Tortured? Nope.

May 13, 2014
By J. F. Minneapolis

...Yesterday (click here) the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), a criminal-justice research and advocacy group, released a report and chart that draws on various data sources to present a fuller picture of precisely who is behind bars, and for what reason. It's not happy reading. PPI reckons the United States has roughly 2.4m people locked up, with most of those (1.36m) in state prisons. That is more than the International Centre for Prison Studies estimates, but it's in the same ballpark....

That is a lot of people, but, more than that it is a lot of police work to move people from freedom to incarceration. I am not going discern the quality of prison time and/or the guilt or innocence of that many adults in custody in the USA; but, that is whole lot of police work.

There are approximately 148 prisoners at Guanta'namo. (click here) I say approximately because I don't know if the ACLU has deducted the six prisoners recently sent to Uruguay. 

The point is fairly simple. The CIA swears there was movement made with torture to learn about unknown operatives that otherwise would have not been known to the USA. Okay. But, there were 19 that carried out the murders of September 11th. Another one was already in custody and later convicted in a USA court and imprisoned. There are prisoners in the USA prison system that acted against the country in murdering people in attacks in 1993 I believe it was.

The USA moved on the rat's nest in Afghanistan to stop the activity occurring there and find Osama bin Laden. That never happened as it should have. Instead, the forever war in Iraq was substituted for a thorough change in Afghanistan and securing a future away from hatred of the USA.

There is also FBI involved internationally. There is the cooperation with Interpol. They have offices in the USA and they don't hide that fact. On any given day there are a lot of people all over this country and all over the world putting the pieces of the puzzle together. They are doing it to protect their homelands.

It makes no sense to debate whether the information obtained out of torture would have been found out anyway by other methods, there were no other methods employed. There is no way of measuring that.

The question about the report is not whether it is important to carry out this exercise. The report is a vital exercise of the USA and it's democracy and how it conducts itself going forward. 

Bush opened up that huge new building with state of the art computers and all kinds of monitoring with agents carrying out all sorts of investigation. We are told it is best and necessary to have such a facility for the safety of the people of the USA. 

The use of torture is finite in it's effectiveness simply because it is done to a prisoner. As soon as the prisoner is taken off the battlefield they are irrelevant to the future of the war. The knowledge is limited to what they DID know about operations and perhaps they might know something about what might transpire. But, the idea torture will result in productive information for an extended period of time is nonsense. It is nonsense by the simple fact the prisoner doesn't know what tomorrow will bring or what a week from today will bring or what a month or year will bring. The only information they have is what has happened and possibly what was planned.

You'll excuse me, but, wasn't there a PDB that told of the attack that was to come within three months? Was that gotten by torture? 

No, it wasn't. 

Thank you, Col. Wilkerson. I thought this evening with Chris Hayes was about to bring tears for the knowledge of CIA operatives. 

We know there were more lies than anyone could imagine. We know how Secretary Powell was treated and ignored. He had to make appointments with Bush and sit in waiting rooms with secretaries before he could get an audience with god himself.

There were people of conscience and those without. I thank you for being a man of conscience, Col. Wilkerson. 

The report puts the worst of the USA behind us and we can go forward with integrity. I am sure there are many in the world angry and rightfully so, but, this closes a chapter and it is men like you that were unafraid of the truth and speaking it that matters. I have no words to express how valuable that is to me. It saves our democracy, sir.

Powell's team spent five days at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. in 2003, reviewing the evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Then he went ahead with a crucial speech at the U.N. in New York, claiming that Iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. That assertion was false, and Wilkerson later rued his participation in preparing the speech as "probably the biggest mistake of my life."

No, sir. There was a far bigger mistake in not taking it to the people of this country that valued your words. Your biggest mistake would have been not trusting the American people with the truth.

I don't need to read the report regarding abuse by the CIA. I already know what happened to their service.

CIA Director George Tenet had a reality check with the attacks of 911. And not because it happened, but, because the warning in the PDB was never heeded.

Tenet will never admit it, either. But, when 911 happened and he realized the PDB was simply regarded as a burden for a later date; he decided there was nothing to do except passify those in power and save the American people from danger.

He didn't care if the CIA was breaking rules or disregarding international law, his first allegiance was to the people of the USA. It meant dealing with the Bush White House and their cabal and their faux war, too. The first words Tenet heard on the morning of September 12, 2001, is where is Iraq in all this? 

He chose a path. It doesn't mean it was his choice to make so much as protecting the country and citizens. Protecting them from their own President and his staff.

The report? It is vital to returning the USA to a place among nations as a trustworthy friend with transparent and honest intentions. The report undoes what Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did.

This is what a police chase looks like in Russia.

What is lacking in this video?

The element of death. That chase can cause an accident especially with the snow on the ground, but, that doesn't seem to be a problem. Both cars are moving along without any skidding or change in the direction of the chase.

We already know in the USA high speed chases of criminals are also not advised because it leads to the death of innocent people.

The officer on foot is able to have somewhat of an easier time catching the car than the chase car. He's rather amazing. He not only caught up with the car, but, opened the door and entered the vehicle. Unafraid.

And someone might say, but, this is Russia. No one can own guns in Russia. 

Only Russian citizens who are over eighteen years of age can own civilian firearms. Guns may be acquired for self-defense, hunting or sports activities only. Russian citizens can buy smooth-bore long-barreled firearms and pneumatic weapons with a muzzle energy of up to 25 joules. An individual cannot possess more than ten guns unless part of a registered gun collection, guns that shoot in bursts and have more than a ten-cartridge capacity are prohibited.

Carrying permits are issued for hunting firearms licensed for hunting purposes. People who acquire firearms for the first time are required to attend six and a half hours of classes on handling guns safely and must pass federal tests on safety rules and a background check. Gun licenses are for five years and can be renewed.

