Cheney endorses simulated drowning

Plain and simple - no politics - either it is or it is not torture. 99% of the world agrees that it IS torture. If keeping American's safe requires that we give up the things that make us American, then we don't deserve to be safe. You can't say you are a moral Republican and then endorse crap like this - it's a double standard and it is unAmerican and it does NOT make us any safer - however it DOES make you look just like Sadam. When you have become the enemy...you've lost the fight.



Mr Cheney told his interviewer that the ability to interrogate high value detainees
had "been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation ... we need to be able to continue that".

In some versions of waterboarding, prisoners are strapped to a board and their faces covered with cloth or cellophane while water is poured over their mouths to stimulate drowning. In others, they are forced head first into water.

"Well, it's a no-brainer for me," Mr Cheney replied. "But for a while there, I was criticised as being the vice president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."

Mr Cheney's comments set him at odds with the Military Commissions Act, which bars, under all circumstances, treatment of prisoners that inflicts serious physical or mental pain or suffering.

Viking landers may have missed Martian life

You can't go looking for humans on another planet...every place is unique and life is not nearly as constrained as some have thought...

Gilbert Levin, one of the Viking scientists who has long argued that the GCMS test was flawed, told New Scientist that the new study provides "strong support" to the idea that life was indeed detected on Mars...

The outstanding puzzle is to explain what causes the high reactivity of the Martian soil, which keeps the level of organics so low despite a constant influx of organic material from asteroids, comets and other planetary sources. Most astrobiologists assume that some mysterious oxidising material in the soil is destroying the organic material but other possibilities are emerging.

Schulze-Makuch and Joop Houtkooper of the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, Germany, suggest that an exotic form of Martian life might provide a tidy explanation. They propose that an organism might have evolved on the Red Planet to use a solution of water and hydrogen peroxide as an intracellular fluid, rather than just water as Earth organisms do.

http://www.xprizecup.com/

This year's Cup featured three spectacular competitions with over $2.5 million in prize purses, multiple high-powered sounding rocket launches, the unveiling of the Rocket Racing League's development X-Racer, multiple static engine test firings live on the field, fly-overs by the T-38 astronaut trainer, and a variety of other rocket surprises in the air and on the ground. An amazing event!!

Words of wisdom from Jimmy Carter

Found this quote while doing some research - it speaks volumes to the wisdom of his administration:

"I want to make it clear,if there is ever a conflict (between environmental quality and economic growth), I will go for beauty, clean air, water, and landscape."

- Jimmy Carter, quoted in the New York Times, September 19, 1976

The Might Be Giants - Pittsburgh

Having played a show in front of about 23 people at the Electric Bananna in years gone by... I thought it really funny that they mentioned it too... :)

Kitten Composer

I give up....

North Korea claims first nuclear weapons test

Let's see - war on terror - a bunch of barely armed insurgents (with a fairly good reason to hate the US)... OR North Korea - nuclear bomb and missiles with range... Absolutely the best use of our resources is to worry about the damage hair gel can do to a plane while ignoring the 'type-o-dong'... and praying that China will save us... Good work... no wonder why I feel less safe now than I did before...

Do I make you Horney?

Um... a little (but really you creep me out you sicko republican old dude)

cool (wow, I get paid to protect children from people like me... ironic aint' it (foley (R) Florida))

___

Folks, the more you turn the screw, the more you get grape jelly for brains... It really says something that priests and moral majority republicans are always the ones getting caught with little boys - I can handle the democratic scandal with hookers and interns - at least they are semi-legal.... and at least they aren't constantly telling me how righteous they are...