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Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture
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Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods
By Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk
America's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.
The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington, who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date, is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts of which appear in today's Guardian.
In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, professor of law at University College London, reveals that:
· Senior Bush administration figures pushed through previously outlawed measures with the aid of inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.
· Myers believes he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of vice-president Dick Cheney, and at Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.
· The Guantánamo lawyers charged with devising interrogation techniques were inspired by the exploits of Jack Bauer in the American TV series 24.
· Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army's field manual.
The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld's under-secretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.
The revelations have sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book, and who are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.
The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by blaming junior officials. Sands' book establishes that pressure for aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers.
Myers was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done. Sands, who spent three hours with the former general, says he was "confused" about the decisions that were taken.
Myers mistakenly believed that new techniques recommended by Haynes and authorised by Rumsfeld in December 2002 for use by the military at Guantánamo had been taken from the US army field manual. They included hooding, sensory deprivation, and physical and mental abuse.
"As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled," writes Sands. "Haynes and Rumsfeld had been able to run rings around him."
Myers and his closest advisers were cut out of the decision-making process. He did not know that Bush administration officials were changing the rules allowing interrogation techniques, including the use of dogs, amounting to torture.
"We never authorised torture, we just didn't, not what we would do," Myers said. Sands comments: "He really had taken his eye off the ball ... he didn't ask too many questions ... and kept his distance from the decision-making process."
Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: "I do know that Rumsfeld had neutralised the chairman [Myers] in many significant ways.
"The secretary did this by cutting [Myers] out of important communications, meetings, deliberations and plans.
"At the end of the day, however, Dick Myers was not a very powerful chairman in the first place, one reason Rumsfeld recommended him for the job".
He added: "Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzalez and - at the apex - Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court."
Stress hooding noise nudity dogs
It was the young officials at Guantánamo who dreamed up a list of new aggressive interrogation techniques, inspired by Jack Bauer from the TV series, 24. But it was the politicians and lawyers in Washington who set the ball rolling. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail right to the top
By Philippe Sands, The Guardian, Saturday April 19 2008
On Tuesday, December 2 2002, Donald Rumsfeld signed a piece of paper that changed the course of history. That same day, President Bush signed a bill to put the Pentagon in funds for the next year. The US faced unprecedented challenges, Bush told a large and enthusiastic audience, and terror was one of them. The US would respond to these challenges, and it would do so in the "finest traditions of valour". And then he signed a large increase in the defence budget.
Elsewhere in the Pentagon, an event took place for which there was no comment, no fanfare. With a signature and a few scrawled words, Rumsfeld reneged on the tradition of valour to which Bush had referred. Principles for the conduct of interrogation, dating back more than a century to President Lincoln's famous instruction of 1863 that "military necessity does not admit of cruelty", were discarded. He approved new and aggressive interrogation techniques that would produce devastating consequences.
The document had been drafted a few days earlier by the general counsel at the Defence Department, William J Haynes II (known as Jim Haynes), Rumsfeld's most senior lawyer. The Haynes memo was addressed to Rumsfeld and copied to two colleagues: General Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the most senior military official in the US, and Doug Feith, under-secretary of defence for policy and number three at the department.
Attached to the memorandum were four short documents. The first was a legal opinion written by Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver, a staff judge advocate at Guantánamo. The second, a request for approval of new methods of interrogating detainees from Beaver's boss, Major General Mike Dunlavey, the army's head of interrogation at Guantánamo. The third was a memorandum on similar lines from General Tom Hill, commander of US Southern Command (Southcom, covering Central and South America). Last, and most important, was a list of 18 techniques of interrogation, set out in a three-page memorandum.
These techniques were new to the military. Category I comprised two techniques, yelling and deception. Category II included 12 techniques, aiming at humiliation and sensory deprivation, including stress positions, such as standing for a maximum of four hours; isolation; deprivation of light and sound; hooding; removal of religious and all other comfort items; removal of clothing; forced grooming, such as shaving of facial hair; and the use of individual phobias, such as fear of dogs, to induce stress.
Finally came Category III. These methods were to be used for only a very small percentage of detainees - the most uncooperative (said to be fewer than 3%) and exceptionally resistant individuals - and required approval by the commanding general at Guantánamo. In this category were four techniques: the use of "mild, non-injurious physical contact", such as grabbing, poking and light pushing; the use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences were imminent for him or his family; exposure to cold weather or water; and, finally, the use of a wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation. This last technique came to be known as water-boarding, described on a chat show by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, as a "dunk in the water" and a "no-brainer" if it could save lives.
The Haynes memo recommended "blanket approval" of 15 of the 18 techniques, including just one of the four techniques listed in Category III: mild, non-injurious physical contact. However, he did not reject the others, nor did he advise that they were contrary to the Geneva conventions. Rumsfeld signed his name next to the word "Approved", and added his comment at the bottom of the page: "I stand for eight to 10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?"
The techniques were devised with at least one specific detainee in mind. Detainee 063 had been refused entry to the US just before 9/11 and captured in Afghanistan in November 2001. In January 2002 he joined the first captives to be transported to Guantánamo, one of a group labelled by the administration as "the worst of the worst". "The faster we can interrogate these people and identify them, and get what they have in them out of them, in as graceful a way as is possible," Rumsfeld said, "we have a better chance of saving some people's lives."
When the Haynes memo reached Guantánamo on December 2, Detainee 063 was in an isolated, plywood interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. He was bolted to the floor and secured to a chair, his hands and legs cuffed. He had been held in isolation since August 8, nearly four months earlier. He was dehydrated and in need of regular hook-ups to an intravenous drip. His feet were swollen. He was urinating on himself.
During Detainee 063's first few months at Guantánamo, the interrogators had followed established practices for military and law enforcement interrogations. Building rapport is the overriding aim of the US Army Field Manual 34-52, the rule book for military interrogators, colloquially referred to as "FM 34-52". Legality was also essential, which meant operating in accordance with the rules set out in the US military's Uniform Code of Military Justice and international law, in particular the four Geneva conventions.
At the heart of them lies "Common Article 3", which expressly prohibits cruel treatment and torture, as well as "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment". Tactics that had conformed to these principles changed dramatically. The interrogation log describes what happened immediately after Rumsfeld signed the Haynes memo.
The pattern was always the same: 20-hour interrogation sessions, followed by four hours of sleep. Sleep deprivation appears as a central theme, along with stress positions and constant humiliation, including sexual humiliation. These techniques were supplemented by the use of water, regular bouts of dehydration, the use of IV tubes, loud noise (the music of Christina Aguilera was blasted out in the first days of the new regime), nudity, female contact, pin-ups. An interrogator even tied a leash to him, led him around the room and forced him to perform a series of dog tricks. He was forced to wear a woman's bra and a thong was placed on his head.
Rumsfeld led the charge for war in Iraq; in part he did so because of Saddam Hussein's contempt for human life. "Torture is systematic in Iraq, and the most senior officials in the regime are involved," Rumsfeld said, a few months before Saddam was overthrown. "Electric shock, eye gouging, acid baths, lengthy confinement in small metal boxes are only some of the crimes committed by this regime." He spoke those words one day after secretly signing the Haynes memo and approving his own techniques of aggressive interrogation at Guantánamo.
Ironically, it was the Iraq war - in particular, events at Abu Ghraib prison - that brought the Haynes memo into the open two years later. By the autumn of 2003, Abu Ghraib was being run by the US as a detention facility. On April 28 2004, a CBS television report revealed the nature and scale of abuse being inflicted upon Iraqi prisoners. Photographs taken by US military participants were published, including one, now notorious, showing a prisoner standing on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his fingers. Another showed Private Lynndie England holding a leash tied to the neck of a naked man on the floor.
Was there a connection between the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the Bush administration's secret interrogation policies at other places, including Guantánamo? In June 2004, President Bush, hosting the G8 summit in Savannah, Georgia, was asked by the media if he had authorised any kind of interrogation techniques necessary to pursue the "war on terror"? No, he said, his authorisation was that anything the US did would conform to US law and be consistent with international treaty obligations. "We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books."
Four days later, the administration unexpectedly declassified and released a number of documents relating to interrogation in the belief that this would reflect the thorough process of deliberation that, it was claimed, took place, and demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law. At the briefing, conducted by three lawyers from Bush's inner circle, Alberto Gonzales, the president's counsel, Jim Haynes from the Defence Department, and his deputy, Dan Dell'Orto, it was made clear that particular documents were crucial: the Haynes memo, and a decision taken a few months previously by the president, on February 7 2002, that none of the detainees at Guantánamo, whether Taliban or al-Qaida, could rely on any of the protections granted by the Geneva conventions, not even Common Article 3.
The second set of documents were legal opinions issued on August 1 2002. One of these, by two senior lawyers at the Justice Department, concluded that physical torture occurred only when the pain was "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, or even death". Mental torture required "lasting psychological harm". The memo concluded that torture of suspected terrorists under interrogation would not be unlawful if it could be justified on grounds of necessity or self-defence.
On October 11 2002, Guantánamo had request that additional techniques beyond those in FM 34-52 be approved for use against high-value detainees, in particular a Saudi Arabian, Mohammed al-Qahtani - otherwise known as Detainee 063. The underlying message of the briefing was spelled out: Rumsfeld had merely responded to a request from Guantánamo, and in doing so had acted reasonably. By contrast, the abuses at Abu Ghraib were unauthorised and unconnected to actual policies.
Much later, in March 2006, Time magazine published on its website the interrogation log of Detainee 063. Some of the Abu Ghraib images bore a resemblance to what Detainee 063 had been through: humiliation, stress, hooding, nudity, female interrogators, shackles, dogs. Was this just a coincidence?
A few days after the president made his decision that the detainees were not covered by the Geneva conventions, Rumsfeld appointed the head of military interrogations at Guantánamo - Major General Michael E Dunlavey, a reservist, in civilian life a judge in Erie, Pennsylvania. Rumsfeld told Dunlavey to report directly to him on a weekly basis, bypassing the usual chain of command. When we met, I asked Dunlavey about the mission Rumsfeld gave him. He paused. "He wanted me to maximise the information. He wanted me to identify who was there and get the intelligence, to prevent the next 9/11."
