BBC: Guantanamo suicides 'acts of war'

The suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amount to acts of war, the US military says. ...

[Camp commander] Rear Adm Harris said he did not believe the men had killed themselves out of despair.

"They are smart. They are creative, they are committed," he said.

"They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

Let's review: Up is down. War is Peace. Prisoners held indefinitely with no appeal and with no due process, commit suicide in order to embarass their captors.

Somebody call Bill Clinton so he can tell Rear Adm Harris, "I feel your pain."

My wife, Melinda Ann Smith, is now an ordained minister of the Church of the Subgenius. Since she started posting her thoughts to alt.slack, confusing some and amazing others, she also managed to get a message from THE Rev. Ivan Stang personally welcoming her to the church that he founded.

This makes me even more proud than the day she suggested that we should buy Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead. Not me begging her, mind you, but Melinda actively wanted to get it. (Okay, mitigating factor, she just thinks the animatronic old lady zombie in the first two minutes of Land of the Dead looks so sad and pretty and sympathetic. She likes zombie flicks where you have to sympathize with a few of the undead, like Big Daddy in Land and Bub in Day of the Dead.)

Cory Doctorow visits a Radio Shack.
[Sorry, this won't be funny unless you know who that is.] I like Cory's novels and stories, but this pretty much hits the nail on the head.

SFX: electronic doorbell goes “Dooo-weee!”

CORY DOCTOROW: Hmmph. I certainly hope that doorbell isn’t keeping private records of who enters and exits the store.

"Over the past six weeks a Western security force has effectively taken over the small African nation of Namibia. A beach resort in Langstrand in Western Namibia has been sealed off with security cordons, and armed security personnel have been keeping both local residents and visiting foreigners at bay. A no-fly zone has been enforced over part of the country. The Westerners have also demanded that the Namibian government severely restrict the movement of journalists into and out of Namibia. The government agreed and, in a move described by one human rights organisation as "heavy-handed and brutal", banned certain reporters from crossing its borders.

However, this Western security force is not a US or European army plundering Namibia's natural resources or threatening to topple its government. It is the security entourage of one Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the celebrity couple better known for living it up in LA than slumming it in Namibia. They reportedly wanted their first child to be born in Namibia because the country is "the cradle of human kind" and it would be a "special" experience (1). And it seems that no security measure is too stringent in the name of making Ms Jolie feel special. Welcome to the new celebrity colonialism."