Where I grew up it was fresh deer on the hood.

Yikes!

Only in Maui you can see people catching sharks and bringing them to the nearest supermarket to "make a few bucks " like this! Not that in Maui there are that many sharks or many problems with them tho, some people were fishing when apparently the shark got stuck it the nets. They got the shark at Kanaha beach park and after following them I took the picture while they were about to park at Star Market in Kahului, a few miles away from the beach.

It's a living... apparently....

Public Enemy #1

Amazing that this is available:

Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI:

Twenty Interviews and Five Conversations with "High Value Detainee # 1" in 2004

Washington, D.C., July 1, 2009 - FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least 5 "casual conversations" with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to secret FBI reports released as the result of Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Security Archive and posted today on the Web at www.nsarchive.org.

Saddam denied any connections to the "zealot" Osama bin Laden, cited North Korea as his most likely ally in a crunch, and shared President George W. Bush's hostility towards the "fanatic" Iranian mullahs, according to the FBI records of conversations from February through June 2004 between Saddam and Arabic-speaking agents in his detention cell at Baghdad International Airport.

The former Iraqi leader, when asked about his accomplishments, listed social progress for the people of Iraq, a temporary truce with the Kurds in the early 1970s, the nationalization of Iraq’s oil in 1972, support for the Arab side during the 1973 Middle East war with Israel, and after that, for the remaining 30 years of his rule, simple survival – through a devastating eight year war with Iran that he had launched, and a 12-year sanctions regime imposed on his people after another war that he began. During the interviews he repeatedly contests FBI evidence and the neutrality of his interlocutors – which one of them finds ironic, given the record of peremptory Iraqi justice under Saddam’s governance. He selectively outlines recent Iraqi history and acknowledges some mistakes, including the destruction without U.N. supervision or verification of some of Iraq’s WMD arsenal left over from the 1980s.

During the interviews Saddam refutes some examples of what he views as myths, like his purported use of body doubles. Instead he says that to evade his enemies he never used the telephone and traveled constantly from one dwelling to another (he describes the farm where he was captured in a “spider hole” as the same place where he took refuge after a failed 1959 coup attempt.)

He takes personal responsibility for ordering the launching of SCUD missiles against Israeli targets during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, because he blamed Israel and its influence in the U.S. for “all the problems of the Arabs”, but denies that his purpose was to draw that country into the conflict and to divide Washington from its Arab allies. He provides details on the lead-up to the war, reporting that during a January 1991 meeting former Secretary of State James Baker told Saddam’s foreign minister that if Iraq did not comply with U.S. conditions “we’ll take you back to the pre-industrial stage.”

Saddam’s historical recollections include his ascendancy within the Ba’athist party in 1968 and 1969; his disappointment after the Iran-Iraq war with Arab governments for their lack of gratitude for Iraq’s “saving all of the Arab world” from occupation by Iran; details about the 1991 Persian Gulf war; and the post-war Shi’a uprising in Iraq’s south, which he characterizes as “treachery” instigated by Iran.

Not included in these FBI reports are issues of particular interest to students of Iraq’s complicated relationship with the U.S. – the reported role of the CIA in facilitating the Ba’ath party’s rise to power, the uneasy alliance forged between Iraq and the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq war, and the precise nature of U.S. views regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons policy during that conflict, given its contemporaneous knowledge of their repeated use against Iranians and the Kurds.

This series of interviews also does not address chemical warfare in Kurdish areas of Iraq in 1987-1988, although an FBI progress report says Saddam was questioned on the topic. One interview, #20, is redacted in its entirety on national security grounds, although it is not clear what issues agents could have discussed with Saddam that cannot now be disclosed to the public.

The interviews and conversations were led by George L. Piro, one of an exceedingly small number of FBI agents who spoke Arabic. The agency expected that Saddam would feel rapport with Piro and develop a sense of dependency. During the interviews Piro hears Saddam out but is often openly skeptical of the former leader’s recollections. The agent does, however, assert with confidence that the U.S. side had information that Iraq was maintaining or developing a WMD capability and cites “evidence” of continuing contact between Iran and al-Qaeda, seemingly implying an operational relationship.

Saddam does not provide comfort to his interlocutors on these matters, refuting any notion of collaboration with al-Qaeda, or of a remaining WMD capacity, and in reality the charges, meant to win public support for the invasion of Iraq, were collapsing while the interviews were underway. Investigators from the CIA, operating freely in occupied Iraq, failed to uncover any credible supporting evidence for the U.S. claims, and ultimately President Bush himself acknowledged that “most of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.”

