Christopher Hitchens’ words about waterboarding. Not just idle accusations but firsthand experience.

Vanity Fair asked him if he would agree to get the waterboard experience administered by members of the waterboarding experts, our very own Special Forces.
Watch the video of his experience here. Seems like the music itself would make me feel tortured.

The VF story written by Hitchens can be read here.

While the right wing and the current administration advocate it and say it is not torture those who have been waterboarded seem to have a differing opinion.

Tip o’ the space helmet to Snakebite.

Thats one of the top draws for tourism attractions in and around Roswell. There is much more to this city though. We have a small but nice arts community here as well as many parks and nearby mountain fun. I will show you around a bit as the International UFO Festival starts tomorrow and I wont have time for non festival posts for a few days. (hang in there I will get back to my rantings soon.)

A small eastern New Mexico town located on the Pecos River Roswell has been steeped in the cattle industry. Still known as the “Dairy Capitol Of The Southwest” it was on the Chisholm Trail.

This cool sculpture sits downtown across Main Street from the Chaves County Courthouse shown here Ten Commandments out front and all.

In front of that very courthouse I was told my sign memorializing fallen soldiers in Iraq would get me arrested and charged as an enemy combatant.

As you can see they won that one and I no longer carry my memorial sign even though just at the other end of the block there is a big granite or marble memorial standing.

I guess my sign wasn’t fancy enough.

Although this picture has nothing to do with our towns history or attractions I just wanted to remind you that McCain loves Bush and his policies.

I got kinda thirsty taking these snapshots so on the way to the art museum I stopped at our local Mc Donalds for a Coke. The alien theme extends to the business world here as you can see from the flying saucer shaped play area there.

Arbys is in on it too.

As well as the Christian coffee shop.

Even before the crash in 1947 Roswell was steeped in space travel research. Robert Goddard experimented with rockets here from the early 1920’s through the early ’40’s. There is a great exhibit of his workshop and some actual rockets at the Roswell Museum And Art Center.

The museum faces the Spring River.

Yeah, I know. Huh? The river side of that curb is about 18 inches. I have seen it almost to the top once. Kinda seem more like a ditch to me after living in Louisiana for so long.

During World War 2 there was a big POW camp just outside of town. The German inmates were put to work on projects around here and one of the things they did was lay rock walls along the river bed. One day while they were quite unsupervised they laid the rocks in an Iron Cross. The Roswaliens were pissed. A group of citizens poured congrete over the cross to hide it. The mixture was too thin however and soon washed away. It is now a National Monument and there is a small pocket park overlooking it.

The POW’s were treated well here. Nothing like the POW’s are treated in Gitmo today. The people of Germany remembered the treatment and when the Berlin Wall came down they sent our city a piece of the torn down wall. Both a thank you and a symbol of world unity. It sits in the park where the cross is.

The nearby mountains and villages scattered through them offer summer coolness and lots of winter sports. The Bottomless Lakes State Park is just 9 miles east of towm amd the Bitter Lakes Nature Preserve is just minutes from downtown as well. Lots of local wildlife abounds in the area and at the risk of sounding like a travel agent I want to invite y’all to visit.

I will be covering the Festival in the next few days so hang on and stay aboard my big rig to insanity. I may go interstellar on you.

Springsteen.

Listen to what he says before breaking into “Livin’ In The Future”

The media is somehow making a story of this. I guess they think the non-thinking Rush O’Reilly folks need another outdated Clinton/Reno thing to whine about other than presidential splooge on an interns dress.
The headlines blaze the fact that Elian Gonzalez joined the communist party. He was one of 18 thousand kids that were inducted last week.
It’s expected of the Cuban school kids.
I’m still wondering why this is news.
“Story” From MSNBC

In this election year I have been wondering how to cast my vote. Not totally on board with Obama I am searching for a reason to support a candidate. I found this little ad that makes me rethink everything I have said so far. Take a look and see if it can help convince you to vote Republican as well.

tip o’ the space helmet to Mahakala.

Shell shock, now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is claiming casualties all over our country. Soldiers come home not always able to make the distinction of being here or back under attack. Victims of the war even while back in peaceful surroundings.

