Abu Zubaydah vomiting? Poor baby. What did he do to deserve that?

And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "suffered" when interrogated? Awww, that's just not right. So he killed a few thousand innocent people, sliced off a few head of people while they were alive, and plotted more killing and mayhem. That's no excuse to torture him!

I'd forget about all this torture stuff. It's bad policy. Obama's current practice is much better: Just kill them wherever you find them. Assassinate them. Send in the drones, drop a few bombs, kill a few bad guys (and some innocent people too - even kids) all in a day's work. Obama has even assassinated two American citizens with no due process and no trial. Just an "OK" and they were killed.

No mess. No press. Just some blood splatter and mangled bodies, mostly unrecognizable. That's the way to do it. Read them their rights first though:

"You have the right to be dead!" BOOM!

"""Secret CIA video tapes of the waterboarding of Osama Bin Laden's suspected jihadist travel arranger Abu Zubaydah show him vomiting and screaming, the BBC has learned.

The tapes were destroyed by the head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Jose Rodriguez.

In an exclusive interview for Newsnight, Rodriguez has defended the destruction of the tapes and denied waterboarding and other interrogation techniques amount to torture.

The CIA tapes are likely to become central to the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, at Guantanamo Bay.

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared before a special military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay last Saturday, he refused to put on the headphones that would enable him to hear the translator.

His civilian attorney, David Nevin, said he could not wear them because of the torture he had suffered during his interrogation."""

Mr Rodriguez states that all the waterboarding applications took less then 10 seconds each and the total time was less than 60 minutes.

That's a possible 360 times then...

.. anyone saying waterboarding is ok here on this board willing to go through 360 drownings?

Christopher Hitchens in his try of this torture via Vanity Fair has some views on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58

In light of emails and evidence given at the Leveson inquiry, It appears the Conservatives didn't know what to do about the phone hacking....

... So they asked News Corp what should No. 10's (that's Downing street .. aka the PM's residence) position be!!

... An inquiry was thought to be not a good idea.. too many skeletons.

Aviva suffered a major shareholder revolt today after more than half
of the votes at its annual meeting failed to back the insurer's pay
awards.

In another sign of growing investor activism, the defeat came despite chief executive Andrew Moss this week waiving a near-5 per cent pay rise which would have taken his annual salary over the £1 million mark.

Some 50 per cent of votes placed outside the AGM went against the pay report, while an additional 9 per cent were withheld, in one of the biggest ever shareholder protest votes.

The remuneration report would have been thrown out completely had new measures to give shareholders binding votes, as put forward by Business Secretary Vince Cable and backed by investor groups included the Association of British Insurers, been brought into effect.

The embarrassing defeat follows a similar showdown between shareholders and banking giant Barclays, in which nearly a third of votes failed to back its remuneration report after chief executive Bob Diamond took a £17.7 million pay package for 2011.

Similar scenes were playing out at Hovis to Mr Kipling owner Premier Foods' annual meeting, where just over 30 per cent of shareholder votes failed to back the remuneration report.

Premier, which saw its shares slide around 70 per cent throughout 2011, paid around £3.5 million to its executives last year, including a £1.9 million "golden hello" for new chief executive Michael Clarke when he joined eight months ago.

Back at Aviva, Mr Moss was awarded a 4.6 per cent rise in March on his £960,000 annual salary but has decided not to accept the increase following talks with major investors.

Mr Moss was also awarded a £1.2 million bonus, equal to 120 per cent of salary, while Trevor Matthews, Aviva UK chief executive, was awarded a £45,000 bonus despite just joining the board on December 2.

Aviva chairman Lord Sharman apologised to shareholders at the AGM for ignoring their views when setting executive pay.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/shareholders-reject-aviva-pay-plans-7711853.html

....... In these days of austerity measures, why do those at the top of the pay ladder (like Oliver Twist) want more?

Digging their own hole comes to mind.

Alert... aLeRt.... ALERT>>>>>

This clip contains severe browning!!!

The Talented Mr Shorten...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=557_1335621847

Bernice:

AD....do you think Obama knows what they think of him???

