IN DEFENSE OF STEROIDS

A libertarian take. And, yes, the health hazards are grossly exaggerated.

ATTACKING THE RED CROSS: TNR gets it right this week in an editorial bemoaning the righ’s knee-jerk critique of the International Committee of the Red Cross. ICRC’s crime? Reporting on prisoner abuse under U.S. command. It’s worth stating the obvious: the abuse is a much bigger problem than the ICRC. Have conservatives lost their moral bearings? Money quote:

It is the height of hypocrisy for Rumsfeld to malign the ICRC. His Pentagon has spent nearly three years insisting that the ICRC’s presence at Guantánamo Bay obviates any need for further human rights monitoring. In November 2002, when asked about disturbing photographs that had been leaked to the press showing hooded and restrained enemy combatants en route to the prison, then-Defense Department spokeswoman Torie Clarke said, “People also know, but should be reminded, we have the International Red Cross … to ensure that the treatment of the detainees is absolutely appropriate.” And, when three British inmates at Guantánamo charged after their release that they were abused, Navy Secretary Gordon England told CNN in August that the charges couldn’t be true because “the International Committee of the Red Cross is here regularly. … I can’t imagine that someone would not have reported this to the icrc.” On Monday, The Washington Times editorialized that the ICRC’s report should be ignored “without more concrete and substantiated evidence.” But, by making the ICRC the only monitor with access to Guantánamo, Rumsfeld has ensured that there can’t be any.

And that’s the point, isn’t it?

NOW, NEW ZEALAND: After Canada and Britain, another part of the Anglosphere grants relationship rights to gay couples. In parliament. On a free vote. No judicial “tyranny.”