I knew a Viet Nam veteran who was an officer in that conflict. Crazy George, as he was known by everyone, was a jumble of paranoid nerves that was always set to explode. His trips to the V A hospital to get his meds sometimes led to extended stays in the psych ward for a few months. I have seen him hide from “Charlie” when an Asian person walked by. He was always looking around sure someone was out to get him. Years after the conflict in Viet Nam was over he still lived in the jungle…in his mind.

In trying to help him they experimented with drugs and therapy to no avail. He couldn’t come home, always staying behind to be with his “brovets” (as Buzz calls them) that didn’t survive. He fought back against all those he felt were threats and was eventually shot to death by the Baton Rouge City Police while laying on his back, unarmed, in his own bedroom. (RIP my old friend)

Alicia at Last Left Turn Before Hooterville wrote about the hell that is coming back from war. Quite a disturbing post considering my old friend was just one victim of this horrible way of life returning vets face. So many new faces of this horrible condition are showing up in our hometowns as kids…yes kids…(I mean no disrespect at all as most of the soldiers fighting in Iraq weren’t even born by the time I finished college)…return home with fresh horror every day.

So they put them on new experimental drugs. Chantix is the popular one now. It, like so many other “anti-depressant” drugs is linked to violence and suicide. ABC’s Good Morning America did a story about this this morning. I haven’t figgered a way to embed the vids from there so I will post this link to ‘Disposable Heroes’: Veterans Used To Test Suicide-Linked Drugs. The story from this morning along with the vid clip I want you to see.

I guess there are many more casualties than the 4100 official KIA’s the DOD lets us know about.

Again I ask that everyone do whatever it takes to let the powers that be know we don’t want our fellow Americans over there anymore.

(UPDATE) Obama is outraged. As well he should be. We all should be.

The Big Muddy is set to overflow in Iowa and Illinois. The levee system there isn’t high enough to keep the big river back.

Reading so much about this brings me back to when I left Louisiana on the Thursday morning after Katrina hit. Days after the flooding started FEMA is still asessing the way to help. Not really doing much except looking.

We left that day heading west on Hwy. 190 til we got to I-49 north at Opelousas. There were rescue crews form all points north and west lined up on the shoulder of the freeway headed south towards New Orleans. I-49 ends at Lafayette and Hwy 90 continues to N.O. from there. The FEMA rats had all of the volunteers stopped and forbidden to go any farther. Fire departments, water rescue groups and hospital/emergency health folks had poured from their hometowns to rush to the needs of a city which had fallen to disaster, but the feds wouldn’t allow them to go do the work they had gone for.

I wonder if the people of Iowa and Illinois will think about this response and equate it to the FEMA disaster that was the Gulf Coast just a couple of years ago. Wonder if they will vote according to the response come November.

The Political Cat wonders which of the candidates you would want to be in office if disaster hits your town. McSameolBushit or the kid with the big ears who actually turned a hand to help?

(UPDATE) Sorry if I gave the impression we were Katrina Victims. We had moved to Roswell one month before and had just returned to get our last load of furniture and stuff. We were just as appaled as we would have been if we had still lived there though. We were some of the lucky ones.

Yes I am watching the NASCAR race from Michigan but thats not the race I’m talking about. The race for president is in a critical spot right now. Both Barack and John are trying to choose their running mate. I really don’t think McCain’s choice will help him in this race but Obama’s choice is critical. I’m hoping he chooses the very talented and experienced Richardson with Edwards or Clinton being my picks if he can’t get Bill.

The whole process is almost ridiculous and every one is watching now to see what will happen. My online friend from Santa Cruz, CA posted this on a forum I visit often. One of the posters had suggested that McCain s only chance would to choose a black woman for his VEEP position. Another regular said something about Michelle Obama.

Mahakala (thats his forum handle) posted the following in response to that. After I quit laughing I asked him if I could use it here.

He graciously gave me his permission. I hope you enjoy it like I did.

Thank you Mahakala.

“OK, howzabout this: Obama picks Cindy McCain as his veep; McCain picks Michelle Obama.

Insults to spouses arise; catfights and mutual male fisticuffs quickly follow.

Growing dispute culminates in four-way mud-wrestling match on basketball court in Hanoi-type cage set with madrassa-style decorations. Mud is neutral (light brown) color for equality of degradation.

