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Why is this man still in jail? Why was this man forced to spend seven years in solitary? Why is still confined, languishing, festering in jail for a total of twenty five years? Solitary confinement is the most barbaric of punishments. Few people can withstand this form of torture without becoming very ill, both physically and mentally. Am I talking about the Soviet Gulag? Or about some hell-hole in Afghanistan or Iran? Last year, The New Yorker ran a piece about solitary confinement. The article concludes that this punishment amounts to torture, that it can even induce “acute psychosis with...

Note: The following text is a quote: Swedish National Charged with Hacking and Theft of Trade Secrets Related to Alleged Computer Intrusions at NASA and Cisco Philip Gabriel Pettersson, aka "Stakkato," 21, a Swedish national, was indicted today on intrusion and trade secret theft charges. The five-count indictment includes one intrusion count and two trade secret misappropriation counts involving Cisco Systems Inc. (Cisco), of San Jose, Calif., which is a provider of computer network equipment and producer of Internet routers. According to the allegations in the indictment Pettersson intentionally committed an intrusion between May 12, 2004, and May 13, 2004,...

Expanding its existing relationship with NASA, Google on Wednesday said it plans to lease 42.2 acres of unimproved land at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., to construct up to 1.2 million square feet of offices and research space. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has provided a visual overview of the site on Google Maps. Under the terms of the 40-year lease agreement, Google will pay rent of $3.66 million annually. The lease allows for the possibility of five 10-year extensions, making the maximum term 90 years, assuming both parties agree. The lease allows for periodic rent increases. NASA...

AN ALLEGED attempt to kill a former Russian spy who defected to Britain was being investigated by police last night. Oleg Gordievsky was admitted to a hospital in Guildford after falling ill in November last year. And yesterday he claimed he had been poisoned with the highly toxic metal thallium in a botched assassination attempt. Gordievsky, a KGB double agent who spied on Russia for British intelligence during the 1980s, claims he was targeted by a Russian assassin who visited him at his safe house in Surrey. The 69-year-old was unconscious for 34 hours after falling ill last year and...

You've undoubtedly already heard the results of the Ames, Iowa, Republican straw poll.......(snip)... I'll start off with some comments on the finish of each of the candidates.Mitt Romney. Romney had to finish first and did. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain took themselves out of the straw poll in June, and Fred Thompson, who has yet to officially announce, did nothing. (A few guys from Texas and Tennessee drove up and bought a table next to some other guys who bought a table for Alan Keyes, who has already demonstrated that he can lose by a landslide margin to Barack Obama.)...

Lessons learned from Ames posted by: Kyle | posted at: 6:44 PM | permalink here Generally I found myself unimpressed by the CNN/Youtube debate questions. They were generally silly and unserious to me. However, I thought there was one question that was worthy to ask the candidates: More than anything I like the realism of the question: Why does it matter what your views on the issues are if when in power you won’t get anything done? I like to say it more like this: How effective will you be in office? It’s something that each voter should ask...

I hate to be nasty, but anybody who takes the Ames Straw Poll results seriously is an idiot. A bunch of people spent ludicrous amounts of money to bus-and-truck 14,000 people to a big picnic, and the guy who spent the most bought the win with a mammoth 4516 votes. Goshers! 4,516 votes! Another guy who spent a lot less than the first guy got some people to eat his fried Oreos to vote for him too — 2,587, of them, to be precise. And he's claiming a big triumph and momentum blah blah blah. This is ridiculous. The two...

Sunday, Aug 12, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Kevin Madden (857) 288-6390Fox News' Carl Cameron: "There's no doubt [Romney] leads the polls and he's won the Straw Poll, a stiff measure of organizational prowess in a state where getting people to come out in the Caucus is the name of the game. Getting them to the straw poll is what Mitt Romney did better than any other candidate on this day." (Fox News' "Live Event," 8/11/07) Former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman: "Ken Mehlman, the former RNC chairman who ran George W. Bush's Iowa effort in 1999 and who is neutral...

MILWAUKEE (AP) - A staffer with Tommy Thompson's presidential campaign says the former Wisconsin governor will make an announcement about his future within the next 48 hours. In the weeks prior to today's Republican straw poll in Iowa, Thompson repeatedly said he'd need to finish in the top two to keep his campaign going. Instead he finished 6th, making it likely that he'll drop his White House bid. He finished with about 1,000 votes, or seven percent of the total. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won with almost 4,500 votes, or about 32%. Thompson campaign spokesman Brian Dumas (DOO'-mas) says...

Republican presidential candidates transformed the campus of Iowa State University into a conservative carnival Saturday, competing for votes by offering free soda and barbecue and a promise of shade for the thousands who braved the 100-degree heat to attend this year's straw poll. The activists came by the busload, more than 30,000 in all, for the first voting of the 2008 presidential campaign. But for many, casting ballots was an afterthought as they made their way past huge stages with live bands, inflatable bouncy rooms for the kids and fair-style booths touting one conservative cause after another. The Iowa Right...

