Safe Space

The pursuit of excellence,

The pursuit of perfection,

The pursuit of simplicity

Escape detection.

Torture Came From The Top

Two branches of the torture story came together tonight on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. Both the CIA interrogators and the Defense Department interrogators veered into the use of torture at about the same time. Independently? Or were they linked?

Today's release of the declassified November 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee report, "INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN U.S. CUSTODY", explained how they were linked.

It was at the top.

President Bush's Office of Legal Counsel wrote the memos that stretched the law. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld took them to his people. CIA Director Tenet took them to his. Torture had already started, and they wanted legal cover for what they were already doing.

Torture was a trickle-down affair.

Also, Rachel notices, the answer to the mystery of why our interrogators chose to use the same methods that the Chinese had used in the 1950's to generate false confessions by brainwashing has become apparent. The Bush Administration at that time was intent on war with Iraq. It was trying to produce confessions linking Al Qaeda to Iraq to justify our invasion.

They were having a terrible time getting those confessions, so they had to try really hard. That didn't work either, though. Darn.

So now, former Vice President Cheney is hitting the talk show circuit, doing his best to

"...take the battle to the enemy and, where necessary, preempt grave threats to our country before they materialize."

Nothing new. Except the threats are now to Cheney's freedom.

The ACLU has a series of torture document requests queued up in court. The Attorney General can stop fighting the release of any of these at will.

Yesterday, the news was that President Obama cannot tell his Attorney General what to do. (Jeepers, Bush could sure tell Gonzales what to do.) AG Holder says that if laws were broken, they must be enforced. Obama doesn't want the little guys hurt. Rahm Emmanuel doesn't want the big guys hurt either. But his opinion turned out not to matter. The law is the law, in this administration. Holder decides.

Today, former Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, the one-time commander of Abu Ghraib, called for a tribunal of representatives from the Iraq Coalition countries to investigate our torturing ways. These countries invested their money and their people in our war. Our torturing ways invited invited radical recruits to attack these donated soldiers as well as attacking our own. These countries we misled should judge our war crimes.

Having seen her own soldiers put in jail for following orders that came from Washington, Karpinski is also strongly insistant that if CIA staffers who tortured are not to be indicted, as Obama has promised, then her soldiers who tortured and were convicted should now be set free. Both were only following orders.

The big guys should go down. More and more people agree. Every day they're switching.

Liberating the rank-and-file torturers requires nailing the big guys who told them to do it - and who also then put them in jail when Abu Ghraib was discovered. Severing the head from the body of the torture monster will turn the body against the head.

Both torturers and torture-requisitioners should never leave this country again. Will we extricate them by force if they are arrested abroad? All our Geneva co-signatories are required to arrest and try them. So stay home and enjoy America's beauty, folks.

As conservative news commentators and guests line up to take ever-more solid positions in support of the good that torture has brought to this country, ACLU lawsuits bring the release of almost-daily news bombs about what really happened.

Fox News' Glenn Beck was captured saying on his show that torture is optional for our government. Not a fact. Fox's Sean Hannity has volunteered to be waterboarded to prove that it's not torture. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann is taking him up on it, offering a $1000 donation to charity for every second Hannity stays under the wet handkerchief.

Even then, they will waterboard Hannity only a few seconds, not until his blood oxygen starts to fail. That's the boundary we've been using. Our medical technicians put an oxygen sensor on a detainee's fingertip and informed the torturers when their client was starting to die.

Torture is not a legal option.

Tomorrow... and tomorrow... will Cheney wander Washington, ever more alone, lying to those who will listen, until his sorry rep becomes such a walking joke that no one will invite him in for lunch?

Does Marijuana Cure Cancer?

As gay marriage fever sweeps the land, with even Republicans now realizing that votes can be gained by empowering youthful believers, a second revolution seems afoot: marijuana legalization.

In the last election, voters in Massachusetts made marijuana possession a common nuisance, worthy of a ticket. Voters made Michigan the 13th state to legalize medical marijuana. Today, the California state assembly is looking at the possibility of taxing the state's largest business, marijuana sales. Many states are re-considering the $30,000 per year cost of jailing non-violent marijuana users. The violent Mexican drug cartels are also making legalization look good as they turn Southwest cities into Al Capone-like Prohibition-era Chicagos.

In addition to ending gangsterism, reducing the cost of incarceration, and providing tax revenues, legalizing marijuana will bring a hidden benefit. It appears that it may reduce the cancer rate.

Does marijuana cure cancer? Yes, says a 2007 Harvard study.

"...the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread!"

One of the commenters in the above article said, in further anecdotal support of the idea,

"i have known about a knot in my leftie testie for over a year and am a regular user, my doc told me it seemed as it may have started as a cancer but some how fizzled out on the way!"

Interesting. Is there more? Let's try the Google for "THC cures cancer". Yes, much more. Much, much more. Brain cancer, for instance...

"In 1998, the research team – led by investigator Manuel Guzman – discovered that THC can selectively induce program cell death in brain tumor cells without negatively impacting the surrounding healthy cells. Then in 2000, Guzman’s team reported in the journal Nature Medicine that injections of synthetic THC eradicated malignant gliomas (brain tumors) in one-third of treated rats, and prolonged life in another third by six weeks."

"Program cell death" is another name for apoptosis. It is ordinary cell death. Cells that become defective are programmed to die. But some don't, and they can become a cancer. This study seems to suggest that marijuana reboots their programs.

