Full piece posted on ePluribus Media 2.0.

As is often the case in hotly contested discussion, claims of invalid comparisons are often made alongside calls to compare “apples to apples” instead of “apples to ice buckets” or some other such mis-matched scale.

In order to help further along the discussion of why rendition, torture and individual rights to privacy, decency and proper representation in a court of law matters no matter the reason, I present two current stories after the fold that both concern the abuse of a man and a tortured penis.

Make the jump…

The news of the recent White House fire isn’t the first time an area near and dear to national security went up in flames shortly after a judge ruled against Cheney’s log privilege.

Remember the  NSA building fire at Fort Meade last year? Curiously enough, it too was around the time that a judge ruled Cheney’s logs are not privileged.

Judge Orders Cheney Visitor Logs Opened

“A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release information about who visited Vice President

Dick Cheney’s office and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election-season debate over lobbyists’ White House access.

“While researching the access lobbyists and others had on the White House, The Washington Post asked in June for two years of White House visitor logs. The Secret Service refused to process the request, which government attorneys called ‘a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency.'” (AP)

(via TPM Muckraker)

Also, the Fort Meade complex had an interesting web page that is no longer available.

I’ve scrapbooked it, of course.

From the former site:

    The 902D Military Intelligence Group is the US Army’s largest Counterintelligence Unit, conducting the full range of CI activities, throughout the spectrum of conflict, and at all echelons, from tactical to strategic.

    The 902D Military Intelligence Group conducts counterintelligence with a worldwide focus to serve as a force multiplier for US Army Commanders.

    We serve as the Army’s first line of defense in force protection, technology protection, counterespionage, counterterrorism and Foreign Intelligence Service threat awareness, CI advice and assistance, and operational security support.

Curiouser and curiouser…so, how deep does the rabbit hole go, and how far are we willing to get sucked into it before we start excavating?

As the 2008 Presidential Race heats up, one of the largest issues looming in front of all candidates is the question of healthcare: how much, how should it be implemented and funded, who should it cover, what will it cover, where will the money come from, who will provide oversight, yadda yadda yadda.

I recently came across a post with a link to a tool that apparently provides the capacity to compare candidate healthcare plans four-at-a-time; I’m not directly familiar with the plans supported by any of the candidates, nor with the ins and outs of each plan, so I’m posting this here for people to examine and respond to.

Below the jump, read an excerpt of the post I read, follow the link, and check out the tool. I’ve got four questions at the end that I’d like readers to answer in comments. (Hat-tip Delphooie)

Hat-tip to RawStory via Dupa T. Parrot of DelphiForums.

December 11, 2007, Dan Abram’s MSNBC broadcast of Bush League Justice.

The video is on YouTube, but I’m not certain if it is there with or without permission. Submitted for your perusal in the meantime:

There is no extended text below the fold.

Crossposted at ePluribus Media as well.

And yes, the story is real.

The image above is a crop from an image found on lolpix, but the article is real — click the image to get to the online version.

Another related story by the same writer (Margaret Munro of CanWest News Service) can be found here.

The lolpix image of the print copy of the CanWest article was first pointed out to me by Aurora_Bird on DelphiForums.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Sometimes, a video is worth a lot more, whether it is simply an animated image or a full-fledged movie. Or simply an image that morphs (transforms) into another image. Over the past few days, I’ve been experimenting with image morphing software and posting a few examples of the results in various locations….

The citizens of this nation need a good talking-to, not a talking point. It’s time for the citizens to stand up and insist that their elected officials perform their duties as public servants and defendants of the Constitution instead of as tin-plated demigods of political voodoo and power-plays.

Earlier tonight, in light of my posting of a video from 2004, I was encouraged to post some additional information about the video, the artist — anything, actually — just to get the video out in front of people. Here is that post.

IF you believe this is important and that no time should be wasted, then the first person to volunteer below to post it on DailyKos is welcomed to do so. I have used my Daily Diary there already.

Please provide a link back to here and to ePluribus Media’s new beta site.

Thank you.

OK, folks, I need some help here — a potentially major item requiring immediate investigation has come to light. From this comment in my recent diary over on DailyKos, dove12348 relates a particularly chilling tidbit:

Unfortunately there are things that…
…can’t be tracked.

http://slate.com/…

Pelosi has threatened the removal of Michigan Rep. John Conyers from his chairmanship of the House judiciary committee if an impeachment inquiry were even opened, according to reliable congressional chatter.

OK, folks — who can help pull together some additional detail around this?

Please post what you can find here, or — preferably, to keep it all in one place, post it here and over here on ePluribus Media, where I’ll be trying to coordinate more information on this.

Here’s the question I want to try and answer: The article from Slate is from August 21, so how does the current state of affairs affect any potential investigation by Conyers?