AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Insult to Injury: "Add rancid meat and food crawling with bugs to the list of appalling conditions that Abu Ghraib prisoners were subject to."

...

"Foul as the food was, there never was enough. The private contractor, run by an American civilian who was subsequently killed, routinely fell short by hundreds of meals for Abu Ghraib's surging prison population. When the food did arrive, there were often late and frequently contaminated.

(Via AlterNet.)

Aljazeera.Net - Rights group: Iraq war tribunal flawed: "'Trying former Iraqi officials under the current rules could mean a wasted opportunity to put Saddam and his henchmen on trial in a manner that has credibility in the eyes of the world,' Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at HRW, said on Friday.

'Trials for atrocities committed during Baath Party rule could not be more important for the victims and to show that justice works,' he said. 'But the process must be fair for justice to be done.'"

(Via Aljazeera.net.)

USATODAY.com - U.K.'s highest court rules against holding terror suspects without trial: "Britain's highest court ruled Thursday that the government cannot detain terror suspects indefinitely without trial. Nine judges in the House of Lords ruled in favor of a group of men jailed without charge for up to three years whose lawyers say their detention is incompatible with their human rights."

(Via USA Today.)

Happy Bill of Rights Day by Anthony Gregory: "December 15 is neglected by most Americans for its historical significance as the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Even worse, American politicians neglect the actual Bill of Rights on a day-to-day basis.

Whether or not the Bill of Rights can ever be an effective means of limiting the government is open to debate. However, the Bill of Rights does offer a fairly good outline of a free society, and it shows how far our country has strayed."

(Via Lew Rockwell.)

War funding request may hit $100 billion: "The Bush administration plans to ask for between $80 billion and $100 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, rather than the $70 billion to $75 billion the White House privately told members of Congress before the election, according to Pentagon and White House officials."

(Via Boston Globe -- World News.)

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / MIT's role in missile test fraud: "AFTER MORE than 3 1/2 years of foot-dragging, excuses, and violations of federal regulations, MIT announced last week that it could not investigate credible evidence of possible scientific fraud in fundamental National Missile Defense research being done at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. The reason outgoing president Charles M. Vest gave is that the Pentagon had classified everything about the investigation."

(Via The Boston Globe, linked from ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Mapping the Intelligence Budget [1]: "How big is the NRO budget? We know the rough relationship of the CIA budget to NRO and other major agencies funded out of the NFIP in the late 1990s. The Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community provided this chart"

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Cheney Pushes for Permanent Tax Cuts: "Vice President Cheney said Wednesday that it is critical to make President Bush's tax cuts permanent during his second term, while achieving broader reforms in the tax code and bolstering Social Security."

This ought to be interesting.

(Via washingtonpost.com - Politics.)

White House to Push 'Clear Skies' Legislation: "The move has alarmed environmentalists, who fear the proposal -- which has not moved in Congress since 2002 -- would undercut existing federal standards."

(Via washingtonpost.com - Politics.)

LOCKHEED MARTIN AWARDED $9.4 MILLION CONTRACT TO PROVIDE PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT ID SYSTEMS: "The Pakistan Federal Investigative Agency (PFIA) will soon use Lockheed Martin’s (NYSE: LMT) state-of-the-art fingerprint identification system to quickly identify suspected criminals.  The U.S. State Department has awarded Lockheed Martin a $9.4 million contract to develop and deliver the Pakistan Automated Fingerprint Identification System (PAFIS).

PAFIS will be a variant of a similar systems used by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The Government of Pakistan, through this contract with the U.S. State Department, will receive top-of-the-line biometric identification technology."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

C.I.A. Order on Detainees Shows Its Role Was Curbed: "Concerns about harsh techniques used by Special Operations forces prompted the Central Intelligence Agency last year to bar its officers in Iraq from taking part in military interrogations where prisoners were subjected to duress, intelligence officials said.

A classified directive issued by the agency's headquarters on Aug. 8, 2003, to all its personnel in Iraq advised that "if the military employed any type of techniques beyond questions and answers, we should not participate and should not be present," according to an account provided by a senior intelligence official."

(Via The New York Times > Washington.)

