Oops

Ruby Goodness for Mobile Dev

Looks promising.

CIA Tortures Wrong Guy (Again), Bush Lies about it (Again)

Abu Zubaida, poster boy for "harsh interrogation techniques," who the US has graciously accommodated at Club Guantanamo for the better part of a decade, who, in Bush's words, was "a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden," and who the varsity torture squad at the CIA may well have driven insane, turns out to be a low-level know-nothing. And the feds knew it all along.

From the Washington Post:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

The current administration is reportedly considering setting him free, in Saudi Arabia.

Executive Privilege

Artist loves Washington.

Somnambulist

Big Fat Pixel Goodness

Just discovered Pixen, an image editor geared toward pixel artists. Anti-aliasing is for momma's boys.

Cool Flash Game

Long time no blog. Here's a very strange, well-done flash game.