The government has finally declassified some of the names of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It is appalling when after so many years and fighting the only thing the U.S. public has received is names in terms of the "enemy combatants." We still know very little about charges. What I didn't know about many of the detainees was the fact that some are very young (in their teens). The fight needs to continue to force the government to bring charges against these people and prove they are holding them for a reason. Here is a compiled list of the names I found (the government did not put much work into it and simply provided thousands of pages of script with the names embedded).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees

It seems as though the debacle surrounding the NSA wiretaps has had no effect on the government as the Senate approved the renewal of the Patriot Act. With all the discussion surrounding the president's executive power and the need to curb it, in the end only four senators have opposed the Act to bolster that power more. Although that was a win for the Bush administration and the GOP as a whole, the administration looked like a fool again with the uncovering of a video. The video shows the ex-FEMA chief briefing George Bush about hurricane Katrina and the thought that the levees were going to be breached. George Bush did not ask a question throughout (all my teachers always told me the smartest people were the ones asking questions) and in the end assured the officials that the federal government was well prepared. Not only is this a mistake, but the administration and George Bush himself has tried to cover up and rewrite history. They have consistently denied the idea that anyone thought the levees would break. This video proves differently and has foiled another attempt of the Bush administration to rewrite history. Thank God for technology.

It's hard to work in wartime circumstances and apparently Halliburton has had a lot of trouble. The Pentagon's auditors found ~$250 million in suspicious spending/costs. The army has let Halliburton off the hook and paid the full amount, leaving Halliburton's profits from the war (constructed by a former exec and his crew) in the billions of dollars. It makes you wonder what the government might have been able to do with that $250 million. Rebuild New Orleans (not just for Mardi Gras either, let's start talking about the poor people)? We'll never know.

The United States and Israel, two supposedly democratic nations, are planning on starving Hamas of money and international connections in order to oust them from leadership. Whether this is the right thing to do or not is up for debate. What is appalling is that the United States has justified its war in Iraq and attempted dominance in the Middle East with claims of democracy and freedom. This is clear hypocrisy posed again by the Bush administration. There is no attempt to hide the fact that the administration wants certain people in power in the Middle East and does not respect the people's choice.

Well it's finally happened. Dick Cheney has shot someone. Despite his ducking out of Vietnam, the old man has found a way to shoot another, even older man. Dick shot 78 year old Harry Whittington while hunting quail (no he wasn't hunting Bin Laden). Cheney sprayed the elderly gentleman with his shotgun despite the man wearing bright orange and being in a clear line of sight. I suppose it had to be expected, as we all know that the vice-president has an itchy trigger finger (even if he usually uses it to send thousands of Americans to kill thousands of Iraqis). But perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to judge. Perhaps Mr. Whittington had made a call overseas and in turn deserved to not only be wiretapped but shot. In the end Mr. Whittington should probably count his lucky stars as Dick refrained from torturing the old man.

It's been a while since I've posted, and a lot has happened. More corruption charges against Republican lobbyists, Hamas election in Palestine, Mohammed cartoons inciting riots, Alito being approved and much more. George Bush gave a low key State of the Union address earlier this week. The Nation has written about it and I'll let that link do my talking.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060220/editors

The New Orleans police are in the news again, and yet again they have screwed up. Another life is lost in New Orleans because of the ineptness of the police. A man was wielding a knife and the police, at least 15 of them, were pointing their guns at the man. They seemed to have everything under control and yet the man lunged at a police officer with the knife. The man did not have any other weapon and yet the police found it necessary to shoot 10 times at the man. Non-lethal bullets of course were not used and no good explanation was to given as to why not. The police's 'right' to kill has created numerous problems. Common sense is replaced with a trigger finger and this is truly unacceptable.

Today is a great day. The city officials in Graz, Austria have removed the Schwarzenegger name from the stadium of his home town. The city officials did this in response to Schwarzenegger's lack of reprieve in the case of Stanley Tookie Williams. The death penalty is, of course, illegal in the country and many politicians and citizens find the act barbaric and rightly so. The death penalty is a stain to civilization and a ridiculous part of an already ridiculous judicial system.