e coli outbreak in spinach

Dear readers,

I wanted to pass this photo on to the general public, which I received from a friend of mine. The photo above shows a bag of spinach, prepackaged, with a frog inside of it.

I am a student of science, and most know that e coli usually grows on meat products. Well, I would bet that the e coli outbreak may have had something to do with dead frog materials and eggs being packaged with the spinach. This frog was still alive, I believe, so it must have hatched from an egg that was packaged inside of the bag.

The truth about tough interrogation

"If you watch us often, you know one thing that sets me off is when guests come on the program and say stuff that isn't true. That's what's going on with this so-called torture deal - the far left believes the Bush administration wants to torture people for sport and asserts that making terror suspects uncomfortable is actually torture. In addition, they claim tough interrogation methods never lead to valid information. Today, the Senate continues to debate the coerced interrogation issue. Talking Points believes there will be a compromise - the CIA will be allowed to use some so-called coercive interrogation methods. And that's a good thing, because they do work on some bad people. American interrogators did rough up some captured Al Qaeda terrorists, and those men did give up vital information that that badly damaged terror operations. That is the truth."

ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross joined The Factor with evidence that coercive interrogation can be effective. "The CIA broke 14 high value leaders in secret prisons," Ross declared. "They used coercive techniques. They started with a slap in the chest, then cold rooms, then sleep deprivation, then waterboarding, where you think you are drowning and about to die. In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the information he gave up was very valuable regarding one plot which would have involved an airplane attack on the tallest building in Los Angeles. It's clear that in several cases coercive interrogation does seem to have an effect, and that's the bottom line." The Factor reiterated that harsh tactics can be useful. "In all 14 cases coerced interrogation was used, and in all 14 cases they gave it up. And you say more than a dozen plots were stopped. I want to make it crystal clear that what we have said is true."

Next, Human Rights Watch's Caroll Bogert joined the program with a diametrically opposed viewpoint. "Torture is a method that should never be used by the United States. Sleep deprivation over days is a form of torture, and waterboarding is unquestionably a form of torture." The Factor reminded Bogert of evidence to the contrary. "Brian Ross just said that 12 plots were thwarted that would have killed thousands of Americans. Are you going to sit there and say those deaths would have been allowed?" "I can't confirm or deny Brian Ross's reporting," Bogert replied, "but you can't say that traditional means of law enforcement would not have produced that same information. You can trick people, you can talk tough with people. I would not deny that torture may in some circumstances produce evidence, but at what cost?"

 

Taking action against terrorists

"Let's stop all the nonsense, shall we? A month ago two Fox News journalists were captured in Gaza - their lives were obviously in danger. If a terrorist was captured and had information about where those guys were being held, are you telling me the authorities can only ask them name, rank, and jihad number? Is that what you're telling me, John McCain, Colin Powell, and other senators who oppose coerced interrogation? The military, thanks to the McCain bill, can not do anything to coerce information out of suspected terrorists. Now there's a debate over what the CIA can do. The President wants the agency to be able to use the following techniques: cold rooms, forced standing, sleep deprivation, slapping a suspect's belly, and using loud noise and bright lights. In an unbelievably foolish display, far left Princeton professor Paul Krugman poses this question: 'Why is President Bush so determined to engage in torture?" Well, here's your answer, professor - the President is trying to stop attacks on Americans. We tried to get some of the senators opposed to coerced interrogation on The Factor this evening, but most of them are hiding under their desks. That's because they know the American people realize this whole debate is absolutely ridiculous. We're fighting a war here, and all the theory in the world is not going to defeat the enemy, who is laughing at us as this debate takes the Senate floor this week."

The Factor was joined by former US Senator and current FNC analyst Al D'Amato. "This is going to hurt McCain," D'Amato predicted. "He is absolutely wrong when he equates sleep deprivation with torture. We talk about homeland security - how did we interrupt a number of attacks? By using those methods we were able to stop terrorism." The Factor posed a real-world scenario. "If one of your children is captured, and the CIA picks up a guy who is in the cell that did the kidnapping, is John McCain going to tell me the CIA can not do anything other than ask the guy's name and where he's from? These senators can not answer that question, and that is the reality. Coerced interrogation is necessary to protect every citizen in America."

 

