This time it's Cheney, the Army, and the no-bid KBR contract.

Google has launched a search site for Federal governtment web documents. As the story in the WaPo points out, this will be a big help to Federal employees as well as to citizens:

The launch of Google U.S. Government Search http://usgov.google.com targets federal employees who often need to search across several government agencies.

The site is also designed to help citizens navigate convoluted pages of government-speak and tailors news feeds to their interests. Users can customize the layout of their page to remain updated on government-related news from official and commercial sources, including the White House, Department of Defense, The Washington Post and CNN. Google is also working with agencies to increase the frequency of news updates to keep content current.

This earlier post includes an update on the (apparently) erroneous story in the Washington Post, the story that said Specter's legislation would give amnesty to those who broke the law against warrantless domestic spying. The story was thought to be erroneous because Specter clearly and specifically said it was wrong. Well, Specter was lying through his teeth. This is not a total surprise—he's a Republican, after all—but it is sort of amazing that he still commands any respect whatsoever. Read Greenwald's post at the link. It will make you shake your head.

"All hope abandon ye who enter here": written above the entrance to Hell. And prisoners at Guantánamo are similarly advised to lose hope: they are told that they will stay there indefinitely, even if they are not charged with a crime. It's no wonder that they want to kill themselves. Here's more on the story from a reporter who was on the scene and then forced to leave. The military doesn't like the public to see what they are doing there. Read the story (by Michael Gordon) at the link.

Michael Gordon of the Charlotte Observer was the only American reporter at the Guantanamo prison facility this week when three detainees killed themselves. Now he is sending back dispatches on the U.S. response. The prison commander complains that he can't trust the inmates "any farther than we can throw them."

From Dan Froomkin's column today:

It was on June 20, 2005 , that Bush first extended an invitation to the press to come visit the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay: "You're welcome to go down yourself — maybe you have — and taking a look at the conditions. I urge members of our press corps to go down to Guantanamo and see how they're treated and to see — and to look at the facts. That's all I ask people to do."

Alert Reader sent me to this video. As he says, it’s not only good, it was made by a 15-year-old. Well worth watching.

Go read this.

It makes you more open-minded.

Caffeine has long been known to make the heart beat faster, the muscles work harder and the brain focus better. But a new study suggests that it also makes us more open to persuasion when confronted with a point of view that is logical and well-argued.

At the University of Queensland in Australia, researchers ascertained the positions of 148 people on the subject of voluntary euthanasia, then asked each participant to read a position paper that ran counter to his or her beliefs. Before reading the papers, however, half drank orange juice containing the equivalent jolt of two cups of coffee, and half drank plain orange juice.

Read at the link…