New policies on prisoners being drawn up by the Pentagon will reportedly omit a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment."

You can actually SEE the power corrupting us. Here is the LaTimes link.

Pentagon to omit Geneva ban from new army manual: report - Yahoo! News

The removal of an immigrant raising awkward political questions is a warning sign over the future of the tradition of free speech and tolerance in Holland.
...
Holland is the canary in the mine-shaft. As we in Britain watch with fascination, the Dutch Left and Right appear to be coming together in maintaining that immigration barriers have to be put in place, and hard-line legislation enacted to control forcibly those who are already there - exactly as is happening in other, less historically-openminded European countries like our own.

When the Dutch canary stops singing, we should beware. It will tell us that we have sacrificed personal liberty and freedom of speech out of fear of assassination on some street corner in broad daylight.

It is not easy to resist the urge to quiet an irritant voice like Hirsi Ali's. But each of us has to understand that the price of communal silence - the decision not to talk openly about difficult-to-resolve issues of faith and mores - is too high for us to pay. The cut and thrust of political debate, public controversy, and stated positions unacceptable to particular groups, is a vital part of a healthy political state.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Liberalism under pressure

I am often asked why I don't just give up on Iraq and pronounce it a lost cause. It would certainly make my job (and marriage) easier.

What holds me back are scenes like the one related in last Sunday's Times story from Baghdad about the Iraqi Parliament's vote to approve the country's new cabinet. Our story noted that during the Iraqi parliamentary session, the Sunni party leader Saleh Mutlaq, a former Baathist, stood up and started denouncing the decision by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to have Parliament vote on the new cabinet even though he hadn't yet filled the key security posts.

At that point, another Sunni politician, Mithal al-Alousi, told Mr. Mutlaq to sit down. "Iraqi blood is being spilled every day," Mr. Alousi said. It was time to move forward. When Mr. Mutlaq pressed on with his denunciations, Mr. Alousi "pulled him down into his chair," The Times reported. That was a gutsy move — live on Iraqi TV. Many Sunni insurgents may not like what Mr. Alousi did, but he did it anyway.

As long as I see Iraqis ready to take a stand like that, I think we have to stand with them. When we don't see Iraqis taking the risk to build a progressive Iraq, then it is indeed time to pack and go.

Standing By Stand-Up Iraqis - New York Times

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer acknowledged Wednesday what some already feared: Vista may not yet make another deadline.

Ballmer Says Microsoft Pushing Back Vista--Again - Forbes.com

The dramatic upsurge in fighting in recent days in Afghanistan leaves a serious question over the return of peace and stability to Afghanistan. The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai and its international backers, who have not been able to contain the Taliban opposition after nearly five years of strenuous effort, must be wondering where they have gone wrong.

The Taliban comeback: Losing Afghanistan - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

So we're toast, right?

I mean, that's pretty much the pervasive global assumption these days: The 19th century belonged to England, the 20th century belonged to America, and the 21st century will belong to China. Tell your kids to study Mandarin.

I'm second to none in worrying about U.S. education and industry meeting the challenge of a rising China and India. But after a year traveling all over America talking to educators and innovators, I am not yet ready to cede the 21st century to China. No, not yet.

You see, my grandma back in Minnesota had a saying that went like this: "Never cede a century to a country that censors Google."

A Million Manhattan Projects - New York Times

Though you'd never know it from surfing the Internet, there exists in the Democratic Party a substantial body of politicians and policymakers who believe the U.S. mission in Iraq must be sustained until it succeeds; who want to intensify American attempts to spread democracy in the greater Middle East; and who think that the Army needs to be expanded to fight a long war against Islamic extremism.

the middle ground?

Reclaiming the Democratic Agenda

Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - May 16, 2006

Civil Liberties and National Security

By George Friedman

USA Today published a story last week stating that U.S. telephone
companies (Qwest excepted) had been handing over to the National
Security Agency (NSA) logs of phone calls made by American
citizens. This has, as one might expect, generated a fair bit of
controversy -- with opinions ranging from "It's not only legal but
a great idea" to "This proves that Bush arranged 9/11 so he could
create a police state." A fine time is being had by all. Therefore,
it would seem appropriate to pause and consider the matter.

Let's begin with an obvious question: How in God's name did USA
Today find out about a program that had to have been among the most
closely held secrets in the intelligence community -- not only
because it would be embarrassing if discovered, but also because
the entire program could work only if no one knew it was under way?
No criticism of USA Today, but we would assume that the newspaper
wasn't running covert operations against the NSA. Therefore,
someone gave them the story, and whoever gave them the story had to
be cleared to know about it. That means that someone with a high
security clearance leaked an NSA secret.

Americans have become so numbed to leaks at this point that no one
really has discussed the implications of what we are seeing: The
intelligence community is hemorrhaging classified information. It's
possible that this leak came from one of the few congressmen or
senators or staffers on oversight committees who had been briefed
on this material -- but either way, we are seeing an extraordinary
breakdown among those with access to classified material.

The reason for this latest disclosure is obviously the nomination
of Gen. Michael Hayden to be the head of the CIA. Before his
appointment as deputy director of national intelligence, Hayden had
been the head of the NSA, where he oversaw the collection and
data-mining project involving private phone calls. Hayden's
nomination to the CIA has come under heavy criticism from Democrats
and Republicans, who argue that he is an inappropriate choice for
director. The release of the data-mining story to USA Today
obviously was intended as a means of shooting down his nomination
-- which it might. But what is important here is not the fate of
Hayden, but the fact that the Bush administration clearly has lost
all control of the intelligence community -- extended to include
congressional oversight processes. That is not a trivial point.

At the heart of the argument is not the current breakdown in
Washington, but the more significant question of why the NSA was
running such a collection program and whether the program
represented a serious threat to l... [ Read More (2.0k in body) ]

Civil Liberties and National Security

EBAY, AMAZON, and Google are facing off against the telephone and cable companies over the future of the Internet. The US House of Representatives ought to approve a proposal by Edward Markey that would make sure the rights of these major content providers, and smaller ones as well, are protected against the companies that control high-speed Internet service.

Keep net untrammeled - The Boston Globe

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