Walking Eagle" is the name given to a bird so full of **** it can no longer fly.
President BARACK OBAMA was invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation two weeks ago. At the conclusion of his speech, the Tribes presented Obama with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name, "Walking Eagle." The proud President Obama accepted the plaque and then departed in his motorcade to a fundraiser, waving to the crowds. A news reporter later asked the group of chiefs how they came to select the new name they had given to the President.
They explained that "Walking Eagle" is the name given to a bird so full of **** it can no longer fly.

Local elections in some areas today.. No wonder the Conservatives didn't want to blast Murdoch.

After the expenses scandal, the Conservatives are known to have a dishonest streak.

Bernice: I wouldn't put anything past Obama. He's a dishonest man.

Artful Dodger: I found this some where, what do you think? are thing that bad?

***The reason Obama is keeping troops in Afghanistan is there are no jobs for them back home. He doesn't want the unemployment rate to jump before the Nov. elections.***

Well.... The Conservatives are worried about support and what dirt Murdoch can dish out on them, and they need the papers he controls to support them. Otherwise the Conservatives have no real chance at the next election.

... Seeing as NI took as it's duty to gather dirt on anyone they can.. and they are already starting to start telling on how the Conservatives have been playing a game of scratch my back...

Murdoch might have a few embarrassing emails... It's already bad for the PM.

.. After the expenses scandal, and the amount of immoral expenses use..

and the rest of the story on Murdoch was???

who said that the remarks etc on/about/to Mr Murdoch were "unjust and highly partisan"?

Just asking

The bombshell is on page 70 of the report by the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee into News International and phone-hacking.

It is worth quoting in full:

"If at all relevant times, Rupert Murdoch did not take steps to become fully informed about phone-hacking, he turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindess to what was going on in his companies and publications.

"This culture, we consider, permeated from the top throughout the organisation and speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International.

We conclude therefore that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company".

That description of Mr Murdoch by the British parliament as "not a fit person" is likely to have significant consequences.

It will force the board of News Corporation to review whether the 81 year-old, who created one of the most powerful media groups the world has ever seen, should remain as its executive chairman.

It will give ammunition to those News Corporation shareholders who would like to loosen the hold over the company of the Murdoch dynasty.

It will push Ofcom, the media regulator, closer to the conclusion that British Sky Broadcasting is not fit and proper to hold a broadcasting licence, for as long as News Corporation owns 39% of BSkyB.
'Savage criticism'

Nor is that the only one of the MPs' conclusions which will shake News Corporation, and its British subsidiary, News International, owner of the Sun tabloid and of the News of the World prior to its closure.

Mr Murdoch's right hand man for decades, Les Hinton, is deemed to have misled the committee in 2009 by "not telling the truth" about substantial payments to Clive Goodman - the News of the World's former royal reporter who was jailed for phone hacking- and how he authorised those payments.

Mr Hinton is also ruled to have "misled" the committee about the extent of his knowledge that phone hacking extended beyond Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire (the private detective who carried out the hacking on behalf of jounalists).

He is, say MPs, "complicit in the cover-up at News International".

As expected, the MPs are savage in their criticism of the former News of the World editor, Colin Myler, and of Tom Crone, the former legal manager of News International's newspapers, for misleading them about what they knew about phone hacking and for failing to pursue alleged hackers.

But more damaging for News Corporation is that MPs say that senior executives, such as Rupert Murdoch's son James, should have seen that the company's official view, that there was a single rogue hacker, was not sustainable.

The MPs say: "if there was a 'don't ask, don't tell' culture at News International, the whole affair demonstrates huge failings of corporate governance at the company and its parent, News Corporation".

The committee says that News International "wished to buy silence" by settling legal actions with victims of hacking that included confidentiality clauses.


>>>>>> In other words a corrupt organisation.

Word of the week.

Cackiavellian (adj): Acting in a Machiavellian manner, while being so cack-handed about it that everybody sees through your deception. The worse of both worlds – transparent dishonesty. Usually applied to politicians, as befits a neologism coined for that class. The etymology is brand spanking new, since it comes from the splendid Marina Hyde’s column in today’s Guardian, Rupert Murdoch may be a monster but David Cameron and co are far worse. She is, of course, referring to our “political elite” – an oxymoron if ever I heard one.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rupert Murdoch may be a monster but David Cameron and co are far worse

Murdoch's contempt for politicians demonstrated at Leveson this week is perhaps the one thing we can all agree with him on
Marina Hyde
guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 April 2012 19.15 BST
Article history

Murdoch's contempt for politicians seems largely borne of the embarrassing ease with which he is able to persuade them to fawn over him.