Hillary and Bob Dole officiate, with Lincoln Chafee to break any possible tie.

Special cheering sections on Obama’s side reserved for Hamas, black liberation theologists, and leftover ’60’s radicals; on McCain’s side, for oil barons, homophobe televangelists and drunken disgruntled veterans of lost wars.

Each side gets one — and ONLY one — large TV screen to host slide shows. Each time Bin Laden appears on either, McCain’s says, “Fear — he’s still out there!”; Obama’s says, “Losers never got ‘im!”

Dems sell tickets by lottery at $25 each to keem ‘em affordable (except for Super-Dems, who get five seats for $25); GOPs auction them off to the highest bidder except for the special convicted GOP pedophile section; they get in for free to compensate them for their unfair suffering.

Rules: no drugs for Cindy, no vodka for John, no terrorist-fist-jabs for Michelle, no arugula for Barack. No liquor for Hillary, either, no little blue pills for Dole, and Bill, if attending, must wear locked chastity device. No pulling Cindy’s long hair, no forcing John’s arms above his shoulders, no references to Michelle as a “baby mama,” and no pulling Barack’s ears.

Entire thing broadcast worldwide on CNN, Univision and Telemundo; Spanish version blanked out in Miami so McCain doesn’t give wrong impression of solid demand for English as sole official language.

Winner: whoever ends up the least covered with mud and is still living by the end. As determined by either the House of Representatives or, if they deadlock, the Supreme Court; if one justice gets ill and it results in a tie, the World Court.

That’d do it, dont’cha think?”

July is right around the corner. Gas prices in the United States are skyrocketing. Godless Liberal Homo has a story about the media refusing to talk about why.

Independence  Day, at the beginning of the coming month, is a time when families come together to celebrate the founding of the U.S. Traditionally people travel from all over to be with their loved ones. Family reunions are usually planned by now. This year however the plans are out the window for many. Fuel prices rising, without any type of wage hikes, have caused the average American to tighten those purse strings.

I was thinking about another, kinda different, family gathering which occurs on the week of July 4. I got an e-mail yesterday with directions to the spring gathering of the Rainbow Family in Wyoming. They are there to get ready for the big Gathering Of The Tribes in a few weeks. Knowing that so many of the folks who will be there have vehicles that operate on alternative fuels, from methane from chicken droppings to the more common salvaged vegetable oil, I don’t think fuel prices will affect a lot of them when it comes to driving a ways for a reunion. Because of medical procedures scheduled I can’t make the trip this year but thats cool. The hippies are still gonna be runnin’ nekkid in the woods.

They have an important message concerning the ease of using alternative fuels. It’s way past time for the piggies in Washington to go to a gathering and just “Listen”.

Spinal Tap from the timeless classic movie, “This Is Spinal Tap”.

I have a friend….no…really…I do. She is a sweet caring thinking mother of three. All boys that are completely wonderful. Notice I said she is a thinking person. Not one to just fall into lockstep to the political dogma Faux News or Rush Limbaugh marching tunes. Not one to puke up the soundbites of the so called liberals either. A woman who I admire greatly because her views don’t line up with most of her friends opinion yet she stands fast with her beliefs.

While she by no means endorses John McSameolBushit she loaths Obama. In many of her onesided arguments she posts on her My Space page she berates Barack while saying she is not a Republican. I’m sure she is not. Like I said…she is a thinking person. I try to fancy myself as a thinker too.

So I have been doing some thinking about the effect slamming Obama has on the whole presidential race. While I know it is the stuff right wing folks seem to thrive on, you know, the problems with the preachers sermons, the flagpin issue, pics of Obama in the native clothes of a region he was visiting (which all political officeholders including Bush and McCain do) it doesn’t seem to be the norm with thinking folks. Thinkers want to deal with real issues. The things that affect the majority of Americans. Regular people like she and I are.

I believe that each slam against Obama (the presumed Demo candidate) is a homerun for McCain (the presumed Repube guy). Each time someone lashes out against Obama it a supportive lash for the same old stuff to continue in America. This isn’t to say that Barack is perfect just sayin’ that in our 2 party system he is the only choice to stop things from continuing down the same destructive path John wants to rush down.

