Bleached

A mother who was badly burned in a bleach attack after asking a group of youths to be quiet

Fragging, Fox Style

Der Generalsekretär Homosexuell

For the record, Ralph Peters has never seen combat; has never been anywhere close to combat. His “military service” consists of a stint in Germany during the mid-1980s, where he no doubt faced down the twin evils of disgusting sausages and horrible Euro-Pop. After which, he worked for U.S. Intelligence, and wrote shitty spy novels with titles like “Flames of Heaven” and “Traitor,” while all the time never being within a thousand miles of an actual gun going off. Then he got hired by Fox. Which pretty much brings us up to date.

So of course, when a U.S. solider left his base and then got captured by the Taliban, Fox News brought Lt. Col. Peters on to speak. Peters started out fine, first saying, “I want to stress first of all that we must wait until all of the facts are in until we make a final judgment.” Good point, Mr. Peters! Because we don’t yet know how the solider got captured, why he left the base, or what really happened, or anything. After making his wise call to avoid a rush to judgment, Peters then waited approximately 0.5 seconds before rushing to judgment, calling the captured solider a “liar” and a “deserter.”

Peters then continued—

I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I’m with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime, I don’t care how hard it sounds, as far as I’m concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.

Yeah. Got that? U.S. soldiers who leave their base and get captured should be killed by the Taliban, because those soldiers suck, and because Ralph Peters really really knows what he’s talking about.

Here’s the entire amazing video

Here's Your Meatloaf Sandwich, Sir

American Scofflaw

A man got the shock of his life when he opened a loaf of bread and found a whole mouse inside.

That Would Be Logical

The Gay Secretary

Why did I vote for this man? Well, that's a post for another time, believe me. At this moment, Obama is turning into Bush and that ain't cool.

President Obama, has done a brilliant job of creating an object lesson, through the invasion of Iraq, about just what can happen to a country which has absolutely no nuclear deterrent.

And President Obama, for the gazillionth time: you know (and if you don't, your military science advisors should be telling you) that what Iran is working on is a power station.

The level of uranium enrichment is that consistent with creating a power station, and not a weapon, which would take a far higher level of enrichment. The IAEA inspections have consistently confirmed that.

As a signatory to the NPT (which, as you know, Israel is not), Iran is perfectly within its rights to be using nuclear energy for peaceful means, i.e., building a power station.

In fact, if we were on the ground as advisors for this process, American scientists would see for themselves, without question, that there is absolutely no weapons development going on whatsoever.

However, that would be logical.

And that would completely undermine Israel's continued bellicose complaining that they need the US to exterminate its next "existential threat", Iran.

The Big Bogus

American Scofflaw

This week, the health care lobby scored a cunning propaganda victory by feigning interest in fixing the perennial rip-off we call a health care system.

With much fanfare, Big Health trotted out a six-month old "promise" -- a toothless, non-binding pledge lacking any specifics -- to make various nips and tucks that would slow the rate at which health costs grow to "only" 4.7 percent annually. It was hailed by the Obama administration and many observers as a breakthrough in the battle for reform.

Until recently, the health care industry has been dead-set on preserving a disastrous but profitable status quo (The U.S. spends close to twice as much per person on care than other wealthy countries, and gets consistently poorer results; among residents of 30 rich countries polled by Gallup, Americans came in 18th in terms of satisfaction with their care). But now the "disease care" industry is portraying itself as an agent of change. Fearful of a growing movement towards real, substantive reform, it's trying to co-opt the process under the guise of "getting a seat at the table." That they've given up, for now, their oppositional stance is what has so many tongues wagging about the significance of the proposal.

But it's nothing new -- "voluntary" codes of conduct, self-regulation and industry-driven initiatives for the private sector to address complex policy issues have long been a standard tactic for heading off real regulation and deeper systemic reforms. The Brookings' Institution's Henry Aaron, a former official in the Carter administration told the New York Times that when he heard of the proposal, "I had a Rip van Winkle moment, as if I had fallen asleep in 1977 and woke up again this morning.” According to the Times, Carter's pledge to do something about out-of-control health care costs "prompted the industry to undertake a short-lived 'voluntary effort.'” The growth of health care costs also slowed briefly after Bill Clinton's failed attempt to fix the system.

Some Guy Buried Himself...Whaaaat?