Firearms Control Legislation and Policy: Russian Federation (click here)

The criminals in Russia do exist no different than in the USA. The complaints of people in the USA are about three things; political prisoners, the mistreatment of prisoners and prison conditions. Human rights issues and add to that the freedom of expression (ie: Pussy Riot) and civil rights for all (ie: LGBT). Those human rights and civil rights issues can be considered political prisoners. None of the criticism of Russia has resulted in a war.

Ukraine is separate issue. Russia broke a treaty and then disregarded the USA and the EU and wrote a different treaty that is fading in and out of the differences between the two border countries. 

But, the ability to own guns is basically the same as the USA with some safety concerns built in.

The USA has a problem. A very profound problem. The problem is corruption. The relationship between local prosecutors and their police departments have allowed the growth of uncontrolled and aggressive police. The techniques being witnessed across the board are very aggressive and these are our citizens committing minor offenses that need nothing more than the issue of a written citation to appear in court and/or mail in the fine. Parking tickets basically. 

The police in the USA that perform duty among it's citizens everyday are not the Swat Team. Even when the Swat Team is called to remove the homeless from a park, the use of force is completely out of control. Dogs? What the heck are dogs doing policing the homeless? Such concerns by a city or town should be answered with a ride to the shelter and nothing more.

The police in the video above are completely unafraid of the person driving the car, why? Because whatever the problem is, is already known to the police. They are chasing the car for a reason and they DON'T EXPECT THE CITIZEN TO ESCALATE the tensions that already exist. The police have no intention of escalating any of the circumstance now faced by at least the three people involved.

That is a major difference between what is occurring on the streets of Russia and other countries and the streets in the USA. The police in the USA are escalating the interaction of citizens with law enforcement; not the other way around. The police are too aggressive and in turn citizens find themselves in a place where they are unarmed and in danger. The policing in the USA is out of control. It is vigilantism. It is turning sane sensible people into activists to DEFEND themselves from the man with the gun. This time the man with the gun is a cop.

The USA police are assigning danger to any interaction by anyone so long as they have dark skin in order to substitute caution and restraint for gun violence. The officers are way out of line and have hair triggers.

There is a problem. It is not a myth. It needs to stop. None of the protesters are over reacting.

Nicolle Wallace in debate with Former Governor Howard Dean on "Morning Joe, "I believe all liberal reasons are lies."

Rather revealing, isn't it? When liberals voice a single word, by all accounts of her attack dog methodology, it is a lie. 

Republicans live in an alternative universe protected by strategy, not the truth.

Thank you, sir. The people are without a doubt up against the machine. It will be impossible to change without perseverance.

The power of change needs to be felt all the way to Washington, DC to bring forth the respect for our citizens.

December 8, 2014
By Zach Harper

...Two days (click here) after Chicago Bulls' star Derrick Rose wore an "I Can't Breathe" t-shirt in warm-ups as recognition of the protest of the death of a Staten Island man Eric Garner, Cleveland Cavaliers' stars LeBron James and Kyrie Irving decided to wear a similar shirt during Monday night's warm-ups in Brooklyn before they faced the Nets. Many members of the Brooklyn Nets, including Kevin Garnett and Jarrett Jack were also donning the shirts....

The right to kill does not belong to police and to date there has been dearly few willing to stop it. The country really has created a monster in militarizing police and allowing police to be judge and jury to every offense, even the theft of $12 of cigarillos. In the case of Mr. Garner the sale of a single cigarette. These are not capital crimes, yet our unarmed African American men, especially the young, are dying for their freedom. It is outrageous and I would encourage more celebrities and stars of the NBA and NFL to express their opposition to a legal authority gone very, very wrong.

The police escalate the confrontation. It is plainly obvious. Police are prepared with guns to carry out death to a minor violations in the law. That is not skill in policing. The idea every person is a dangerous entity is all to evident. It is the police officers that cause the death by their very demeanor. They give a person no option but to defend their person. These are unarmed citizens. There have been confrontations with patrol officers on the roads of the USA with children in the back seat. There is no respect for the very legal definition of habeas corpus. Due process is circumvented for strong arm tactics that end in death of a citizen. It is outrageous.

The new god particles.

December 9, 2014

Scientists in a lab (click here) used a powerful laser to re-create what might have been the original spark of life on Earth.

Researchers zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet.

They ended up creating what can be considered crucial pieces of the building blocks of life. 

The experiment produced all four chemical bases needed to make RNA, a simpler relative of DNA, the blueprint of life....

..."These findings suggest that the emergence of terrestrial life is not the result of an accident but a direct consequence of the conditions on the primordial Earth and its surroundings," the researchers concluded in the study published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

...Civis said the scientists used a laser almost 150 metres long that for a fraction of a second zapped the chemical soup with an invisible beam.

The power was so intense and concentrated that Civis said that for less than a billionth of a second, it was equivalent to the output of a couple of nuclear power plants.

It produced what would be around a billion kilowatts of energy for that sliver of time over a fraction of an inch, generating heat of more than 4200C, the researchers said.

Some of the earliest life on Earth seemed to coincide with a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment, when the solar system's asteroid belt was bigger and stray space rocks hit our planet more often, said study co-author David Nesvorny, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado....

RNA (click here) are transcription codes for DNA. There are four base pairs that provide sequencing for life as dictated by DNA.

The fact is creating the four base pairs while elaborate in their production can be produced in several ways. 

Any genetic material be it RNA or DNA are very willing to be produced. DNA is very sticky material and likes to generate itself. Mutations of already living organisms happens without much fanfare and certainly without lasers or otherwise. These experiments while interesting still don't explain the origins of the universe. They do however prove the spawning of life is not all that difficult.