Bush: "I broke the law, I dare you to impeach me"

"Let me make it very clear and to state so officially in front of this committee that waterboarding has been used on only three detainees. It was used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was used on Abu Zubaydah. And it was used on [Abd al-Rahim al-]Nashiri."

-- CIA director Michael Hayden, yesterday.

Waterboarding is torture. Torture is banned under international treaty. Bush violated international treaty. He broke the law. He should be removed from office.

Twelve McCain Supporters

In all of West Virginia, only twelve people voted for John McCain. Twelve. I bet they know each other.

Of course, that's still 1% of the West Virginia vote, because only a little more than a thousand people in west virginia voted. The rest must think they live in Russia where there's no such thing as democracy.

Awesome

Hologram

Racist

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do."

-- Mike Huckabee, while in South Carolina.

Unamerican

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do — is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

-- Mike Huckabee

Flu

I've come down with a nasty case of the flu which has incapacitated me since Monday night. I've been staying home mostly so I don't infect everyone else in the lab -- but if I went in to lab, I'd get nothing done there either.

The most-likely suspect for having infected me is, of course, Pants. She came home with something from work, and ended up staying home one day. She was slightly feverish, she tells me, but mostly, it seemed like a cold. When I finally contracted it, I skipped the cold symptoms and went straight for the chills. Fevers, sweats, malaise. It always happens that if she and I catch the same thing, it knocks me out 200% worse than it does her. Most of the time, I catch something and she never catches it from me.

The worst part about being home sick is that I feel totally unproductive. I wake up at night from work dreams and can't fall back asleep.

Hardware watchpoint in GDB

For some reason, the synatax for setting a hardware watchpoint in GDB is impossible to find in google. Or rather, there are misleading instructions on how to set the watchpoint. The instructions you'll find say "watch for when variable x gets changed by writing 'watch x'". But this never solves a memory corruption bug. At least for me.

This post is for my own purposes. I never want to waste 10 minutes searching for the proper syntax again.

Let's say I know that location 0xABCD1234 is getting corrupted.

Then the gdb command is:

> watch *((int*) 0xABCD1234)

Mukasey

The president of the Uninted States continues to violate the constitution he swore to uphold in torturing prisoners. He has asked congress to replace his former torture-enabler, the embattled Gonzales, with a new puppet, Robert Mukasey. When Mukasey went before the Senate, he would not say that waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding is torture. Mukasey has publicly expressed his willingness to allow Bush to continue torturing, to continue breaking international treatries in violation of the constitution.

Charles Schumer, a senior democrat, is now supporting Mukasey's confirmation based on a private conversation he had with Mukasey. What's his rationale? He says that Mukasey agreed with a hypothetical: if Congress were to pass legistation saying that waterboarding is torture, then it would not be out-of-line with its constitutionally granted powers and the President wouldn't have any recourse (except of course, to veto the bill).

The logic here is tortured. Schumer seems to think this consession is a hat-tip to the separation-of-powers provisions of the constitution. When did the constitution need consessions made to it?

Moreover, its a circuitous consession. It makes congress do much more work than it needs to! Congress does not need to say that waterboarding is torture. Legal precident and human decency defines it as torture. Worst of all, if congress were to legistlate that waterboarding is torture, then it effectively grants immunity to water-boarders up until this point: "Oh, I just water boarded that guy because it wasn't illegal at the time."

Schumer is doing a grave disservice to the anit-torture camp. Why is toture so hard to stand against?

Religion is evil

A catholic bishop makes up a story about how condoms give you AIDS. Does he have any proof for his claim? No. Of course not. But that's the thing. Religious authority has never been constrainted by the burden of proof, so people are used to just listening to whatever lunatic ideas they have.

This bishop has blood on his hands.

not surprised

The Post declares Putin's move a surprise. I disagree. He's always behaved like a dictator. Now he's just assuming the mantle.

Dead air

As we drove from North Dakota into Montana on Wednesday evening, the sun was setting and I was getting tired. We'd been driving since 9 that morning (central time) and it was almost 8 (mountain time). I scanned through the chanels on the truck's radio and stopped on a classic rock station which was finishing off some song I didn't recognize from the early 80's I figured. It went to a comercial break, but I stuck with the station because my other two options were a country station and an all-jesus-all-the-time station.

As the station returned from break, it went through its call sign

"One hundred point five. The rock."

< Dead silence >

I kept glancing down at the dial and started to chuckle to myself. They were broadcasting dead air; how embarassing. Thirty seconds passed. I was cracking up. These idiots clearly didn't have a very high value on their air time if they were letting thirty seconds go by without broadcasting anything. How unprofessional. A minute passed. I started to get a little peeved. The sun was setting into my eyes, so I adjusted the sun visor -- I was only able to see the road up to the horizon in front of me. Two minutes passed, still no music. Man, these guys seriously need work. I started to forget that I was listening to the radio. Five minutes passed. Then I finally hear

"One hundred point five. The rock"

< Dead silence >

Someone's clearly gone to take a shit after queueing up a whole bunch of music. The call signs keep coming but the music they've queued is not. Well surely their boss is listening to the radio and will jump into the booth and straighten the mess out. Five more minutes pass; my mind wanders and I start to get sleepy. Fortunately, the radio comes to its senses and I hear

"One hundred point five. The rock"

< Dead silence >

AAAAAAAAA. Play something goddamnit!

I switched to the country station.

Putin shutters Journalist Group over $2500

The head of the Educated Media Foundation is facing charges of 5 years in jail for accidentally walking through customs without declaring $2500 over the legal limit of $10000.

The foundation has been shut down, its computers seized, its accounts frozen.

Over $2500.

Putin is an enemy of the world.

GHWB (41)

Bigot

Rove To Abramoff: It's safe to break the law now

An uncovered email from Rove's secretary to Abramoff's secretary:

"I now have an RNC BlackBerry, which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH e-mail."

Willing violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by Bush's #2. (And yes, I do mean to imply Rove is a little shit.)

Impeach!

Sensitivity toward Islam

Pakistan is threatening to cut its ties with Britain over the knighting of the author of a literary work of fiction.

This work of fiction inflames Islamists and is insensitive toward moderates. Everyone knows that offending a great religion is blasphemy and punishable by death. Surely the British should have been more sensitive than to give any praise for a man who has lived under threat of death for 20 years. Moderates agree that he should be murdered, and if the moderates agree, then Britain is offensive in not carrying out the execution themselves!

In the name of world peace and sensitivity, murder the author!

Tanks and Students

Magnum photos is presenting 31 pictures that moved the world.

#27 is my vote for the most moving.

Star Wars

The evil emporer squelches the vote by positioning his Storm Troopers outside polling stations in areas of great unrest.

Cheney's hatred for America

He wages war on the principles that founded this country. His weapon: calling the Constitution a rallying point for pussies and terrorists.

That's the Republican party. A bunch of fascists.

Can we afford a Giuliani presidency? He's clearly in the Cheney camp when it comes to reckless disreguard for the Constitution.

Goodling had something to hide

For Gonzales, the shit hit the fan today. I can't see him remaining in office another week.

Goodling testified that McNulty lied to congress and that hiring inside the Justice department for *career positions* was politically motivated.

Goodline stalled the hiring of a layer from Harvard law specifically because of his political leanings.

The hiring of career layers and the appointments to political positions fall under different categories. Bush and Gonzales have presided over the worst politicization of the US govenerment ever.

Both should be tried for treason. They intentionally sought to violate the constitution they swore to uphold.

Wolfowitz's statement

Hitchens summary of this non-event is spot on.

Here's Wolfowitz's statement to the World Bank.