American Scofflaw

They won't say how he died ...

... and they claim he buried himself.

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure!

Only If...

By Gary Fleming

What needs to happen, and won't, is a prosecution of everyone on the Bush/Cheney White House, and every Democrat who signed on to, these pointless wars and the institutionalization of torture as a device for getting confessions to back specific political agendas.

Only then can this country go back to being a country governed by the rules of law, and not the rules of men. And until then, we can no longer talk about being the "land of the free and the home of the brave"; we can no longer talk about how human dignity, human rights, and due process are the

of the moral foundations of this country.

Unless this happens, we will have permanently morphed into something quite different as a country; and that is a pretty terrifying outcome to contemplate.

Calamity Jane In Over Head

American Scofflaw
Keep an eye on Rahm, he's behind it.

The exposure of the Jane Harman-AIPAC axis of treason has exploded the illusion of the Israel Lobby’s invulnerability. Here they thought they had the AIPAC espionage trial swept safely under the rug, or nearly so, what with the prosecution of two former top Lobby officials seemingly stalled indefinitely, and the Justice Department "reviewing" whether to pursue the case. Not only that, but accused Israeli spy Steve Rosen is riding high, having recently been instrumental in the downfall of Obama administration appointee Charles Freeman. Slated to take up a key post, which would have had him writing the president’s daily intelligence briefing, Freeman was lynched by a bipartisan mob of neocons and Israel-firsters, with the disgraceful (albeit not sufficiently disgraced) Rosen leading the charge.

This triumphal march hit a rather large bump in the road, however, when none other than Congressional Quarterly published a bombshell story detailing how Rep. Jane Harman – hawkish Democrat and reliable ally of the Lobby – had been caught red-handed offering to take up a request by "a suspected Israeli agent" to intercede with the Justice Department and the White House in order to get the charges against Rosen and his assistant, Keith Weissman, reduced or dropped altogether. In exchange, the agent averred, AIPAC would pressure Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi to appoint Harman head of the House Intelligence Committee, with the threat of withholding Haim Saban’s substantial contribution to the Democratic Party dangled over Pelosi’s head like Damocles’ sword.

Pothead Protest

American Scofflaw
Methinks potheads doth protest too much

The Gay Secretary
Cannabis is probably the world’s most popular casual use drug that is illegal in most nations. It has become so widespread that many people wouldn’t think twice about asking to light up at a friend’s or to smoke in public places. It is an ancient drug that has been used throughout history for medical, magical, and pleasurable purposes. Thanks to the scare-tactics of propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s, there are many myths surrounding the drug - this list intends to put things straight once and for all.

1 .Fat Storage

Myth: Cannabis’ active ingredient THC gets stored in body fat and its effects can last days or even weeks

Fact: It is true that cannabis (like many other drugs) enters the body’s fat stores, and it is for this reason that it can be detected long after use, but that is the only part of this myth which is true. The fact is, the psychoactive aspects of the stored cannabis are used up quickly and while the residue of the drug remains, it no longer has any effect on the person. Furthermore, the presence of THC in body fat is not harmful to the fat, the brain, or any other part of the body.

2. Memory Loss

Myth: Cannabis use causes memory loss and a general reduction in logic and intelligence

Fact: This is another myth which has elements of truth to it - no doubt the reason it is believed by so many. Laboratory tests have shown that cannabis diminishes the short term memory - but only when a person is intoxicated with it. A person who has taken cannabis will be able to remember things learned before they took it but may have trouble learning new information during intoxication. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to suggest that this can become a long-term or permanent problem when sober.

3. Scientific Proof

Myth: Cannabis has been scientifically proven to be harmful

Fact: Let us start with a quote: “the smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health.” This quote comes from the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet (founded in 1823). There is certainly no scientific consensus on cannabis use, and certainly no scientific proof that casual use is dangerous to health.

4. Loss of Motivation

Myth: Cannabis use causes apathy and a lack of motivation

Fact: In fact, studies done on test subjects in which they were given a high dose of cannabis regularly over a period of days or weeks found that there was no loss in motivation or ability to perform. Of course, abuse of any intoxicating substance over long periods will reduce a person’s ability to function normally, but cannabis is no better or worse. Furthermore, studies indicate that cannabis users tend to have higher paid jobs than non-users.

