ASYLUM

* Military Intelligence

But weren't (guantanamo prisoners) all proved guilty of something at their status review hearings? [One] detainee "confessed" following an interminable interrogation, shouting: "Fine, you got me; I'm a terrorist." When the government tried to list this as a confession, his own interrogators were forced to break the outrageous game of telephone and explain it as sarcasm. A Yemeni accused of being a Bin Laden bodyguard eventually "admitted" to having seen Bin Laden five times: "Three times on Al Jazeera and twice on Yemeni news." His file: "Detainee admitted to knowing Osama Bin Laden."

— Article in Slate

* noooooooogie

Quick note, because this has been sitting as a draft for ages, I want to get it posted.

What's with all the Google-bashing over China? I know they're the Big Target at the moment, but really. I mean, yes, I'd prefer that they offered a full, uncensored feed, but:

• Given the choice between no access, and partial access, isn't partial better?

• I totally accept that providing a fake view of the world is both worse than providing an accurate one, and possibly worse than none at all, however

• Google.cn warns you if the results have been censored, negating that argument, because you know when you aren't seeing an accurate view;

• You can still use proxies to route around the Great Firewall of China and do searches on google.com uncensored.

Furthermore:

• Yahoo and MSN also do the censoring, yet haven't received 1/10th the outrage;

• Yahoo is also accused of having turned bloggers over to the Chinese authorities to be sent to prison for 8 years;

• Neither Yahoo nor MSN warn you when your search results have been censored.

Interestingly:

• Yahoo and MSN both rolled over and said, "Yes, American Government Man, You May Bend Us Over A Barrel And Stick Your Fingers Up Our Search Engines" when the USG decided it wanted some 'evidence' (subpoenaed from sources entirely unrelated to the court case) to prop up it's War On Pr0n;

• Google said no.

The more paranoid amongst you might want to consider the relative publicity in the light of this article on John Rendon's propaganda services to the United States Government