argument from foes of carbon limits, who say any carbon requirements will hurt small businesses other small organizations with their own facilities. It's clear that the administration understands the urgency to act on global warming and the sweet spot of solutions that can not only help our climate, but can also help our economy recover. Consistent with President Obama's economic recovery plan, today's revelations take America one step closer to a future powered by green energy and green jobs. Stay tuned to this blog for opportunities to comment on the endangerment finding later this spring. *gasp* the epa is going to do its job???? holy shit

Ayup and they need to be fucking gone

Remember the Exxon Valdez disaster, the nearly 11 million-gallon oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, that coated seabirds, seals, otters and more than 1,000 miles of shoreline with thick black crude? It happened 20 years ago, on March 24, 1989. By now we should have learned the lessons of that tragedy: that some marine environments should be off limits to oil and gas development, and that our nation's addiction to fossil fuels has serious ramifications. Sadly, the Bush administration didn't heed those lessons. Just days before leaving office, they put forth a plan to open up to oil and gas development as much as 300 million acres off our nation's shores, including 134 million acres off the coast of Alaska. Very little time was allotted for public comment on the plan. Fortunately, President Obama's incoming secretary of the interior recently announced that he will revise the plan, and extended the public comment period by 180 days. In addition, he proposed using renewable offshore energy, including wind, wave and tidal energy, to substitute for some of the oil and gas drilling. You can help ensure that the lessons of the Exxon Valdez aren't forgotten: Urge the Obama administration to remove Alaska's sensitive, wildlife-rich waters from the offshore energy plan. http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/R?i=tR4uLUNxOYeYkahRJy-8QQ.. The Bush administration plan calls for greatly expanded oil and gas leasing in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, off Alaska's northern coast. These seas support an estimated one-fifth of the world's polar bear population and provide habitat for walruses, whales and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds. WWF is calling for a time-out from drilling in this region until scientists can fully assess the environmental impacts and designate habitat critical to imperiled species. Further south along the Alaska coast, the plan proposes expanding leasing in Bristol Bay, which is critical habitat for endangered whales and marine life and the heart of a $2 billion per year fishing industry. WWF opposes all drilling in Bristol Bay. This ecological and commercial treasure trove should be permanently protected from the high risks of oil and gas development. Speak out now for the polar bears, walruses, whales, seabirds, fish and countless other marine creatures that should not be subjected to the ravages of offshore drilling: http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/R?i=dn_GOUuTvsbmV84LjMBFbQ.. Please forward this alert to your friends. With an outpouring of support from WWF activists like you, we can provide a bright future for the Arctic and ensure that a disaster like the http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/R?i=5ssm11f3FBCLGt53VA2QcA.. Exxon Valdez doesn't happen again. Thank you for your help. Sincerely, Margaret Williams Managing Director Bering Sea and Kamchatka Ecoregion Program World Wildlife Fund Please also oppose oil and gas lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Seventy-three million acres were slated for leasing in an earlier Bush administration plan. If the sales go through, oil rigs could be in place within just a few years -- in polar bear, walrus and whale habitat. The Obama administration is accepting comments until March 30 on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the lease sales. Take action now. http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/R?i=FQKtAyzqKC8RO8wKiWUaLw..

poor Rocky

this is why I set my shit to private

4real made me so very happy X'D

I been bad but now I'm better.... at least until Friday night how r u?

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested on Monday that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.The Republican lawmaker's harsh comments came during an interview with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT. They echo remarks he has made in the past about corporate executives and public apologies, but went further in suggesting suicide. "I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed," Grassley said. "But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee are ya drunk yet?

mead will kick your ass...........

