Stephen Colbert losing it over 6 years of the Colbert Report
Monday, December 29, 2014
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Reporter Inhales Burning Drugs
hilarious
Quentin Sommerville, the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent, brings us reports from some of the most dangerous regions of the world. But even he can fall victim to eight-and-a-half tonnes of burning drugs.
The Middle East reporter shared the video, which was shot four years ago, with his followers on Twitter saying, "it's been a year of bullets & bloodshed. You've earned a xmas laugh, at my expense," according to The Telegraph. That tweet has since been removed, but people can still view the video on YouTube.
"The video of Quentin corpsing, which has now been deleted, was posted in the spirit of a blooper," the BBC told The Telegraph. "It was filmed four years ago - it hasn't been seen before and was never broadcast."
"Corpsing" is a British slang for breaking into laughter.
Sommerville did respond to a comment about the video on Twitter.
"What was a more challenging story Quentin? Dodging bullets in Baiji, or trying to film here w/o laughter?" @DanDePetris asked.
"Everyday brings new challenges in this job," Sommerville tweeted
Monday, December 22, 2014
R.I.P. Joe Cocker
I grew up with Joe Cocker, hell he sang the theme song of one of my favorite TV Programs, The Wonder Years.
We'll miss you, thanks for the memories. Here are my favorites:
We'll miss you, thanks for the memories. Here are my favorites:
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Viral Video Compilation
Youtube - 2014 best moments from 233 viral videos released in 2014 — in less than seven minutes:
Monday, December 15, 2014
Friday, December 12, 2014
Yaka Mein
If you've had it, you know how good it is. If you haven't had it, find some!
Here is Miss Linda Green's FB page
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
Torture
jFrom Salon.com the following are 10 findings by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
While the summary doesn’t tell the complete story, it nonetheless presents a wide-ranging survey of the CIA’s use of torture, or “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the euphemistic parlance of Bush administration officials and, at times, the committee report itself. Even before reading the report, Bush veterans — including the former president himself, as well as former Vice President Dick Cheney — dinged it ahead of its impending release. Reading the committee’s findings — which depict what Cheney infamously referred to as “the dark side” of the U.S. war on terror — it’s easy to see why the former officials weren’t happy about its unveiling. Here are 10 of the most revolting findings in the committee’s summary.
1. The CIA misled executive branch officials, members of Congress, and the public about torture’s effectiveness.
While Bush and Cheney steadfastly defended the CIA as the release of the report approached, the committee found that agency officials — including former directors George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden — misled the White House and lawmakers about the effectiveness of U.S. torture techniques like waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
The committee examined 20 reported “counterterrorism successes” cited by agency officials who claimed that the use of torture was essential to thwarting terror plots. In some of the cases, the report states, there was “no relationship” between the counterterrorism success and the use of torture. Meanwhile, in the remaining cases, the information CIA interrogators obtained from detainees either simply corroborated information the CIA already had or was extracted from detainees prior to the use of torture.
. Interrogators would deprive some detainees of sleep for more than a week.
According to the report, detainees at CIA facilities would be deprived of sleep for days on end — in some cases for up to 180 hours. During sleep deprivation, the report says, detainees were usually kept “standing or in stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads.”
The CIA Arsala Khan, an Afghan detainee, to 56 hours of sleep deprivation, the report finds. Khan could barely enunciate words by the end of his deprivation, while he was “visibly shaken by his hallucinations depicting dogs mauling and killing his sons and family.”
3. Detainees underwent waterboarding until they were unresponsive.
Among the most notorious torture techniques employed by the CIA was waterboarding, which simulates drowning. The committee report states that 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and that the waterboardings eventually turned into “a series of near drownings.”
Abu Zubaydah, the CIA’s first detainee, also underwent waterboarding, once to the point that he became “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.”
Other detainees experienced “convulsions and vomiting” when waterboarded. According to the report, the CIA used the technique on more than the three prisoners the CIA previously copped to waterboarding.
