http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rawstory/gKpz/~3/oExG1njhifI/

http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=13889

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) harnessed his Christmas spirit on Tuesday with a mostly-rhyming poem attacking Republicans for obstructing health care reform.

Burris read his own version of Clement Clarke Moore's famous work "A Visit From St. Nicholas" on the Senate floor, in which he playfully accused Republicans of trying to "clog up the Senate" and sink health reform as a way to capitalize for the 2010 midterms.

"'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the Senate, the right held up our health care bill no matter what was in it," Burris said, using his poetic license to rhyme "Senate" with "in it."

Burris' attempt to invoke the holiday season to support the health care legislation came just hours after the Senate cleared the second of three cloture hurdles on the way to a final vote.

"The people had voted, had mandated reform," Burris continued, "but Republicans blew off the gathering storm. 'We'll clog up the senate,' they cried with a grin, and in the midterm elections, we'll get voted in."

The freshman senator from Illinois has been a vocal champion of the public option, and pledged months ago to oppose a bill without one. But he has continued to back the legislation after its removal, tempering his stance last week.

"They knew regular folks needed help right this second," Burris' poem read, "but fund-raisers, lobbyists, and politics beckoned."

On Sunday, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) -- another outspoken supporter of the public option -- blamed President Obama in part for the death of the public option. But Feingold is also still backing the bill.

With 60 Senators on board, the legislation is currently projected to pass through the Senate.

On Friday, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) targeted Democrats in his own version of the famous poem. Bond read it in his living room and released the video on YouTube.

This video is from C-SPAN, broadcast Dec. 22, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

--Video captured and uploaded by David Edwards

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http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=13899

The New York Police Department will have to release info on the race of people that officers have shot, following a state Supreme Court ruling that sided with civil-rights activists working to find out definitively if there is a racial element to police violence against civilians in the US's largest city.

Following the much-publicized shooting of Sean Bell by a team of undercover NYPD officers in November, 2006, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a freedom of information request seeking "all information about the racial backgrounds of individuals shot by police officers over the past 10 years."

When the NYPD released the shooting statistics but withheld the racial data, the NYCLU took the police department to court. In a ruling issued last week, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden ruled that the NYPD had not proven its case for withholding the information, and ordered the police force to release it.

"This is a victory for the principle of open government and accountability to the public," NYCLU Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn said in a statement. “The court’s decision makes clear that the NYPD had no basis for withholding this data, which is necessary to conduct a complete study of the role race plays in police shootings."

NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said that the documents the group has received thus far "paint a troubling, but incomplete, picture of the NYPD’s shooting practices. This new data will help us give New Yorkers the full story on police shootings, not the NYPD’s spin.”

The Sean Bell shooting has become a flashpoint for racial tensions in New York City. On November 25, 2006, a team of undercover NYPD officers unloaded some 50 rounds into a car carrying Bell and two of his friends, on suspicion that one of them had a gun. The trio had been leaving a Queens nightclub where Bell was celebrating his bachelor party. Bell died, and his two friends were injured.

The tensions boiled over in April, 2008, when three police officers were acquitted of wrongdoing in the incident. As protests raged in Harlem and other New York neighborhoods, the Rev. Al Sharpton called on residents to protest the verdict with acts of civil disobedience.

On Monday, New York City Council voted to rename the street where Bell died "Sean Bell Way," despite accusations by some that the move amounts to "police-bashing." Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he will sign the bill.

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http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=13914

LONDON — Evidence is emerging that the British army used waterboarding during interrogations on prisoners in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, according to a report Tuesday.

The technique was allegedly used during at least one interrogation of a prisoner who was found guilty in 1973 of murdering a British soldier, a conviction largely based on an unsigned confession, the Guardian said.

The jury did not believe his insistence that he made up the confession only because he had been held down by soldiers who placed a towel over his face and poured water over his nose and mouth to simulate drowning, the newspaper said.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission has now referred Liam Holden's case to the Court of Appeal in Belfast after unearthing new evidence, and because of doubts about the "admissibility and reliability" of his confession, it said.

After a preliminary hearing, the case has been adjourned until the new year.

"At trial Mr Holden gave compelling evidence that the alleged confession was obtained by the army using water torture," his solicitor Patricia Coyle said.

"He spent 17 years in jail. He is looking forward to the court hearing his appeal," she said.

Evidence has emerged of waterboarding by the CIA while interrogating suspects during the so-called war on terror.

Northern Ireland has been largely peaceful since the 1998 Good Friday agreement paved the way to powersharing, after three decades of bloodshed between pro-British Protestants and Catholic opponents of British rule.

