Help the RSPCA ban the use of sow stalls and farrowing crates in the pork industry by signing an online petition.

Belated news: that provision to expand Medicare coverage for contraceptives in the US got passed.

Netanyahu's 'secret plans' for expansion. Peachy.

US offered Guantánamo prisoner deal in return for silence about torture

I've buggered up my wrist, so I can't get much housework done today, so you're about to be spammed with all my backed up links. Plus I'm in a rubbish mood. Duck and cover.

Recent postings suggest that lj Doctor Who fandom may be beginning to reclaim itself from the shipwarriors and other obsessives. Huzzah.

Australia's gag rule will soon be ( Read more... )

Right now I'm so knackered that only thing I'm good for is posting links, so here, have some more.

A personal account of waterboarding.

Who Are the Gitmo Saudis? Foot soldiers, missionaries, and aid workers, according to CounterPunch. Freed Saudis are being reintegrated into their society with an anti-terrorism program, although many suggest the ( Read more... )

"Depending on which paper you read, the story is - after years of denial David Hicks has finally admitted he's a terrorist. Or, that after five years in Guantanamo Bay with no prospect of a fair trial, David Hicks has done what any person would do, and bargained his way out ( Read more... )

I wonder what the editor of the Daily Telegraph would confess to if you put him in solitary confinement for a year.

It seems increasingly likely that the US has little or no case against David Hicks and is desperate to cover its national ass through any means necessary. Wholly innocent people have ended up in Guantanamo Bay by mistake. I have no idea whether Hicks has committed crimes... and I suspect the US has no idea either.

In the gym change room just now, I caught a bit of 60 Minutes on Guantanamo Bay. As you're probably aware, Australian David Hicks has been held there without charge or trial for 5 years, the last 2 of them in solitary confinement. Channel 9 was not allowed to interview David Hicks since "it would not be in the spirit of the Geneva Convention" and ( Read more... )

More fuel for the fire for those of us suspicious of the war on terrorism...

An alleged Australian terrorist has had his conviction quashed because of how his confession was extracted. According to the news item, after his arrested, he was assaulted, threatened with castration, threatened that his wife would be raped, and essentially told that if ( Read more... )

Someone's reserved the books I borrowed last week so I can read up on Abu Ghraib, so instead of being able to slowly absorb the information, I have to bolt it down quickly. I don't recommend this.

I've just been ploughing through the lengthy first chapter of Chain of Command by journalist Seymour Hersh, which is written in a crisp, no-bullshit ( Read more... )

FBI agents cite abuses of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. "Abuses" here covers everything from being chained for 24 hours and left in your own waste, to having lighted cigarettes placed in your ears, to beatings and strangulation.