I was locked up and mistreated for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during America’s war in Afghanistan. Like hundreds of Guantánamo detainees, I was never a terrorist or a soldier. I was never even on a battlefield. Pakistani bounty hunters sold me and 17 other Uighurs to the United States military like animals for $5,000 a head. The Americans made a terrible mistake.

It was only the country’s centuries-old commitment to allowing habeas corpus challenges that put that mistake right — or began to. In May, on the eve of a court hearing in my case, the military relented, and I was sent to Albania along with four other Uighurs. But 12 of my Uighur brothers remain in Guantánamo today. Will they be stranded there forever?

Like my fellow Uighurs, I am a great admirer of the American legal and political systems. I have the utmost respect for the United States Congress. So I respectfully ask American lawmakers to protect habeas corpus and let justice prevail. Continuing to permit habeas rights to the detainees in Guantánamo will not set the guilty free. It will prove to the world that American democracy is safe and well.

I am from East Turkestan on the northwest edge of China. Communist China cynically calls my homeland “Xinjiang,” which means “new dominion” or “new frontier.” My people want only to be treated with respect and dignity. But China uses the American war on terrorism as a pretext to punish those who peacefully dissent from its oppressive policies. They brand as “terrorism” all political opposition from the Uighurs.

The View From Guantánamo

This weekend I had a hole drilled through my skull. I read that this increased one’s consciousness permanently. I read about the supposed de-conditioning properties. I read about more parts of the brain working simultaneously as there would be more blood up there to help this happen. The arguments for it all seemed to be quite lengthy, quite detailed, thought out and researched, and very intelligent. The arguments against it were based solely on the opinion that it is ‘crazy’ and talk like, "What’s more conscious than conscious?". I heard from an acquaintance on telephone that she was glad she had done it, felt more mental energy, and had days of brilliance. I came to believe that the key to a permanent consciousness increase was a hole in the skull, to restore the full brain pulsation of infancy. After several months of research, discussion, speculation, watching surgical videos and trepanation documentaries, and even an actual viewing of a trepanation, I decided I certainly did want to be trepanned, and sought a way to do it.

Trepanation

NEW YORK — Segway Inc. is recalling all 23,500 of the self-balancing scooters it has shipped because of a software glitch that can make its wheels unexpectedly reverse direction, throwing off the rider _ and in at least one incident, break some teeth.

I hate segways. I'm glad they do this to their users.

Segway Recalls Scooters for Injury Risk

WASHINGTON — The first time Claudia Mitchell peeled a banana one-handed, she cried. It was several months after she lost her left arm at the shoulder in a motorcycle accident. She used her feet to hold the banana and peeled it with her right hand. She felt like a monkey.

“It was not a good day,” Mitchell, 26, recalled this week. “Although I accomplished the mission, emotionally it was something to be reckoned with.”

Now, Mitchell can peel a banana in a less simian posture. All she has to do is place her prosthetic left arm next to the banana and think about grabbing it. The mechanical hand closes around the fruit and she’s ready to peel.

Times of Oman

As he lifts the makeshift crack pipe for his second hit of the night, he tells the driver: "Do you mind?

"I can't do it, f*** it. They'll spot me a mile off. Spend �20."

Charles loads more rocks of crack on to the can. But the drug is already fuelling his paranoia and he peers nervously out of the car window to see if he is being observed.

Satisfied he is safe, he lights the drug and again inhales.

It is just minutes since his first lungful of fumes. But his appearance is already transformed. He is almost unrecognisable as the popular soap star. His face is puffy and his eyes are bulging.

Lister's a crackhead now? Well, I suppose this is what gaming manufacturers get for not inventing "Better than Life" yet.

Mirror.co.uk - News - CORRIE STAR ON CRACK

LOS ANGELES - A woman is suing the J.C. Penney Co. after an alleged run-in with a store mannequin that she says left her with a cracked tooth, a bloodied head and recurring shoulder pain.

AP Wire | 08/18/2006 | Calif. woman sues over mannequin attack

JEANNETTE, Pa. (AP) - Meow. A district judge has been asked to decide whether that word is a harmless taunt or grounds for misdemeanor harassment. Jeannette police charged a 14-year-old boy for "meowing" whenever he sees his neighbor, 78-year-old Alexandria Carasia.

My Way News - Judge to Rule if 'Meowing' Is Harassment

"I would just like to apologize to the victims for any inconvenience it may have caused them . . . or any anguish or suffering," Kim said in the courtroom.

When investigators searched Kim's Tigard bedroom, they found more than 3,400 pairs of underwear and other pieces of women's clothing, along with dryer lint and human hair, marked with information as to where the clothing was taken, and stuffed into boxes, duffel bags and backpacks. His home computer contained more than 40,000 pornographic images, mostly depicting rape, torture and killings.

First Coast News - Strange & Unusual - Oregon Panty Thief Gets an Extra 18 Months

Later this year Intel will be introducing pin compatible upgrades to its Core 2 and Xeon lines, except instead of two cores these processors will feature four. Codenamed Kenstfield (Core 2) and Clovertown (Xeon), Intel's new quad-core processors will dramatically increase the amount of processing power you can have in a single system. Given that the Mac Pro features two LGA-771 sockets, you could theoretically drop two Clovertown processors in there and you'd have an 8-core Mac Pro.

AnandTech: Apple's Mac Pro - Upgrading CPUs, Memory & Running XP

This story, in today's Guardian, is just mind-blowing. The common sleeping pill zolpidem, sold in the US under the name Ambien, can reverse serious brain damage and wake up patients in persistent vegetative states!

The hospital ward sister, Lucy Hughes, was periodically concerned that involuntary spasms in Louis's left arm, that resulted in him tearing at his mattress, might be a sign that deep inside he might be uncomfortable. In 1999, five years after Louis's accident, she suggested to Sienie that the family's GP, Dr Wally Nel, be asked to prescribe a sedative. Nel prescribed Stilnox, the brand name in South Africa for zolpidem. "I crushed it up and gave it to him in a bottle with a soft drink," Sienie recalls. "He couldn't swallow properly then, but I helped him and sat at his bedside. After about 25 minutes, I heard him making a sound like 'mmm'. He hadn't made a sound for five years.

"Then he turned his head in my direction. I said, 'Louis, can you hear me?' And he said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Say hello, Louis', and he said, 'Hello, mummy.' I couldn't believe it. I just cried and cried."

Zolpidem seems to work on PVS patients about 60% of the time, and is effective in the treatment of other brain injuries. Parts of the brain considered "dead" because of zero activity (but not deterioration or necrosis) return to life. It's not a cure -- the pill must be taken on an ongoing basis -- but it is a nearly-miraculous treatment.

Boing Boing: Ambien awakens persistent vegetative state victims