When Dunlavey arrived at Guantánamo, "plane loads" of detainees were being delivered on a daily basis. Many posed no threat; some were very elderly; others posed a serious threat. The focus of attention soon shifted to Mohammed al-Qahtani. Dunlavey had no doubts about his identity or the threat he posed: al-Qahtani was the 20th hijacker on September 11. (How many "20th hijackers" are there, I asked, alluding to Zacarias Moussaoui, who'd recently been convicted. Dunlavey smiled.) "This guy may have been the key to the survival of the US," he told me. By August, Dunlavey was clear that the rule book FM 34-52 was too restricting for someone like al-Qahtani, who was trained to resist interrogation. In his memo of October 11 2002 he set out the key facts as he saw them. The usefulness of the existing techniques had been exhausted. Some detainees had more information. He requested that aggressive new techniques be approved.
Dunlavey told me that at the end of September a group of the most senior Washington lawyers visited Guantánamo, including David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, Gonzales and Haynes. "They brought ideas with them which had been given from sources in DC." When the new techniques were more or less finalised, Dunlavey needed them to be approved by Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver, his staff judge advocate in Guantánamo. "We had talked and talked, brainstormed, then we drew up a list," he said. The list was passed on to Diane Beaver."
Apart from Beaver's legal input, no one else seemed to have provided any detailed legal advice on the new techniques. It seemed strange that on so important a decision the legal advice of a relatively junior lawyer, with limited experience of these issues, could be definitive. Several months passed before I met Beaver. By then, like Dunlavey, she was being sued in American courts, although the cases were later dropped.
Beaver told me she arrived in Guantánamo in June 2002. In September that year there was a series of brainstorming meetings, some of which were led by Beaver, to gather possible new interrogation techniques. Ideas came from all over the place, she said. Discussion was wide-ranging. Beaver mentioned one source that I didn't immediately follow up with her: "24 - Jack Bauer."
It was only when I got home that I realised she was referring to the main character in Fox's hugely popular TV series, 24. Bauer is a fictitious member of the Counter Terrorism Unit in LA who helped to prevent many terror attacks on the US; for him, torture and even killing are justifiable means to achieve the desired result. Just about every episode had a torture scene in which aggressive techniques of interrogations were used to obtain information.
Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo Bay, Beaver said, "he gave people lots of ideas." She believed the series contributed to an environment in which those at Guantánamo were encouraged to see themselves as being on the frontline - and to go further than they otherwise might.
Under Beaver's guidance, a list of ideas slowly emerged. Potential techniques included taking the detainees out of their usual environment, so they didn't know where they were or where they were going; the use of hoods and goggles; the use of sexual tension, which was "culturally taboo, disrespectful, humiliating and potentially unexpected"; creating psychological drama. Beaver recalled that smothering was thought to be particularly effective, and that Dunlavey, who'd been in Vietnam, was in favour because he knew it worked.
The younger men would get particularly agitated, excited even: "You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas." A wan smile crossed Beaver's face. "And I said to myself, you know what, I don't have a dick to get hard. I can stay detached."
Beaver confirmed what Dunlavey had told me, that a delegation of senior lawyers came down to Guantánamo well before the list of techniques was sent up to Washington. They talked to the intelligence people, they even watched some interrogations. The message from the visitors was that they should do "whatever needed to be done", meaning a green light from the very top - from the lawyers for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the CIA.
By the first week of October, the list of 18 techniques was more or less completed and it fell to Beaver to provide the legal sign-off. She was conscious of her relatively lowly position - "the dirt on the ground", as she put it, too self-deprecatingly - but also acutely aware of the time constraints, the pressures. Relations with Dunlavey were now very tense. It was rumoured that Dunlavey was leaving, that he'd become paranoid, lost the plot. She tried getting help from more senior lawyers in Florida and Washington, but got nowhere. So she ploughed on alone, proceeding methodically through the 18 techniques. Each was tested against the standards set by US law, namely, the Eighth Amendment of the constitution (which prohibited "cruel and unusual punishments"), the federal Torture Statute, and the military law of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Her standard was elastic. The federal Torture Statute, she wrote, would not be violated so long as none of the proposed techniques was "specifically intended to cause severe physical pain or suffering or prolonged mental harm". Legality was thus boiled down to intent.
The techniques were justified because there was "a legitimate governmental objective in obtaining the information for the protection of the national security of the United States". The ends always justified the means. Rumsfeld had described the detainees as "the worst of the worst"; Beaver herself had unambiguous views about some of them. "Psychopaths," she told me. "Skinny, runty, dangerous, lying psychopaths."
Beaver explained what she had tried to do, and her sense of shock about the way in which her advice was made public. "They gave me an hour's notice, no warning, no preparation." They left her name on the advice when they released it; Haynes could have blacked it out but didn't. She took the flak and the lawsuits personally.
General James T Hill visited Guantánamo a week before he took over command of Southcom in August 2002. He had not closely followed all the comings and goings over new interrogation techniques, but he had become increasingly concerned about a "dysfunctional" command leadership. He worried that the full intelligence value of the detainees may not be fully exploited. He was also concerned that the interrogators hadn't been properly trained. "They were just kind of swimming by themselves," he said. However, he was not happy about the suggestion from the Pentagon that he should be the one to approve the new techniques. "I said no, no, no. This is way too important to leave at our level." He pushed the decision back to Washington.
Hill's memo reached General Dick Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the most senior person in the US armed forces, on October 25 2002. "There was a sense of urgency that in my 40 years of military experience hadn't existed in other contingencies," he explained when we met. There was the real fear that one of the detainees may know when the next attack would happen, and that they would miss vital information.
The first big decision was Geneva. For historic, cultural and training reasons, Myers insisted that the Geneva conventions should apply, even to a rogue, lawless actor such as al-Qaida. It became clear to me that Myers was a little confused about the decision that was actually taken. He claimed to be satisfied with the president's decision of February 7 2002. "After all the arguments were done, the decision was, we don't think it applies in a technical sense, but we're going to behave as if it does." That wasn't what the president decided.
The actual decision distinguished between the Taliban - to whom Geneva applied, although detainees could not invoke rights under it because they were not wearing uniforms or insignia - and al-Qaida, to whom it didn't apply at all because they were not a state. Had Myers understood what had been decided? Did he appreciate the consequences for interrogation techniques? If the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was confused, then inevitably soldiers in the field would also be confused. As one seasoned observer of military affairs put it to me, Myers was "well and truly hoodwinked".
So what did Myers think about the new techniques? "We thought, OK, all the techniques came out of the book, there weren't any techniques invented." I stopped him.
"Out of which book?" I asked.
"Out of 34-52," he replied. "I think all of these are in the manual." They were not - not one of them. "They aren't?" he asked, surprised. Not only that, but most of them violated Geneva's Common Article 3. Such an answer from the chairman of the joint chiefs surprised me.
As we worked through the list of techniques, Myers became increasingly hesitant and troubled. At forced grooming and dogs he became defensive. "Dogs were only to be present, never to be..." his words tailed off. "When you see this, you say, holy mackerel," he exclaimed. "We never authorised torture, we just didn't. Not what we would do." Little by little, my understanding of Myers's role was becoming more focused. He hadn't pushed for these new techniques, but he didn't resist them, either. He didn't inquire too deeply.
With Rumsfeld's verbal approval and Haynes's support, the interrogation of al-Qahtani began. The interrogation log for November 23 2002 recorded the first moment. "The detainee arrives at the interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. His hood is removed and he is bolted to the floor."
Meanwhile alarm bells were ringing with the FBI. One of the FBI's behavioural psychologists called headquarters in Washington. Concerns were raised by an FBI special agent who arrived to find al-Qahtani already "incarcerated in a darkened cell in the naval Brig". He was interrogated by the FBI, and the plan was for military personnel to continue for 24 hours straight. The FBI agent objected, but was told that this technique was approved by "the Secretary", meaning Rumsfeld.
The agent described how "the reservists yelled and screamed" at al-Qahtani, and "a German shepherd was positioned at the door of the interrogation hut and made to growl and bark at the detainee". At one point, a copy of the Qur'an was placed in front of al-Qahtani while he was handcuffed to a chair, and an interrogator "straddled the Qur'an". The detainee became very angry, but still refused to provide any information.
The FBI agent was not the only one with concerns. Mike Gelles, a clinical forensic psychologist, had worked since 1990 for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the primary law enforcement and intelligence arm of the US Navy. He first visited Guantánamo in February 2002, and had concerns from the outset.
By June, the numbers at Guantánamo had grown to more than 500 detainees and interrogations were underway. Were they getting any useful information? The expression on Gelles's face suggested not. Even assuming that they had the right people, nobody discovered what they knew. "I remember being down in Camp X-Ray and wandering around," Gelles recalled, "and seeing a couple of very psychotic folks, and thinking, 'What's going on here, why would you fly a guy who's flagrantly psychotic from Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay?' It didn't make any sense." Gelles thought that Beaver had tried to rein in some of the greater excesses. "She tried to cool it, but basically she was so immersed and so lost..." Gelles' words trailed off. "She drank the Kool-Aid."
His chief doubts were that the new techniques would produce "unreliable information" - unusable in any court case against al-Qahtani - that they were immoral and they'd "set a pattern that was clearly going to impact our folks overseas when they were captured".
It was because of sustained pressure from dissenters at Guantánamo, such as Gelles and the FBI agent, and in particular Alberto Mora, the navy's top counsel at the Pentagon, that Rumsfeld rescinded the new interrogation techniques on January 15 2003. Subsequently a working group was set up; it approved a revised set of interrogation techniques, which were less harsh than those rescinded but which nevertheless contributed to a climate that was tolerant of abuse.
After 54 days of interrogation using the new aggressive techniques, what information did al-Qahtani give up? In June 2004, Gonzales, Haynes and Dell'Orto told the assembled media that the new techniques had worked and America was a safer place: al-Qahtani had admitted he had met Osama bin Laden, that he knew one of the 9/11 pilots, and had been sent to the US by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was also claimed that he had provided detailed information about a number of key people, including José Padilla, the dirty bomber, and Richard Reid, the British shoe bomber. No details were given to support these assertions.
On the face of it, al-Qahtani's interrogation log provided little support for any of these claims. (Nonetheless, he faces trial on terrorism charges at a military commission - possibly later this year.)
At the time al-Qahtani's aggressive interrogation began, Cal Temple, a Defence Department intelligence expert, was in charge of an exploitation team created to support interrogations at Guantánamo. Had the pressure from the Pentagon produced anything useful? A measured and thoughtful man, Temple chose his words with care, indicating a negative response to my question. "There was a lot of data of interest," he said. "It was contextual in nature, confirming in nature. Did it help us catch Osama bin Laden? No."
In that same June 2004 press briefing, Gonzales and Haynes went to great lengths to crush any suggestion of a connection between Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. The facts, however, suggest that there was a link between the two places, and that the Haynes memo had a malign influence over time and distance.
One army investigator compared the treatment of al-Qahtani to that displayed so graphically in the Abu Ghraib photos. "Here's this guy manacled, chained down, dogs brought in, put [in] his face, told to growl, show teeth," he said of al-Qahtani, "If you had a camera and snapped that picture, you'd be back to Abu Ghraib."
