[Peace-discuss] Town meeting letter.

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Notice that Lewis Carroll is turning up with a greater frequency in what passes 
for politics in this country.  The following is from an NYT blog.  --CGE]

	June 30, 2008,  2:21 pm
	Snark Injection for Guantanamo Trial
	By MIKE NIZZA

While the Supreme Court has most certainly dealt the strongest blows against the 
Bush administration’s handling of Guantanamo detainees, a lower court in the 
same city might have dealt the most creative one. The U.S. Court of Appeals for 
the District of Columbia Circuit has rejected the government’s evidence for 
keeping a prisoner at Guantanamo by citing a celebrated poem of nonsense:

	"Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact that the government has 'said it 
thrice' does not make an allegation true. See LEWIS CARROLL, THE HUNTING OF THE 
SNARK 3 (1876) ('I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.'). 
In fact, we have no basis for concluding that there are independent sources for 
the documents’ thrice-made assertions."

The opinion was referring to the government’s evidence against Huzaifa Parhat, 
who was detained in Afghanistan in 2001. While three documents were meant to 
convince the court that he should not be released, Judge Merrick B. Garland, who 
penned the ruling, flatly stated: “We are not persuaded.” His quite serious 
explanation, available in full as a pdf, follows:

	"Many of those assertions are made in identical language, suggesting that later 
documents may merely be citing earlier ones, and hence that all may ultimately 
derive from a single source. And as we have also noted, Parhat has made a 
credible argument that — at least for some of the assertions — the common source 
is the Chinese government, which may be less than objective with respect to the 
Uighurs."

Mr. Parhat is one of 17 Uighurs, a Muslim minority from western China, who were 
brought to the Guanatanamo prison after being detained in Afghanistan. As 
William Glaberson reported in The New York Times, their cases have drawn wide 
attention since they were spoiling for a fight against the Chinese, not Americans.

Despite the ruling, it is not clear what will happen to Mr. Parhat. No other 
country seems willing to accept him or the 16 others, except China, which may be 
all too eager...


E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> `Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the 
> twentieth time that day.
> `No, no!' said the Queen. `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.'
> 
> *
> 
> `How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.
> 
> `Not at all,' said Alice: `she's so extremely--' Just then she noticed 
> that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, 
> `--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while finishing the game.'
> 
> The Queen smiled and passed on....
> 
> 
> 
> Tom Abram wrote:
>> What excellent logic from our dear leaders.  We should also probably 
>> discuss all of our candidates and make a decision as a community 
>> before they are allowed to even appear on the ballot...
>>
>> Tom Abram
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 9:06 PM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com 
>> <mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Democracy in Urbana, From N-G article:
>>      
>>     Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing worked with other Democratic
>>     regulars, including former alderwoman Esther Patt, City Clerk
>>     Phyllis Clark and Ben Grosser, to turn out opponents to
>>     instant-runoff voting.
>>      
>>     *"The discussion (about instant-runoff voting) should come first,"
>>     she said. "_You don't put things on the ballot so they can be
>>     discussed."_*
>>	...
>>