I know we're all ending this week desperate to find common ground with Rupert Murdoch, so I hope to be of assistance. After all, arguably the most striking feature of the News Corp boss's testimony before the Leveson inquiry was his radioactive contempt for the politicians with which he has been so inconveniently saddled. As someone who has long treated a change in government as the shuffling of junior personnel, Murdoch appears to have concluded that you really can't get the staff any more. And as an electorate that has concluded that you really can't get the overlords any more, we might ironically sympathise.

The list of things for which you could blame Rupert is hardly under-aired at present, but only the most piously naive would think self-interested politicking was worthy of a place on it. Blaming Murdoch for attempting to influence policy in his commercial favour is like disagreeing with gravity. He should be expected to behave like a rapacious corporate monster because that is what he is.

Where people have a right to expect far more, however, is from those notionally elected to look after their interests. The trouble with the Christian right is that it tends to be neither, runs a popular diss, and you could say the same for our "political elite". They are as cackiavellian as they are bottom-flight.

Rupert Murdoch's grip on his media empire was dramatically challenged yesterday after his company was labelled a "toxic shadow state" which launched a dirty tricks campaign against MPs and now faces a salvo of phone-hacking claims in the United States.

On a tumultuous day for the media mogul, the lawyer who brought the first damages claims against the News of the World in Britain said he had uncovered new allegations of the use of "dark arts" by News Corp in America and was ready to file at least three phone-hacking lawsuits in the company's backyard.

The sense of a legal net tightening around Mr Murdoch and News Corp was heightened by the announcement that he and his son James will testify separately next week before the Leveson Inquiry into press standards during three days of what is likely to be uncomfortable scrutiny of alleged widespread criminality in their British tabloid newspapers.

In a separate development, the royal editor of The Sun became the latest journalist on the paper to be arrested on suspicion of making corrupt payments to public officials.

The arrest coincided with the publication of an incendiary book on the scandal which levelled new accusations that the NOTW set out on an extraordinary campaign of intimidation of MPs to try to blunt their investigations into its alleged law breaking.

Last night senior MPs called for News International (NI) to be investigated by the Commons for potential contempt of Parliament over the claims that members of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee were targeted by attempts to dig dirt on their private lives. Dial M for Murdoch, written by the Labour MP Tom Watson and The Independent's Martin Hickman, also alleges that:

l Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of NI, was bugged in her own office shortly before she resigned last summer over the phone hacking of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl.

l On his release from prison, Glenn Mulcaire, the convicted NOTW hacker, allegedly was contracted to give security advice to a private security company, Quest, whose chairman is Lord Stevens, a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

l NI intermediaries approached Mr Watson with a "deal" to "give him" former NOTW editor and Downing Street press chief Andy Coulson but that Ms Brooks was "sacred".

NI, which runs Mr Murdoch's British newspapers, said it had no comment to make on the book.

At a packed Westminster press conference, Mr Watson, who is a member of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, said the claim that the NOTW set out in 2009 to undermine the MPs investigating it came from Neville Thurlbeck, the NOTW's former chief reporter.

In the book, Mr Thurlbeck, who has been arrested in connection with phone hacking, says: "An edict came down... and it was find out every single thing you can about every single member: who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use." Mr Thurlbeck told The Independent last night that the order to target the MPs, which involved assigning two politicians each to a group of six reporters, had not originated from inside the paper but instead came from "elsewhere inside News International". He insisted that NOTW staff had been reluctant and there was a "degree of procrastination" before the plan was "suddenly and unexpectedly halted about 10 days later".

Mr Watson, who has received an apology from NI after he was placed under surveillance, said he believed the campaign was nonetheless successful and had contributed to a decision by the media committee not to demand that Ms Brooks give evidence to it in 2010.

He added: "Parliament was, in effect, intimidated. News International thought they could do this, that they could get away with it, that no one could touch them; and they actually did it, and it worked."

Labelling News Corp a "toxic institution", he added: "We conclude that the web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state."

......Hours after publication of the book, Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has doggedly pursued hacking claims, told a press conference in New York that he was investigating allegations of impropriety at Mr Murdoch's US media companies, including Fox News. He said a high-profile trip to America to prepare claims on behalf of victims whose phones were allegedly hacked on US soil had generated a slew of new allegations about wider use of "dark arts" to obtain private information.