By Gwen Schantz, AlterNet. Posted March 10, 2009. On Election Day, millions of us went down to our corner newsstand to pick up a copy of the daily paper. The headlines spoke of history in the making, and we took home the printed pages as souvenirs commemorating the most exciting election of a generation. But for many, this was the first paper we've bought in years, and it may be the last. Earlier this month the Pew Research center reported that more Americans are now getting their news from the internet than from newspapers -- not a terribly surprising announcement. About two-thirds of us have a home computer, and over 70 percent use computers at work. Online news is updated constantly, whereas the traditional daily news cycle is frozen for several hours each night during printing, dooming the print edition to be outdated by morning. Plus, most online news is free -- a quality that none of us can resist, particularly these days. The advantages to giving up printed news are clear, but when it comes to kicking our addiction to other paper products most Americans aren't jumping on board. Paper permeates every aspect of our lives -- we use it at home, school and work, we wrap our food and gifts with it, read stories off it, and we put it to use when drying our tears and wiping our butts. We use and throw out more paper than any other material, and the pulpy stuff makes up a whopping thirty-two percent of all the tonnage entering our waste stream. Americans trash 83 million tons of paper per year, and we flush away an additional seven billion rolls of toilet paper on top of that. About half of the paper we throw out -- including newspaper, magazines, junk mail, packaging, office paper and cardboard -- gets recycled. The environmental benefits of recycling paper are huge, as producing a ton of recycled paper takes less than half as much water and energy as making paper from wood pulp. Plus, recycling saves trees. It takes about 17 trees to produce a ton of paper, and often those trees are sourced from sensitive and essential ecosystems and carbon sinks like the Amazon Rainforest and Canada's Boreal Forest. When a tree is cut to make paper only about half of the wood is used for pulp, and recycling our existing paper supply is significantly more efficient and in some (and increasing) cases less expensive than producing new paper from trees. Paper has an important place in our culture and hearts -- what would America be without dollar bills, postcards, cereal boxes, card games, trashy magazines and birthday parties colored with streamers and gift wrap? There's nothing more comforting than a paper trail -- paperless voting has been widely denounced and paper receipts and contracts serve an essential role in our economy and legal system. And although millions around the world have no use for paper in the bathroom, most Americans cringe at the thought of living without toilet paper and it's unlikely that our penchant for wiping will go away any time soon. When it comes to these somewhat "essential" paper products that are simply not going away, the greenest option is recycling. There are currently no federal requirements governing how companies source paper materials, and federal leadership has been weak when it comes to setting limits on the use of virgin paper. To its credit, the Federal Government -- along with several states -- has adopted standards that require its offices to use paper made with a minimum percentage of post-consumer recycled content. Environmental organizations like NRDC and Greenpeace have launched campaigns urging large paper companies like Kimberly Clarke to increase their use of recycled content and put an end to sourcing wood pulp from virgin forests, but as of yet most companies source only a minimal percentage of their pulp from recycled paper. The issue of making extra-soft toilet paper from virgin forests has gotten a surge of much-overdue attention recently, following a scathing article in the Guardian last month and Greenpeace's publication of a consumer toilet paper guide. Until the EPA sets regulations requiring companies to utilize recycled paper or businesses start taking the initiative on their own, it's up to consumers to forego extra-fluffy TP and vote for recycled paper products with their wallets. And while we're in the paper aisle, maybe we should forget recycling and consider just giving up other paper products that we can simply live without. At work, it's not uncommon to get an email punctuated by this popular note, "Please consider the environment before printing this email." And the recommendation is generally easy to follow, considering that the term "paperless" has become synonymous with "efficient" in the modern workplace. Although over 70 percent of office paper is reclaimed for recycling, offices are in a prime position to save money and time by and employing technology software like GreenPrint and adopting intra-office paper use policies. America's schools face a similar opportunity as businesses in terms of reducing their massive consumption of paper. The millennials attending 21st century schools have no trouble giving up paper -- most of them are on the computer whether they're seeking entertainment or doing school work, and they're faster at texting than writing by hand. But even if students are open to paperless education, schools won't be able to reduce paper use until teachers and administrators get on board. This kind of leadership has been demonstrated in Chicago, where the public school system promotes the reduction of paper use by offering awards to classrooms and offices that recycle more and use less, and the program has yielded positive results. But, like most environmental action, the shift to a paperless life begins at home. Aside from toilet paper, there are few household paper products that Americans are really married to, but we still consume and throw away tons of the stuff -- literally. Our country goes through three thousand tons of paper towels each day and mountains of tissues when dish cloths and hankies present a cheap, accessible and reusable alternative. These days we use over twenty-five percent more of these kinds of paper than we did a mere twenty years ago -- most of our grandparents didn't use them, and we don't need them. Unlike our grandparents, today's homes have the internet, which we can use for paying bills, monitoring bank accounts, and cancelling junk mail (which alone amounts to four million tons of paper a year). We read our news online, get our celebrity gossip there, and some of us are even buying and reading books using digital media. Unless you're too lazy to wash dishes and instead use paper cups and plates (and some of us, sadly, do), there's really no need to buy paper at all. Paper is a low-hanging fruit compared to many of the environmental challenges we face. It makes up the largest portion of our waste stream, so a relatively small reduction in paper use would result in a significant drop in overall landfill waste. Recycled paper is doubly effective, not only reducing energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions, but also saving trees that take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Compared to solving the energy crisis and revamping our food system, the paper issue is a featherweight that we could easily tackle with some simple recycling and product sourcing legislation. People have been hooked on paper for over a thousand years, and the thought of a completely paperless world is not only naïve, it's also kind of sad. Paper is here to stay, but ideally in smaller quantities. And there's certainly no reason to keep cutting down trees to make the stuff, especially when we're throwing away over forty million tons of recyclable paper each year and there are tree-free options like hemp which can be grown quickly and efficiently in the US. In our race to establish a more sustainable society, the paper hurdle is small -- why not just jump right over it?

