Hearts and Minds

How the new torture legistlation reads to an Iraqi audience:
"If we should accidentally incarcerate you, and you are innocent, make no mistake -- we will torture you until you confess."

Didn't we at one point seek to win Iraqi hearts and minds? Where has that ideal gone?

Wasn't that the millitary's idea? Don't our boys in uniform diserve our respect when it comes to deciding how to carry out the fight? Didn't the millitary perscribe the policy of winning hearts and minds so that in the long run fewer soldiers would die?

What has Runsmfeld done?

Habeas Corpus

The senate voted against habaes corpus for unlawful combatants.

Meanwhile, Slate notes that the language of the compromise over torture, which I had previously celebrated, seems to grant the White House permission to do whatever it feels like AND to keep the public in the dark about it.

No one in congress knows what techniques the president is actually using!

This is a sad day.

Phydeauxn't

From today's Post:

"Custom bones crafted from tennis balls were the only chewy toys Vicky Keslar's Golden Retriever couldn't destroy in short order, so on Sept. 10 the Crofton, Md., resident went online and bought a package of the hard-to-find bones from Phydeauxpets.com, the first site listed in the results of an online search for the item.

"Three days after that purchase, a record bearing the exact date and time stamp of that transaction, her name, address, phone and debit card number was among several records from the store that showed up in a shadowy online chat room frequented credit card and identity thieves.

"When contacted by me after I saw the stolen data being traded online, Keslar and nearly a half dozen other victims reported having shopped at that same pet store at the times specified in their records.

"Phydeauxpets.com owner Frank Papa of Carrboro, N.C., shut down the Web site on Sept. 15 pending an investigation of the data theft. Keslar didn't have any fraudulent charges against her debit card, but the thought of someone cleaning out her checking account right when all of her monthly bills come due prompted her to swear off shopping online with a debit card. Now, she uses a credit card with a $250 limit when she buys online. But she is still shopping around for another vendor of the scarce doggie bones."

Bush's strawmen lack brains, OZ has no comment

Froomkin tears apart Bush's silly arguments.

Paraphrasing Bush:
"You know what my detractor's say? They say that I am not the right leader to fight the war on terrorism. That's a pre-9/11 mindset. To think that we are not at war and that America should just stand by and let others attack us."

Mission Accomplished

Bush caved. He compromised on the key provision in the torture legistlation he called for in redefining the Geneva convention's article 3.

Fillabustering Anti-Torture Legistlation

Frist wants to fillabuster anti-torture legistlation.

I hear he plans to use the following campaign motto in his reelection this fall:

"We're just as bad as the terrorists"

Rendition

A couple years ago, news surfaced of a Syrian-born Canadian detained by Americans and sent to Syria to be tortured. The man set out to sue the Uninted States. A Canadian inquiry into the event has concluded that, indeed, the man was falsely accused and tortured. While being tortured, he confessed to having trained in Afghanistan; the inquiry concludes that he was never there.

That's right.

America tortures innocent people in the name of fighting terrorism. When torture produces confessions, those confessions are bullshit. So what's the point of torture?

There is no point.

Powell's letter to McCain is a poignant reinforcement of the fact that Bush's torture policy hurts America.

Sleep deprivation

An editorial on the Post describes the cruelty that is sleep deprivation and its historical use in fascist states to extract false confessions and not actionable intelligence!

In contrast, Sullivant posts an emai from a soldier in the first gulf war that describes the willingness of Iraqi soldiers to surrender knowing that when they were taken into custody, they would be given fair treatment.

Will they get fair treatment now?

No.

That's Bush's whole point. He dehumanizes the enemy and scares americans into believing all arabs are out to kill our families. Its fascist rule-by-fear. We should call it what it is.

Novak Speaks

Today's Post

Telepharmavangelism

A long time ago, TJ lent me The Faint's two albums "Danse Macabre" and "Wet From Birth," which I ripped onto my laptop. Then I went and bought one of their older albums so I'd have more to listen to. I never really enjoyed that album I bought, but man do I did Danse Macabre and Wet From Birth.

I just bought Wet From Birth new today, and Danse Macabre used.

I'm listening to a song on Wet From Birth called "Symptom Finger" where The Faint coin one of the coolest phrases I've ever heard. Telepharmavangelism. Selling people on cures to diseases they may not have.

I'm not sure that telepharmavangelism really goes on, yet. But considering my job future, I think telepharmavangelism will help my salary. If I ever get a position in a company where it's my job to telepharmavangelize, I'll totally credit my profession to The Faint. Thanks, guys!

Ann Coulter

"I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote."--- Ann Coulter on Hannity & Colmes, 8/17/99

More like that, here

Bushzilla

There's no way I'm the first person to have seen this photo and envisioned a gigantor Bush roaming the streets of Japan.

Murder, in god's name

An Honor Killing in Italy; bitch had it comin'. She was dating a non-Muslim and you know what god says about murder: do it whenever you fucking want.

