tdog

My very first GTMO related interview was with Josh Dratel, nearly ten years ago. Josh was one of the civilian attorneys who represented “Australian Taliban” David HIcks, then held at Guantanamo, and subjected to charges and possible trial before a military commission. Hicks eventually pleaded guilty to “material support of terrorism” in exchange for immediate release to Australia, where he served out nine months pursuant to a plea deal– but got himself out of GTMO. Coming full circle, we give you this decision of the U.S. Court of Military Decision Review in the case of Hicks v United States” vacating...

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, auguring six more weeks of winter (the calendar says seven anyway)… in what has already been a cold, snowy, unpleasant winter in much of the North, anyway (this morning, a miserable slush-fest, our own city’s Lord Mayor supposedly made his way to Staten Island groundhog ceremonies notwithstanding his dropping the groundhog last year which probably killed it). It being Groundhog Fay, our national religion played to form: the team that apparently cheats has (of course) won the Super Bowl. The sporting realm had been one of the last bastions of fair play in...

Via Candace, we get this handy dandy chart, comparing the GTMO population as of (my college classmate) Barack Obama’s inauguration day, or or less: GTMO_Detainee_Population_Chart.pdf Interesting stuff: the census has been brought down by about half (including the death of one man who was “cleared for transfer” and two others in the category of “indefinite detention,” meaning presumably, too dangerous to try but too Muslim to release), but many unfortunate trends persist nonetheless.

It’s 2015 now. That’s the fifteenth different year in which I have posted something to this blog. A special thanks to those of you still reading… even occasionally… who aren’t some kind of bot. I know I don’t post as often as I once did… but… such is life on a blog that began when I was in my late 30’s… now, in my early 50’s… let’s just say I don’t feel compelled to post as much as I once did. The year 2014 had its difficulties, and a number of people I care about lost loved ones. Hopefully for...

In an America where a long-awaited Senate report on torture draws out polling that shows that something like 59% of Americans don’t think torture is justified: they think it’s awesome… the stock market hits record highs… just as the labor force participation rate reaches its lowest point since the late 1970’s… before many women… or talking dogs… were even in the work force. As the price of oil crashes… it might take out one of the few “green chutes” of our post-Great Recession “economy”… fracking for oil… And while a few more prisoners have been released from GTMO… the official...

You’ll all recall that as the late Rodney King’s plea for calm, in the midst of riots-in-his-name that broke out in Los Angeles after [White] police officers charged with savagely beating [Black] Mr. King– caught on a videotape– were, surprise, surprise, acquitted [by an all-White suburban jury.] Which is why it seems an appropriate tag-line for the present moment, of spontaneous (or are they?) street protests breaking out all over my city (and country) right now, in light of the most recent perceived outrage, that of the non-indictment of the police officer whose actions resulted in the death of Eric...

I suppose now that the Republicans have recaptured both Houses of Congress, Charles Manson thought it was time to get a marriage license. Sure. Why not?

Candace let me know that her client Abdul al-Ghizzawi has finally been reunited (after thirteen years) with his wife and daughter (the latter, whom he last saw as an infant) since American policy ripped them apart, and then arbitrarily kept him at Guantanamo Bay until 2010 (he was released then to the Republic of Georgia, and made his way home to post-Qaddaffi Libya last year). Interestingly, al-Ghizzawi notified Candace of the happy news (and Candace forwarded to me) two days ago– on my 52nd birthday; I accepted it as a birthday gift from providence, just as I once accepted a...

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and leads to a couple of bowling allies in Brooklyn, and is traversed by Uber cabs… so we learned from the cautionary tale of Dr. Craig Spencer, a self-described goofball who heroically treated ebola cases in Guinea, West Africa, as a physician with Doctors Without Brains Borders… decided that his “self-quarantine” was too restricting, so he “voluntarily” checked out of… his apartment, and hopped a couple of car services across the East River from Upper Manhattan (near his regular job at New York Presbyterian Hospital) to Williamsburg, Brooklyn… so he could...

For a rather grim math lesson about the ebola outbreak, this post from John Michael Greer will more than do the trick. To summarize, absent successful intervention, various factors that slow these things down some, dumb luck, etc., if the present reports of the ebola virus doubling in infections every three weeks or so are in fact accurate, and human transmission patterns proceed apace in our ever more “globalized” world… an outbreak like this, at that rate (with somewhere between 50-90% fatality rate of those contracting ebola)… would result in something like everyone on Earth being exposed by, say, end...