In August 2003, General Miller made a trip from Guantánamo, where he had taken over as commander from Dunlavey, to Baghdad. He was accompanied by Diane Beaver. They visited Abu Ghraib and found shocking conditions of near-lawlessness. Miller made recommendations to General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of Coalition Ground Forces in Iraq, to codify and develop proper interrogation techniques. Within two weeks, on September 14 2003, Sanchez signed a memorandum authorising new techniques that plainly violated the Geneva Conventions, and that were similar to those included in the Haynes memo, including environmental manipulation (temperature adjustment), the presence of military dogs, sleep management (four hours' sleep per 24-hour period) and stress positions. These would have been very familiar to al-Qahtani. The photographic evidence showed abuse beginning at Abu Ghraib on October 17 - one month later.
In August 2006, the Pentagon inspector general released his own damning report. This concluded unequivocally that interrogation techniques had migrated to Iraq because operations personnel believed traditional techniques were no longer effective for all detainees. The clear conclusions from the various reports - three in three years - reinforced what Gelles told me about "force drift", the situation where interrogators come to believe that if some force is good, then more will be even better. "If you let slip the dogs, they will run," was the way a former Defence Department official put it. And so they did, from Guantánamo, to Baghdad, to Basra.
A group of British soldiers were charged with allowing or participating in the abuse of Iraqi detainees in Basra in September 2003. The detainees there had been subjected to conditioning processes to prepare them for interrogation, involving "maintaining a stress position and deprivation of sleep whilst hooded and cuffed". One of the detainees died. At least one of the techniques (sleep deprivation) had been approved by Sanchez on September 14, just days after Miller's visit. Colonel Jorge Mendonca, the most senior officer charged, argued that he was advised that sleep deprivation, stress positions and other conditioning processes had been cleared by the chain of command. The Court Martial Board accepted this defence and dismissed the charges.
But the climate was changing. In June 2006, the Supreme Court overturned President Bush's decision on Geneva, ruling it to be unlawful. The court confirmed that Common Article 3 applied to all Guantánamo detainees. It was as simple as that. Whether they were Taliban or al-Qaida, every one of the detainees had rights under Common Article 3 - and that included Mohammed al-Qahtani.
The majority opinion, reaffirming the "minimal protection" offered by Common Article 3, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens. One of the Justices went even further: Common Article 3 was part of the law of war and of a treaty that the US had ratified. "By Act of Congress," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote pointedly, "violations of Common Article 3 are considered 'war crimes', punishable as federal offences, when committed by or against United States nationals and military personnel."
Justice Kennedy's remark put the issue of war crimes on the American political agenda. Individuals who had contributed to a violation of Common Article 3 would know that they were at risk of criminal investigation and prosecution. Even more ominously, it underscored the risk of being investigated outside the US.
Parties to the international Torture Convention are required to investigate any person who is alleged to have committed torture. If appropriate, they must then prosecute - or extradite the person to a place where he will be prosecuted. The Torture Convention is also more explicit than Geneva in that it criminalises any act that constitutes complicity or participation in torture. Complicity or participation could certainly be extended not only to the politicians and but also the lawyers involved in the condoning of the 18 techniques. After all, the scheme applied to al-Qahtani was devised by lawyers, reviewed by lawyers, overseen by lawyers.
Interrogation Log of Detainee 063
Day 25, December 17 2002
0120: Control shows detainee photos from a fitness magazine of scantily-clad women.
1400: Detainee was shown 9/11 tribute videos.
2100: Detainee did not appreciate being called a homosexual. He also appeared annoyed by the issue of his mother and sister as examples of prostitutes and whores.
Day 27
1100: Happy Mohammed mask placed on detainee and he was yelled at when he tried to speak.
2320: He attempts to resist female contact. He attempts to pray as she spoke in his ear about his continuous lies...
1940: Sgt M had shown detainee a picture of Mecca, there were thousands of Muslims congregated... Detainee broke down and cried.
Day 28
1115: Told detainee that a dog is held in higher esteem because dogs know right from wrong. Began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come, and bark... Detainee very agitated.
1300: A towel was placed on the detainee's head like a burka, with his face exposed, and the interrogator proceeded to give him dance lessons.
2200: The detainee was strip-searched. After five minutes of nudity, the detainee ceased to resist...
Day 29
2103: ...I was forehead to forehead with the detainee and he stated that he would rather be beaten with electrical wire than have me constantly in his personal space...
Day 31
0100: ... lead (interrogator) hung pictures of swimsuit models around his neck.
Day 32
1145: Detainee refused water so control poured a little on his head.
2100: Detainee seems to be on the verge of breaking.
Day 33
0300: Detainee started falling asleep so interrogator had detainee stand up for 30 minutes. Detainee was subjected to white noise (music) waiting for his IVs to be completed.
Day 50
0230: Source received haircut... Detainee stated he would talk about anything if his beard was left alone. Beard was shaven... detainee began to cry when talking.
· Excerpted from a daily log
· This is an edited extract from Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty And The Compromise Of Law, by Philippe Sands, published on May 1 by Allen Lane at £20. To order a copy for £18, including UK mainland p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0870.
Q&A: Torture and 'enhanced interrogation'
The US uses pain and force against terror prisoners, and argues it is all perfectly legal. Mark Tran explains
By Mark Tran, www.guardian.co.uk
Friday April 18 2008
An interviewee at Guantanamo Bay
A shackled detainee at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP
Does the US torture people?
The Bush administration insists it does not torture people, but says it uses "enhanced interrogation techniques", which, according to critics, for all intents and purposes include torture.
When pressed on the issue, George Bush has repeatedly denied subjecting people to torture. At a press conference in Panama in 2005, the US president told reporters: "We do not torture people." He said the US would aggressively pursue terrorists, but it would do so under the law.
In an interview with CBS in 2006, Bush again denied the use of torture when asked about secret CIA prisons or "black" sites around the world. "We have to have the capacity to interrogate - not torture - but interrogate people to learn information," he said.
What constitutes torture?
Under a 1994 UN convention, torture means "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted" to obtain information.
The convention has been ratified by 136 countries including the US. The UN explicitly banned torture after the second world war, when its general assembly included a prohibition against torture in the landmark universal declaration of human rights. Article 5 states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
Because it has signed up to treaties banning torture, the US goes to extreme lengths to deny it tortures prisoners, while getting into legal contortions as to what constitutes torture or not.
What has been documented?
There is plenty of documentation on what US interrogators have done. The FBI released a report last year in which FBI officials reported 26 cases of possible mistreatment by law enforcement or military personnel at Guantánamo Bay.
The report revealed captives were chained hand and foot in a foetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, where they urinated and defecated on themselves. Besides being shackled to the floor, they were subjected to extreme temperatures, with the air conditioning either turned close to freezing or turned off so that room temperatures topped 38C (100F).
In 2006, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, told a radio interviewer that waterboarding - the near-drowning of a captive - was used on the alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantánamo. Cheney said the use of waterboarding on Mohammed was "a no-brainer for me. But for a while there, I was criticised as being the vice-president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."
The mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has also been well documented.
How does the US justify it legally?
Between 2002 and 2003, the US justice department issued several memos from its office of legal counsel seeking to justify interrogation tactics that are deemed by critics to be torture.
The notorious March 2003 memo, written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel, said Bush's wartime authority had priority over any international ban on torture.
"Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion," Yoo wrote.
The 81-page memo was rescinded nine months after it was sent to the Pentagon's top lawyer, William Haynes. The memo had to be withdrawn as it was so shaky legally, critics contend.
Who approved the interrogation techniques?
The decisions went right up to the White House.
Bush recently told ABC News in the US that he knew his top national security advisers in 2003 discussed and approved specific details of the CIA's methods.
"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people," Bush said. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."
According to ABC News, the national security team discussed in detail what methods should be used, down to the number of times CIA agents could employ a specific tactic. The senior officials signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al-Qaida suspects - whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to waterboarding.
Who were these officials?
They included Cheney; the former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice; the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld; the former secretary of state Colin Powell; the former CIA director George Tenet; and the former attorney general John Ashcroft.
Members of the national security council's principals committee, they met frequently to advise Bush on national security. Rice, who is now secretary of state, chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House situation room.
Who was tortured?
The CIA has confirmed that a top al-Qaida operative - Abu Zubaydah - captured in early 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan, was waterboarded.
The agency said he yielded information that led to the capture of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and fellow 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh.
Where does the administration stand now on interrogation techniques?
In March, Bush vetoed a bill that would have stopped the CIA using methods such as waterboarding, a technique the military and law enforcement agencies are not allowed to employ.
The bill would have limited all US interrogators – including the CIA – to techniques allowed in the army field manual on interrogation, which prohibits physical force against prisoners.
The CIA, which is at odds with the FBI and other agencies on this score, insists the army field manual does not "exhaust the universe of lawful interrogation techniques".
Has the US interrogated suspects on foreign soil?
Long before Guantánamo was used to detain suspects, the US had secretly transferred prisoners to other countries - where torture is allowed - in what is known as "extraordinary rendition". Human rights groups such as Amnesty International say the CIA, often using covert airplanes leased by front companies, has flown hundreds of suspects to countries including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, recently had to apologise to MPs, admitting that contrary to "earlier explicit assurances" two CIA flights had landed at Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory where the US has a large airbase.
According to the Guardian, the CIA has used almost 20 airports across the UK during the period when its agents have snatched terror suspects and transferred them to countries where they may be tortured.
As well as RAF bases, the agency has been flying in and out of civilian airports across the UK, including Heathrow and Gatwick, and smaller regional airports.
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You know you look like absolute crap when I say that Eva Longoria looks hot compared to you. Jessica Simpson has transmuted into some god awful Las Vegas cross-dressing parody of herself with a tan that looks worse than the old woman from There's Something About Mary. Also, the way she is posing her right fist is very, very strange.
Brittany Murphy wedding photo. Don't they look like the happy couple? He looks thrilled. Maybe he's really a zombie and Brittany has some kind of voodoo doll she uses which makes him always look that stiff. The man knows no other pose. Brittany, on the other hand knows exactly what she wants the world to see. Look at her show off that ring.
And a big ring it is. But remember, she has another one in case she gets bored with this one.
And a big ring it is. But remember, she has another one in case she gets bored with this one.
Angelina Jolie talks to Reader's Digest. It's actually pretty revealing.
Jared's porn past. Not as lurid as it sounds, but catchy isn't it?
The Hoff's former nanny holds the power. Which parent was nicer to her? Which one sang songs to her in German and called her Apple Strudel?

