Dvorak News Blog

The Criminal Investigation Of Alberto Gonzales & 5 Others Over Torture

By Uncle Dave Tuesday April 14, 2009

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid.
[…]
Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo
[…]
The reaction on American editorial pages is divided—some questioning sharply why the Obama administration is not conducting an investigation, which is implicitly the question raised by the Spanish prosecutors. Publications loyal to the Bush team argue that the Spanish investigation is an “intrusion” into American affairs, even when those affairs involve the torture of five Spaniards on Cuba.

The Bush Six labored at length to create a legal black hole in which they could implement their policies safe from the scrutiny of American courts and the American media. Perhaps they achieved much of their objective, but the law of unintended consequences has kicked in. If U.S. courts and prosecutors will not address the matter because of a lack of jurisdiction, foreign courts appear only too happy to step in.

In a vaguely related topic, PETA wants Obama to stop the military’s torture. Of animals, that is.

Facebook Users Get Lower Grades

By John C Dvorak Monday April 13, 2009

5 Comments

Twitter attacked over the weekend.
Facebook users get lower grades.
Palm Pre may be Pre-mature. The Pre uses an induction charger.
83-percent of all businesses being polled will not install Win 7 for a while.
Dell getting into the Android camp?
$899 Educational iMac.
Oracle and Cisco in the running for Sun Microsystems?
Microsoft and Yahoo back in the sack.
New Ubuntu coming out on April 23.

click ► to listen:

Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.

Burger King Whips Whopper Insult On Mexico

By KD Martin Monday April 13, 2009

19 Comments

Are all BK ads spicy?

Mexico is protesting a whopper of an insult. “The taste of Texas with a little spicy Mexican,” a narrator’s voice says.

An advertisement for Burger King’s Texican Whopper burger that has run in Europe shows a small wrestler dressed in a cape resembling a Mexican flag. The wrestler teams up with a lanky American cowboy almost twice his height to illustrate the cross-border blend of flavors.

Mexico’s ambassador to Spain said Monday he has written a letter to Burger King’s offices in that nation objecting to the ad and asking that it be removed. Jorge Zermeño told Radio Formula that the ads “improperly use the stereotyped image of a Mexican.”

Press officials at Burger King Corp. offices in Miami, Florida, and Madrid, Spain, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Burger King is known for its signature Whopper hamburger.

Pilot Dies Mid-air — Passenger Lands Plane

By hhopper Monday April 13, 2009

17 Comments

Beechcraft King Air

By LESLIE WILLIAMS NaplesNews.com

FORT MYERS, FL — It could have ended so differently.

Five people on board a plane that took off from Marco Island Executive Airport Sunday got back on the ground safely after the pilot of their private plane died mid-air.

One passenger assisted by three air traffic controllers and a pilot relaying cockpit instructions from Connecticut worked together to avoid further tragedy.

Steven Wallace, a representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Miami, said the flight turned harrowing soon after take-off, as the plane was in the process of climbing to 10,000 feet. The pilot checked in with the Miami air control tower once he left the air space monitored by the Marco controllers.

“Our controller who was working the afternoon rush tried to acknowledge him and give him climbing instructions and he never responded to us,” said Wallace, who was present during the radio discussions and monitored the radar to watch the plane’s progress.

Eventually, another voice came on the radio from the twin-engine plane. One of five passengers on board said the pilot had passed out and that the plane was still climbing on auto-pilot. What followed was a dicey 15 or 20 minutes in which several controllers worked to continue directing the normal flow of Sunday afternoon air traffic, all while helping the passenger disengage auto pilot on the plane and begin descending to Southwest Florida International Airport, which was, by then, the nearest runway.

At one point, said Wallace, the man who took control of the aircraft said he believed the pilot was dead.

Found by MJ.

Right-wing politician upset over gay elephant

By Eideard Monday April 13, 2009

99 Comments

A Polish politician has criticized his local zoo for acquiring a “gay” elephant named Ninio who prefers male companions and will probably not procreate.

“We didn’t pay 37 million zlotys ($11 million) for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there,” Michal Grzes, a conservative councilor in the city of Poznan in western Poland, was quoted as saying.

“We were supposed to have a herd, but as Ninio prefers male friends over females how will he produce offspring?” said Grzes, who is from the right-wing opposition Law and Justice party.

Any nutballs out there who aren’t hungup over everyone else’s sex life?

Obama Opening Up Cuba

By John C Dvorak Monday April 13, 2009

53 Comments

After seeing what little good the embargo of Cuba has done regarding regime change, I have to assume that we’ve wanted Cuba to be the way it is — a Communist bastion. Why? Just lift the whole embargo and let everyone go there. This didn’t work to anyone’s benefit.

President Barack Obama directed his administration Monday to allow unlimited travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba, and to take other steps to ease U.S. restrictions on the island, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

The formal announcement was being made at the White House Monday afternoon, during presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs’ daily briefing with reporters. The official spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the president’s announcement.

Florida town’s ban on droopy drawers challenged in court

By Eideard Monday April 13, 2009

25 Comments

So, they’re only arresting guys?

As fashion statements go, the young men’s “sagging pants” look, with trousers slung low enough to reveal a generous swath of boxer shorts, has some lamentable drawbacks.

