"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr. told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."

Pretty much sums it up I think.

Reuters AlertNet - Nuremberg prosecutor says Guantanamo trials unfair

In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is “ineffective”. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of “effective technological measures”. The legislation is based on EU Copyright Directive from 2001. According to both Finnish copyright law and the underlying directive, only such protection measure is effective, “which achieves the protection objective.”

My god it's amazing to see common sense win out. CSS was never a "copy-protection" mechanism to begin with. Any idiot with a bitcopier could readily copy a DVD and never even know CSS was there, supposedly "protecting" the data. CSS is, and always has been, a distribution channel protection mechanism that allows DVD manufacturers to eliminate competition by rendering importing agencies powerless, and to charge what they feel the market will bear in each, individual market without having to worry about anyone being able to question it or sell discs to a different market. Afaik, this sort of pricing would be illegal if it was done from one state to the next in the USA.

Finland drops protections for /ineffective/ copy-protection mechanisms!

As if there weren't already enough evidence of misbehavior in the Bush adminstration to keep one busy sorting through it until 2012, here's yet another story of foxes guarding henhouses, voter fraud, and attempts to take away the ability to vote from thousands upon thousands of people not belonging to the "right" political party.

Still *more* attorney abuses

“You have a Monica problem,” Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, “She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted.”

Yeah, this would be worth taking the 5th on. If she opens her mouth, she's cooked. Unfortunately, with everything that's come out, she's already cooked, and likely going to Danbury for quite some time.

Colleagues Cite Partisan Focus by Justice Official - New York Times

On November 7 Black informed the DOJ of his preliminary investigation of Abramoff. Days later, Guam's new Republican Governor, Felix Camacho, wrote a letter to the White House asking to keep Black on. Yet on November 19, a day after Black subpoenaed the Abramoff contract, the Administration announced that it was nominating Rapadas. Black was subsequently barred from handling any public corruption cases.

A more extensive treatment on the case of Fred Black. They did it once, and no one noticed. Then they canned Graves and no one noticed. Then they went too far and everyone noticed. And all of it goes right to the White House. This one is not going away.

Attorneygate in Guam

AT LONG LAST!

The title pretty mcuh says it all, but at noon EST, Kucinich will be having a news conference to discuss the specifics.

I, for one, couldn't be more excited.

:)

Kucinich to call for Cheney impeachment

Well, it seems that the guy who a few short days ago had his free MySpace page template essentially stolen by the consultant maintaining the McCain MySpace page wasn't all that was going on... Spurred on by this, someone else posted a comment (completely with "McCain's" approval) containing an image of a campaign button, and then changed it to a political cartoon.

...which has now resulted in the FBI coming to his house, accusing him of breaking into McCain's server (or something, somewhere--nevermind that this is pretty much impossible), and taking all his technology. BZZZT. FAIL!

Hooo boy will his lawyer be getting da monies from this one!

Senator McCain and 80's Style Asshattery

Why did Cheney’s chief of staff call and complain so fatefully when Wilson’s claims were repeated on “Hardball?”

Could it be that Cheney feared that if the country knew it was his inquiry that led to the Africa trip then he, the president’s right-hand man, could be expected to have gotten a full report on the trip’s findings.

In that case, Cheney would have known a year ahead of time that there was no deal by Saddam Hussein to buy uranium yellowcake in Niger. He should therefore have kept the president from making that assertion in his 2003 State of the Union that “British intelligence” reported a Saddam effort to buy uranium from Africa. That assertion of a nuclear threat from Iraq is what tilted this country toward war.

Ya think? Chris is coming to this party a little late, but the blunt answer is, they wanted a war with Iraq, marketed a war with Iraq, sold a war with Iraq, and if you disagreed with that, you were a traitor helping the terrorists.

It's time for the current administration to go. To jail.

Hardblogger : Chris Matthews reacts to Libby verdict

Here's an article that, were it published somewhere other than Vanity Fair, would probably have resulted in someone being quietly killed to hush them up. Someone might still be quietly disappeared over this--it's hard to tell.

It's an eight page report on basically how SAIC sucks up an enormous number of government contracts (How many? ...more than Halliburton.), is making a fortune in the current war happy political climate, and goes as far as to imply rather clearly that most of the fabrications of intelligence about the reasons we went into Iraq in the first place, were the actions of none other than SAIC employees colluding behind the scenes.

I can't help but wonder what their plans for Iran are.

Who exactly started the War on Terrorism? Looks like now we know...

Name this quote:

"I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether
it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether
he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right
that matters, but victory."