The true identity of a man who was mistakenly interviewed on BBC News 24 has been revealed.

Guy Goma, a graduate from the Congo, appeared on the news channel in place of an IT expert after a mix-up.

i think Elonka especially might be amused

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | News 24's 'wrong Guy' is revealed

After more than half a century of wartime valor, maritime tragedy and cinematic triumph, the aircraft carrier Oriskany is preparing for its final mission: sinking into an afterlife as an artificial reef.

swords to ploughshares

Carrier Will Sink to Serve - Los Angeles Times

I often try to explain why my wife and I live where we do. In the country, in nature, where we can raise pigs and chickens - those are the phrases I end up using. But it really comes down to living as close to wildness as we can. I realize that now. What makes it easier is that so many wild creatures don't mind living near us - so near that we hardly think of them as wild any more. The grace of wildness changes somehow when it becomes familiar, when you know it as well as we know the wild turkeys and the downy woodpeckers.

The next generation - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

Around 1970, Walter Mischel launched a classic experiment. He left a succession of 4-year-olds in a room with a bell and a marshmallow. If they rang the bell, he would come back and they could eat the marshmallow. If, however, they didn't ring the bell and waited for him to come back on his own, they could then have two marshmallows.

Marshmallows and Public Policy - New York Times

The US has defended its treatment of suspects detained in its "war on terror", telling a UN committee that it considers the use of torture as wrong.

the problem is that by ignoring other treaty obligations and ignoring due process to the detainees speculation has run rife fueled by the Abu Ghraib scandal. I don't want to believe such things of any American administration since they are a betrayal of American values and further they are a violation of values which many of us want to move towards as normative however standards we apply to many countries should not be taken on faith. The administration says trust us but doesn't seem to appreciate that this appeal to faith if say it came from Iran or China wouldn't wash. Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium for domestic purposes. America asserts no torture is being carried out at its facilities. America can't have everything its own way as standards should apply to all.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US denies terror suspect torture

The CIA has reportedly water-boarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- a practice in which the suspect is made to fear that he is drowning in order to encourage him to talk. And Army logs report that interrogators threatened Qahtani with dogs, made him strip naked and wear women's underwear, put him on a leash and made him bark like a dog, injected him with intravenous fluids and barred him from the bathroom so that he urinated on himself. With these shortsighted and inhumane tactics, the administration essentially immunized the real culprits, so it was left seeking the execution of a man who was not involved in Sept. 11.

is this true? is this documented?
if true there can be no justification for Gestapo tactics
I note the word "reportedly" but if these allegations have foundation then the torturers and those who gave the orders need, our collective standards of human rights demand, that they do serious time in jail.
You don't defeat Nazis by emulating the enemies of civilisation. Crusaders who descend into barbarianism lose: they lose first themselves then the war.

How Not to Fight Terrorism

Last Sunday's Boston Globe carried an alarming 4,000-word front-page article about President Bush and the Constitution. It seems that Bush has asserted the right to ignore "vast swaths of the law" simply because he thinks that these laws are unconstitutional.

the vexed question of Constitutionality

Constitutional Cafeteria

A report published in March in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that more than a third of the troops who served in Iraq sought help for mental health problems within a year of returning home. That high percentage is deceptive, however. The report said it is likely that "there are still considerable barriers to care." It referred to a prior study that showed that more than 60 percent of the Iraq veterans who screened positively for generalized anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder had not sought treatment.

When Warriors Come Home - New York Times

Colbert's real sin wasn't lese majesty, it was inserting a brief moment of honesty into an event based upon a lie -- one considered socially necessary by the political powers that be, but still, a lie.

Like its upscale sibling, the annual Gridiron Club dinner, the White House Correspondents dinner is a ritual designed, at least implicitly, to showcase the underlying unity of our Beltway elites. It's supposed to demonstrate that no matter how ferocious their battles may appear on the surface, political opponents can still gather in the same room and break bread, with the corporate media acting as the properly neutral host. It's a relic of the good old days of centrism and bipartisan log rolling ("the end of ideology"), visible proof that in the American system, there may be enemies, but there are no mortal enemies. And so last night we had Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame sitting at one table, Karl Rove at another, and no knives were drawn.

Another good analysis, this time by billmon...

The Blog | Billmon: American Nightmarez | The Huffington Post

Microsoft Corp.'s long- awaited release of the upgrade to its flagship Windows operating system will likely be delayed again by at least three months, research group Gartner Inc. said on Tuesday.

Internet News Article | Reuters.co.uk