noted. 10/06/2011

• CIA: Zubaydah's Torture Drawings, Writings, "Should They Exist," to Remain Top Secret | Truthout

  • One of the drawings Zubaydah had sketched captured in incredible detail the waterboarding sessions he underwent. Another drawing showed him being chained by his wrists to the ceiling of a CIA black site prison where he was held and another showed him strapped to a chair and being doused with water as part of a sleep deprivation program, according to two counterterrorism officials who have seen Zubaydah's drawings.
  • in the absence of the 92 interrogation videotapes, which the agency destroyed, the drawings Zubaydah made contain the best description of the torture techniques used against him while he was being held at the agency's black site prison facilities.
  • the CIA refuses to release any of his drawings or writings and won't even acknowledge that those materials  actually exist. If Zubaydah's drawings and writings do exist, the CIA said, it would be part of the agency's "operational files," which means "records and files detailing the actual conduct of [CIA's] intelligence activities."

• AskReddit: Ever since Textbook Torrents shut down I've been searching for a replacement. Does anyone know of a good one? : AskReddit

  tags: textbooks college torrent

  • Gigapedia.org

• The New School faculty in support of Occupy Wall Street | Art & Education

  • We faculty members of The New School would like to express our solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protest. We support its demand for real democracy and its denunciation of the effects of the economic crisis on the conditions of life for millions of people around the world. We strongly disagree with political and economic measures against the crisis based on the reduction of public spending and cuts to public services. We condemn the exclusive and unnecessary use of force by the NYPD that resulted in the arrests of 700 hundred people marching in a peaceful and non-violent demonstration on Saturday October 1st. It is inconceivable that New York, the city known for a tradition of free and independent thinking, should be governed like a police state.

     

     

     

    This crisis and the measures adopted by governments will affect the future of young people, and among them, our student body. We all know that our students made a commitment to higher education that forces them into debt. The current economic situation is such that our students will probably carry these debts for decades to come. This is why we support the walk out organized by our students on Wednesday October 5th at 3:30pm.

     

     

     

• Hullabaloo

  • As for goals, Yeselson has some very insightful advice I think:
    
    

    The phrase, “we are the 99 percent” nicely encapsulates the potential of OWS to become a movement of democratic extension. But right now, the precise demands of the Wall Street demonstrators include grandiose ideas like abolishing consumerism. A bit vague, and can even Lloyd Blankfein get it done by the end of the next quarter? As Harold Meyerson [wrote Tuesday] in The Washington Post, other groups around the country with a different leadership structure are making more concrete demands, including the modification of student and household debts and the imposition of a financial transaction tax.
    
    Reworking debt should be distinguished from either “demand the impossible” notions, like abolishing consumerism, or smart lefty wonkmanship, like a financial transaction tax. I won’t dispute that an FTT is good policy, but neither it nor posturing about stopping other people from buying stuff that you find tasteless changes the lives of ordinary people in a clear and measurable way. It won’t affect how much they are paid and how they deal with their boss, or how they use public accommodations, or whom they choose to live happily ever after with. But lowering the crushing debt burden on millions of people in the midst of a “balance sheet” recession can do just that—it hits people where and how they live. If, as in this example, the demonstrators make proposals which have an organic connection to the pressing concerns of millions of people, they will heighten the potential of developing a movement which can leverage political change.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.