By David Vine, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted March 10, 2009. In the midst of an economic crisis that's getting scarier by the day, it's time to ask whether the nation can really afford some 1,000 military bases overseas. For those unfamiliar with the issue, you read that number correctly. One thousand. One thousand U.S. military bases outside the 50 states and Washington, DC, representing the largest collection of bases in world history. Officially the Pentagon counts 865 base sites, but this notoriously unreliable number omits all our bases in Iraq (likely over 100) and Afghanistan (80 and counting), among many other well-known and secretive bases. More than half a century after World War II and the Korean War, we still have 268 bases in Germany, 124 in Japan, and 87 in South Korea. Others are scattered around the globe in places like Aruba and Australia, Bulgaria and Bahrain, Colombia and Greece, Djibouti, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, and of course, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba -- just to name a few. Among the installations considered critical to our national security are a ski center in the Bavarian Alps, resorts in Seoul and Tokyo, and 234 golf courses the Pentagon runs worldwide. Unlike domestic bases, which set off local alarms when threatened by closure, our collection of overseas bases is particularly galling because almost all our taxpayer money leaves the United States (much goes to enriching private base contractors like corruption-plagued former Halliburton subsidiary KBR). One part of the massive Ramstein airbase near Landstuhl, Germany, has an estimated value of $3.3 billion. Just think how local communities could use that kind of money to make investments in schools, hospitals, jobs, and infrastructure. Even the Bush administration saw the wastefulness of our overseas basing network. In 2004, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced plans to close more than one-third of the nation's overseas installations, moving 70,000 troops and 100,000 family members and civilians back to the United States. National Security Adviser Jim Jones, then commander of U.S. forces in Europe, called for closing 20% of our bases in Europe. According to Rumsfeld's estimates, we could save at least $12 billion by closing 200 to 300 bases alone. While the closures were derailed by claims that closing bases could cost us in the short term, even if this is true, it's no reason to continue our profligate ways in the longer term. Costs Far Exceeding Dollars and Cents Unfortunately, the financial costs of our overseas bases are only part of the problem. Other costs to people at home and abroad are just as devastating. Military families suffer painful dislocations as troops stationed overseas separate from loved ones or uproot their families through frequent moves around the world. While some foreign governments like U.S. bases for their perceived economic benefits, many locals living near the bases suffer environmental and health damage from military toxins and pollution, disrupted economic, social, and cultural systems, military accidents, and increased prostitution and crime. In undemocratic nations like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Saudi Arabia, our bases support governments responsible for repression and human rights abuses. In too many recurring cases, soldiers have raped, assaulted, or killed locals, most prominently of late in South Korea, Okinawa, and Italy. The forced expulsion of the entire Chagossian people to create our secretive base on British Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is another extreme but not so aberrant example. Bases abroad have become a major and unacknowledged “face” of the United States, frequently damaging the nation's reputation, engendering grievances and anger, and generally creating antagonistic rather than cooperative relationships between the United States and others. Most dangerously, as we have seen in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign bases create breeding grounds for radicalism, anti-Americanism, and attacks on the United States, reducing, rather than improving, our national security. Proponents of maintaining the overseas base status quo will argue, however, that our foreign bases are critical to national and global security. A closer examination shows that overseas bases have often heightened military tensions and discouraged diplomatic solutions to international conflicts. Rather than stabilizing dangerous regions, our overseas bases have often increased global militarization, enlarging security threats faced by other nations who respond by boosting military spending (and in cases like China and Russia, foreign base acquisition) in an escalating spiral. Overseas bases actually make war more likely, not less. The Benefits of Fewer Bases This isn't a call for isolationism or a protectionism that would prevent us from spending money overseas. As the Obama administration and others have recognized, we must recommit to cooperative forms of engagement with the rest of the world that rely on diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties rather than military means. In addition to freeing money to meet critical human needs at home and abroad, fewer overseas bases would help rebuild our military into a less overstretched, defensive force committed to defending the nation's territory from attack. In these difficult economic times, the Obama administration and Congress should initiate a major reassessment of our 1,000 overseas bases. Now is the time to ask if, as a nation and a world, we can really afford the 1,000 bases that are pushing the nation deeper into debt and making the United States and the planet less secure? With so many needs facing our nation, it's unconscionable to have 1,000 overseas bases. It's time to begin closing them.

Have you heard Republican leaders in Washington attacking President Obama's plan to build a clean energy economy and solve global warming? They sound a lot like Rush Limbaugh. Watch this tongue-in-cheek video we made and you'll see when Republican leaders in Washington open their mouths on these critical issues, all you hear is Rush. http://action.lcv.org/ct/x7wd5pK1YmCu/ Some Republican Governors like Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger are leading the way on renewable energy and global warming. But Republican leaders in Washington are just recycling old ideas and outdated critiques - just like Rush spews out on the radio every day. Watch the video and make sure your friends see it too. As Congress gets ready to debate energy and global warming, we need to challenge these Republican leaders to see if they'll stand with us or with Rush. http://action.lcv.org/ct/x7wd5pK1YmCu/ Sincerely, Gene Karpinski President League of Conservation Voters