Capital Games: "In 1998, a CIA inspector general's report acknowledged that the CIA had indeed worked with suspected drugrunners while supporting the contras. A Senator named John Kerry had investigated these links years earlier, and the media had mostly ignored his findings. After Webb published his articles, the media spent more time crushing Webb than pursuing the full story. It is only because of Webb's work--as flawed as it was--that the CIA IG inquiry happened. So, then, it is only because of Webb that US citizens have confirmation from the CIA that it partnered up with suspected drug traffickers in the just-say-no years and that the Reagan Administration, consumed with a desire to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, allied itself with drug thugs."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction: "... By the time of the creation of the ISG, and continuing to the date of this publication, a controversy has existed over the performance of U.S. (and British) intelligence in collecting and evaluating information about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs. The reliability of sources has been questioned. It has been suggested that some human intelligence may have been purposeful deception by the Iraqi intelligence and security services, while exiles and defectors may have provided other intelligence seeking to influence U.S. policy. The quality of the intelligence analysis has also come under scrutiny. The failure to find weapons stocks or active production lines, undermining claims by the October 2002 NIE and both President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell (Document 16, Document 27), has been one particular cause for criticism. Controversy has also centered around specific judgments - in the United States with regard to assessments of Iraq's motives for seeking high-strength aluminum tubes, and in the United Kingdom with respect to the government's claim that Iraq sought to acquire uranium from Africa. Post-war evaluation of captured material, particularly two mobile facilities that the CIA and DIA judged to be biological weapons laboratories, has also been the subject of dispute. (Note 5)"

(Via The National Security Archives.)

The Spy Satellite So Stealthy that the Senate Couldn't Kill It: "When first launched from the space shuttle Atlantis on March 1, 1990, it was believed to be the first advanced KH-11 spacecraft (the first of which would be launched in 1992). Within weeks, both U.S. and Soviet sources reported it had malfunctioned and would make a "fiery reentry . . . in the next 30 days."

Both assessments were wrong. The payload was a stealth imaging satellite code-named MISTY, which had been developed under the supervision of the DS&T's development and engineering office."

(Via The National Security Archive.)

Dec 13, 2004: One year later: "Today marks one year since the capture of Saddam Hussein, and Iraq continues to regress into a country overrun by terrorism and crime, due in large part to the failure of the Bush Administration to plan for post-war life—a failure that has deprived American troops of the supplies and resources they need to win."

(Via DNC: Kicking Ass.)

ROBO-CRAPPIE ANYONE?: "Did anyone else know that DARPA was funding an entire biomechanical bestiary, including birds and cockroaches? The FY 2005 Defense Budget contains $ 90 million in unclassified funding for 'Biologically Based Materials and Devices,' including $ 38 million for 'Bioinspired and Bioderived Materials.'"

(Via Defense Tech.)

Hey Ann, Just Try It!: "On a recent political round table on CNN, Ann Coulter took a swipe at Canadians, saying that we should consider ourselves 'lucky that [we] are allowed to exist on the same continent' as the US. Alright, Ann, this isn't the first time that an American has denied our right to exist. It's been going on for most of US history. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that we exist at the USA's continued sufferance."

(Via Kuro5hin.org.)

US waives all sanctions on Pakistan: "NEW DELHI: If Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf was discomfited by George Bush's 'friends should not keep a scorecard' put-down, this is the time to relax."

(Via TOI - The United States.)

Baghdad Burning: "People have to wait in line overnight now to fill up the car. It's a mystery. It really is. There was never such a gasoline crisis as the one we're facing now. We're an oil country and yet there isn't enough gasoline to go around...

Oh don't get me wrong- the governmental people have gasoline (they have special gas stations where there aren't all these annoying people, rubbing their hands with cold and cursing the Americans to the skies)... The Americans have gasoline. The militias get gasoline. It's the people who don't have it."

(Via Baghdad Burning.)

Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / A hidden daughter speaks: "The daughter of the longtime champion of segregation and his family's black maid has refrained from speaking publicly since she disclosed the secret of her birth. That was a year ago, six months after Thurmond's death."

...

"He once said, "There's not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."

Washington-Williams writes, "I wasn't sure if this was my father talking or the ghost of Adolf Hitler.""

(Via Boston Globe.)

Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / Social Security benefit cuts eyed: "President Bush, who has promised that his plan to allow private investment accounts in Social Security would give workers a ''better rate of return,' is seriously mulling a companion effort that could cut future promised retirement benefits for millions of workers by 6 percent, even when potential gains from private accounts are included"

(Via Boston Globe.)

We Are the Problem by Charley Reese: "But never mind; no matter how disastrous the situation becomes, President Bush will declare it a great triumph. After all, he sees a warlord-ruled, heroin-supplying Afghanistan as a great triumph of democracy even though the elected president is holed up in a fortified palace surrounded by foreign guards."

(Via Lew Rockwell.)

Time running out for dying chess champ: "The 25-year-old is suffering from muscular dystrophy and has a serious chest infection. His days are numbered, but he wants to die before his organs are infected, after which they will be in no shape for harvesting. "

(Via TOI - India.)