subset: commoncrawl


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Here's a video I pulled together to offer you a few tips on how to change up a really simple pattern (like Sunny Grid). By flexing your creative muscles to go from drawing lines, to dots and dashes or by adding thicker markings you can give a totally new look to any pattern!
Sunny Grid Pattern Video:
Save and Print Pattern Worksheet:
In the video I offered you a glimpse of an altered book layout I did using both the Sunny Grid pattern as well as the Sunny Grass pattern (from last weeks blog post). I'm working to finish up a video showing the creative process for that page spread. Should be done by tomorrow if all goes well. And I'll post it straight away!
Have a fabulous weekend!


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Financial Software
Financial Software Questions? Ask IT Support for Answers ASAP
Hello Robert M. A Customer Care Representative has scheduled a follow-up on Monday, September 23rd between 9:00am and 12:00pm EST.
Here is a link to the previous conversation: http://www.justanswer.com/accounting-software/7zyrz-problem-bank-account-reconciliation-quicken-2010-clicked.html
Hi, I'm Robert and I'll be helping you with your financial software question.
hi there. If we could do it a bit later on Monday that would be nice as I usually work from about 1 pm est on through the night. If you want to do it on an earlier day you can post in here any time that you want i am usually on line afternoons and evenings
thank you :)
Hello, welcome back. I'd love to get an update!
Has anything changed since our previous conversation?
Do you have any additional questions that I can help you with today?


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Americans are known to be big spenders. Here's how our spending habits stack up with the rest of the world.
If you're looking for big gains and can tolerate a little risk, it's time to look abroad. Global stocks may be the answer to your investment needs.
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Tritium Found In Water Again At Vermont Yankee
Radioactive tritium that's leaked from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has turned up for the first time in a former drinking water well tied to a deep underground aquifer.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission and plant officials continue to say there's no threat to the public health or safety from the new tritium finding.
Plant spokesman Larry Smith says the water in the section of the well that was tested is not flowing toward the aquifer. He also says the levels of tritium found are well below the safety limit set for drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Neal Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says the test result is just one data point and more testing is needed.


