flickering pictures

Go on, find Palau on a map without Googling it — I double dog dare you.
Its 21,000 citizens have only had a country for 15 years, but the Pacific mini-state of Palau is already distinguishing itself by welcoming 17 Chinese Guantanamo inmates with open arms, and inviting them to settle wherever they like on its […]

[Read more →]

Born on January 8, 1935, Elvis Presley would have been 74 years old today. Other notable events on this day:

1835: For the only time in U.S. history, the national debt is exactly zero dollars. Today’s debt is just over $10.6 trillion, or about $35,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

1867: […]

[Read more →]

Two teenaged girls were brutally killed in the Indian village of Kaluvas during the Hindu festival of Diwali, apparently because they had visited boys to wish them a happy holiday. The girls’ fathers were reportedly part of the mob that killed them.
The Times of India reports:

Rajender Shivran, who claims he couldn’t sleep under the […]

[Read more →]

In a powerful op-ed piece for the New York Times, Nicholas D. Kristof points out something we already know but try not to think about: rape has moved from a by-product of war to a weapon of war, used coldly and calculatingly to inflict maximum pain and intimidation on an entire population. It’s […]

[Read more →]

Human Rights Watch has just released its report on the ongoing violence in Zimbabwe, entitled “Bullets for Each of You.” The title is taken from a Zimbabwean army address to villagers in Karoi, a small city in the province of Mashonaland West:

“If you vote for MDC in the presidential runoff election, you have seen […]

[Read more →]

Wired has just published new, apparently never-before-released pictures of the horrible brutality and abuse at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. I’m not going to post them here, because they churn my stomach and I almost wish I hadn’t seen them myself, but in the interest of creating public awareness of some of […]

[Read more →]

Responding to moral outrage from most of the world, Congress finally approved a bill barring the CIA from using torture techniques such as waterboarding and sensory deprivation. Unfortunately for the world, and for America, Bush promptly vetoed it — even though his own army banned the practices in 2006.
Says CNN:

“Bush said the CIA must […]

[Read more →]

It turns out that Americans were debating waterboarding over 100 years ago, according to a really interesting New Yorker article. Apparently, U.S. troops were using the technique to extract information during the 1899-1902 Philippine-American War.

“A letter by A. F. Miller, of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment, published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 1900, […]

[Read more →]