He said: "The investigation in the UK began with one claim by one client and look where it is now. While it starts in America with three cases, it seems likely it might end up with more."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/hacking-scandal-the-net-tightens-on-the-murdochs-7661722.html


But surely, conservatives don't lie......




Yeah right!!

Bernice: We probably do sadly

OMG...do Americans put up with this>??


http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/goes-appetite-7-gross-facts-processed-food-211800634.html

Didn't you know:

(V): If you want the last word just say so, but whether that word will be meaningful or just you playing a ribbing game....

Artful Dodger: If you want the last word just say so, but whether that word will be meaningful or just you playing a ribbing game....

(V): Oh yes you do. Otherwise why always the last word?

Nope..... I especially loved losing when it helped tune my fruit machine sense.

Cos afters I never played a machine that I lost on

(V): YOu hate losing don't you?

cherry picked from a nationwide collection by the UK government's office of national statistics....

Tell me how they are cherry picked Dan?

"Just ask Rod or Vikes"

Who are on the other side of the political fence as stated before.

Now I've made my point clearly......

... yet when asked about how Christian churches are using politicians to promote and enforce their views on Gay marriage and rights.

.. you won't reply.

(V): Sore loser?

Only you could think your cherry picked stats were better than my peer reviewed studies.

You're the one that always likes to have the last word. Just ask Rod or Vikes. You always pettifog an issue instead of addressing it in a way that can bring about healthy dialogue. You always have! No surprise here.

Please, go post another cherry picked stat for me to dismantle!

Artful Dodger: Nope.. your just a sore loser when it comes to your idols.

All the studies you cited were not only rigged, but they only addressed declining years and not the over all picture. Plus your studies were limited in scope and funded by advocates for increase availability of contraceptives to under age teens. Yeah, they're not biased.

Yer pettifogging again

Based on the newest teenage pregnancy statistics 2010, teen pregnancy is once again on the rise after decreasing substantially since the early 1990s. According to these new teenage pregnancy statistics for 2010, teen girls ages 15 to 19 are the most likely to get pregnant as a teen.

The overall teenage pregnancy statistics also include the total number of pregnancies that are carried to full term and delivered as well as the total number of abortions and miscarriages. However, the increase has only risen three percent since 2006, so researchers are unsure if the teenage pregnancy statistics will continue to rise. There are about 40 teenage girls getting pregnant each year out of ever 1,000, according to the teenage pregnancy statistics for 2010.

.[E]xperts have suspected for several years, based on trends in teens’ contraceptive use…that the overall teen pregnancy rate would increase in the mid-2000s….The significant drop in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s was overwhelmingly the result of more and better use of contraceptives among sexually active teens. However, this decline started to stall out in the early 2000s

Artful Dodger: The data they stated was rigged Dan.

Do you understand rigged? As in biased from the start, will confirm my belief even though it's wrong but I want to be right so I'll use studies and not present them clearly!!

You've been conned by your own side... get over it!!

SPAIN, January 5, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Abortion advocates often promote contraception by claiming that as contraception use increases, the number of “unwanted” pregnancies and therefore abortions will decrease. But a new study out of Spain has found the exact opposite, suggesting that contraception actually increases abortion rates.

stop pettifogging

From Dan's so called unbiased studies.

"........We recruited young people at these sites by asking workers to identify young people aged 13-15 who were at risk of teenage pregnancy, substance misuse, or exclusion from school (that is, as for the YPDP), although in practice field workers sometimes asked workers to identify “vulnerable” young people. We thus aimed to recruit young people in comparison sites who might have been referred to the YPDP had it been delivered in their area......."

(V): You are so wrong...again.