Every time anyone puts Obama down they are in a sense supporting war. The already failing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the one McCain supports against Iran. Supporting the reinstatement of the draft that will be the only way to restock the cannon fodder children of America. Supportive opinion for this war is negligable and if we start another unwinnable war with Iran all support will wane.

In my opinion, every time someone talks about Obama’s faults they are supporting at least 100 years of occupation in Iraq. John McSameolBushit has compared his dream of peacefully occupying the country similar to Korea and Japan. But both of those nations had to be brutally conquered before the peaceful occupation could begin.

The people of Korea and Japan were not as heavily influenced by religion as the people of the middle east are. The zealots there will not be so easily conquered. Even nuclear weapons, like the U.S. dropped on Japan, would not deter the defense of Iraq or Iran. They want to be left alone and will fight harder than the other countries our military occupies. So overcoming their will is a long and deadly process. That could be a verrrrrrrrrrry long time before the “Hundred years…maybe a thousand” desired by McCain could even begin.

Which all comes together to mean that not only will the American kids that are already alive today be forced to be put into harms way in the middle east so will those of generations to come. The human toll alone with McCains dreams will be incredible. The financial cost will be enough to destroy our country as we know it. And with our military fighting a losing war in the middle east who will be here to defend those who would invade us in our time of weakness and vulnerability?

I guess what I am saying is this. Every slam against the man who can defeat the same old Bush stuff is a voice supporting endless war and the devastation of America.

Last night during Clinton’s “concession” speech the crowd started chanting “Denver, Denver…”. She grinned that weird evil grin she has and shushed them with her hands. She knows she will be there…as the Veep candidate.

Another group is organizing a rally of sorts in Denver at the same time the DNC is in swing. (on a side note I thought it was epic that Obama picked the very spot the repubes are having their convention to give his speech last night) An organization calling themselves ReCreate 68. Why would anyone want to recreate the violence that prevailed outside the DNC in Chicago in 1968? I guess I am getting old because I don’t like being beaten by cops these days.

This time however the cops have a new weapon. The news calls it a “Buck Rogers Ray Gun. It uses heat and stops advancing peoplef rom up to a half mile away. One Fly wonders if they will use it in August.

A few days ago I posted an article about H.B.5843. The bill Rep. Barney Frank presented along with Ron Paul to the U.S.House Of Representatives.

Here is a link to another bloggers article about this very important bill. The bill would free the states to ok medical marijuana without federal interference.

Read this one too, then get off your butts and contact your congresspersons and representatives and demand this bill pass.

A Left Independant

Orwellian 1984 has made it to China. The production of constant surveillance equipment is high. How long until “Golden Shield” technology is in place in your town? Is it already there?

This article from Naomi Klien is long but worth the read at Rolling Stone .com.

Here is another link to commentary and analisys of the impact on the United States. The Left Coaster

It is with much anticipation I wait for her speech tonight.

Thanks for running. You fought a great fight…for a good ol’ boy.

Now for Obama to soundly defeat McCain.

First they say she’s quitting.

Then they say she’s not.
Step back bitch and let the real race begin. Or are you just working for McCain now?

With the mainstream news saying that neither Democratic presidential candidate can get enough delegates in the last 2 primary states the fun is now beginning. They are also saying that Obama will get more of the super delegates than Clinton so he will probably get the Demo nomination.. I am looking forward to an Obama/McCain race to the White House.

Hillary has done a lot in this campaign. As the first woman to run for the office she shattered a lot of records. Pushing so many of the male good ol’ boys aside she has drawn a huge amount of support and votes.  But I guess the fact she is just another good ol’ boy, with a vagina, pushing the same ol’ good ol’ boy agenda, has been her downfall. People really want change and believe a newer face in politics would be the best way to find that change.

Hillary Clinton is a true pioneer but I don’t think Americans are very open to a woman leader.  What they don’t realize is that it has always been the woman behind the scenes that seem to guide the men when good things happen. …this world wouldn’t be nothin’ without a woman or a girl.

Listen as Warren Haynes talks about todays politics in his version of an old James Browns classic.

“This Is A Mans World.”