4. The CIA force-fed detainees through their rectums.
Agency interrogators forced at least five detainees to undergo “rectal rehydration” or “rectal feeding” even in the absence of any “documented medical necessity,” the report finds. Among the most prominent prisoners subjected to rectal feeding was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
5. Interrogators threatened to harm the families and children of detainees.
In at least three cases, CIA interrogators threatened to harm detainees’ families — including threats to harm a detainee’s children, to commit sexual violence against a detainee’s mother, and to slit a detainee’s mother’s throat.
6. An interrogator threatened to sodomize a detainee with a broomstick.
In at least one instance, the CIA chief of interrogation placed a broomstick between the knees of detainee while the detainee was in a stress position — suggesting that the detainee was at risk of being sodomized.
7. The chief of interrogations described one facility as a “dungeon.”
The CIA’s Cobalt facility, one senior officer quoted in the report says, was a so-called enhanced interrogation technique by itself. With detainees often kept in “complete darkness,” loud music blaring, and detainees allowed to use only a bucket to relieve themselves, the chief of interrogations said that Cobalt was a “dungeon.”
8. Agency interrogators forced detainees to stand on broken legs and feet.
At the same facility, some detainees who had sustained either broken legs or feet were made to stand in stress positions, the committee found.
9. Detainees experienced severe psychological problems.
While “[m]ultiple psychologists” warned that by shutting detainees off from human contact, interrogators risked fostering a wide range of mental health problems, the agency often ignored such warnings. Multiple detainees demonstrated severe mental health issues, the report finds, including “hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation.”
10. The CIA lied about how many detainees were in its custody.
Even though the agency publicly maintained that it held 98 prisoners, CIA records indicated that 119 detainees were in its custody. A CIA official flagged this inconsistency in a 2008 email, only to be rebuffed by CIA director Michael Hayden.
“[K]eep the number at 98,” Hayden instructed.
Luke Brinker is Salon's deputy politics editor. Follow him on Twitter at @LukeBrinker
While the summary doesn’t tell the complete story, it nonetheless presents a wide-ranging survey of the CIA’s use of torture, or “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the euphemistic parlance of Bush administration officials and, at times, the committee report itself. Even before reading the report, Bush veterans — including the former president himself, as well as former Vice President Dick Cheney — dinged it ahead of its impending release. Reading the committee’s findings — which depict what Cheney infamously referred to as “the dark side” of the U.S. war on terror — it’s easy to see why the former officials weren’t happy about its unveiling. Here are 10 of the most revolting findings in the committee’s summary.
1. The CIA misled executive branch officials, members of Congress, and the public about torture’s effectiveness.
While Bush and Cheney steadfastly defended the CIA as the release of the report approached, the committee found that agency officials — including former directors George Tenet, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden — misled the White House and lawmakers about the effectiveness of U.S. torture techniques like waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
The committee examined 20 reported “counterterrorism successes” cited by agency officials who claimed that the use of torture was essential to thwarting terror plots. In some of the cases, the report states, there was “no relationship” between the counterterrorism success and the use of torture. Meanwhile, in the remaining cases, the information CIA interrogators obtained from detainees either simply corroborated information the CIA already had or was extracted from detainees prior to the use of torture.
. Interrogators would deprive some detainees of sleep for more than a week.
According to the report, detainees at CIA facilities would be deprived of sleep for days on end — in some cases for up to 180 hours. During sleep deprivation, the report says, detainees were usually kept “standing or in stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads.”
The CIA Arsala Khan, an Afghan detainee, to 56 hours of sleep deprivation, the report finds. Khan could barely enunciate words by the end of his deprivation, while he was “visibly shaken by his hallucinations depicting dogs mauling and killing his sons and family.”
3. Detainees underwent waterboarding until they were unresponsive.
Among the most notorious torture techniques employed by the CIA was waterboarding, which simulates drowning. The committee report states that 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and that the waterboardings eventually turned into “a series of near drownings.”
Abu Zubaydah, the CIA’s first detainee, also underwent waterboarding, once to the point that he became “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.”