One of the last interviews in the series ends on a valedictory note, after Piro listens to a poem that Saddam had written. The former president of Iraq is “done,” Piro says, “his life is nearing its end,” and other detainees are blaming him for all of Iraq’s many mistakes. Saddam is fatalistic and acknowledges reality. His interviews with Piro ended soon thereafter, and on December 30, 2006, he was hanged, amid the taunts of the political enemies who carried out his execution.

Click the link above to read the documents.

Off to Jail, Do-Gooders

The beat goes on:

Despite No Links to Violence, Founders of Muslim Charity Sentenced to Lengthy Terms for Donations to Needy Palestinians in Occupied Territories

Five founders of the Holy Land Foundation, once the nation’s
largest Muslim charity, have received prison terms of up to sixty-five years on charges of supporting the Palestinian group Hamas. The five were never accused of supporting violence and were convicted for funding charities that aided needy Palestinians. The government’s case relied on Israeli intelligence as well as disputed documents and electronic surveillance gathered by the FBI over a span of fifteen years.

Apparently the Crusades continue unabated.

Sick and Wrong

Apparently, this is real -- some sort of public-access programming from an unknown U.S. city... NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Eye Candy

Home Sweet Home

Someday... hopefully...!

Total cost of Ward's cabin solar power system : Less than 700 Bucks!

***

It would be impossible to power a home down in town with a system of this size...but this design goes to show that if you are conservative with your power use, realistic with your expectations, and thrifty with your equipment purchases, you can power up a home for under a grand. Just don't try to plug in that damn air conditioner!

Just need some land in a remote place, abundant sunlight, decent soil... and a plan, which this site provides as a good example.

As time moves forward, something like this makes more and more sense to me....

Today's Ward Churchill Moment -- Trial Victory Edition

My former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill has just won his lawsuit against the school that fired him:

The University of Colorado unlawfully fired Ward Churchill for expressing his political beliefs, a jury decided this afternoon.

The jury of four women and two men awarded the former ethnic studies professor $1 in damages. The dollar amount was largely a symbolic move because the judge instructed the jury to award that amount if they ruled in Churchill's favor but found no damages.

Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves will decide at a separate hearing whether Churchill, 61, is reinstated at CU or given a lump sum of money instead.

Shortly after the verdict was announced, Churchill told reporters that getting his job back was more important than any monetary award.

"I didn't ask for money," said Churchill, who was joined by his attorney, David Lane. "What was asked for and what was delivered was justice."

My first thought is that Ward should've ended up owning the damned school.

My second thought is that, miracle of miracles, the jury found in his favor.

My third thought is that the System can still screw him, should the judge not reinstate his CU professorship.

Without a doubt, the most poetic punishment would be for Ward to go back to work for the weasels who can't stomach his challenge to their comfort zone.

I'll be watching to find out whether poetic justice prevails.

Return of the Black Shirts

On the one hand, this is frightening.

On the other... well, at least they're standing up for everyone to see, instead of hiding behind labels like "neocon."

Silvio Berlusconi realises dream with new rightwing party

• Freedom People includes Mussolini's spiritual heirs
• Coalition brings Italy closer to two-party state

A unified party of the Italian right, bringing together followers of Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, and the spiritual heirs of Mussolini's fascist blackshirts will formally be created tomorrow by delegates at a congress convened to inaugurate the movement.

Speaking from a giant platform in an immense exhibition hall, Berlusconi last night declared the gathering open and moved closer to realising his most cherished dream - leading a single power-bloc of the right.

As soon as a 50ft high screen above the platform showed the prime minister was entering the hall, 6,000 delegates sprang to their feet to give him an ovation. A beaming Berlusconi strode to his place while loudspeakers blared out his party's election campaign song, whose title roughly translates as: "Thank goodness for Silvio".

By tomorrow, when the congress ends, the 6,000 delegates will have turned the Freedom People (PdL) - made up of Berlusconi's Forza Italia ("Come on Italy!") party and the post-fascist National Alliance - from an electoral coalition into a ostensibly monolithic movement representing the bulk of Italy's conservatives. Since most of the centre-left is already united in a rival Democratic Party (PD), the latest merger brings Italy significantly closer to a two-party system.

Wasn't Berlusconi bounced for corruption... sort of like the new PM in Israel?

Oh, that's right.

Laws are for the unwashed masses.