False hope

I had thought there might finally be justice in the Ramsey case, but this article in the Times makes me think this little man who confessed is just looking for attention.

"Ms. Karr said that she and Mr. Karr were in Alabama together on Dec. 25, 1996, the day JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in Colorado."

rice hot

Slate has a set of searches performed by a single AOL user

"16006693 best place to retire
16006693 places like crawford but without cindy sheehan
16006693 crawford the town not cindy crawford
16006693 crawford tx
16006693 like crawford tx but not so hot
16006693 best places to retire not hot
16006693 best places to retire global warming
16006693 global warming mith
16006693 global warming myth
16006693 crawford hot
16006693 cindy crawford hot
16006693 rice hot
16006693 rice hot not recipes"

reverse hypothesis

I liked this editorial

"Haven't legions of experts - for decades now - identified the Mideast conflict as the centre of the world's chaos and the key to its pacification? Is there any diplomat who does not repeat ad nauseum the formula about the gates to a hell of future wars versus the gates to world harmony, all of which open in Jerusalem? ... The sad, reverse hypothesis is seldom posed, but it is actually much more likely: Every truce along the Jordan is fleeting, as long as the palaces and streets, the majority of the intelligentsia and the officials of the Muslim world hang on to their anti-western passion."

WWIII watch

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080901514.html

Sullivan's YouTube of the day

I think this commedian says what everyone thinks (well, what non-Muslims think) of extremism in Islam and the vulgar ``moderacy'' in Islam that shamelessly degrades women giving support and legitimacy to the extremists.


"I think we've all heard why these terrorists are so highly motivated.
We've all heard this. It's because they're told that waiting for them in heaven are 72 virgins. And for those terrorists, this is a great thing to look forward to.

For those virgins, heaven isn't quite what they expected, is it?

I would hate to get that talk as a young child.

'You be a good little girl. You must always wear a burqua, you must always wear a veil, you may not go to school, you may not have a job, you may not learn to read, you may not vote, you may not drive a car. You may not sing, dance, play games or listen to music. You must live a life of absolute humility and cellibacy, and when you die

You will go to heaven,

where you will be a sex slave for terrorists!'"

Predicting sides

To listen to Andrew Sullivan, there is no hope but to watch the middle east plummit into a period of blood-letting as Islam struggles to find its place in the modern world. To listen to Harold Mayerson, the escalation in Lebanon could easily pull the world into a war, much like the escalation in Austria following Archduke Ferdinand's assasination pulled the world into WWI.

Sounds like we're lookin' at a war; so let's pick sides!

OK, US on one side, Iran on the other; who else?

Syria: Iran's side.

Russia: Iran's side - Russia is not our friend, they have been undermining basically every attempt we have made to cool the crazies in the past four years; they have rejected many times the idea of bringing up Iran for sanctions over the Nuclear Weapons program (and their violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that Iran signed!). They look to criticize the US at every oportunity; they have criticised the US for the lack of security in Iraq that resulted in the decapitations of four Russian diplomats. I should say that Russia is a good meaning country with good meaning citizens, ruled by a KGB agent who wants things to return to the gold-ol' days when the Iron Curtain kept the world from knowing just how bankrupt they were. Now everyone can see how bankrupt the kremlin is, and that's just not cool with Putin. He'd like that curtain drawn. Putin's so funny -- he says that he wants democracy but just not right away because there must be a transition period before the people can handle democracy... just like the "transition period" of communism where there would be gross food shortages and poverty, but that eventually everything would get put right. It just so happened that the transition period of communism never ended.

North Korea: Iran's side - not only are they full partners with the Iranians when it comes to missle technology, they just don't like the US. And by "they" I mean "he". God king Jong Il uses brinkmanship to finance his playboy lifestyle, and he seems fairly good about not rocking over the edge, but with the hell-bent attitude Iran has, my guess is that he'll end up dragged over the edge anyways.

China: This is the toughest call, but I think they'll be on the US's side. China does not want to be threatened by North Korea, nor by Russia. I think we'll end up in bed with the chinese, kind of like how we ended up in bed with the Russians durring WWII. We won't be good friends afterwards, or at least I wouldn't put all my chips on us being good friends afterwards.

Europe? Well, they'll probably stay out of it until they're dragged in. I think they will play the part of the US in WWI, pretending like they can go about their business and not get involved. When their Luisitania finally sinks, they'll join the US.

OK.

I hope this was a fun exercise in futility, that there is no WWIII, and that I don't get drafted to partake in Islam's infighting over whether or not women should be allowed to read.

Kind of Penis II fails during launch

Haha, North Korea.

Launching your type-o'-dong on independence day when no one in the US is paying you attention, you find out that it doesn't work.

"The controversial long-range missile failed less than a minute after launch, falling into the Sea of Japan, along with the other, less-sophisticated missiles."

Totalitarianism needs to be eradicated. Kim Jong Il has done nothing but harm the people of North Korea. And now he's hoping to paint his country in the corner.