Another Glorious Moment in American Military History

How bloody stupid can you get?

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

Gulag Confirmed

As if there were still any doubts:

The CIA ran secret jails in Poland and Romania to interrogate key terror suspects, shackling and handcuffing inmates, keeping some naked for weeks and reducing contact with the outer world to masked and silent guards, a European investigator said Friday.

The CIA called the report "distorted," but stopped short of denying the existence of prisons in the two countries - the agency said it does not discuss the location of its overseas facilities.

You Know How to Relax? 'Cause I Sure Do...

(Gramsci is slightly out of focus, but yes, that's him resting his head in between the slats in our blinds.)

Unintelligent Design

They can't even make a silly museum without screwing up:

The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.

3,500

And we're more vulnerable under our new strategy. Great:

The four-year U.S. military death toll in Iraq passed 3,500 after a soldier was reported killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. A British soldier was also shot to death Thursday in southern Iraq, as Western forces find themselves increasingly vulnerable under a new strategy to take the fight to the enemy.

We Are Savages

The actions of Americans are laying waste to Iraq's cultural heritage in many horrendous ways:

The national museum is not open but shut. Nor is it just shut. Its doors are bricked up, it is surrounded by concrete walls and its exhibits are sandbagged. Even the staff cannot get inside. There is no prospect of reopening.

Hussaini confirmed a report two years ago by John Curtis, of the British Museum, on America's conversion of Nebuchadnezzar's great city of Babylon into the hanging gardens of Halliburton. This meant a 150-hectare camp for 2,000 troops. In the process the 2,500-year-old brick pavement to the Ishtar Gate was smashed by tanks and the gate itself damaged. The archaeology-rich subsoil was bulldozed to fill sandbags, and large areas covered in compacted gravel for helipads and car parks. Babylon is being rendered archaeologically barren.

Meanwhile the courtyard of the 10th-century caravanserai of Khan al-Raba was used by the Americans for exploding captured insurgent weapons. One blast demolished the ancient roofs and felled many of the walls. The place is now a ruin.

The Gulag Goes On

39 people "disappeared" by the US:

The US is still holding no less than 39 people, including minors, in secret CIA detention centers, six leading international rights watchdogs said on Thursday, June 7, pressing for the closures of these ghost centers.

"This briefing paper presents information about at least 39 detainees—all of whom are still missing—who are believed to have been held in secret sites run by the United States government overseas," the groups said in a joint statement.

The list, compiled from media reports, interviews and government documents, features the names and information about the individuals who have been arrested in countries including Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia and flown in "extraordinary renditions" to secret US prisons.

It includes the names of four people considered for the first time as missing.

The "Off the Record: US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the 'War on Terror'" report was drafted by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ),the Center for Constitutional Rights, Cageprisoners and Reprieve.

Delicate Flowers

Fox News once again proves its toughness when it comes to reporting the facts:

Here's a real Katie Couric in training. Fox and Friends' (we've immediately left the realm of normalcy right there) Gretchen Carlson had to leave the set when Steve Dooooocy read a story of a logger who cut his own leg off after a tree fell on it. She went full-tilt nuts. The whole bit - covering her ears and singing the Twilight Zone theme. Complete crazy Bozo time.

More on the Surgeon General Nominee

Imagine a man who can make this argument with a straight face as the head of our government's medical agenda:

Gay sex, he warned, can lead to "lacerations, perforations and deaths...The anatomic and physiologic facts of alimentation and reproduction simply do not change based on any cultural setting. In fact, the logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male fitting or the female fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other. When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur as noted above."

The Styrofoam Canoe Cat-A-Thon

You people, with all your wordly goods. We scoff at you,












...we take your leavings, the boxes you would fain refuse.
























You go listen to your fancy new stereo. Let the younger cat play with the box.
















The truly knowledgeable cat knows that it is not about the stereo (no, never!) or even about the box (though it's a common mistake).

The styrofoam packing makes the absolutely
























the absolute best cat canoe f0r resting in.

More Guantanamo Chaos

Bush's meddling with the justice system is going swimmingly:

The US government faced renewed calls today to abandon the separate legal system at Guantánamo Bay and to try detainees at existing military and civilian courts.

In the second blow to the credibility of the Guantánamo legal process in a year, two different judges yesterday said the military tribunals did not have jurisdiction over detainees on the island.

All charges against the two detainees in yesterday' hearings - Omar Khadr, who has been held since he was 15-years-old, and Yasser Ahmed Hamdan, the man accused of being Osama bin Laden's driver - were dismissed, throwing the legal system at Guantánamo into chaos.

Eta Is Back

And they've got guns:

The armed Basque separatist group Eta will pick up its weapons once more and return to violence as of midnight tonight after unilaterally calling off a ceasefire announced 14 months ago.

"The minimum conditions for continuing a process of negotiations do not exist," the group said in a statement issued overnight to newspapers in Spain's northern Basque country.

The group, which has killed more than 800 people over the past four decades, accused the Socialist government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of responding to its ceasefire "with arrests, torture and persecution".

Another Homophobe Favored by Bush

Surprise! A bigot nominated for surgeon general:

A growing number of LGBT civil rights groups are calling for the rejection of President Bush's nominee to be Surgeon General.

The Human Rights Campaign, Truth Wins Out, Soulforce and gay medical groups all are raising alarm bells over Dr. James Holsinger.

Holsinger, an MD and professor at the University of Kentucky, is a former head of Health and Family Services in Kentucky. In addition to his medical degree he holds an MA in biblical studies from Asbury Theological Seminary and is one of nine members of the United Methodist Church Judicial Council.

As a member of the council he opposed a decision to allow a lesbian to be an associate pastor, and supported a pastor who would not permit an openly gay man to join the church.

In a document titled "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality," Holsinger stated that in his capacity as a physician biology and anatomy precluded considering LGBT equality in the United Methodist Church. In the document he took lengths to say that his opinion was his scientific view and that his theological views are separate.

"His writings suggest a scientific view rooted in anti-gay beliefs that are incompatible with the job of serving the medical health of all Americans," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

"It is essential that America’s top doctor value sound science over anti-gay ideology."

Holsinger and his wife were founders of Hope Springs Community Church, in Lexington, which operates a so-called "ex-gay" ministry.

"We see that as an issue not of orientation but a lifestyle," the Rev. David Calhoun, the church's pastor has said.

"We have people who seek to walk out of that lifestyle."

So Long, Scooter

Enjoy your time:

Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton sentenced former top White House Aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to 30 months in federal prison Tuesday morning in Washington, DC. The sentence came in spite of the pleadings of many Libby friends and associates who said his commitment to public service justified leniency. Libby will also pay a $250,000 fine, and be subject to two years of probation.

Warped

The head of the Arkansas GOP wants more attacks on US soil:

In his first interview as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan told a reporter that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country.

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country."

The Legacy of Bush's Incompetence

Katrina is still killing:

The bodies are no longer being dragged from houses and buildings toppled by Hurricane Katrina, but nearly two years later many in the medical community think the storm is still killing.

Storm survivors are dying from the effects of both psychological and physical stress, from the dust and mold still in dwellings to financial problems to fear of crime, health experts and officials say.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Katrina is still killing our residents," Orleans Parish coroner Dr. Frank Minyard said this week.

"People with pre-existing conditions that are made worse by the stress of living here after the storm. Old people who are just giving up. People who are killing themselves because they feel they can't go on," Minyard said.