5. Crime Statistics

Myth: Cannabis causes crime

Fact: Some people believe that cannabis use leads to violence and aggression, and that this, in turn, leads to crime. But the facts just don’t stack up. Serious research into this area has found that cannabis users are often less likely to commit crimes because of its effect in reducing aggression. Having said that, because of the number of nations that have outlawed cannabis, most users in the world are technically classified as criminals merely for possessing the drug.

6. Braindead

Myth: Cannabis kills brain cells

Fact: Cannabis does not cause any profound changes in a person’s mental ability. It is true that after taking the drug some people can experience panic, paranoia, and fright, these effects pass and certainly don’t become permanent. It is possible for a person to consume so much of the drug that they suffer from toxic psychosis, but again this is not unique to cannabis and is very rare.

7. Gateway to Other Drugs

Myth: Cannabis is a gateway drug - in other words, it leads to abuse of more potent drugs

Fact: For most people, cannabis is a terminus drug, not a gateway drug. Users of high strength drugs such as heroin or LSD are also statistically more likely to have used cannabis in the past, but this is just toying with statistics; when comparing the number of cannabis users with hard-drug users, the numbers are extremely small - suggesting that there is no link at all.

8. Modern Potency

Myth: Cannabis is more potent now than in the past

Fact: The reason that this myth has come about is that samples taken by drug enforcement agencies are used to test for potency but they are a tiny sample of the cannabis on the market. The vast majority of cannabis taken today is the same potency as it has been for decades. In fact, even if the potency were greatly higher, it would make little difference to the user as cannabis of varying potency produces very similar effects. Furthermore, there is statistical data on cannabis potency dating back to the 1980s which is more reliable than present methods of detection, and that shows little or no increase.

9. Lung Damage

Myth: Cannabis is more damaging to the lungs than cigarettes

Fact: First of all, people who smoke cannabis but not cigarettes tend to smoke far less frequently - thereby limiting their exposure to the dangers in the smoke. Furthermore, smokers of cannabis are not inhaling the many additives that go into commercial cigarettes to make them burn down faster or to stay alight. There has even been some evidence that marijuana smoke does not have the same effect on the bronchial tubes as cigarette smoke, so even heavy use may not lead to emphysema.

10. Cannabis and Addiction

Myth: Cannabis is highly addictive

Fact: Less than one percent of Americans smoke cannabis more than once per day. Of the heavy users, a tiny minority develop what appears to be a dependence and rely on the assistance of drug rehabilitation services to stop smoking but there is nothing in cannabis which causes physical dependence and the most likely explanation for those who need assistance is that they are having difficulty breaking the habit - not the “addiction”.

Stop it Jane, You're Being Silly

American Scofflaw

There is another aspect to this case people have not commented on. In ending the phone call with the suspected with "This conversation never happened"

Harman betrays a comfortable familiarity with the contents, suggesting that these sorts of quid pro quos with AIPAC are a very common occurrence in DC.

Yeah, and NOW wiretapping is a real problem, isn't it, Jane; now that you have been hoisted on the petard you yourself approved of!

I love how she gets flustered at 3 minutes!

The fact is that what AIPAC wanted, charged reduced against Rosen and Weissman, did in fact happen. The charges of espionage were indeed reduced to merely being in possession of classified documents.

So, if Jane did not obstruct justice, she is saying someone else did.

Scofflaws Unmasked

American Scofflaw
Freddie Mac documents are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act because they contain or might compromise commercial information–that is, the proprietary insider information of a private company.

Today, in the Washington Post, we learn that that private company was pressured to withhold negative information it was obligated to disclose under SEC rules. It seems that following government policy will adversely affect its bottom line, and the firm wanted to tell its remaining shareholders that.

According to a complaint later filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Freddie Mac, known formally as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, misreported profits by billions of dollars in order to deceive investors between the years 2000 and 2002.

זה מצחיק ביותר

By Bibi Netanyahu

1. ישראל פצצות תחנת הכוח של איראן.
2. ישראל באמצעות אמריקה בתור הגנה מתחיל לצחוק
3. איראן וארצות הברית לצאת למערכה

Wiretapped Galore

American Scofflaw

This week the New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency has continued spying on Americans well into the Obama era, with government officials listening in on phone conversations and monitoring e-mails on a massive scale.

Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau -- who broke the story of the Bush administration's domestic spying program in December 2004 -- reported that "in recent months," the NSA has engaged in an "overcollection" of domestic communication, far exceeding the already broad legal limits Congress established when it passed legislation to legalize the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program and granting immunity for the telecoms that enabled it.

The same article reveals that in 2005 or 2006, the NSA attempted to wiretap an unidentified member of Congress, lending further credence to speculation earlier this year by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., that he might have been spied on.

For many who have followed the long political saga that saw warrantless wiretapping revealed, debated and ultimately legalized at the hands of Congress, this report comes as no surprise.

"Everyone knew that the FISA bill, which congressional Democrats passed -- and which George Bush and Dick Cheney celebrated -- would enable these surveillance abuses," Glenn Greenwald wrote after the story broke.

Nevertheless, for many people it may come as a shock that nearly 4 1/2 years after the illegal program was uncovered, not only has the government continued to spy on Americans with total impunity, most of the details of Bush's warrantless wiretapping scheme remain a mystery.

"What really concerns me is that we still don't know the truth," Thomas Tamm, a former FBI official told me. "We do not know what they did."

Tamm should know. He is the person who blew the whistle on the NSA spying program, a former employee of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, a highly sensitive unit of the Justice Department. He remained anonymous for years, until his identity was revealed in a front-page story by Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff late last year.

The article described how Tamm, a veteran employee of the FBI, came across proof that the U.S. government had been unlawfully eavesdropping on Americans by intercepting domestic communications.

"The idea of lawlessness at the Justice Department angered him," Isikoff wrote. After many sleepless nights and frustrating conversations with his superiors -- "supervisors told him to drop the subject" -- he decided he could no longer keep the abuse to himself.

Finally, one day during his lunch hour, Tamm ducked into a subway station near the U.S. District Courthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue. He headed for a pair of adjoining pay phones partially concealed by large, illuminated Metro maps. Tamm had been eyeing the phone booths on his way to work in the morning. Now, as he slipped through the parade of midday subway riders, his heart was pounding, his body trembling. Tamm felt like a spy. After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he picked up a phone and called the New York Times.

What Tamm revealed would not be reported for a year-and-a-half, when Risen and Litchblau published their now-famous front page story. They went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Meanwhile, Tamm "has not fared as well."

"The FBI has pursued him relentlessly for the past 2 1/2 years," Isikoff wrote. "Agents have raided his house, hauled away personal possessions and grilled his wife, a teenage daughter and a grown son. More recently, they've been questioning Tamm's friends and associates about nearly every aspect of his life.

"Tamm has resisted pressure to plead to a felony for divulging classified information. But he is living under a pall, never sure if, or when, federal agents might arrest him."

Tamm remains in a sort of legal limbo, with the Department of Justice informing him that no decision on whether to prosecute him would be made until Barack Obama took office. Four months into Obama's term, however, Tamm has not heard anything.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has blocked efforts by civil-liberties organizations to hold accountable those who unlawfully spied on Americans, even as more details have emerged revealing the broad targets of the NSA program, which included journalists and even members of Congress.

The Gay Trickster

American Scofflaw

After the huge success of Sacha Baron Cohen's films Ali G In Da House and Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan, you'd think people would have wised up to the comedian's disguises.

But it appears not everyone recognises the comedian when he's dressed up as his third alter-ego, gay Austrian fashion reporter Bruno.

Texas congressman Ron Paul, who was a Republican candidate for the 2008 presidential election, was left fuming after he was unwittingly tricked into a hotel room with Cohen's Bruno character.

How do I look? Sacha Baron Cohen attempts to strike a seductive pose as Bruno

The right-wing politician was tricked into being a target of seduction by Bruno last summer by posing as an economic reporter.

Unhappy: Ron Paul fled a hotel room when Sacha Baron Cohen started undressing

After Paul briefly appeared in the trailer for Cohen's forthcoming film Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America For The Purpose Of Making Heterosexual Male, he realised he would have to explain himself to voters.

Speaking on America's ABC radio this week, angry Paul condemned Cohen for lying and accused him of 'fraud'.

During an interview with presenter Curtis Sliwa, Paul was asked how he ended up in a hotel room in such a compromising situation.

He said: 'We were in a studio situation, I wasn't invited into a hotel room. There were lots of lights and blaze and commotion and they said we better get in this back room which had been fixed up as a bedroom.