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*Payments shown do not include taxes or insurance, actual payments may be greater. Rates and offers are in effect as of June 20, 2017, for new applications only, for a limited time, and subject to change without notice. Example based on $640,000 loan. Other restrictions apply. Rate is variable and can increase by no more than --- percentage points every 15 years (--- for this example). Since the value of the index in the future is unknown, the First Adjustment Payments displayed are based on the current index plus margin (fully indexed rate) as of the date above.
If you need additional cash to offset closing costs, or would like to obtain a lower rate with a buy down opportunity, please check rates to find the best scenario to meet your needs. PenFed offers Premium Pricing options not displayed and will work with you to create a customized mortgage solution.
For many homebuyers, lower monthly payments offer the opportunity to afford a bigger home. Adjustable rate mortgages like the 15/15 ARM Jumbo Loan typically offer a lower initial interest rate than other 30-year fixed rate loans. This lower interest rate results in lower monthly payments. The same house financed with a 15/15 ARM should result in lower monthly payments within the first 15 years than the same home financed with a 30 year jumbo fixed mortgage. If you are planning to move again within the next 15 years this might be the best product for you.
Once you know how much money you're qualified to borrow, it's worth it to look at the difference a 15/15 ARM Jumbo Loan could make. You could be able to afford a much bigger home. The jumbo part of the loan means that your total mortgage is for more than $424,100 (in most counties). This loan is typically used for larger, single-family homes.
As with any ARM, the rate will remain the same for the first period (15 years) and then adjust, unless you have paid off or refinanced the loan by the time the initial payment period ends. And as with any ARM, there is always the risk that interest rates will have gone up by the time the period ends. But with careful planning, you can afford a bigger home and still end up staying within your budget.
All Adjustable Rate Mortgage Programs: The application of additional loan level pricing adjustments will be determined by various loan attributes to include but not limited to the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, credit score, transaction type, property type, product type, occupancy, and subordinate financing.
15/15 ARM: Available on purchases and refinances. Not available for applications without a property address (pre-purchase). The initial rate is fixed for 15 years/180 months. When the rate adjusts, your new rate will be the then current index (weekly average yield on US Treasury securities adjusted to a constant maturity of 10 years) plus a margin of two percentage (2.000%) points, rounding to the nearest one-eighth (0.125%). The new rate cannot exceed six percent (6.000%) above the initial rate or cannot be lower than the floor rate of two percent (2%). The maximum loan-to-value (LTV) 15/15 ARMs is 80% combined loan-to-value (CLTV) is 80%.
Investment properties not eligible for offers.
Jumbo Mortgages: For loan amounts above $424,100 to $2,000,000. The maximum loan-to-value (LTV) is 80% and the maximum combined loan-to-value (CLTV) is 90%. The maximum LTV and CLTV for condominiums is 80%.
NOTE: A 1% origination fee applies to this loan. Points are the responsibility of the borrower and not covered in promotions. The application of discount points will be determined by the LTV ratio
1For purchase applications, please submit a copy of your fully signed ratified purchase agreement to email@example.com in a timely manner to ensure PenFed can meet your closing date.
The applicant is responsible for the following fees and costs at the time of closing: Origination fee, appraisal fee, tax service fee, CLO access fee, title fees, transfer tax fees, credit report fee, flood cert fee, recording fee, survey if required and work verification fee, escrow reserves and interest due until first payment. Other costs may be included due to program specific circumstances. This is not intended to be an all-inclusive list.
Escrows may be waived if LTV is 80% or less in all states.
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If you withdraw an application and then reapply within 90 days from the date the application was withdrawn, the new application is subject to the previous application's rate lock policy.
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In a fixed mortgage, your monthly principal and interest payments remain the same for the life of the loan, usually 15 or 30 years. A 30-year mortgage will have lower monthly payments, but the 15-year allows you to repay the loan twice as fast, saving more than half the total interest costs.
If you plan to stay in your house for many years, a 30-year mortgage can help you afford a bigger or more expensive property and still have plenty of time to build up equity in it.
In an adjustable rate mortgage, your monthly principle and interest payments remain the same for only a certain number of years. If you don't refinance prior to the end of the first payment term, the rate can go up or down based on the market.
If you plan to move or refinance before the term adjusts, an ARM can help you get a lower interest rate initially. It's important to take into account the housing market in your area and in general in order to decide if an ARM is a good choice for you.
A VA mortgage available only to veterans and members of the U.S. military. The loan is guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and requires a low or no down payment.
In order to qualify for a VA mortgage, you must get a Certificate of Eligibility from the government.
In an adjustable rate mortgage, your monthly principal and interest payments remain the same for only a certain number of years (usually 5 or 15). If you do not refinance prior to the end of the fixed rate, the rate can go up or down based on the market at the time.
If you plan to move or refinance before the term adjusts, an ARM can help you get a lower interest rate initially. It's important to take into account the housing market in your area and in general in order to decide if an ARM is a good choice for you: do you expect to easily be able to sell your home at a profit before the term adjusts.
A VA mortgage is available only to veterans and members of the U.S. military. The loan is guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and requires a low or no down payment.
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I've just had this email from the press office at BP about its joint venture with Verenium which was mentioned in an earlier post today.
We remain focused on commercializing the technology that we are developing jointly with Verenium and continue to progress development activities with the commercial JV that we announced in February in order to make commercialization possible.
[My link]
I should point out that the auditor's opinion in the earlier story today related to the year which ended on 31 December 2008. BP has pumped $45m in to a joint venture as an up front payment and may make a further $45m available in future years to the JV.
BP adds that it has agreements safeguarding its finances in joint ventures.


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Aquaman is rumored to be making an appearance in the upcoming Batman v Superman flick, but the hero will also soon be the star of his own standalone film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. is officially bringing the story of the aquatic superhero to the big screen, with two new writers on board.
The studio has reportedly hired both Will Beal and Kurt Johnstad to write two separate scripts for the film, with the better version to be selected for development. The practice allows Warners to set a release date and push the project forward sooner rather than later, while still working with the best script possible.
News of an Aquaman solo movie comes right after the studio announced release dates for nine untitled DC Entertainment films between 2016 and 2020. The first film is set for release on August 5, 2015, with two more in June and November of 2017. Aquaman will be part of Warner's DC movie universe, but it's unclear which of the previously announced release dates the film will fall on.
Aquaman was created in 1941 by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger and has been one of the original members of the Justice League since the group's debut in 1960. But while the superhero has been around for decades, he hasn't always gotten the best reputation. The '70s cartoon series Super Friends often portrayed him as simple and clichéd, and since then, he's continued to be the butt of many jokes.
Despite this, the character seemed to be garnering new attention recently, with upcoming appearances in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and the Justice League film. The director of both movies, Zack Snyder, even went so far as to call into a Detroit radio show to publicly defend the character after its hosts started poking fun at the superhero.


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I'm writing this on Friday of my first return week to Green Mountain. My initial visit was also just a week, the same week in fact, last year.
I wish I could have come back for a longer refresher but my high-maintenance husband can't survive without me for any longer than a week. (Well, he can but won't. That's a different blog altogether, ladies, right?)
I've had an absolutely fantastic week for so many reasons. Let me share with you what has gone right this week and also all the areas that have brought "great disappointment".
What I Brought & Who I Found!
Firstly, I came a little more prepared this time; that's right, I brought a coffee maker! Just a one-cup Keurig itty-bitty thing but what a God send for a caffeine junkie like me. No more standing outside the dining room doors bleary eyed with that jones-ing look on my face!
I realized that I should have brought my beloved body pillow, but I didn't remember it – next year, for sure!
Related Article: The Retreat: How We're Different
What I didn't bring, but was waiting for me upon my arrival, were two great women that I met last year. What an amazing surprise!
I had no idea that they would be here at the same time, but it has meant for an even more meaningful experience. Thank you Laura and Emma for being my Green Mountain sisters, for a second time. Same time next year?
New Workshops, Experiences & Food!
This week has been just as rewarding as last year but completely different in content.
I skipped a lot of the foundational classes this time around (I took copious notes last year and have a binder at home to which I refer often), and concentrated on more of the exercise and motivational classes available to second, third, and fourth+ week-ers.
Additionally, following the second week agenda gave me more time for outdoor adventures! Laura and I went on a hike that turned out to be educational (who knew that is how they get syrup out of trees?) and inspirational.
Related Article: A Typical Day of Healthy Living Immersion
The scenery was breathtaking, almost spiritual. I appreciated every step. And, speaking of spiritual, I took a slow walk through a labyrinth. A what, you ask? Yeah, I had no idea either.
As I came to the top of the hill and saw the stone structure I thought "Okay, what woo-woo stuff is this?" I came away with a refreshed sense of self, focus and gratitude. So what if you have to go through a little woo-woo to get there, the outcome is real, heartfelt and, hopefully, one I can carry home with me.
Thank you, Lynn Ann.
The new chef this year is not only adorable, but his food is exceptional. Not that it wasn't good last year, it was, but Patrick has a little something extra going on that has taken the food over the top.
The recipe request book must be blowing up, and for good reason!
With the Good Must Come the Bad….
Let me expound on what has been the most disappointing aspect of my otherwise perfect week at Green Mountain.
The trees! Well, more accurately, the leaves on the trees.
Last year, upon my arrival, they were just starting to change color.
By the end of that week, the transformation was complete and the magnificent explosion of color that had developed mesmerized me.
This year, not so much – seems the leaves are taking their transformation a little more leisurely this year. I wonder if GM can do something about it… better go find someone and ask!


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3 charged in connection with robbery of 82-year-old woman
Police arrested three men for their alleged involvement in a home invasion robbery of an 82-year-old Indianapolis woman.
Bobby Dunn, 36, William Tipton, 25, and Larry Whitaker, 19, all of Indianapolis, will be charged with two counts of forgery and one count each of theft and attempted theft.
Contractors working on a home in the 300 block of North Jefferson Avenue on October 28 found the woman bound to a chair in the basement of her home. The woman had duct tape wrapped around her head, including her mouth.
The woman was treated at an area hospital and is expected to recover.
This was one of a series of home invasions in the days and weeks that followed.


