Garling Gauge

New Abu Ghraib Torture Photos

WARNING: Nudity & Graphic Images

Disturbing new photos have been posted on Wired with accompanying video from a lecture on Abu Ghraib by psychologist Philip Zimbardo. The interview article, How People Turn Evil, From Stanford to Abu Ghraib, provides a fascinating look into human psychology. For ease of viewing the photos are posted below:

Keep in mind that this is the doing of the U.S. military and C.I.A., paid for by your tax dollars, under the management of President Bush, and that GOP presidential front runner John McCain wants to continue the mission in Iraq. McCain also recently voted to continue torture practices:

Olbermann on McCain

Horrendous crimes occur in all wars. The decision to commit to war or vote to support war is the acknowledgment that rapes, mutilations, and torture will occur because of it, and reasoning behind such a decision must weigh those consequences. The threat posed by Iraq certainly did not qualify, and those Americans who supported the Bush administration’s march to war are all culpable, including those who voted Republican in 2004.

As Zimbardo states in his interview, “situations can be sufficiently powerful to undercut empathy, altruism, morality and to get ordinary people, even good people, to be seduced into doing really bad things”. The current presidential election has the potential to be such a situation, and voting for the Republican nominee in November is a vote to continue the Iraq war, perpetuating the horrible crimes that occur because of it.

This is the symbol of America under Republican leadership.

We should be proud of our armed forces and those who protect our nation through intelligence gathering. It is the Republicans that have created a situation that turns good people evil. Vote for the grown ups. Vote Democratic.

See also:

• Iraq War: Why Defunding is Politically Viable
• U.S. Soldiers Torturing Animals
• Canada Adds U.S.A. to Torture List
• President Bush’s Mukasey Approves of Torture
• Waterboarding: The New American Crawl
• Mukasey: U.S. Military Has Never Waterboarded
• Romney OK’s Torture With Knives

All photos from Wired

ONN: 2008 Election Results Accidentally Released

Warning: The following video has commercials and perhaps a hint of truth.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early


Hat Tip: Fiend’s Folio

Clinton Vs. Obama: Ohio Democratic Debate Firsts 2/26/08

If Clinton wants to win she needs to be B-L-U-N-T

And so it’s come to this. With everyone but Hillary Clinton’s mother conceding that Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic presidential nominee, Clinton appears to have one final Hail Mary in her play book. Tonight is her last shot to convince the American electorate that she would not only be a better president, Command in Chief, and challenger to Senator John McCain, but also more enticing than the charismatic Obama.

If Clinton wants to make some headway, she needs to be extremely blunt. She needs to lay out all the reasons why she is the stronger candidate, including her perceived weaknesses, why those are erroneous, and emphasize Obama’s weaknesses in the general election.

In addition, now is her time to make a huge play, if she plans on making one at all. If Clinton wants to change the debate, she should commit tonight, during the debate, to ask Obama to be her Vice President as a way to unify the party. If she doesn’t make a dramatic leap and shake up the conversation, it’s likely she isn’t going anywhere.

So who will end up first? Let’s find out with more debate firsts!