4. Studies show that greater access to contraception does not reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions. Increasing access to contraception gives teens a false sense of security, leading to earlier onset of sexual activity and more sexual partners, which counteracts any reduction in unintended pregnancies.
Researchers in Spain examined patterns of contraceptive use and abortions in Spain over a ten-year period from 1997-2007. Their findings, published in the journal Contraception in January
2
2011, were that a 63 percent increase in the use of contraceptives was accompanied by a 108 percent increase in the rate of elective abortions.10
In July 2009 results were published from an expensive three-year program at 54 sites, funded by England’s Department of Health, seeking to “reduce teenage pregnancy” through, among other things, sex education and advice on access to family planning beginning at ages 13-15. “No evidence was found that the intervention was effective in delaying heterosexual experience or reducing pregnancies.” Young women who took part in the program were more likely than those in the control group to report that they had been pregnant (16% vs. 6%) and had early heterosexual experience (58% vs. 33%).
11
David Paton, author of four major studies in this area, has found “no evidence” that “the provision of family planning reduces either underage conception or abortion rates.”
12 He sums up the U.K. experience: “It is clear that providing more family planning clinics, far from having the effect of reducing conception rates, has actually led to an increase…. The availability of the morning-after pill seems to be encouraging risky behavior. It appears that if people have access to family planning advice they think they automatically have a lower risk of pregnancy.” 13
K. Edgardh found that despite free contraceptive counseling, low cost condoms and oral contraceptives, and over-the-counter emergency contraception (EC), Swedish teen abortion rates rose from 17 per thousand to 22.5 per thousand between 1995 and 2001.

Health outcomes of youth development programme in England: prospective matched comparison study
BMJ 2009; 339 doi: 10.1136/bmj.b2534 (Published 7 July 2009)
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b2534


Abstract

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of youth development in reducing teenage pregnancy, substance use, and other outcomes.

Design Prospective matched comparison study.

Setting 54 youth service sites in England.

Participants Young people (n=2724) aged 13-15 years at baseline deemed by professionals as at risk of teenage pregnancy, substance misuse, or school exclusion or to be vulnerable.

Intervention Intensive, multicomponent youth development programme including sex and drugs education (Young People’s Development Programme) versus standard youth provision.

Main outcome measures Various, including pregnancy, weekly cannabis use, and monthly drunkenness at 18 months.

Results Young women in the intervention group more commonly reported pregnancy than did those in the comparison group (16% v 6%; adjusted odds ratio 3.55, 95% confidence interval 1.32 to 9.50). Young women in the intervention group also more commonly reported early heterosexual experience (58% v 33%; adjusted odds ratio 2.53, 1.09 to 5.92) and expectation of teenage parenthood (34% v 24%; 1.61, 1.07 to 2.43).

Conclusions No evidence was found that the intervention was effective in delaying heterosexual experience or reducing pregnancies, drunkenness, or cannabis use. Some results suggested an adverse effect. Although methodological limitations may at least partly explain these findings, any further implementation of such interventions in the UK should be only within randomised trials.

Artful Dodger:


....... Dan...

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/u/under-18%20and%20under-16%20conceptions%202010%20-%20key%20findings.pdf

Look over the figures as a whole yourself, I did post the link for the stats and their source.

Here's your source..

http://old.usccb.org/prolife/issues/contraception/contraception-fact-sheet-3-17-11.pdf

and that data..

M. Wiggins et al., “Health Outcomes of Youth Development Programme in England: Prospective Matched Comparison Study,” British Medical Journal 339.72 (2009): b2534; advance online publication (7 July 2009): 1-8 at l; www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/339/jul07_2/b2534

.......>>>>>>> As stated in the pdf from the Catholic confederation by the secretariat of pro life activities.

A HARDLY UNBIASED GROUP

Atheism? If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning... - C.S. Lewis

(V): Yes I can. I see you're cherry picked ones.

the collection of a whole countries statistics v a study in 54 sites
... which sites, where Dan?

you can't see the difference between some cherry picked data and that of a country as a whole.

Like Murdoch this week. Can't remember anything about phone hacking.. but he can remember everything about how the UK politicians tried to be where the sun doesn't shine regarding his self.

(V): You explain why there's a difference in what you posted and what I posted. I've read these sort of studies many times before and the results are always the same.

Artful Dodger: Studies... studies.. studies.

Ok. Then explain why the official figures, ie those one collected on how many teen pregnancies for the whole of the UK, as well as by country within the UK (ie England, Scotland, Wales and NI) show a drop?

Do your guys allow for the way diet has changed the age at which UK girls change to young women? The way the end of rationing would have caused a dramatic increase in girls of a younger age getting their hormones change?

"Then why do you do that all the time? That's exactly what you are known for!!!"

By those on the other side of the political spectrum. Hardly a bias free zone.

(V): Then why do you do that all the time? That's exactly what you are known for!!!