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Time to vent I bought a used G8794 12 1/2" planer the sprocket that drives the rollers broke. Contacted the company was told no parts are available. This tool is not that old they said if I needed blades for it go to H/D and see if I can match anything up. Yea right. Then my buddy wants parts for his nail gun whice is under a year old and they tell him they won't be available till March. Is it just me or since they went to Taiwan-they also went in the toilet.
Grizzly stuff has always come from Taiwan. I think one factory makes all of it and just paints the stuff in different colors with different names on it. I've seen the same planers sold under several names, Grizzly, Bridgewood, Woodtek, Jet. You might want to try looking under a different name for your part.
The reason is MBAs running inventory/supply chain/logistics operations. They go, look, if we do this right, we can have low inventory and high back-order log when we report our financial results (at the end of the year) and that will look better to our investors.
Sadly it does look better to investors, so that is why they do it.
I wouldn't be surprised if Chevy ran out of cars in January.
Sorry to hear that--I have had very good service and parts from them---even used their machine shop once---
My equipment is heavy duty ---not the items that you mentioned---keep us informed----
Grizzley does like other tool companies. They take bids and the cheapest builds their tools. Some I bought were junk. The best tool I bought from them, a 12 inch varianble speed bandsaw, was only available for a short time. I bought a scroll saw that would not run new straight out of the box. Took it back to the store. They sent me out to their shop. They had hundreds of new tools in there that did not work including a whole pile of scroll saws. I just got a refund.
And if Chevy ran out of cars I guess I would buy a Dodge.
I'm not saying there's anything good about it for customers (and often not for the company either.) I was just explaining why it happens. MBAs run the world now and the schools they go to all teach about keeping your inventory low and depending on your supply chain more heavily. I believe it is stupid.
Know why Ford ran out of black and red vehicles in 2011? There was only one supplier of chemicals needed for their black and red paint and the supply chain had virtually no room for disruption before production of black/red vehicles would come to a halt. The factory that made the chemical was knocked offline by the Japan earthquake, and there you have it, Ford runs out of vehicles in black and red.
Business doesn't get much dumber than that and yet it is pervasive in manufacturing.
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I didn't anticipate the outpouring of energy I'd see on all sides after my response to David McCullough's commencement speech. It's been a very interesting 48 hours! Following up that post, I want to talk about good inheritances: things that the parents and grandparents of the Millennials did right. My original response to McCullough was [Read More…]
Open Letter from a Millennial: Quit Telling Us We're Not Special
June 25, 2012 by
Dear Baby Boomers and Generation X, Quit telling us we're not special. Believe us, we bloody well know. Earlier this month, Wellesley high school teacher David McCullough, Jr., delivered what was perhaps the world's first commencement dirge to a crowd of teenagers on the first day of distinction many of them have ever experienced. Graduation from high [Read More…]


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Imagine a seemingly endless sea of trampolines, all connected to form one massive trampoline surface. Now, imagine that surface enclosed with angled trampolines that allow you to literally bounce off the walls! These patented, all-trampoline walled playing courts are the foundation of Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park since they opened their first location in 2004. It's a playing court so original and unique, it was awarded a United States patent.
When new offers are available from this business.


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The Queen's speech, which outlined new legal guarantees for public services, reflects the trend for commitments and guarantees on public service delivery to be written into legislation (13 bills, seven minutes, one question: can it save Brown? 19 November). Unfortunately, this could result in claims being brought against schools and other public sector organisations as much for the publicity as for any real prospect of intervention or enforcement. Individuals and pressure groups are willing to pursue legal challenges to enforce aspirational public service commitments. Any money that will be spent on litigation will not be available to spend on frontline services.
The extent to which public bodies will be required to expend scarce resources on defending litigation should not be underestimated. Considerable resources will also have to be spent on assessing performance, and on the procedures for resolving complaints. As bodies struggle with the allocation of reduced resources, they will have difficult decisions to make about how the new commitments can be fulfilled. Of course if a public body gets it wrong, it should be held to account, but often litigation is not the best way.
Stephen Hocking
Partner, public law department, Beachcroft LLP, London
• I was pleased to hear the government is putting education at the heart of its plans. The proposed entitlements will help all young people access the kind of education that has previously been the preserve of the wealthy.
In Newham, our goal is convergence: closing the gap between the poor East End and the rest of London. This year the percentage of young people achieving five or more A*-C GCSEs or equivalent rose from 56.3% in 2008 to 62.8%.
We recognise that improving educational results is more than just about schools, and local authorities have a vital role in this. Tackling poverty is a key way to improve educational outcomes. We are the only London borough to have the two-year universal free school meals pilot. Our mayor's employment project also guarantees residents in Newham that they will be better off in work than on benefits. Both schemes are putting more money into the pockets of hard-working families and raising educational outcomes for their children.
Robin Wales
Mayor, London borough of Newham
• News that opposition peers will try to block planned legislation is not something that I would usually applaud (Tories: we will kill off Queen's speech bills, 18 November). But the introduction of a hastily constructed bill to provide "free" care for some elderly people, only days after the conclusion of a lengthy consultation on the future organisation of social care is not welcome. Ministers and their officials have been full of praise for the large number of ordinary citizens and care professionals who have contributed ideas over the past four months. Promoting this bill puts to rest the notion of being a "listening government" and any last vestiges of so-called "joined up thinking".
Les Bright
Exeter, Devon
• I am not sure that David Lipsey, a former member of the royal commission on long-term care who believes people are better cared for in nursing homes, resides on the same planet as the rest of us. Over the past 10 years I have visited quite a lot of care homes around the country. Most are underfunded and understaffed. I doubt Lipsey will voluntarily offer to live in a care home when it comes to his turn to choose.
John Ballyn
Didcot, Oxfordshire
• So Tom Stathclyde and his Tory friends intend to torpedo the government's 2009-10 legislative programme. This includes the flood and water management bill which will include provision for water companies to introduce concessionary schemes for voluntary organisations. We will, therefore, know who to blame if this bill fails to become law, and causes the possible demise of hundreds of village halls, scout and guide groups, sports clubs and places of worship, particularly in the north-west.
Roy Sturmy
Ladybrook Valley Scout District, Stockport


