Archive for September 18th, 2006
Guantánamo Detainees
Monday, September 18th, 2006
I was doing some digging in an effort to understand what’s been going on with the detainees down in Guantánamo. One of the thing I love about the internet is that you can go out and get the whole scoop, instead of relying on one sentence sound bites you normally get through the MSM. What I found was a wonderul little slice of American History regarding detainee treatment, military commissions for combative detainees, the Geneva Conventions, and the wonderful interworkings of our great system in figuring out how to deal with all the issues and arrive at a “just” policy. I found it all, very American. 
NPR article with the background: ‘Hamdan v. Rumsfeld’: Path to a Landmark Ruling
Washington Post article on the “McCain Amendment”, and the final Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 as included in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006 and signed by the President in December of 2005.
New U.S. Military “Human Intelligence Collector Operations” [PDF] manual as required by the DTA.
“By publishing this document and the Army Field Manual, we will have addressed over 95 percent of the recommendations from those 12 major investigations since Abu Ghraib,” Stimson said.
Amnesty International USA’s director, Larry Cox, said he was “pleased to see a direct repudiation of tactics previously approved for use against detainees such as hooding, the use of dogs,” as well as the acknowledgment that the Geneva Conventions apply.
NPR Article: Link
Congress has denied the President the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary. … Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation’s ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation’s ability to determine — through democratic means — how best to do so. The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means. Our Court today simply does the same.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling on Wikipedia
Newly proposed Military Commissions Act of 2006 [PDF]
Whitehouse Fact Sheet
Congress appears to be interested in voting on this before the elections, until then the Guantánamo detainees legal proceedings remain in limbo. Chances are some form of watered down version will be passed, and the detainees will be tried by the military.
Tuning Out Terrestrial Radio
Monday, September 18th, 2006
Interesting article in the New York Times regarding the problem of terrestrial radio. I think the advertising is the biggest killer. When I was younger you could turn on the radio and enjoy music. These days the odds of hearing any music on a trip from my house, to the grocery store, and down the beach for a drive are slim ot none, especially during peak driving hours. I can’t imagine the cost of running a station has gone up that much, so why are we accosted by so much more advertising?
Sweden Goes Moderate
Monday, September 18th, 2006
Apparently Sweden is suffering from the classic welfare state problem – if it’s more advantageous to stay at home, be unemployed, and take government handouts, people will take that route. The “unofficial” unemployment rate in Sweden is currently somewhere between 15% and 21%. Their welfare system, like every other welfare system across the globe, is on the brink of crisis, with a mounting mass of post World War II baby boomers getting ready to retire while the increase in the number of people paying into the system is in decline.
Magnus Rosander, a 44-year-old computer engineer who said he had a nervous breakdown after losing his job four years ago and had not worked since, said he had voted for the Social Democrats and was worried about what would happen under the Moderates. “I’m dependent on social welfare,” Mr. Rosander said outside a subway station in central Stockholm. “If Fredrik Reinfeldt wins, we will get less money and he will force me to work even though my doctor says I’m not ready yet.”
An interesting assesment on the Swedish tax model can be found here.
