"To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a 'presidential directive or other writing' that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is 'inherent in the president.'"
"'So you're a journalist,' he said, accusingly, and for the first time I sensed that, in his eyes, this was not a good thing to be. 'It seems that we will probably have to deport you.'"
"Next month, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will become the first transit agency in the nation to institute a permanent policy of randomly inspecting passenger bags and packages on subway and commuter trains, MBTA police officials disclosed yesterday."
But in bread-and-circuses news, that kooky old man with the funny hat thinks Dubya is the Antichrist:
"The pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations."
So at least there's that.
Today in Horror of Empire news
Oh, there's all kinds of stuff to feel bad about today:
15 Comments
Tags: big brother, conspiracies, grim meathook future
Current Music: Lead Into Gold -- Age of Reason ♬
green sweat
Green sweat puzzles Chinese doctors
A Chinese man has been seeking medical help after his sweat turned green. The man from Guangzhou first noticed the problem while moving furniture with a friend. He claims bright green liquid began pouring down his arms and forehead.
But so far doctors have been left puzzled by the appearance of coloured sweat. Their only theory so far is that the condition may be caused by a mystery parasite inside the patient's body.
The Southern Metropolitan News quotes a doctor at the Guangzhou Friendship Hospital saying he had read of cases of red and blue sweat in ancient medical books but never green sweat.
How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop
An interview with Chuck D and Hank Shocklee:
Chuck D: Public Enemy's music was affected [by copyright lawsuits] more than anybody's because we were taking thousands of sounds. If you separated the sounds, they wouldn't have been anything -- they were unrecognizable. The sounds were all collaged together to make a sonic wall. Public Enemy was affected because it is too expensive to defend against a claim. So we had to change our whole style, the style of It Takes a Nation and Fear of a Black Planet, by 1991.
Shocklee: We were forced to start using different organic instruments, but you can't really get the right kind of compression that way. A guitar sampled off a record is going to hit differently than a guitar sampled in the studio. The guitar that's sampled off a record is going to have all the compression that they put on the recording, the equalization. It's going to hit the tape harder. It's going to slap at you. Something that's organic is almost going to have a powder effect. It hits more like a pillow than a piece of wood. So those things change your mood, the feeling you can get off of a record. If you notice that by the early 1990s, the sound has gotten a lot softer.
Propane and propane accessories of mass destruction
Flame-throwing South Korean 'agents' clash with police:
South Korean protesters point lit cooking gas at riot police near the Blue House in Seoul, the nation's presidential residence. Some 200 men who claim to be former South Korean soldiers trained to infiltrate North Korea clashed with police on during a march to demand compensation.
Tags: big brother, grim meathook future, security, stormtroopers
Current Music: Clan of Xymox -- Creature ♬
Dead Ringers
When life imitates Cronenberg: In 44 lawsuits, former patients say Dr. Charles Momah fondled their breasts and genitals, and frequently penetrated them with a vaginal ultrasound probe that gynecologists rarely use.
The lawsuits also allege Momah got the women hooked on heavy painkillers such as Vicodin, Percoset and morphine, and used their addiction to manipulate them, threatening to stop their prescriptions if they reported sexual abuse.
Some women allege Momah even allowed his identical twin, Dr. Dennis Momah, to impersonate him and "examine" patients.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic killdozer overlords
Israel to deploy robot bulldozers: Officials say the towering D-9 bulldozer has been modified to eliminate the risk to drivers.
"Today the bulldozer drivers are exposed to great danger when they knock down buildings that have militants hiding in them," Israel's Technion Institute of Technology, which developed the robot version, quoted an unnamed army officer as saying.
"The whole idea is despicable," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. "If an unmanned bulldozer is used, human life is in much greater danger."
The new bulldozers are expected to go into service in the next few weeks.
This article is from 31-Oct-2003; I haven't come across any later updates...