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Brick Jack Arch - options for cutting brick
1 Attachment(s)
First time post here, thanks for any help
I'm working on a project in which I've got a home addition in solid masonry with a 'demolition' style brick veneer. All openings have a jack arch (a leaning brick lintel type arch-see link below) which I've laid out, cut the templates for, and I'm ready to get started. I want to cut the brick according to my template but the problem is cutting with a table saw ruin's the 'demolition' style finish of the brick. These bricks are made slightly irregular with a very rough textured surface. After cutting the brick I'm left with a smooth surface with blade marks. This is not a problem with the voussoirs because of the fact that the cut side is covered with mortar and placed next to the next brick. HOWEVER, I've got a 8" brick return and the under side, or head, of the arch is exposed. The leaning bricks of the jack arch must be cut at the bottom for a straight finish and it's here the cut surface is shown and looks horrible. I need a way to:
a) cut the brick with the saw and refinish it to give it a more natural texturized look
b) cut the brick with something other then a table saw which will not have the same affect on the surface of the brick....if this is even possible.
Thanks for any help. Here's a great link for laying out a jack arch and my help clarify my post. I've posted two pics as well showing the brick's natrual finish and the effect of the table saw. Thanks for any help or advice!!
I understand the problem, and I'm afraid you probably won't be able to get a perfect match after the cut. There are a number of ways to minimize the marks though, including media (sand) blasting, dressing the cuts with your brick cut-offs, or potentially tumbling the cut brick. For tumbling, I've set a bunch of brick in a concrete barrel mixer in the past and let them spin for a few minutes, with decent results. The problem I see with this in your case is that the return is going to be a potential weak point, and you could break a few of them in tumbling them.
Maybe Tscar or Stuart will weigh in with better suggestions.............
Cut with saw and then dress with brick scraps or a bushing hammer.
I forgot the most important step: rub some dirt on it.
At Mutual Materials, a brick factory in Gresham Oregon, we had a gigantic tumbler, like you would use for mixing concrete. We would load the bricks off the rail cars from the kilns into that and tumble them to get the used demolition look.
I would warn you now some of the bricks completely break, but the bricks tumbling against each other very quickly gives you the used appearance. We were doing this with brand new bricks straight out of the kiln and by the the time they came out they looked really good and used. You might try this with your bricks to get the desired look.
If your brick has lime on it make double sure you wear a respirator, full length sleeves and gloves. I have permanent scars on my wrists from the lime getting in under the edges of my gloves and mixing with the sweat. After doing three days of that it would literally eat all the skin off of my wrists. Not one of the best jobs I ever had, but still I found a lot of it quite fascinating.
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International Efforts
Housing Works' AIDS-Free Campaign is a collaborative, multi-year initiative committed to ending the AIDS epidemic—in New York State by 2020, in the United States by 2025, and worldwide by 2030. With recent advancements in science, data, and health-care access, we can end AIDS if we have the resolve, even without a cure—by dramatically reducing the number of new HIV infections and by bringing those living with HIV/AIDS to optimal health.
How We Can End AIDS Without a Cure
An HIV+ person on treatment that renders the virus "undetectable" is not only healthy but also virtually unable to transmit HIV to others. By combining effective biomedical strategies with interventions addressing social drivers of the disease, we can bring HIV below epidemic levels statewide, nationally, and globally. This community-driven advocacy campaign will rely on strategic partnerships with community-based organizations, PLWHAs, and government and administrative agencies. Housing Works' role is to facilitate initiatives geared to on-the-ground realities in the three geographic realms and to promote a growing movement towards a collective end-of-AIDS agenda.
Housing Works is dedicated to the international movement to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS. Our international advocacy focuses on implementing and supporting structural interventions that alleviate HIV/AIDS, such as providing housing to stabilize viral loads and providing linkages to care.
Advocacy Work in Haiti
After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Housing Works opened an office in Port-au-Prince to join the advocacy efforts of grassroots Haitian AIDS groups, working closely with the Plateforme Haitienne Des Associations de PVVIH (PHAP+), a coalition of more than a dozen Haitian AIDS advocacy and service groups.
Collaborations with UNAIDS
In addition, our international efforts are bolstered by our presence on UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS). Since December 2012, Housing Works has served as an elected North American representative to the NGO delegation of the Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) of UNAIDS. As part of the PCB, Housing Works serves as a voice for people living with HIV/AIDS and at-risk populations, and works to ensure that HIV/AIDS is included in the UN's post-2015 development goals.
Global Anti-LGBT Legislation & the Asylum Project
In 2012, in the wake of the rise in anti-LGBT legislation being adopted in numerous countries around the globe, Housing Works launched its Asylum Project, which is currently providing housing, health care, legal support, financial support, volunteer work, job training, and employment to LGBT activists from Nigeria, Uganda, Jamaica, and other nations who seek sanctuary in the U.S. to escape imprisonment and violence for who they are and who they love.
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Addressing the UN, Haitian AIDS Activist Criticizes Its Neglect of Housing, Transgender Issues
In an emotional speech this afternoon at the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS, Haitian AIDS activist Esther Boucicault expressed her gratitude for international aid to Haiti while criticizing the world body's short-sightedness on housing and transgender issues. To the dismay of AIDS advocates, the new UN Declaration on HIV/AIDS to …
June 13, 2011
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Replaced battery in remote key and now won't unlock/lock car
I have a 2008 535i that indicated (on the IP) that my key remote was running out of charge/discharging. I placed the remote in the ignition lock while driving long distances to keep it charged (doing this for several weeks) , but still continued getting the message that the key was discharged/discharging when I recently tried to start my car without the key in the ignition lock. I am also having trouble unlocking/locking my car with the remote, in general. Comfort access hasn't worked in a while.
Looked in the manual to see how to replace the battery, which I did replace, but now, my remote will not lock/unlock the doors whatsoever, although the car does start up without the key in the ignition lock.
Called my BMW dealer who advised me it would cost $140 to reprogram the remote.
Was wondering if there was any way to program it on my own?
The battery in the fob does not get recharged, placing it closer allows it to work since it doesn't have to broadcast as far with as much power, extending the battery life. Don't know about reprogramming, will be interested to hear myself.
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Memorial Medical Center
About Memorial Medical Center2700 Napoleon Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70115
Phone: (504) 897-5918
Fax: (504) 897-4593
Service Area for Memorial Medical Center
We don't have the exact service area for Memorial Medical Center. Based on the average area most agencies cover, the agency is very likely to provide services to the area in green and less likely to provide services further outside this area. Be sure to contact the agency to make sure they provide services in your area.
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MEMS enabled Fabry-Perot cavity for cQED experiments
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1928/12801
MEMS enabled Fabry-Perot cavity for cQED experiments
Benito, Francisco Martin
Leseman, Zayd Chad
Committee Member(s)
Biedermann, Grant W.
Christodoulou, Christos
Christodoulou, Christos
University of New Mexico. Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
LC Subject(s)
Optical MEMS.
Fabry-Perot interferometers.
Quantum electrodynamics.
Integrated optics.
Fabry-Perot interferometers.
Quantum electrodynamics.
Integrated optics.
Degree Level
The development of novel experimental techniques in atomic physics is allowing for the manipulation and control of atoms in structured silicon chips. These new techniques to manipulate atoms in a chip require building micro systems on chip that support actuation, alignment control and tunability for each micro component, which requires a significant integration effort. One example of a new experimental technique in atomic physics is the realization of optical cavities which is a very attractive model for quantum information and communication, because it permits the study of light-matter effect. The important exigency of an integrated micro cavity consisting of a micro mirror and a fiber optics cable are; alignment between them to form a small cavity volume and actuation to allow for adjusment of the cavity length. In this Master thesis the fabrication of 1-D v-shape or chevron thermal actuator is proposed based on the following characteristics: the actuator exploits the thermal expansion property of silicon to generate mechanical actuation, offers linear in-plane displacement, large force in small area compared to other actuators schemes and a shuttle that is capable of carrying an optical fiber that creates an optical cavity between it and a micro-mirror. Additionally, fabrication and characterization techniques are also described for the highly reflective (99.9988\%) micro-mirrors.
May 2011
MEMS actuator
MEMS thermal actuator
Optical Cavity
Cavity QED
Micro cavity
micro mirror
High Finesse
Strong coupling cavity
MEMS thermal actuator
Optical Cavity
Cavity QED
Micro cavity
micro mirror
High Finesse
Strong coupling cavity
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
[2015-01-29] Analytical and Experimental Methods for Studying Novel Cavity Geometries in Quantum Dot Mode Locked Lasers Murrell, DavidIn this dissertation, the insights provided using analytical methods to predict and refine Quantum Dot Mode Locked Lasers (QDMLLs) for use in multiple applications are explored. Experimental investigation guided by theory ...
[2015-01-28] BEAM COMBINING OF FIBER LASERS AND VERTICAL EXTERNAL CAVITY SURFACE EMITTING LASERS USING VOLUME BRAGG GRATINGS Lu, ChunteAdvances in high brightness laser sources with near diffraction limited beam quality outputs have enabled wide range of applications. However, physical constraints such as material heating and nonlinear effects limit the ...
[2016-02-01] Optical cavity integrated surface ion trap for enhanced light collection Benito, Francisco MartinIon trap systems allow the faithful storage and manipulation of qubits encoded in the energy levels of the ions, and can be interfaced with photonic qubits that can be transmitted to connect remote quantum systems. Single ...


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Kitty's New Doll
Kitty's New Doll
Golden Books, Hardcover, 9780375829369, 24pp.
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KITTY AND HER mother go to the toy store for her very first doll. Which one does Kitty choose? Not the doll that walks and talks. Kitty chooses a rag doll that can't do anything, not even sleep. -But she can pretend cry and pretend sleep . . . and she can say anything I want her to say, - says Kitty. And as she walks home with her new doll, she holds it close and pretends that it says, -I love you.-
About the Author
Dorothy Kunhardt is best known as the creator of pat the bunny.


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Impossible to find misfire
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Originally Posted by
I have a 406 SBC with a misfire. I have tried everything I know how to find it and I have found next to nothing.
A little history. Its a new build with about 600 miles on it. It's a mild street engine with a street/strip 276HR hydraulic roller cam, AFR 195 heads, 9.8:1 compression, hypereutectic pistons, Holley 770 Street Avenger carb, Mallory HEI distributor. The entire engine is brand new from carb to pan with the exception of the block.
It misfires most when it's cold, then seems to almost go away within about a minute of firing it up. I have done a compression check, and all are between 155 and 170. I did a running compression check and all are 100-110 or so. I've tried a different set of wires, new set of plugs, and a new cap for the already new distributor. When I take an infrared temperature, there isn't any one cylinder that is low. For some reason, cylinders 5 and 6 are a little higher than all the rest, but I can't explain that and not sure if it matters anyway.
The ONE thing that I found when changing plugs is cylinder 3 looks a LITTLE wet. It doesn't look bad, but there is only 600 miles on the plugs. A fresh set of ACDelco plugs (gapped .040) misfire immediately also. I tried changing the plug wire, again, on that cylinder only and there was no change at all.
I took the carb to a specialist just to have it checked out and it is perfect. The exhaust smells a little rich, so I wanted to make sure there wasn't a problem with it. He bolted it on a test engine and it ran like a top.
I'm lost at this point. I have no idea what to check or even how to narrow down which damn cylinder it is.
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Does the miss ever go away completely, like when you bring the rpm up? Is it consistent (same cylinder) or does it vary?
Check for arcing plug wires w/the engine running, hood up, in the dark to see.
What ignition system are you using? Cap spotless inside?
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Bill StylArtist/Painter Male Heerlen, Limburg, Netherlands
My MM URL: http://www.modelmayhem.com/GCatX
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About MeWelcome to my profile,
"Looking for Photographer's, Models who i may draw a few sets of their work, so i can learn more about the anatomy and female bodyforms etc, also i draw a few male drawings, Thankyou :)
The Art of all the models i draw are ment as eyecandy and a tease afcourse, it's up to you howe you like to look at them, as they are ment as an escape and i Love both Pin up and Erotic styles. Thankyou, for checking out my profile and port section, Tag's and comments are allways apprieciated, as i try to return the favor whenever i can.
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I have been lurking on this site off and on over the past month and finally decided to join the community. I look forward to all of the tips and advice this site can give me on caring for my hair.