'So there was some dishonesty getting me into the interview, I was expecting an interview on Austrian economics. That didn't turn out that way.

'By the time he (Cohen) started pulling his pants down, I was like what on earth is going on here and I ran out of the room. This interview had ended.'

In what is sure to be hilarious viewing in the upcoming film, Paul is stunned when Bruno starts to disrobe in front of him.

Wild thing: Bruno has a penchant for hotpants and PVC

Paul said: 'I don't like the way he lies his way into interviews. That to me is fraud.

'He has raunchy material people buy into it's sort of sad that it's a reflection of our culture.It's a real shame people are gonna reward him with millions and millions of dollars for being so crass.'

Cohen, who also wrote and produced the movie, was forced to re-edit the movie after American censors gave it a NC-17 rating, which meant under 17s would have been banned from seeing the film.

After the Borat move took an amazing $261million in takings three years ago, Cohen wants the Bruno film to have the same potential audience.

This interview is OVER: Paul storms out of the room after Bruno starts to disrobe

Cohen and director Larry Charles have now toned down some of the more sexual scenes, prompting the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to reclassify it with an R rating, which means under 17s can see it with a parent or guardian.

The comedian filmed Bruno in America and Europe over last summer.

In September, his Bruno character caused chaos at Milan Fashion Week when he jumped on to the catwalk of the Agata Luiz della Prada show.

Cohen also pokes fun at Madonna's adoption of Malawi toddler David Banda when he collects an African baby out of luggage at an airport.

Just like Madonna's appearance on U.S. chat shows following her controversial adoption of David - whose biological father is still alive, Bruno appears on TV to defend his adoption of the baby.

Bianca who? Cohen apes Bianca Jagger's famous horseride at Studio 54

He says: 'Angelina's got one, Madonna's got one, now Bruno's got one.

'I gave him a traditional African name - OJ.'

Bruno was first seen alongside another famous Cohen creation, Ali G, on The Ali G Show.

The movie is being shot in the same documentary style as 2006's smash hit Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan.

Don't Fall for This Crap

The Gay Secretary

Beware this "left wing versus right wing" dichotomy. This is an attempt to trick us into arguing with each other instead of uniting against the common cause of our problems.

Yes, industries left our nation for China under the Bushes but it also did so under the Clintons! The loss of manufacturing has continued unimpeded through every Presidency for the last 30 years, Republican and Democrat alike.

Has Obama reversed the tax credits, to bring those jobs and manufacturing back home? No? Bad, bad, BAD right wing President Obama. Oh wait, he's a lefty!

The only real divide is the one mentioned at the very top of this article. The one percent that owns it all against the 99% of us being driven into poverty. The poor against the oligarchs.

The powers-that-be are trying to distract us from the looting of our wallets by the big banks by creating a left-versus-right, us-versus-them drama.

You know, the old divide-and-conquer schtick.

Americans from across the political spectrum are furious at the financial elite who have robbed us blind, and their enablers in government.

While at the moment, conservatives are getting more press, those on the left are just as angry. For example, leading progressive Glenn Greenwald wrote an essay entitled "The virtues of public anger and the need for more" cheering the fact that Americans are starting to get in touch with their righteous anger at being ripped off.

Liberals have launched their own version of the tea party protests calling for the big banks to be broken up.

Climate Scofflaws

American Scofflaw

In an unprecedented move Wednesday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee rescinded the Peace Prize it awarded in 2007 to former US vice president Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amid overwhelming evidence that global warming is an elaborate hoax cooked up by Mr. Gore.

A press release from the committee quotes a chagrined Rajendra Pachauri, the UN climate panel’s chair, who claims that he was the victim of a “cunning deception spanning decades”:

“I am deeply ashamed for having unwittingly perpetuated such a massive fraud on the governments of the world,” said Mr. Pachauri.

“It turns out that all that data from satellites and radiosondes, surface temperature readings, borehole analysis, measurements of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and permafrost, phenological data, and proxy reconstructions of paleoclimatic conditions were all fabricated out of thin air by my former friend, Al Gore. Now that I think about it, I suppose that we should have instituting some sort of peer-review process before publishing such alarming conclusions. Once again, I’m very sorry.”

