Politics: J'accuse!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movi...eut/index.html

WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) -- Hollywood lobbyists will be busy this week as lawmakers examine smoking on film . . .

The entertainment industry has been under considerable pressure to rein in indecent broadcasts on TV and radio, and now may face the same criticism for depictions of smoking.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, pushed for the hearing [in the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday] after several recent meetings between anti-smoking advocates and entertainment industry executives.

Hollywood's top lobbyist, Jack Valenti, is scheduled to testify along with LeVar Burton, co-chair of the Directors Guild of America's social responsibility task force, Madeline Dalton, associate professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, and Stan Glantz, professor of medicine at UC San Francisco School of Medicine.

Dalton wrote a recent study claiming that smoking in movies entices young people to pick up the habit. Glantz is one of Hollywood's leading social critics who pushes for R ratings for movies in which the actors light up.

While Motion Picture Assn. of America chief Valenti has worked to get the anti-smoking message out, his trade group says it's a filmmaker's right to have the characters smoke or not.

Not clear what side LaVar is on, but I'm all for any rule, voluntary or otherwise that keeps him out of movies and off my TV screen.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Does it count as a "blogger sentiment" if it's the sentiment of Our Brave Fighting Men And Women, via a liberal European newspaper, via Joshua Micah Marshall?

British special ops guys say Abu Ghraib sex abuse shows signs of being a misapplied training technique called "R2I" used by Special Ops to prepare elite forces for potential for sexual torment after capture.

• The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
  
  ***
  
  "The crucial difference from Iraq is that frontline soldiers who are made to experience R2I techniques themselves develop empathy. They realise the suffering they are causing. But people who haven't undergone this don't realise what they are doing to people. It's a shambles in Iraq".
  
  The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops.
  
  "The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11".

Thank you, Mr. President. Link to Guardian article, in case you're allergic to Marshall.

Do you get sick headaches?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Not clear what side LaVar is on, but I'm all for any rule, voluntary or otherwise that keeps him out of movies and off my TV screen.

Not a Reading Rainbow fan?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Name a member of the Bush staff that has performed better.

Ashcroft. He tore down Gorelick's wall, which has made the US safer.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Not Me
Ashcroft. He tore down Gorelick's wall, which has made the US safer.

Too bad he did it* after 9/11. He could have saved the thousands of people whose blood is on Jamie Gorelick's hands.

*Well, actually Congress did it. But if it weren't for us, the left, electing a dead man to the Senate from Missouri, a state in which neither RT nor I vote, I'm sure Ashcroft would have voted for the Patriot Act, so he should get credit. It's only fair.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Name a member of the Bush staff that has performed better.

McClellan. His ability to recite the same answer over and over and over, no matter what the question, is truly breathtaking. Nobody withholds information like him.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Pentagon sent around an e-mail telling people not to read the Taguba Report or download it from FOX News [sic].

Where can you get the Taguba report online now?

It seems to me that what they were trying to do was to not influence potential witnesses by the information in the report. Just like you wouldn't want to give eye witnesses to a murder the investigation reports of the detectives on the case. It might influence them. During an investigation, you want witnesses to rely on what it is that they can remember, not what they have read in a report. Another reason not to have potential witnesses see a report like that is because it might help people to lie about what really happened. When they know what others have said, it is easier for them to make up believable stories to evade culpability.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Not Me
Where can you get the Taguba report online now?

It seems to me that what they were trying to do was to not influence potential witnesses by the information in the report. Just like you wouldn't want to give eye witnesses to a murder the investigation reports of the detectives on the case. It might influence them. During an investigation, you want witnesses to rely on what it is that they can remember, not what they have read in a report. Another reason not to have potential witnesses see a report like that is because it might help people to lie about what really happened. When they know what others have said, it is easier for them to make up believable stories to evade culpability.

I don't think so. I don't think that the IT section would appreciate (or care about) the legal effect of eyeballing the memo. If that were the motivation, I would expect this kind of memo from the JAG office, not the IT section.

Reading the memo, it sounds like they're trying to find the leak, and they somehow think that accessing the memo will disseminate it too widely to allow them to quickly determine the source.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
I don't think so. I don't think that the IT section would appreciate (or care about) the legal effect of eyeballing the memo. If that were the motivation, I would expect this kind of memo from the JAG office, not the IT section.

Reading the memo, it sounds like they're trying to find the leak, and they somehow think that accessing the memo will disseminate it too widely to allow them to quickly determine the source.

Did you read the memo or just the excerpts that Time chose to include in that article?

Do you know that the IT department wasn't told by JAG or even Taguba to send that memo?

No need to answer. I know the answers.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Public PHI is still PHI.

Excellent point. Thank you.

ETA, SHP, "to determine the source quickly." Please.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Not Me
Did you read the memo or just the excerpts that Time chose to include in that article?

Do you know that the IT department wasn't told by JAG or even Taguba to send that memo?

No need to answer. I know the answers.

They weren't told by JAG or Taguba? That seems to make it even LESS likely that there were legal reasons to have the memo read by as few personnel as possible.

God, you are annoying.

Mom, is that my lipstick you are wearing?

[ltl/fb]

If that doesn't work, http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com.../lbo040510.gif

[Penske Material]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
But if it weren't for us, the left, electing a dead man to the Senate from Missouri, a state in which neither RT nor I vote, I'm sure Ashcroft would have voted for the Patriot Act, so he should get credit. It's only fair.

Cribbing canned jokes from that hack, Sir Slave-a-lot?

Et tu, Atticus?

(NTTAWWT mind you)

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The Pentagon sent around an e-mail telling people not to read the Taguba Report or download it from FOX News [sic].

At least now we know why Rumsfeld didn't read it.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
At least now we know why Rumsfeld didn't read it.

Good point. He was following the law and not breaking it.

So where can you get this Taguba report online?