Festive Roundup: Wikileaks, DADT, Canada's probably selling its water, and other people than me actually like bees

In the spirit of festive days off, I'm lumping all the posting I would normally be doing today into one, easy-to-access/ignore update before I run off to consume heroic volumes of martini with my extended family. Happy Holidays!

Bradley Manning talks about his detention, via proxy friend of his. Unsurprisingly, if he's to be believed, the Pentagon isn't telling the truth!
"But that's impossible!", you may say, if you've been living under a current events rock for the last ten years.

Examples:

The Pentagon says... Manning gets TV time and is not restricted in what he views.
Manning says...except for international TV, and only between 7-8pm when there's no news on. No newspapers allowed. In fact, when it was mentioned to him that the Pentagon said he was allowed the paper, he laughed.

The Pentagon says...he gets outside activity without restraint!
Manning says...he hasn't been outside in four weeks.

The Pentagon says...bedding of "adequate, soft, non-shreddable material".

Manning says...bedding with the weight of a lead x-ray apron and the texture of carpeting that gives him burns at night if he moves, because they take all his clothes from him. Lights on all night so they can watch him. Sure sounds comfy.

The Pentagon says...exercise may include running, calisthenics, basketball, etc.
Manning says...he gets exercise insofar as walking in chains is exercise.

There are some questions about the in/famous Lamo, as someone speculates that the timeline around him turning Manning in doesn't make much sense. I can see it being spurious. I can also imagine circumstances where it's actually quite straightforward and easily explained. As per often, I have no idea.

Despite not being able to do much of anything except sit around and be quietly brutalized, Manning's kind enough to wish everyone a happy holidays, including the guys at Quantico who will be guarding him instead of hanging with their families. Also, dear Santa: I think I want Bradley Manning for christmas.

The US Army is looking into its internal security after the wikileaks....leaks.....just like they did after that guy shot up Fort Hood.

Wikileaks is legitimizing, including actually paying its staff. Rad. Probably still won't be classed as a journalistic organization, despite the overwhelming amount of journalistic functions they serve. Once again, any register of shock and you haven't been reading this blog.


In non-leak-related news:

The most awesome thing to ever happen in the convergence of education and science happened in the UK, when a group of school kids got their paper on bees peer-reviewed and published. They're the youngest ever authors of a peer-reviewed paper. Also, I love them, as this early engagement with science and doing hard things will probably be the first step in them developing cold fusion or something. Bonus: they also like bees, and I tend to like people who can side with the useful underdog.

You might not know this (because I was working, and not here to scream and celebrate about it), but the US Senate voted through the takedown of the Military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, finally putting one tiny, Lady GaGa-protested piece of their operations in line with the constitution. Despite how many decades overdue this is, how much LGBTQ rights have (understandably) been in the media recently, and despite my sass, this is awesome. I can see no reasonable downside to this. I was so excited I went through the work to make myself a celebratory cosmopolitan. On a tuesday. Big news.


And as the scariest piece of news in this update, Rabble.ca reports that the EU and Canada are in the middle of negotiating a trade agreement (CETA) that would put the rights to our fresh water up for privatization and sale. Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians is angrily calling shenanigans--if this goes through, it would be the first time ever that our drinking water would be fully covered under a trade treaty. Suddenly that novel I'm inevitably writing about the dystopian water wars sounds much less....novel.


Also, for your holiday pleasure, I found this little slice of excellence:

Happy Holidays, I'm off to get mildly drunk.