Just announced: Romney wins with a third of the vote. Huckabee comes in second.

AMES, Iowa (AP) - A campaign spokesman says the wife of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul was hospitalized today (Saturday) with an irregular heartbeat. Carol Paul became ill on Saturday morning and was taken to an area hospital, says Jesse Benton, a Paul spokesman. A Republican congressman from Texas, Paul was delayed in arriving at the high profile Republican straw poll in Ames today (Saturday) in order to stay with his wife. Benton told The Associated Press that Mrs. Paul was recovering at hospital in Des Moines from a heart condition that causes her heart rate to get very low....

AMES -- Admittedly, this reporter was skeptical when numbers like 40,000 were thrown around when people were estimating the number of attendees at the Straw Poll. Now, we see where that number comes from. At 11:30, the crowd has arrived. Hundreds are chowing down on Hickory Farms barbecue under the Mitt Romney tent, while a smaller but still impressive number eats Famous Dave's next door at Sam Brownback's headquarters. At this moment, it appears that Romney's crowd is the largest. The former Massachusetts governor speaks to the assembled multitude first, around 12:45 CT, so his voters may be motivated to...

Thousands of Republicans – from Iowa and beyond – are strolling the grounds just outside of Iowa State’s basketball arena in Ames this morning as GOP candidates woo them with food, drink, music and games for the kids. Iowa GOP chair Ray Hoffman expects there to be more people here today than were here eight years ago when just over 20,000 voted in the Iowa GOP’s Straw Poll, a first test of organizational strength among the campaigns. “The wind is blowing just a little bit. People are out. Everybody's got a smile on their face,” Hoffman said of the crowd....

At a southeast Ames coffee shop Friday morning, U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter mingled with guests, telling stories of life on the campaign trail and why he is the best candidate to be president of the United States in 2008. The gathering space was filled with a few undecided voters and a mob of Hunter supporters. It was the sort of scene that replicated itself at restaurants, cafés and candidate headquarters in Mid-Iowa throughout the day Friday as Republican senators, congressmen and former governors sought to generate excitement and the last few votes that could lead them to a better...

Dear FRiends, I'm leaving in about an hour to leave for Ames, Iowa "first in the nation" Presidential Straw Poll. I'm attending a delegation with Fair Tax that left from Dayton, Ohio about noon today, and is schuduled to arrive in Illinois shortly to pick some of us up. Being from Illinois, I had to patiecently wait through the 2000 primaries (my first as a FReeper), only to find out the original field of nine candidates had been cut down to three by the time my state voted. My preferred candidate at the time (Forbes) had dropped out long...

Yesterday’s Republican debate in Iowa is likely to prove more significant than the Iowa caucuses that follow in January. For starters, it demonstrated both the wisdom and the folly in having so many candidates on stage. Iowa frontrunners Romney (26%) and Giuliani (14%) got the chance to showcase their ideas, poise and style. Some second-tier candidates such as Huckabee (8%) and Hunter (1%) showed why they are still in the race while others, such as Constitution gadfly Ron Paul (2%), proved redundantly why they should not be. And in moments that should be remembered later in the campaign, at least...

We took six undecided voters all from different cities – two Democrats, two Republicans and two Independents and gave them the power of the pen to grade the candidates running for President. In all, eleven candidates sent their responses to us on time. We asked them one question. It’s a question that has been on the minds of many Americans: “What do you think will happen when U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq, and what is your strategy to deal with what happens afterward?” Our six-person panel then graded each candidate’s response. Take a look below to see who made...

Hey, this is Ultra Sonic 007, supporter of Hunter. There's been a couple of changes to the website. First, http://www.gohunter08.com/ New intro page. Up top leads to the main site, while the bottom link leads to something called "My eLeader", with the caption "Get involved in the campaign with a personalized grassroots suite." Now to the main site. http://www.gohunter08.com/index.asp There's an entirely new section; a large button that states "Visit the Iowa Virtual Headquarters: Buy a ticket to the Straw Poll." Very interesting! http://www.gohunter08.com/virtualhq/index.asp Comes with a new commercial for Iowa. (Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfcY8q6SgW0) There's also a countdown clock till...

Governor Romney was interviewed by Pajamas Media. Click here to go watch it.Also, Duncan Hunter will be on Iowa news talk radio tomorrow: The Right Balance Wednesday, July 25, 2007 10:00 AM to 10:20 AM EasternThe Right Balance: The show is heard via www.accentradio.com andwww.therightbalance.org from 10am until noon eastern AND 10pm until midnight eastern…2-4pm central at www.iowanewstalk.com I’ll post more as I find them.