http://cleantechnica.com/2014/12/23/wind-solar-account-70-new-us-generating-capacity-november/

The United States Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Office of Energy Projects released its monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” on Tuesday, and the big winners from the month of November seem to be wind and solar, which combined added up to over 70% of all new electrical generating capacity placed into service during the month. If you add in our estimate for non-utility-scale solar, the market share of solar and wind rises to 77%.

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture. . . .

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.

Article 7

1. The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.

Article 15

Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.

Human experimentation was a core feature of the CIA’s torture program. The experimental nature of the interrogation and detention techniques is clearly evident in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s executive summary of its investigative report, despite redactions (insisted upon by the CIA) to obfuscate the locations of these laboratories of cruel science and the identities of perpetrators.

At the helm of this human experimentation project were two psychologists hired by the CIA, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. They designed interrogation and detention protocols that they and others applied to people imprisoned in the agency’s secret “black sites.”

In its response to the Senate report, the CIA justified its decision to hire the duo: “We believe their expertise was so unique that we would have been derelict had we not sought them out when it became clear that CIA would be heading into the uncharted territory of the program.” Mitchell and Jessen’s qualifications did not include interrogation experience, specialized knowledge about Al Qaeda or relevant cultural or linguistic knowledge. What they had was Air Force experience in studying the effects of torture on American prisoners of war, as well as a curiosity about whether theories of “learned helplessness” derived from experiments on dogs might work on human enemies.

To implement those theories, Mitchell and Jessen oversaw or personally engaged in techniques intended to produce “debility, disorientation and dread.” Their “theory” had a particular means-ends relationship that is not well understood, as Mitchell testily explained in an interview on Vice News: “The point of the bad cop is to get the bad guy to talk to the good cop.” In other words, “enhanced interrogation techniques” (the Bush administration’s euphemism for torture) do not themselves produce useful information; rather, they produce the condition of total submission that will facilitate extraction of actionable intelligence.

http://m.thenation.com/article/193185-cia-didnt-just-torture-it-experimented-human-beings

James Mitchell, a former U.S. Air Force psychologist, confirmed some of the specific details in a Senate committee report released last week and defended the practices, saying that valuable intelligence was obtained despite investigators’ conclusion to the contrary.

“Yes, I waterboarded KSM,” Mitchell told the Internet-based global television news outlet VICE News, referring to Mohammed, whose interrogation was described in brutal detail in the report and which has been deemed torture by human rights groups.

“I was part of a larger team that waterboarded a small number of detainees,” Mitchell said in the interview posted Monday.

...............

"I wasn't living hand to mouth, but it wasn't $81 million," Mitchell was quoted as saying. The Senate report said he and Jessen earned as much as $1,800 a day.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/15/us-usa-cia-torture-psychologist-idUSKBN0JT2DB20141215?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71&google_editors_picks=true

James Mitchell, a psychologist who allegedly co-founded a company the CIA paid to run its terror interrogation program, is retired in Florida and spends his free time kayaking, rafting and climbing. And finding his life a little surreal. “I’m in a box -- I’m caught in some Kafka novel,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Land O’ Lakes, Florida. “Everyone is assuming it is me, but I can’t confirm or deny it. It is frustrating because you can’t defend yourself.”

Saying he was speaking as a psychologist trained in interrogation techniques but denying any direct knowledge of the CIA program, Mitchell said he would support “anything legal and that doesn’t produce lasting harm.” He said anyone who engaged in sexually abusing or killing a prisoner should be in jail.

.........

His partner in Mitchell Jessen & Associates was Bruce Jessen, who was also involved in the CIA interrogations according to the officials familiar with the report. The Senate report didn’t name the firm or Jessen. Jessen didn’t respond to a message left at a number listed in that name in Spokane, Washington, which is where the U.S. officials said the company that worked for the CIA and was paid $81 million was based.

...........

“The people who think the men and woman in the CIA are doing the heavy lifting for them so they can sleep safe at night, those people I get a lot of positive comments from,” Mitchell said. “Then there are the people who think it would be better that 3,000 people die than that KSM get slapped,” referring to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, “and they don’t care because it isn’t going to be them who is dying. They just don’t care.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-10/psychologist-linked-to-cia-interrogations-kayaking-in-retirement.html#disqus_thread