Your Honour, please let me die!: "HYDERABAD: A 25-year-old, who is on life support system, has moved court for mercy killing."

...

"Terminally-ill Venkatesh's mother is with him in his plea. She was the one who moved court, which in turn appointed a committee to study the situation that visited the hospital for a spot assessment. It will report back to the court. The committee's brief: to study if Venkatesh's organs can be harvested when he's on life support."

...

"In this procedure, a patient's organs are taken out within two to five minutes of life support being removed."

(Via TOI - India.)

The New York Times > Washington > Democratic Leader Analyzes Bush Victory: "He said Democrats were never able to catch up with a campaign that pressed Mr. Bush's opposition to same-sex marriage, to appeal in African-American churches; his opposition to late-term abortion, to appeal to Hispanics; and Mr. Kerry's support of gun control, to undercut Democrats in union households. While Republicans were doing that, Mr. McAuliffe said, Democrats were relying on more traditional means of drumming up turnout among typically Democratic areas."

(Via NY Times.)

RUSSIAN ROCKETS: ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS: "If you were a cash-stripped missile force with a large number of missiles to decommission, how would you do it? Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, facing deactivation of the some SS-18 'Satan' ICBMs under the START I Treaty, have decided to use the silo-based missiles to launch commercial satellites, according to the Moscow Gazeta.ru website."

(Via Defense Tech.)

The Daily Outrage: "** Big media blowout: Radio behemoth Clear Channel has just chosen Fox News as the primary news provider for its news and talk radio stations. Fox will replace ABC Radio on more than 300 of Clear Channel's 1,200 stations, boosting Fox's radio presence and upping profits by several million dollars. The news company that consistently misinforms its viewers and listeners with pro-war propaganda will join forces with a radio giant who organized pro-war rallies across the country. Congratulate Clear Channel's PR director Lisa Dollinger at lisacdollinger@clearchannel.com."

(Via The Nation Weblogs.)

AlterNet: Election 2004: Minimum wage battle won in NY: "Starting on January 1, New York state's minimum wage will rise to $6.00/hour, and eventually increase to $7.15/hour. Now that's not a huge jump, but as Katrina vanden Heuvel points out at The Nation, 'For full-time workers, it's an increase from $10,700 per year to $14,900. That's still not enough for a family to live on, but it's a good raise by any standard, and roughly one million workers will benefit from the increase.'

Katrina notes that after N.Y. Gov. Pataki had vetoed the minimum wage bill after its passage in the State House, a majority of the Republican state senators overrode Pataki's veto."

(Via AlterNet.)

Rumsfeld attempts to duck accountability: "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's response last week to a soldier's question about substandard equipment was insulting and disingenuous to the soldier and to the rest of the nation."

...

"That's an appalling distortion of what actually occurred in the build-up to the war. So was Rumsfeld's follow-up comment: "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up." Rumsfeld's effort to deny responsibility for inadequately supplying U.S. troops is astonishing."

(Via The Daily Southtown.)

Vehicle Hardening: "As the nature of conflict changes, so does the threat to logistics units. War and certain other operations--especially peacekeeping or peacemaking--place renewed emphasis on convoy security and reinforce lessons learned in Vietnam."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula: "Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula leader Abdulaziz Al-Muqrin issued calls for the Saudi royal family to be overthrown. Conquering Saudi Arabia would be the first step towards establishing a Caliphate that would liberate the third holy place [Jerusalem] and unite all the Muslims of the world. The nightmare scenario for the West in one in which Saudi oil production (10% of world output) is taken out by terrorist attacks or by regime change. The Saudi ruling family is stuck between two contradictory policies: appeasement of puritanical Islam and alliance with America."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

Dioxins Poisoned Viktor Yushchenko, But What Are They?: "'Dioxins' refers to a group of chemical compounds that share certain chemical structures and biological characteristics. Dioxin is the common name used to refer to the chemical tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD. These chemicals are produced during combustion processes, such as waste incineration, forest fires and backyard trash burning, and during manufacturing processes such as herbicide manufacture and paper manufacture. e.g. dioxin was a contaminant of the herbicide Agent Orange used as a defoliant by U.S. forces in Vietnam."

(Via HealthTalk.)

Spy plan may deploy secret satellite system: "The program now in dispute would represent the third generation of the stealth satellite program, and is being built primarily by the Lockheed Martin Corp., the officials said. The company has refused to comment on its involvement in any classified programs."

So this would actually be MISTY-3

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)