ABC film on 9/11 follows in Moore's footsteps

By Dan K. Thomasson
Scripps Howard News Service

      WASHINGTON — When my youngest son was barely a teenager, he engaged me in a debate over the Kennedy assassination, announcing authoritatively the existence of a huge conspiracy that reached to the highest levels of government.
      It was clear that his opinions had been formed through the magic of Hollywood and the fertile imagination of Oliver Stone, whose docudrama about that tragedy was mainly fiction verging on propaganda.
      All my entreaties about the lack of substantive proof — in fact, the overwhelming evidence to the contrary — failed to sway him that day. Thankfully, as he matured, he began to understand that there is no end to the distortion of history for commercial purposes by those who put entertainment first and fact second. Feeding the public need to place blame as a balm to national trauma can be hugely rewarding financially.
      The recent ABC television spectacular purporting to map the path to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is just another in a long line of efforts to accomplish that. Ostensibly based on the report of the 9/11 Commission, its factual flaws were embarrassingly obvious and caused a firestorm of protest from Democrats, who saw it as just another attempt to influence the upcoming elections by dumping much of the failure to thwart the terrorists on the back of President Bill Clinton.
      Well, welcome to the world of Michael Moore.
      If memory serves, Moore's attempts to portray George W. Bush as a bewildered, blubbering incompetent in a 2004 presidential election year "documentary" about the first hours and days after the attacks brought about the same response from the Republicans, as it should have.
      The difference between the two films is that Moore eschewed professional actors, making his twists more credible, but none the less distortions. In fact, Moore has become the propagandist of choice for the left.
      At least ABC tried to clean up its presentation. Moore never did.
      The truth is, there probably is enough blame to go around for failing to head off the incredibly improbable 9/11, just as there was 65 years ago in the apparent refusal to heed the signs of an impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
      For years after, conspiracy theorists — including leading Republicans — accused President Franklin D. Roosevelt of doing nothing to stop the assault he knew was coming as a way of dragging the nation into World War II. Their charges were grounded in circumstantial evidence that included sloppy handling of decoded Japanese messages clearly indicating that something was afoot in the hours immediately preceding the air strike. As it was, the commanding officers of both Navy and Army forces in Hawaii became scapegoats unfairly.
      During the years preceding 9/11, any number of mistakes can be cited that might have prevented that event. A litany of the intelligence failures alone dating to Jimmy Carter would fill volumes. Crucial among them was the decision to downgrade the CIA's covert operations. It is certainly clear now that during much of the decade before the attack no American agency regarded Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida as a serious threat to the U.S. mainland. In the months just before 9/11, the documented lapses of the FBI and CIA are monumental.
      Let's be fair. Neither Clinton nor Bush should be held personally accountable for that hideous morning five years ago. Bush had been in office only eight months, after all.
      Both, like the rest of us, were the victims of the incompetent intelligence.
      But in the long run, the arguments about who did or didn't do what along the path to 9/11 are only useful if they provide a plan aimed at preventing a recurrence and there is a willingness to follow it.
      The 9/11 Commission provided a solid, comprehensive, historic report, outlining the deficiencies and recommending the path to follow to minimize the possibility of another horrible incident. Its work deserved better.

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Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service

Red Hot Torture

By: Bill O'Reilly for BillOReilly.com

Thursday, Sep 14, 2006

 

Thanks to the New York Times, we now know the dreaded torture methods

the sadistic CIA used on captured al-Qaeda big shots shortly after the 9/11

attack. I warn you: Reading this column any further will subject you to

unvarnished brutality.

According to a front page article in the Times on Sunday, September 10th,

Pakistani authorities captured Abu Zubaydah, al-Qaeda's personnel director,

a few months after the terror attack five years ago. Zubaydah, wounded in

the confrontation, was turned over to American authorities and whisked

away to Bangkok, Thailand, where FBI interrogators began questioning him.

According to unnamed sources in the Times article, the FBI and CIA clashed

over whether to use soft or tough questioning methods on the captured

terrorist. Because it had jurisdiction, the CIA took over, and the inquisition

began. Agency interrogators stripped Zubaydah, put him in a freezing room,

and subjected him to Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Not the vegetables, the rock group.

Apparently, the CIA sadists cranked up the volume on some Red Hot Chili

Peppers recordings and Zubaydah broke. Wouldn't you?

Now, I am not making this up. The dreaded torture machine that is the Bush

administration unleashed the Red Hot Chili Peppers on an al-Qaeda big shot.

How could they?

According to the article, Zubaydah gave up a number of his fellow killers,

including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. But come on,

the ends do not justify the means. Using the Chili Peppers is beyond the

pale.

Somewhere, Attila the Hun is weeping with laughter.

But this whole thing is deadly serious. Thanks to the American thugs at Abu

Ghraib and the hysterical left-wing press, the entire world thinks the USA is

a nation of brutes who torture for pleasure. Human rights groups can't

condemn us fast enough for our terrible treatment of people captured on the

battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. Guantanamo Bay is a Gulag, Dick

Cheney is Henrich Himmler. And the beat goes on.

But amidst all the hew and cry, there are few specifics. As far as I can

determine, waterboarding—that is, submerging a suspect in water—was

used a couple of times, but is now banned. Stress positions and sleep

deprivation have been used in limited situations. And now we know the

Peppers were in play.

Of course, in reporting the interrogation story, the Times played up the

conflict between the FBI and the CIA big, but buried the lead. In the final

two paragraphs of the lengthy report, the importance of the Chili Pepper

story emerges. Times reporter David Johnston quotes yet another

anonymous "government official" as saying, "The fact of the matter is that

Abu Zubaydah was defiant and evasive until the approved procedures were

used. He soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators to

help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks."

That sounds like a good thing to me, but I do have some advice for the CIA

the next time around: Use Ludacris, and you'll get bin Laden.

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