More glioma news comes from The Journal Of Clinical Investigation, April 2009:

"Cannabinoid action induces autophagy-mediated cell death through stimulation of ER stress in human glioma cells"

Here is a time-lapse video that lets you see the cells die...


Marijuana controls cervical cancer:

"...researchers Robert Ramer and Burkhard Hinz from the Institute of Toxicology and Pharmacology at the University of Rostock in Germany have found that cannabinoid compounds, such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and methanandamide (MA), can cause the regression of highly invasive cancers, including cervical cancer and lung carcinoma."

Leukemia and lymphoma:

"A study published in the July 2002 edition of the medical journal Blood found that THC and some other cannabinoids produced "programmed cell death" in different varieties of human leukemia and lymphoma cell lines, thereby destroying the cancerous cells but leaving other cells unharmed."

These cancers seem to respond pretty impressively. The FDA might approve marijuana, if only it would dare to look at it. But marijuana research is discouraged in this country. And the drug industry likes drugs that are delivered through the drug industry.

People with cancer will need to find their own source for this possible cure. They can be assured that marijuana's toxicity is less than aspirin. It can be inhaled using a special vaporizer that eliminates combustion. Compared to the drugs they are using for their cancers, the side effects are trivial. But don't drive. Marijuana is an amplifier. If you smoke it and drink, you will be drunker.

Some people are sensitive to marijuana. A friend of mine, Ted, tried it once and it took him three days to come down. Curiously, he later died of lung cancer. Treat it with the respect its price deserves. Google around and see what can be found about marijuana and your particular condition.

It may not be too late.

Lawmakers who are now considering the impact of marijuana legalization might do well to look at the reduction in health costs that would come from a reduced cancer rate.

Orange to Green

Can the security thermometers at airports be turned upside down so that they show from orange to green? Green on top?

The color at the top is the direction we are heading.

Having the direst of times at the top of the thermometer keeps people driven by fear. If it were green, we could be led by hope.

Is Secret Government Innately Illegal?

The need for secrecy obsessed the Bush Administration.

When the courts and Congress asked for documents, the Bush people refused, playing the 'national security' card. They refused to participate in tri-partite government. The other branches of government were suddenly less than equal. The secret side of the executive branch was responsible to no court, was managed by no law.

Today, under Obama, it still is not. It is not constructed of law, but in spite of it. It is secret because it works outside the law.

Unless the courts and Congress can suddenly also choose to be secretive, the already secretive executive holds greater power. This is nothing new. The FBI's J. Edgar Hoover had files on Congressmen and a healthy yearly budget allocation in return. Is this legal?

A government constructed from known law, deliberated and debated and carved to fit by electors from the people, its engine driven by the people's taxes, its charge the welfare of these very same people - what room exists for secrets there?

All else is sham.

Will All That's Seen Be Known To All?

Seems like we're heading that way.

The New York Times reports this morning that our National Security Agency is functionally unable to stop spying on phone calls within America between Americans. Without listening, they cannot separate local calls from calls that are going overseas.

This is the same situation as the torturer who cannot confirm innocence without damage.

Last summer the NSA was allowed by Congress to spy on all phone calls from people in America to other countries. For calls within America, they needed to get a warrant from the FISA court.

They didn't get the warrants as they promised. The way they are physically set up prevents this. They have to spy on all calls to know which are foreign. They didn't know this?

How could the NSA not have known when they made their promise that they couldn't keep it?

They must have known. Either our National Security Agency knowingly lied to Congress, or the top of this organization does not know what the bottom is doing and is making promises that the rank and file can't keep. Congress must decide which is true.

Once again, secret government allows lawbreaking. Principles of Government 101.

The more Congress learns about the NSA, the more they discover they need to learn. Someday soon it will be an open book.

As the info age unrolls our new visible universe, intelligence operations should anticipate transparency.

Are they not intelligent?

We Are All Seen

Seen we are, we city-folks, seen on cameras here and there, a quilt of videos that history will warehouse. Ever cheaper the cost of the eyes that see us, ever cheaper the cost of storage.

Even now, as I complain and argue over the phone with a recalcitrant billing clerk, I find myself wishing that those who probably monitor my calls could send them true and clear to those whose job it is to bring law into our lives. If the government's listeners ever think to monitor the phones of Medicare billing clerks at clinics, they will discover endless job security.

Are there listeners? Oh, yes!

Computerized, of course. It's just so easy and it takes no effort. Bush did it. Obama has not stopped it. Madmen now call for armed overthrow, motivating its retention.

Having a listener on my phone is like having junk mail and a credit card balance. It gives me comfort that I'm not alone. Living things need company. That's why solitary confinement is torture. That's why I welcome the listener and the watcher. To the extent that I own my own government, they empower me. To the extent I fail in this, they enslave me.

So I must know in my heart that I own my own government. Until that day is sure, I must be an actor. I must give the watcher what he expects to see, give the listener words he can be sure he understands. No need to draw attention here. So it is for all of us. No need for attention here. We are all on stage.

We are history.

Whatever happened to "personal space"?

How can one who is always being an actor see God?

The Blind Eye

In recent days I've talked a lot to people who live in a world where they cannot see. They cannot link out from their work sites. They cannot Google.

I can tell them about my web page or my blogs, but I then have to read these aloud for them, or print things out. They may have a need to know, however their need for safety from digital invasion keeps them disconnected from the connected world. They connect by phone. Have staff meetings. They are blind to the connected world around them.

In the eye of the storm, they are blind to the world.