Other detainees experienced “convulsions and vomiting” when waterboarded. According to the report, the CIA used the technique on more than the three prisoners the CIA previously copped to waterboarding.
4. The CIA force-fed detainees through their rectums.
Agency interrogators forced at least five detainees to undergo “rectal rehydration” or “rectal feeding” even in the absence of any “documented medical necessity,” the report finds. Among the most prominent prisoners subjected to rectal feeding was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
5. Interrogators threatened to harm the families and children of detainees.
In at least three cases, CIA interrogators threatened to harm detainees’ families — including threats to harm a detainee’s children, to commit sexual violence against a detainee’s mother, and to slit a detainee’s mother’s throat.
6. An interrogator threatened to sodomize a detainee with a broomstick.
In at least one instance, the CIA chief of interrogation placed a broomstick between the knees of detainee while the detainee was in a stress position — suggesting that the detainee was at risk of being sodomized.
7. The chief of interrogations described one facility as a “dungeon.”
The CIA’s Cobalt facility, one senior officer quoted in the report says, was a so-called enhanced interrogation technique by itself. With detainees often kept in “complete darkness,” loud music blaring, and detainees allowed to use only a bucket to relieve themselves, the chief of interrogations said that Cobalt was a “dungeon.”
8. Agency interrogators forced detainees to stand on broken legs and feet.
At the same facility, some detainees who had sustained either broken legs or feet were made to stand in stress positions, the committee found.
9. Detainees experienced severe psychological problems.
While “[m]ultiple psychologists” warned that by shutting detainees off from human contact, interrogators risked fostering a wide range of mental health problems, the agency often ignored such warnings. Multiple detainees demonstrated severe mental health issues, the report finds, including “hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation.”
10. The CIA lied about how many detainees were in its custody.
Even though the agency publicly maintained that it held 98 prisoners, CIA records indicated that 119 detainees were in its custody. A CIA official flagged this inconsistency in a 2008 email, only to be rebuffed by CIA director Michael Hayden.
“[K]eep the number at 98,” Hayden instructed.
Luke Brinker is Salon's deputy politics editor. Follow him on Twitter at @LukeBrinker
Monday, December 08, 2014
Sunday, December 07, 2014
A Christmas Message
On December 10th 1989 the first TAC commercial went to air. In that year the road toll was 776; by last year 2008 it had fallen to 303.
A five minute retrospective of the road safety campaigns produced by the TAC over the last 20 years has been compiled. The montage features iconic scenes and images from commercials that have helped change they way we drive, all edited to the moving song Everybody Hurts by REM.
This campaign is a chance to revisit some of the images that have been engraved on our memories, remember the many thousands of people who have been affected by road trauma and remind us all that for everyones sake; please, drive safely.
Transport Accident Commission Victoria.
http://www.tac.vic.gov.au
Saturday, December 06, 2014
To "Serve & Protect"
This video was uploaded by a retired police officer, so consider the source. And then be even angrier. He's angry.
Had enough yet?
Friday, December 05, 2014
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Another Grand Jury NON Indictment
Click here for the President's reaction.
A grand jury decided not to indict a New York police officer in the apparent choke hold death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died shortly after being accosted by police for selling loose, un-taxed cigarettes in July. […]
Garner was about 350 pounds and suffered from asthma. In cell phone video that captures the moments leading up to Garner’s death, Garner is seen being wrestled to the ground by [NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo] who appears to have Garner locked in a choke hold, with an arm gripped around his neck.
Garner, a 43-year-old father of six can be heard in the video pleading “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”
Garner died en route to the hospital soon after. Pantaleo was placed on modified duty.
Jon Stewart's reaction is probably shared by many, many people
Monday, December 01, 2014
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Although it has been open for over four years now, there really wasn't a lot of hoopla about the reopening of the "Bay Bridge"... -
New Orleans will soon be welcoming home a New Orleans native and his wife. Jeff St. Romain is leaving his post as president of Volunteers...