Debate Firsts

• First candidate on stage: Senator Hillary Clinton
• First word of the debate: “Good”
• First question goes to: Clinton
• First website mentioned: Drudge Report
• First attack by Clinton on Obama: Misinformation
• First attack by Obama on Clinton: Her health care plan is mandatory
• First candidate to interrupt the moderator: Clinton
• First candidate to mention the upcoming primary states: Obama
• First to say the insurance companies would be happy to have a health care mandate: Obama
• First candidate to interrupt the moderator after Clinton: Clinton
• First candidate to interrupt the other candidate: Obama
• First candidate to address the other candidate by their first name: Obama
• First candidate to interrupt the moderator after Clinton interrupted the moderators twice in a row: Clinton
• First person to get a chuckle from the audience: Moderator Brian Williams
• First person to suggest it is ‘curious’ that she repeatedly gets the first question at the debates: Clinton
• First person to mention Saturday Night Live: Clinton
• First person to suggest Obama might want another pillow: Clinton
• First to get booed: Clinton
• First to mention steel workers: Obama
• First candidate to suggest the other candidate has shifted positions: Obama
• First candidate to count on his fingers: Obama
• First candidate to say moderator Tim Russert doesn’t have her full record: Clinton (um, Tim usually knows his stuff)
• First to say the other candidate’s answer is ‘just right’: Obama on Clinton’s take on NAFTA
• First to say ‘ameliorate’: Clinton
• First to say America doesn’t need a moat: Obama
• First to say ‘as President of the United States’: Obama
• First to say ‘flames’: Obama
• First to mention al-Qaeda: Obama
• First to mention Republican front runner, Senator John McCain: Obama
• First obvious issue to attack Obama that Clinton doesn’t milk for all its worth: Obama as Command in Chief
• First to hold his hands like he’s praying: Obama
• First to say “if he is, as he appears to be, the nominee”: Clinton’s valedictory?
• First to make me giggle each time he says ‘Pakistan’ because he pronounces it funny: Obama (listen to an alternative pronunciation here)
• First candidate to interrupt the moderator after Clinton interrupted the moderators three times in a row: Clinton
• First candidate to obviously be interrupted more than the other: Clinton (sexism?)
• First to suggest Obama hasn’t held oversight hearings as he should have: Clinton
• First to mention snowstorms: Williams
• Break

• First to say that Clinton’s mocking words of Obama’s rhetoric in the following video “sounds good”: Obama

Clinton says ’she was having fun’ during this moment on the campaign trail

• First to say she’s a fighter: Clinton
• First to list cities in Ohio: Clinton
• First to say some citizens are invisible: Clinton (link to her video about this subject)
• First to say that hope is not enough: Obama
• First to mention ‘magic wands’: Obama
• First to ask Obama why he won’t keep his word on public financing: Russert
• First to say his average campaign donation is $109: Obama
• First to mention her own campaign website: Clinton
• First to say she hardly has time to sleep: Clinton
• First to say “I can’t say to someone that they can’t think that I’m a good guy”: Obama on Farrakhan’s endorsement
• First to mention Hell: Russert
• First to say he is a friend of the Jewish community: Obama
• First to mention Martin Luther King Jr.: Obama
• First to get an applause for ‘rejecting and denouncing’ Farrakhan’s when pressed: Obama
• Break

• First to stutter: Williams
• First to mention pudding: Obama
• First to suggest the Bush administration has an ‘incoherent policy toward Russia’: Clinton
• First to say the ‘Clinton administration deserves a lot of credit’ in its policies towards Kosovo: Obama
• First to say this election should be about the future: Clinton
• First to mention Darfur: Clinton
• Clinton’s first admitted mistake: She would like to take her vote back on supporting the Iraq war
• Obama’s first admitted mistake: He should have stood up against Congress against interfering in the Terri Schiavo case
• First to say he is proud to be in a campaign with Clinton: Obama
• First to say Clinton would be a better president than John McCain: Obama
• First to say she would do everything she can to win: Clinton
• First to say she is running to be the first woman president: Obama (…okay, just kidding)
• First to make a baseball reference: Clinton
• End debate
• First to stand after the debate: Obama
• Post Debate - First to compare Clinton to a marlin: Chris Matthews

More Debate Firsts here.
Images: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553/, http://usatoday.com/, http://www.drudgereport.com/

Silly Question: If Obama is so new, why can’t he win states with the word ‘New’ in it?

New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire…. Any ideas?

Huckabee On SNL

Obama, Bicycles & Fortune Cookie Politics

‘Your new bicycle’ is the newest trend to mimic

• Barack Obama
• Michelle Obama
• Hillary Clinton
• Ron Paul
• Steve Jobs
• John McCain
• is your new bicycle
• More

Now there are even pillows!

From Eric Zorn’s article, ‘My New Bicycle’ is the new black:

The site opened just last week and the domain name is registered to Mathew Honan, 35, San Francisco-based contributing editor to Wired magazine. He explained how it came about in response to a query I sent via e-mail:

I came up with the idea for the site last week, on [Wednesday, Feb.]13, while riding the bus up Market Street on my way home for the day. My wife is an avid cyclist, and loves to talk about bikes and cycling. Recently, she’s gotten really active in the Obama campaign, and I had been kidding her that “Barack Obama is your new bicycle.” There seem to be a lot of people who feel that way.

