Today Bush signed a bill that effectively abolishes the most basic legal right in civilized society.

Back in the 11th century civilized peoples realized that there was a need to limit the power of the king. One of the most basic limits to this power, was the right to know why you are in jail, and to challenge that detention in court.

The power of Kings, and Presidents must be limited, because they will throw you in jail just because they do not like you. Annoying the president is not a crime, but if you are never allowed to have a trial, you can rot in jail for the rest of your life, for nothing.

Does it get any more basic than that? I don't think so.

The law now says "Enemy Combatants" can be locked up without charge, and they can be condemned to death without knowing why they are in jail or what evidence there is against them.

So who is an enemy combatant? Anyone. No Bullshit.

A "Combatant Status Review Tribunal" can declare anyone an enemy combatant, citizen or not. Forgive me if I don't trust an appointed tribunal with no legal mandate, to decide who can be stripped of all their rights and held indefinitely without charge. Every American should be in the streets demanding that the president stop pissing on the document he swore to protect. THE CONSTITUTION!!

The beauty of America is that we are ruled by a set of laws, not by the whims and suspicions of tyrants. Had we been living by that standard and the rest of the constitution, we would have never gotten to this point.

What can I say. This is the exact opposite of America. Bush is an Outlaw. We must impeach him before any more damage is done to this country. This is an abomination.

90% of those in Guantanamo have been held without charge for over 4 years. Many, if not the Majority of them are innocent. People were turned over to the US by Afghan warloards just so they could get the $5,000 reward.

By the way, there is something inherently wrong with declaring somebody an "Enemy" BEFORE having a trial.



More Reading:
Video: Olbermann; The Day Habeas Corpus Died:

The President Gets His Wish: He's the Dictator:

Shame on Us All:

NY Times, Rushing Off a Cliff:

This is one of the reasons why why (E:strip) is awesome, everyone goes out and takes pictures of big events like this and shares them, it's great. Here are my pictures of the October Snowstorm.

More Pictures from Buffalo Residents on the Flickr Buffalo Group.



Yesterday:













Today

Morning, October 13 2006














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Leaving his Wife, for Baghdad,



As most of you know I am a photographer, I work in the studio during the week and do weddings on weekends. This picture is from a wedding I did last week.

When I do military weddings I tend to get emotional. Not because of anything that is said, or any ceremony or anything else. There's just something in the room. This is one of the few weddings where I actually saw the emotion in the room and captured it on film.

Check out some more stuff at Flickr , there are a few more of this couple dancing, and a bunch of other stuff.

For the past 3 days I have had an odd collection playing in winamp

1) Frank Sinatra - My Way the best of
2) Bruce Springsteen - The Seeger Sessions (bluegrass)
3) Bad Religion - The Process of Belief (Punk Rock)

What an odd snapshot of my musical tastes. Basically I like anything good, genre doesn't matter.

The Bush administration is incompotent. How come nobody has ever faulted them for not stopping the 911 attacks? They are treated as fearless leaders, whose opinions are as reliable as Jesus' ghospel. And for what? They're the ones who fucked up in the first place and let 911 happen. Now ABC and Fox 'News' blame Clinton? Yea right, you jackofs were the ones in office! We're supposed to forget.

Below in this news article we find out a few things.
Condoleezza Rice was directly warned by the Director of the FBI George Tenet that he was concerned about imminent danger of terrorist attacks inside the US. The meeting happened on July 10, 2001 Months before the attack. they "came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously."

The 911 commission had no knowledge of this meeting untill this week when Bob Woodward's new book came out "State of Denial" Commissioners are suggesting a coverup. A serious crime.

Also "Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden," That's a bad sign.

See the entire article at Raw Story
They keep updating the article at the end as news breaks about this.

a 911 Commissioner speaks out here at Think Progress


State of Denial: Two months before 9/11, Rice gave the 'brush-off' to 'impending terrorist attack' warning


(Update: Former Counsel to the 9/11 Commission suggests that "[v]ery possibly, someone committed a crime" by engaging in a "cover-up" of the warning)

According to a new book written by Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward, two months before the September 11 attacks, then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice gave the "brush-off" to an "impending terrorist attack" warning by former C.I.A. director George J. Tenet and his counterterrorism coordinator.

An article in Friday's New York Times first mentioned the warning, and a front page book review of Woodward's State of Denial in Saturday's edition provides more details.

"On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack," David E. Sanger reported on Friday. "But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously."

Sanger also reported that Tenet told Woodward that before 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was "impeding" efforts to catch Osama bin Laden.

"Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden," wrote Sanger. "Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda."

Saturday's New York Times review claims that in Woodward's book, Rice "is depicted as a presidential enabler, ineffectual at her job of coordinating interagency strategy and planning."

"For instance, Mr. Woodward writes that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism coordinator, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice to warn her of mounting intelligence about an impending terrorist attack, but came away feeling they'd been given 'the brush-off' - a revealing encounter, given Ms. Rice's recent comments, rebutting former President Bill Clinton's allegations that the Bush administration had failed to pursue counterterrorism measures aggressively before 9/11," writes Michiko Kakutani.

Saturday's Washington Post has more details regarding the meeting.

"The book also reports that then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, grew so concerned in the summer of 2001 about a possible al-Qaeda attack that they drove straight to the White House to get high-level attention," Peter Baker reports for the Post.

"Tenet called Rice, then the national security adviser, from his car to ask to see her, in hopes that the surprise appearance would make an impression. But the meeting on July 10, 2001, left Tenet and Black frustrated and feeling brushed off, Woodward reported," the article continues. "Rice, they thought, did not seem to feel the same sense of urgency about the threat and was content to wait for an ongoing policy review."