NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pablo Picasso's "Boy with the Pipe" became the most expensive painting ever sold at auction on Wednesday when it fetched $104,168,000 at Sotheby's in New York.

Picasso brings Record Price

I'm sure everyone saw that picture of the US soldier and the 2 Iraqi children holding up the cardboard sign.

This site lets you put anything you want on the cardboard.

I couldn't think of anything to put on the sign, but it was very interesting to see what people had been doing. They are funny,shocking,sad,sometimes perverse.

Make your own Iraqi Picture

GREAT article!

"They chose sexual humiliation, which may recall to outsiders the rape scandal at the Air Force Academy, Tailhook and past killings of gay sailors and soldiers.

Is it an accident that these images feel so very much like the kind of home made porn that is traded every day on the Internet? That they capture exactly the quality and feel of the casual sexual decadence that so much of the world deplores in us?

Is it an accident that the man in the hood, arms held out as if on a cross, looks so uncannily like something out of the Spanish Inquisition? That they have the feel of history in them, a long, buried, ugly history of religious aggression and discrimination?"

From the report, located at : http://cryptome.org/army-report.htm

S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;

c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;

d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;

e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear;

f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;

g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;

h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;

i. (S) Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;

j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;

k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;

l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;

m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.

washingtonpost.com: A Wretched New Picture Of America

"Congress and Bush enacted an $87.5 billion package last November for this year's U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In April 2003, a $79.5 billion measure was approved for that year's activities. "

Now he's going to be asking for more....

Bush asks for 25 BILLION more for Iraq and Afganistan

] Austin's crucial mistake would seem to be putting the
] explosives information on the same web site as his
] anarchist protest rhetoric. Publishing the information on
] a separate site would apparently have shielded him from
] prosecution.

A retrospective look at the Sherman Austin case.

Yeah, this has been an interesting case that I've been closely following. Scary stuff.

What the FBI Doesn't Want You to See at RaisetheFist.com

"According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), 38 media workers -- journalists, cameramen, photographers and translators -- have been killed since the beginning of the war.

The circumstances surrounding these deaths have highlighted worrying trends in US policy towards journalists. The US Army has publicly stated that it prefers embedded journalists, journalists who travel with troops receiving greater access to information and protection from the army. However, these journalists are usually restricted in the kinds of stories they can cover, as they are barred from leaving the unit and are rarely given access to people outside.

Journalists who reject the option of "embedding", preferring to try and do their job freely, have said that they are increasingly afraid that they are being deliberately targeted by the coalition forces as well as armed groups. A lack of proper investigation of incidents by the US forces has done nothing to dispel this view, despite denials by US spokespeople. "

Press freedom: Deliberately targeted for doing their jobs

Expenditures for police protection, judicial and legal services and corrections activities has increased 366 percent from nearly $36 billion in 1982, said a report released Sunday by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. The report cites 2001 numbers.

Cost expand as Criminal Justice System expands.

------------------------------------------

I've heard it said "You cannot govern a free people."

I've also heard that the US has more people incarcerated than any other country.

Is this freedom?

Could it be because we incarcerate so many of our people?

YES!!!!

] California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley ended five
] months of speculation and announced Friday that he was
] decertifying all electronic touch-screen voting machines
] in the state due to security concerns and lack of voter
] confidence.
]
] He also said that he was passing along evidence to the
] state's attorney general to bring criminal and civil
] charges against voting-machine-maker Diebold Election
] Systems for fraud.

Wired News: California Bans E-Vote Machines

] Rather than shooting RFID chips into people, people with RFID chips
] already in or on them will be shot. People with RFID chips in their
] clothing, books, bags, or bodies could be targeted by "smart projectiles"
] that will zero in on that particular Smart.

[Politech] John Gilmore's horrific, dystopian view of an RFID world [priv]

A politics section would be nice.

I saw this site being passed around and thought, hmm, yeah. That URL about sums it up for me.

Kerry is a Douchbag but I'm voting for him anyway (SITE)