I told one of my friends about it, and it made him laugh too. And then the idea just sort of fell into place. I got home, registered the domain, and had everything up just as it is now four hours or so after I thought of the idea. Needless to say, I’m pretty surprised at how it took off.

I thought it was something my wife and friends would get a kick out of, but I had no clue it would be all over the blogs and news sites. There are even sites in Italy, the Netherlands, and France linking to it.

It’s really mind-blowing.

There are about 60 phrases in all. (I forget the exact number.) I wrote all of them myself. I’m not adding or removing anything. Several people have suggested I add more, or that I fix the script so it’s not truly random (so that you get all the phrases one after the other with no repeats). But as I said, I was really surprised by how it took off and can’t put my finger on exactly why it did, I’m just leaving it as it is. It sort of feels like a fluke, and I’m just going to let it stand as a moment in time. You can’t force a meme.

There’s a php script with a bunch of phrases. The index page just calls a new one up at random every time someone loads (or reloads) the page. The linked text just points right back at the main page, so when you click on it, you’re really just refreshing.

In the first seven days, 140,000 people visited, with 2.3 million page views (keep in mind it’s a single page site so that’s a *LOT* of refreshing) The site has been up for a week exactly as of last night at 9 pm pacific time.

I was definitely influenced for the idea of how it would work from Andre Torrez’ site, as well as Sometimes Red Sometimes Blue.

While I’m an Obama supporter, that wasn’t my intention with the site. I never meant for it to be either supportive, or critical, of his campaign. It was just a toy that commented on the Obama fervor, at least in my mind.

It’s been really interesting to me to see people take it both ways–both as a site talking about what a cool guy Obama is, and as a site that makes fun of Obama supporters who view him as their buddy.

I didn’t really intend for it to express either of those perspectives, but I guess people’s own perceptions color their view of it.

Clinton Vs. Obama: Texas Democratic Debate Firsts 2/21/08

High Noon

In Texas tonight it’s a showdown at the Alamo for Sen. Hillary Clinton, and a front runner defensive game for Sen. Barack Obama. Let’s jump right into it with more debate firsts.

Debate Firsts

• First to be introduced: Sen. Hillary Clinton
• First to applaud for himself: Sen. Barack Obama
• First to touch someone else’s shoulder: Obama
• First to mention living in Austin: Clinton
• First to get an applause once the debate had begun: Clinton (mentioning Barbara Jordan)
• First to look impatient: Obama waiting for Clinton to finish her opening statement
• First to mention how long someone else sleeps: Obama
• First to say he received a bracelet from a fallen veteran’s mother: Obama
• First question: Sen. Clinton, will you sit down with Raul Castro?
• First debate difference: Obama would meet with Raul Castro without preconditions, Clinton would wait for signs of change first
• First to quote JFK: Obama (so obvious!)
• First to quote JFK after Obama: Clinton! (ping pong)
• First to say the ‘era of Bush unilateralism is over’: Clinton
• First to mention President Bush: Clinton
• First to wag his finger: Obama
• First to mention the Middle Class: Clinton
• First to say we need a ‘trade time-out’ and a ‘trade prosecutor’: Clinton
• First to say a path to legalization for illegal aliens would be started within the first 100 days of office: Clinton
• First to say ‘there is a smart way, and a dumb way to control the [southern] border: Clinton
• First to mention leadership: Obama
• First to say she has never been able to learn another language: Clinton
• Break

• First good summary thus far: From CNN: ‘Clinton touts results, Obama pushes ideas’
  
• First to say ‘where’s the beef?’: Moderator John King (somebody had to do it)
• First to bring up the notion that Obama’s supporters are delusional: Obama
• First to bring up the following video: Clinton

Longer version here and more here.