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If you're not already a zoo member, what are you waiting for?
An Oregon Zoo membership at any level is a great value and a smart investment! You get a full year of admission plus a host of great benefits like attraction and food discounts, guest passes, admission to ZooLights and more. Best of all, zoo membership provides endless opportunities to see and learn more about the animals that inhabit our world.
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Framed art doesn't have to be a painting or a photograph. George loved the color of the graphic blueprint of his great-great-great-uncle's home in Louisville, Kentucky. He paired it with a family military portrait from the 1700s for a mix of technical and traditional styles. Tip: Use high-quality scanned copies to protect your originals.
Use these 10 ideas to decorate your home with family heirlooms and vintage finds.


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Calhoun gets balance of work and rest during bye week
Calhoun ready for improved Eagles
New Jumbotron makes it's debut at Calhoun
by Abbey Lennon, Calhoun Times Managing Editor
The large screen made its display debut. CHS students were responsible for the production shown on the big screen for fans and included replays as well as fan interaction during the game. Students were able to play music and display the video and... read more


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Representative Melvin L. Watt (1945 - )In Congress 1993 - 2014
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- BILL1. H.R.1002 — 111th Congress (2009-2010) Pisgah National Forest Boundary Adjustment Act of 2009 Sponsor: Rep. Shuler, Heath [D-NC-11] (Introduced 02/11/2009) Cosponsors: (13) Committees: House - Agriculture | Senate - Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Reports: H. Rept. 111-251 Latest Action: 09/16/2009 Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. (All Actions) Tracker:
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- RESOLUTION2. H.Con.Res.399 — 109th Congress (2005-2006) Recognizing the 30th Anniversary of the victory of United States winemakers at the 1976 Paris Wine Tasting. Sponsor: Rep. Thompson, Mike [D-CA-1] (Introduced 05/03/2006) Cosponsors: (150) Committees: House - Government Reform | Senate - Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Latest Action: 08/03/2006 Message on Senate action sent to the House. (All Actions) Tracker:
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One good move has led to another.
With the Ida Sue School and Nick Amster Workshop garage moving into the old Campbell Oil facility at the foot of Oak Hill Road on Liberty Street, the workshop is expanding at its Oldman Road site.
The school and workshop bought the facility to use as its new bus garage and transportation center. The two programs use 30 buses and 19 cars, trucks and vans, transportation supervisor Fred Porr said.
The facility includes plenty of garage space for repair and fuel bays. "We've got considerable room for expansion now. This at least doubles our space," Porr said.
Ida Sue and Nick Amster are not allowed, by law, to own property, so the property is held by the county. However, the two paid for the five parcels -- $270,000 in April.
Moving the garage means more space for other things at Nick Amster. Workshop director Rich Patterson said the workshop has hired nearly 30 people the past year and can use the additional space.
"We have some space issues here at the Oldman Road facility and when the Campbell Oil facility came open earlier this year we were able to put the transportation department down there. It not only gives us more space, but removes the buses from the parking lot," Patterson said.
The increase in employees comes from two factors. An unusually high number of Ida Sue School and local high school graduates simply were not "job ready," Patterson said. Also, the group is finding out more people are becoming aware of their services. "We've had parents bringing in children who were previously just kept at home," he said.
The workshop currently employs 282 people. It provides companies with services such as packing, sorting, mailing and assembly. Companies pay the workshop and the workshop pays employees.
The total building project is about two-thirds of the way done, and should be finished in about a month, Patterson said.
The space that had been the workshop's warehouse was heated, lighted and air conditioned, so that space is being renovated into employee work space, Patterson said. The old bus garage will be the facility's new warehouse. A new dock for deliveries is being added to the garage.
Also, restrooms at the workshop are being expanded and increased, with more stalls, larger fixtures and new showers, Patterson said. "With the two restrooms we had, we were having trouble keeping up with clients' needs. With the additions, we'll be able to serve them a lot better," he said.
The project at Oldman Road is supervised and paid for by the workshop's board, representing the non-profit arm of Nick Amster -- the Nick Amster Sheltered Workshop Inc. The board oversees Nick Amster's business operations and employee payment.
The best part about the $275,000 building project, Patterson said, is how it is being funded. "Through the jobs our clients have done, we're putting this addition on the building without using any taxpayer money," Patterson said.


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Geography and Demographics Kirkland is a municipality located on the south western end of the Island of Montreal. It is bordered by the boroughs of Beaconsfield, Dollard Des Ormeaux, Pointe-Claire, Saint-Anne-De-Bellevue, and Pierrefonds-Roxboro. The town's population as of 2001 was 20,434 and is comprised of mainly native English speakers. Municipal Kirkland's town government is madeRead on »
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Simple Tips On Flipping Houses
If you are thinking of flipping homes in near future, then you may wish to get some tips. This article will provide some of the tips for successfully flipping homes. First, make sure that you have enough money to buy a good property. There are no model homes available for practicing flipping and you needRead on »
Communities to Include in Your Hilton Head Island Property Search
Hilton head is one of the most prized coastal territories in the world. It almost has everything for a homebuyer from elite neighborhoods like long cove and palmetto dunes resort which is one of the most bustling recreational communities. Homes cost lesser in some areas that surrounds the island than the homes in island. IfRead on »
Get To Know Horse Trailering
Transporting a horse is not a child's play, and one has to be very cautious while doing this work. In fact, horses are the animals that cannot be controlled easily. They always look for ideas to escape. The horse floats for sale can be used in order to do the horse transportation. Horses will getRead on »
Top 4 Considerations To Make When Looking For A Reliable Mortgage Lender Michigan
It goes without saying; that everyone wants to have a place to call home; where they retire to at the end of a long tiresome day, not forgetting property one that they can rent out as residential or business premises for some income. As much as this is so, Building or buying a home orRead on »


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Remembering Barack Obama
posted at 4:02 pm on October 10, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
Before you start tweeting or dashing off emails, the president is fine—as hail and healthy as any cigarette smoker can expect to be. And the current name of the leader of the free world is still Barack Obama.
So why are so many columnists beginning to refer to his presidency using the past tense? It's worth noting that these references are not by conservative bloggers engaging in wishful thinking. Rather, they are emanating from the liberal commentariat.
Here is Mother Jones's Kevin Drum:
Ezra Klein has a really, really good piece in the Post today that looks back at the Obama administration's response to the Great Recession and explains why it wasn't enough. [Emphasis added]
Looks back? Wasn't? Isn't the administration's response to the recession ongoing—a work in progress? The last time I looked, Obama was vigorously lobbying Congress to pass a second stimulus bill.
The article Drum links to has an equally ominous title: "Could this time have been different?"
Even the almighty New York Times, maker and breaker of presidents, ran an article on August 6 asking "What Happened to Obama?"
What I believe is happening is that the left is reading the handwriting on the wall and resigning itself to the harsh reality the man they trusted to "fundamentally transform America" is on the verge of being unelected. The polls may not be the ultimate arbiter of elections, but Obama's approval ratings, which have followed a steadily downward trajectory, are now at a low of 42%. It is a point far south of the widely accepted cutoff of 47%, from which no incumbent ever recovered.
Related Articles
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- Obama new AttackWatch website: Snitches wanted
- Obama wants you to help him gather dirt on Rick Perry
- Economy needs 254K jobs a month for 5 yrs to reach pre-recession unemployment
- Shock poll: Obama approval in California below 50% for first time
- Shock poll: Obama approval rating 45%, disapproval 49%, in New York
- Poll: 34% say U.S. would have been better off under President Hillary Clinton
- Poll: More than half of voters do not believe Obama deserves a second term
- When you're running neck-and-neck with no one in particular, you've got problems
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