TONY BLAIR CALLS FOR GUANTANAMO GULAG'S CLOSURE
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair joined the growing calls for the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay to be closed after he was questioned about the claims of torture by two British residents held there."
(THE INDEPENDENT, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

CELL PHONE TRICK
Looking for an address? Send a text message to 46645 (GOOGL) on your cell phone with a query like "Barnes and Noble, Campbell, CA" and it would send you back the address and phone number of the business. Totally free (unless you get charged for TXT). This has a lot of other uses: you can look up phone numbers, translate words, find out the population of Japan and sports scores. For say, basketball games. Text message the words "Seton Hall" and you'll instantly find out that Witchita State won that game 86-66. Try it out yourself, or check out the demo for Google SMS (short message service).
(MERCURY NEWS)

JUDGE DISMISSES EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION CASE
Maher Arar became one of the best-known victims of the CIA's practice of "extraordinary rendition", the sending of suspected terrorists to countries known for torturing their prisoners. "In a startling, ominous decision, a Federal District Judge has dismissed a lawsuit by Arar, who, during a stopover at Kennedy Airport on the way home to Canada after vacation, was kidnapped by CIA agents and flown to Syria where he was tortured for nearly a year in solitary confinement in a three-by-six-foot cell."
(VILLAGE VOICE)

THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR
Just before Jumah al-Dossari tried to kill himself by fashioning a makeshift noose and opening a gash in his right arm, the Guantanamo Bay detainee handed his lawyer an envelope containing pages of tidily handwritten Arabic, some stained with dried blood:

"The detainees are suffering from the bitterness of despair, the detention humiliation and the vanquish of slavery and suppression," Dossari wrote, according to a translation. "I hope you will always remember that you met and sat with a 'human being' called 'Jumah' who suffered too much and was abused in his belief, self, dignity and also in his humanity. He was imprisoned, tortured and deprived from his homeland, his family and his young daughter who is in the most need of him for four years . . . with no reason or crime committed."
(WASHINGTON POST)

GOP SOLON TO SWITCH PARTIES
"Two-term Republican Rep. Rodney Tom of Bellevue Washington is quitting the Republican Party to run for the state Senate as a Democrat. 'I realized the far right has complete control of the party and for me to be effective for my constituents I need to be a Democrat,' Tom said."
(SEATTLE TIMES)

SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR BLASTS FAR RIGHT
"Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary."
(COMMON DREAMS, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

GENE MIGHT PREDISPOSE YOU TO ADDICTION
The Institute of Psychiatry has identified a gene variation where cocaine would more markedly inhibit a protein that controls removal of key mood chemical dopamine in the brain leading them to the conclusion that the chances of becoming addicted to cocaine could depend on genes."
(BBC NEWS, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)