• First to say some of his speeches are pretty good: Obama
• First to say we’ve entered into the ’silly season of politics’: Obama
• First to say “Senator Clinton has a fine record-and so do I”: Obama
• First to say “lifting entire passages from someone elses speeches isn’t change you can believe in, it’s change you can Xerox‘: Clinton
• First to get booed: Clinton (for that last line)
• First to take copious notes during the debate: Obama (he appears to look at his paper each time he feels uncomfortable)
• First to say “I’m tired of insurance companies deciding who will live and die in this country”: Clinton
• Break

• First to say “I am ready and I am prepared [to be Commander in Chief]: Clinton
• First to say the difference between Clinton and Obama on Health Care is philosophical: Obama
• First to say the difference between Clinton and Obama on Health Care is based on substance: Clinton
• First to say that if you don’t aim for 100% health care coverage you won’t get it: Clinton
• First to frown: Obama (when Clinton said she has visited over 80 countries representing America)
• First to mention the U.S. embassy being burned last night: Clinton
• First to mention rifle platoons: Obama
• First to mention Senator John McCain: Obama
• Observation: Clinton looks into the audience when Obama is speaking, Obama looks down when Clinton is speaking
• Observation: Obama keeps talking about what wants to change, Clinton keeps explaining how she’ll change things. Hm.
• Break

• First to say Google and Halliburton in the same answer: Obama
• First to say the U.S. will have a 9 trillion dollar debt thanks to George Bush Jr.: Clinton
• First to say we will have a unified Democratic Party during the general election: Clinton
• First to get a bit choked up talking about injured veterans: Clinton
• First to say she has been blessed: Clinton
• First candidate express honor at being with the other candidate: Clinton
• End debate
• First candidate to thank the moderators afterwards: Clinton
• And the winner? Obama, as he did not lose any ground. Clinton’s last answer was good, but she needed to hit it out of the park.

More Debate Firsts here.

Images: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/obama_3.jpg, http://laist.com/attachments/la_jeremyj/hillary%20clinton.jpg, http://www.daffodillane.com/movabletype/archives/cowboy%2520headshot-thumb.jpg, http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/21/debate.main/index.html#cnnSTCPhoto, http://www.cnn.com/

Political Quote of the Day 2/19/08

“[Obama] is mesmorized by his own words and power of his personality”
-Howard Fineman on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews

Bush: House Construction, Not War, Hurt Economy

“I think actually the spending on the war might help with jobs.”

If you thought President Bush was out of touch and fooling himself (and some Republicans) about the Iraq war… there’s now definitive proof.

Bush on Today

Is it November yet?

Happy Independence Day, Kosovo

Kosovo declares independence

From CNN:

PRISTINA, Kosovo (CNN) — Kosovo has formally declared its independence from Serbia and become the world’s newest state in a move opposed by Serbia and Russia but backed by many western governments.

Lawmakers in the legislature of the former Serbian province approved the declaration of independence at an extraordinary session Sunday afternoon. It was read out in Albanian, Serbian and English by prime minister Hashim Thaci before the approval of state symbols including Kosovar’s new national flag and anthem.

Thaci said that Kosovo was an “independent and democratic” state, adding: “From this day onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free.”

CNN’s Alessio Vinci, reporting from the Kosovar capital Pristina, said that thousands of Kosovo’s Albanian population had braved the freezing wind and cold to sing, dance, wave flags in the streets and light firecrackers ahead of the much anticipated vote. Some revellers were even said to be firing gunshot into the air. “It’s been like this for several hours now,” he said.

“It’s a day they have been waiting for for such a long time that many of them are trying to figure out just how they got to this day.”

President George Bush said Sunday that Kosovo’s status must be resolved before the Balkans can become stable and that the United States supports the Ahtisaari plan which calls for a form of supervised independence.

The European Union decided Saturday to launch a mission of about 2,000 police and judicial officers to replace the United Nations mission that has been controlling the province since the end of the war with Serbia in 1999.

Kosovo has been under U.N. supervision and patrolled by a NATO-led peacekeeping force since the end of the three-month war, in which NATO warplanes pounded Serbia to roll back a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” of the province’s Albanian population under former then-President Slobodan Milosevic.

Read the whole article here.

Images: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/17/kosovo.independence/index.html