UPDATES Re- What Would the CIA Torture Tapes Have Revealed?

(Original post here.)

UPDATE Dec. 19, 2007: The New York Times reports that White House lawyers Alberto R. Gonzales, David S. Addington (now V.P. Cheney's chief of staff), John B. Bellinger III (until 2005, the senior lawyer at the National Security Council), and Harriet E. Miers (who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel) all took part in discussions with the CIA about whether to destroy the tapes and that some officials contend there was “vigorous sentiment” at the White House to destroy the tapes, or at best that no White House lawyer advised against it.

UPDATE Dec. 22, 2007: According to The New York Times, both chairmen of the official U.S. 9/11 Commission, Lee H. Hamilton (D) and Thomas H. Kean (R), have stated that a memorandum based on a recent review of classified documents "had convinced them that the [CIA] had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry."

The Lovely Sayana

from the original Star Trek series, apparently adorned with batter-fried onion "blossoms."

See more of the galactic gals Kirk closely encountered here.

(Thanks, Ben!)

What Would the CIA Torture Tapes Have Revealed?

Many people accept the explanation that the tapes were destroyed because they show U.S. agents committing torture.

But, bad as that is, we already knew about it. Moreover, the Bush Administration survived the release of the Abu Ghraib photos at no greater cost than a few underlings’ careers and has managed to keep out of public view most of the other video known to be most damning (e.g., the video described by Pullitzer-winning Seymour Hersch as depicting U.S. soldiers sodomizing Iraqi boys).

As O. Ricardo Pimentel of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it in his Dec. 12, 2007 blog post, "[t]hey've got stuff in the intelligence world to read license plates from satellites, yet they can't fuzz up faces on video? The agency says it did nothing illegal and says waterboarding was approved at the highest levels. OK, so what was the point in destroying the videos? One word: obstruction." I'm not sure what Pimental thinks was being obstructed, but some people believe the tapes had to be destroyed because they would have revealed the Bush Administration’s hand in something worse than mere torture.

Gerald Posner at HuffPo thinks the Administration may have feared the revelation of facts relating to 9/11 that were disclosed by the men being tortured; see also Robert Baer's piece at Time Magazine.

Others speculate further that the tapes would have revealed that the torture was actually intended to induce brain damage or insanity in the victims, in order to destroy their ability to give credible evidence; see, e.g., leveymg's blog entries dated Dec. 10, 2007 and later at Daily Kos.

Both Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri are believed to have played instrumental roles in the 9/11 attacks (see the official U.S. 9-11 Commission Report and BBC News). Both men (among thousands of others) have been in actual or constructive U.S. custody since 2002 (Wikipedia here and here), i.e., ca. five years.

The FBI quickly extracted from Zubaydah -- without the use of waterboarding -- the names of four foreign leaders who knew about the 9/11 attacks before the event, all of them nationals of our supposed "allies," Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Within months, all four men named met sudden and untimely deaths (see Posner at HuffPo).

Waterboarding and other harsh methods were approved by the White House (ABC News and The Washington Post), although such methods are in violation of the Geneva Convention and probably U.S. law (see The Pittsburgh School of Law's Jurist and Wikipedia).

Waterboarding can reduce or cut off the supply of oxygen to the brain and result in permanent brain damage or death (Wikipedia). “[W]ithout adequate oxygen, . . . the cells of the brain can die within several minutes. This type of injury is often seen in near-drowning victims . . . . ” (Wikipedia). Both Zubaydah and al-Nashiri have been tortured by CIA agents using waterboarding as well as other methods.

"On September 15, 2004, Judge Hellerstein ordered the CIA and other government departments to ‘produce or identify’ all [records concerning the treatment of detainees apprehended after September 11, 2001 and held in U.S. custody abroad] by October 15, 2004. . . . a court order of this nature requires that the party preserve all information possessed that is responsive to the request", even if the party appeals the order (John W. Dean at FindLaw; see also the Associated Press). The CIA was also admonished by the 9-11 Committee and various advisors not to destroy the videotapes.

The CIA nonetheless destroyed the videotapes -- at the urging of someone "directly representing" President Bush (Newsweek).

Zubaydah is now said to be insane; sources are in dispute as to whether he was already insane when captured (see the June 23, 2006 post at Inside the Ring). Terror suspect Joseph Padilla is known to have been driven insane by torture (The Guardian).

The Cooperative Research History Commons is working on an excellent timeline here with much more detailed information on this subject.

Cody Smart's Hitchhike Across North America,

here; worth the download (even the "unabridged" version is not long).

Do this -- IF You Can Falsify All Your Data

and assuming you're inexplicably desperate to graft yourself into the MS "Borg": Microsoft Offers Free Software in Exchange for Your Privacy.

Walmart Selling "Hooker" Panties for Teens?

From The Consumerist via feministing.com, purportedly found in the girls' "Juniors" section.

(Thanks, Randy!)

kittywigs.com

"Kitty Wigs™ is a product of the feverish imagination of [my friend] Julie Jackson and her siamese partner in crime, Boone. Sometimes the pressure of Julie's day job [Subversive Crossstitch] combined with Boone's constant state of leisure results in loud music, wigs and dancing. This has brought such great stress relief . . . that we [Julie & Boone] decided to share our passion for wigs with the world. . . ."

"Each Kitty Wig™ comes in an attractive round metal wig case with our fresh new logo on it. Your wig will arrive on a wig form and covered in a hair net to help keep its shape and luster. . . ."

[Regarding the model at right,] "Pink is the color of fantasy. Our model, Chicken, looks like her mind is elsewhere when she wears this wig -- somewhere in a land of cotton candy and pinwheels . . . . Pink makes your kitty feel elegant, modern and quintessentially feline." [Text & pic from the Kitty Wigs site; some links supplied.]

If you have any creature in the house with a head bigger than a walnut (including boyfriends), you need a Kitty Wig™.

UPDATE: Kitty Wigs has been a smash success, inspiring both features by Anderson Cooper on CNN News and The Graham Norton Show (here and here -- both are funny) and hate mail (here, here, and here). Julie put my "walnuts" quip on her site and at one point, if you googled it, you got over 10,000 hits (so much for my more substantive accomplishments).

If you haven't gotten your Kitty Wig yet, better get your order in now for the next production run.

Site that Helps You Identify Tunes by Humming

Still in beta. I tried it on something obscure; it kinda worked but obviously needs more users to help build up its database. It was fun hearing all the goofy hummings from other users around the world, though.

Warning: this is definitely another one of those sites I warned you about here; plus, you have to give it access to your computer microphone, plus since my mic is part of my camera, I had to give it access to my camera. However, at least for now, you don't have to register in order to search by humming.