At least 3,500 people were killed during the conflict fought by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Protestant paramilitary groups, known as The Troubles.

oldcharliebrown

Blind Mag: Shilo? Is your name, Shilo?
Can I talk to you?
Can you come down, please?
So we can speak.

I saw you at the show, I thought I'd seen a ghost,
Your resemblance is striking,
You have your mother's eyes, her hair
I was told you died with her.
All these years have come and gone
How do I put this? I'm your (I'm your)
Godmom.

Shilo: State your business.

BM: Business?

Shilo: What do you want?

BM: I want (I want) to finally meet you,
something real to cling to.
Leave you,
With the hope that you will go to,
All your meant to,
All I failed too!

In you is a world of promise
We have both been kept in bondage
But you can learn from all my failures

Shilo: I'm not supposed to talk to strangers . . .

BM: . . . Or let them through the gate?

Shilo: That either.

Shilo: A big risk!

BM: A big fence!

Shilo: A mistake!

BM: A new friend!

Marni: Chase the morning!
Yield for nothing!
Chase the morning!
Yield for nothing!

Shilo: How'd you do that?

BM: Do what?

Shilo: That! That eye thing.

BM: These eyes can do more than see.

Shilo: I know, I mean, I've seen you sing.

BM: Where?

Shilo: From my window. I can see the world from there.
Name the stars and constellations.
Count the cars and watch the seasons.

BM: I wish we could've watched together.

Shilo: I can't have guests!

BM: Never?

Shilo: Ever! If Dad found out that I'd been let out, or that you'd been let in.

BM: I should go then, before I do, promise me you won't.

Shilo: Better that you don't.

Shilo: Don't forget me. Its best if I resume my life in my bedroom

BM:
. . . a sheltered rose needs a little room to bloom outside her bedroom.

Marni: Chase the morning!
Yield for nothing!
Chase the morning!
Yield for nothing!

BM: Let your life be your dream, Integrity, honesty,
it's too late for me. Don't look back till you're free to chase the morning.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/12/22/book-triptych/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=9464

Just arrived at the Scalzi Compound:

From the left: The Portuguese edition of Old Man’s War, the physical copy of The God Engines, and the Tor trade paperback edition of Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. The first of these is out already; the latter two are imminent — TGE is shipping by the end of the year, and Hate Mail is scheduled for January 5th (which means a few might have already leaked to stores). They all look great. I love the new Hate Mail cover (not that I didn’t like the one with me as a devil on it, it’s just that this one is probably better for a mass market), and The God Engines is simply the coolest-looking book I’ve had so far, thanks to Vincent Chong’s awesome cover and interior art (some of which you can see on the SubPress order page for the book). Really, it’s like Christmas came early around here. By, uh, three days or something.

As a TGE addendum, it’s gotten another positive review, this time by the Sacramento Book Review:

Scalzi somehow manages in a mere 136 pages to create believable, like-able characters who exist in a world that, while fantastic…is both wonderful and convincing.

Short but potent. I’ll take that.

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http://rawstory.com/2009/?p=13851

The missing C-SPAN footage showing Sen. John McCain preventing a Democratic senator from getting an extra 30 seconds to finish a speech has been found.

The Republican senator from Arizona was outraged last week when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who was presiding over the Senate, prevented Sen. Joe Lieberman from getting extra time to finish his comments on the Senate floor.

"I've been around here twenty-some years, first time I've seen a member denied a minute or two to finish his remarks," McCain said. "And I must say that I don't know what's happening here in this body, but I think it's wrong."

Political observers quickly pointed out that, in October 2002, McCain himself prevented Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) from finishing a speech opposing the Iraq war and Congress' move to authorize President Bush to launch military action against Iraq.

But when MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show went to find footage of that incident in the C-SPAN archives, producers found the relevant part of the video mysteriously blacked out.

Now C-SPAN has provided an explanation -- as well as the footage of McCain shutting down debate.

"C-SPAN library video content created prior to 2003 was originally captured on two-hour VHS videotapes which were later digitized for permanent storage in our archives," the broadcaster said in a statement. "This process is occasionally susceptible to small errors that can occur at top-of-the-hour tape changes. An example of this type of error in the digital online file from
Oct. 10, 2002 at noon ET."

The recovered footage shows Sen. Dayton asking for an extra 30 seconds to complete his speech. Sen. McCain's voice can be heard off-camera: "I object."

"Either Sen. McCain cannot remember that he himself objected to a senator getting an extra 30 seconds to finish his remarks during the Iraq war debate, or Sen. McCain knows perfectly well that this stuff happens in the Senate," Rachel Maddow said Monday night. "It happens, and he just said it was unprecedented out of sheer hackitude."

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 21, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/olympics2010/story/2009/12/22/bc-oly-women-scoc.html?ref=rss