Rent A Mob

By Donna Goodison

A Patriots [team stats] fan viciously beaten in front of his pregnant wife by drunken Buffalo Bills supporters at a 2006 game in New York is suing the NFL team and two stadium security and crowd-control firms.

The personal injury lawsuit filed yesterday by Barry and Diane Donaghey of Woburn accuses the Buffalo Bills, Apex Group and Contemporary Services of negligence because security did not come to their assistance.

“My clients were horrified by the events that transpired, and I think a jury would be horrified as well,” said Daniel J. Monahan Jr., the Donagheys’ attorney

Following the Patriots’ 28-6 drubbing of the Bills, the Donagheys were waiting in the stadium parking lot for traffic to subside. Wearing a Patriots jacket and Red Sox [team stats] cap, Barry Donaghey walked to use a nearby port-a-potty, and Bills fans began yelling anti-Patriots slurs and throwing rocks at it while he was inside.

When he emerged, several males attacked Donaghey, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. He was punched, kicked and struck by a chair in a 15- to 20-minute beating, while the “mob” grew to as many as 20. One assailant restrained Diane Donaghey, then four months pregnant with her first child, when she tried to help her husband.

Good Samaritans eventually pulled Barry Donaghey from his attackers, who continued to pummel the couple’s car as they left the lot. The Donagheys were unable to find police or security until they reached its main exit. No arrests were ever made.

Barry Donaghey suffered a head injury, bruising, a broken hand and shattered finger and required surgery on both hands. His wife had a bruised wrist. The incident caused them both emotional distress, the lawsuit alleges. “The baby (girl) is healthy and happy, but the wife was emotionally traumatized by witnessing this,” Monahan said.

Mike Schiavone, an attorney for the Bills, said the team had not yet viewed the complaint. “But I can assure you the matter has been under investigation and will be defended by the Bills,” he said.

Did we all just dodge A Depopulation Bullet?

American Scofflaw
The combination of H5N1 with H3N2 could not be more deadly if it was designed that way, combining the lethal but hard to transmit H5N1 with the more easily transmitted H3N2?

As a side note, many researchers are now convinced that the HIV virus was accidentally created during the mass smallpox vaccination program in the 1950s (before reassortment was understood) when cowpox taken from cows with bovine leukemia were cultured on livers taken from sheep with the visna virus. The bovine leukemia and sheep viruses were merged under those conditions, creating a new virus, which to this day shows features of both original viruses.

Remember "Spanish Flu", which actually appeared on US military bases at the end of WWI and was spread to the rest of the world by infected US soldiers transferred to foreign bases ( I guess those trenches didn't kill off enough surplus population).

Check it out for yourself

The Button That Deletes Votes

Following three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold Election Systems) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during the November presidential election," Kim Zetter reports.

Zetter continues, "But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report (.pdf) is not about why the system lost votes, which Threat Level previously covered in detail, but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System (GEMS), include a button that allows someone to delete votes from the system."

Just A Technicality While You Starve

The Gay Secretary

-A federal judge has overturned on a technicality a $10 million jury verdict against a military contractor accused of defrauding the U.S. government in the initial months of the Iraq war.

The verdict, awarded in March against Fairfax-based Custer Battles LLC, had been the first civil fraud verdict arising from the Iraq war. Custer Battles based most of its operations in Rhode Island.

A former Custer Battles employee filed the lawsuit under a whistleblower statute, alleging that Custer Battles used shell companies and false invoices to vastly overstate its expenses on a $3 million contract to assist in establishing a new currency to replace the old Iraqi dinar used during Saddam Hussein's regime.

The verdict reached $10 million because the law calls for triple damages, plus penalties fines and legal costs.

But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, in a ruling made public Friday, ruled that Custer Battles' accusers failed to prove that the U.S. government was ever defrauded. Any fraud that occurred was perpetrated instead against the Coalition Provisional Authority, formed shortly after the war to run Iraq during the occupation until an Iraqi government was established.

Ellis ruled that the trial evidence failed to show that the U.S. government was the actual victim, even though U.S. taxpayers ultimately footed the bill.

Alan Grayson, lawyer for whistleblowers Robert Isakson and William Baldwin, said he will appeal the ruling. He faulted the Bush administration for creating the CPA in a manner that essentially allowed it to act as a money launderer for unscrupulous military contractors.