For one thing, it can veer perilously close to the ultimate wardrobe crisis for a man: a sudden drop of trousers to the ankles. Then there is the legal issue. In this tiny beachfront town [Riviera Beach] 70 miles north of Miami, the look is against the law…

Other cities, including Lynwood, Ill., and Flint, Mich., have passed similar measures, but none appear to have pursued violators as energetically as Riviera Beach. Since the law took effect last July, 15 to 20 young men have been charged with violating the ordinance, defense lawyers say.

But with many of the cases pending, the Office of the Palm Beach County Public Defender last week challenged the ordinance on constitutional grounds…

Mayor Thomas Masters, a Baptist minister, said in an interview that Riviera Beach voters “just got tired of having to look at people’s behinds or their undergarments,” but the public defenders argued that sagging pants were a constitutionally protected expression of identity…

On Singer Island, Bart Berling, the owner of Mother Nature’s Cafe, also questioned the sense of outlawing low-slung pants. “I was young in the ’60s, when people started wearing their hair real long,” Mr. Berling said. He does not like the style, he said, “but as long as they ain’t naked, what’s the point?”

IMHO, people have the right to look as silly as they wish to.

Yahoo and Microsoft once again talking about partnershipzzzzz…

By Eideard Monday April 13, 2009

9 Comments

The on-again, off-again talks between Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. about an online advertising deal are reportedly back on.

The discussions restarted a few weeks ago, and included a meeting between new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the technology blog AllThingsD said.

The two companies have intermittently talked about partnering in search engine advertising since last year after Microsoft’s unsolicited $47.5 billion takeover bid for the Sunnyvale Web portal fell apart. Microsoft executives have championed a partnership as a way to better compete with search industry leader Google Inc. while underscoring that they are no longer interested in an acquisition…

Representatives from Yahoo and Microsoft declined to comment.

You’d have to wake them to get a comment.

You’d have to wake me to get me to listen.

How The Brits See Fox And The Rest Of American TV News

By Uncle Dave Monday April 13, 2009

54 Comments

Giant Publicity Stunt Annoys Travelers at Antwerpen’s Centraal Station

By McCullough Sunday April 12, 2009

37 Comments

Cows And Gas — A “New” Global Warming Problem

By KD Martin Sunday April 12, 2009

19 Comments

Courtesy Akron Beacon Journal

A new study, and I wonder what the grant title was?

Indolent cows languidly chewing their cud while befuddled motorists honk and maneuver their vehicles around them are images as stereotypically Indian as saffron-clad holy men and the Taj Mahal. Now, however, India’s ubiquitous cows — of which there are 283 million, more than anywhere else in the world — have assumed a more menacing role as they become part of the climate change debate.

By burping, belching and excreting copious amounts of methane — a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide — India’s livestock of roughly 485 million (including sheep and goats) contribute more to global warming than the vehicles they obstruct.

With new research suggesting that emission of methane by Indian livestock is higher than previously estimated, scientists are furiously working at designing diets to help bovines and other ruminants eat better, stay more energetic and secrete lesser amounts of the offensive gas.

So the emphasis for Indian scientists is on indigenous solutions. “We know we cannot count on high quality feed and fodder,” says Singhal, “No one will be able to afford it. What we have done instead is develop cheaper technologies and products.”

One example is urea-molasses-mineral blocks that are cheap, reduce methane emission by 20%, and also provide more nutrition so they’re easier to sell to illiterate farmers who don’t know a thing about global warming but want higher milk yields.

More greenhouse gas than the cars that wait on the cows? Good grief!

No Agenda Netcast #88 For 09.04.12 – Perchlorate And Cut Fiber

By KD Martin Sunday April 12, 2009

4 Comments

Click image to go to No Agenda.

John and Adam discuss the news of the day from an international perspective

Queue / cue / Q the closing credits — We hope you enjoy the show!

No Agenda

Running time: approx. 90 mins.

Why The Terrorists Have Won

By Uncle Dave Sunday April 12, 2009

37 Comments

How many of the activities listed are ordinary things that ordinary people do? Or used to do before they became too afraid to do them anymore because of things like this. When the population is too afraid or is spying on its neighbors or government becomes oppressive in the name of protecting the people, the terrorists have achieved their goal.

But don’t you feel safer?

The Other Side of the Somali Pirate Story

By McCullough Sunday April 12, 2009

45 Comments

In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.” At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. This is the context in which the “pirates” have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence”.

Do we ever get the straight skinny from the media?

American Captain Phillips freed!

By Eideard Sunday April 12, 2009

69 Comments

Daylife/Reuters Pictures

Captain Richard Phillips, (R), alongside Cmdr. Frank Castellano, CO of USS Bainbridge after his rescue

Hero Capt. Richard Phillips was freed today in a dramatic ending to a four-day high seas standoff that riveted the world.

Three of the four ragtag pirates who held the world’s most powerful Navy at bay on the Indian Ocean were killed, and the fourth was taken into custody.

Phillips was said to be in good condition.

On Saturday negotiations had broken down when the Somali pirates reportedly insisted they would only free Phillips in exchange for their own freedom – a deal nixed by US officials.

Phillips, 53, captain of the 17,000-ton relief cargo vessel Maersk Alabama, offered himself as a hostage to save his 19-man crew Wednesday when armed pirates took his ship.

He and the pirates had been drifting in an out-of-gas lifeboat, surrounded by massive US warships who could do little but keep pirate reinforcements from reaching the lifeboat.

The audacious pirates even opened fire Saturday on a small Navy vessel sent from the destroyer USS Bainbridge.

Bravo!