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Folks trekking out to Coney Island are looking for a little summer diversion involving water — but the newest attraction to grace the boardwalk takes that expectation and adds a political message. Called the "Waterboard Thrill Ride," the sideshow is decorated with SpongeBob, advertises that "it dont [sic] Gitmo better" and charges $1 for a look through a barred window onto what appears to be an interrogation scene.
Robots portray a prisoner and an interrogator.
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Ashcroft Defends Waterboarding Before House Panel
The controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding has served a "valuable" purpose and does not constitute torture, says former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Testifying on the Bush administration's interrogation rules before the House, Ashcroft said, the "value of the information received from the use of enhanced interrogation techniques — I don't know whether [Tenet] was saying waterboarding or not, but assume that he was for a moment — the value of that information exceeded the value of information that was received from all other sources."
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The August issue of Vanity Fair is set to clear up an important question once and for all: is waterboarding torture? No scientists or military experts were needed for this: just a self-proclaimed "wheezing, paunchy" 59-year-old scribbler. Christopher Hitchens, VF columnist and controversial panelist extraordinaire, who's written previously on the difference between "extreme interrogation" and "outright torture," submitted himself to the technique to make the call.
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Col. Morris D. Davis, the US military's former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, testified yesterday that top Pentagon officials interfered with his work for political reasons, and told him that there could be no detainee acquittals.
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So by now many of you have heard about evidence that top Bush Administration officials participated in explicit conversations in the White House regarding torture techniques to be used on suspected terrorists. Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sat around — in a series of meetings of potential war-crime defendants — discussing specific methods of harsh interrogation, and issuing their approval.
The Associate Press reports that CIA officials demonstrated tactics to "make sure the small group of 'principals' fully understood what the al-Qaeda detainees would undergo.
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Happy Water World Water Day! Today is the day to celebrate water conservation. Stephen Colbert dedicated a whole episode to H20, and shared some interesting facts about the lovely liquid.
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CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress that waterboarding was necessary, but probably not legal under the current statute, on Thursday. Hayden confirmed that the technique of simulated drowning is not currently part of the CIA's interrogation program, but was used five years ago on three top al-Qaeda suspects.
On the same day, US Attorney General Michael Mukasey told lawmakers he would not open a criminal investigation into the CIA's use of waterboarding. 
In his first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee since taking office as US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey said that his opinion on the legality of waterboarding as an interrogation technique would depend on the circumstances.
Mukasey's reluctance to comment stems from the fact that waterboarding is not officially considered part of CIA interrogation protocols. A ruling, therefore, is not needed. 
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