Month: October 2007

It has come alive again – largely because of new revelations that the Bush administration lied to the Congress and the world by saying three years ago that such practices were abhorrent and no longer in operation. My two-pronged counter-argument to Bret Stephens’ recent piece in the Wall Street Journal can be read here and here. Senator Clinton’s strained words on the subject are dissected here. A plurality of Americans think the president is lying here.

(Photo: a Khmer Rouge waterboard, which the Wall Street Journal and Bret Stephens do not believe was an instrument of torture. It is, for some reason, in a museum dedicated to recording the history of torture techniques in Cambodia during the genocide. The Cambodians don’t seem to understand that the Khmer Rouge were simply employing "enhanced interrogation," as practiced by the US under president George W. Bush.)

A contest. Some strong contenders: Magnus Magnusson, Dick Pound, Stirling Mortlock (gratuitous beefcake shot above), and Powers Boothe. Grrr.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty.)

This is something we should publicize more widely:

The fact that we see so many Muslim refugees in our courts suggests that people should think twice before claiming that the U.S. is not a force of good in the Muslim world. After all, for plenty of Muslims who fear being sent home to their Islamic countries, we are their best hope, the claims of Usama Bin Laden notwithstanding. Many Muslims would rather be here, so much so that they have increasingly taken advantage of our generous asylum laws and legal procedures that give them a fair shot at proving their well-founded fear of persecution. The surprising fact is that Muslims are more likely to sue for asylum when their home countries are Muslim countries than non-Muslim countries. Pakistan – an Islamic state – is the most common country of origin for Muslim asylum claimants who seek judicial review of the immigration authority’s denial.

Former president Jimmy Carter accuses the president of authorizing the torture of prisoners. He is, of course, right, if words still have any meaning and the rule of law remains in force.

So many astronauts …:

Your partner will need to be anchored to the wall and/or to you, which is why designers are working on special garments, like the 2Suit. Sad, really. All that moonlight, but not much romance – not in a pair of four-legged underpants.

A pretty staggering insight into how the wealthy regard extra-marital sex and divorce:

Of those confessing to an affair, more were women (61%) than men (43%)… Most men responding to the Prince & Associates survey (75%) said cost is their main obstacle to getting a divorce, and 61.5% said they feared it would hurt business dealings and opportunities. Just 7.7% of men cited harm to the kids."

How do you keep a party together that includes these people and the Christianists? The short answer is: you don’t.

I posted about the joys of the single blade here. The Onion, as so often, nails the rest.

A plurality – 42 percent, that is. 30 percent – the 30 percent who would believe him if he said black is white – believe him. 28 percent are not sure. If 42 percent of Americans believe Bush practices torture, what percentage of foreigners do? The damage to this country’s reputation and soft power is incalculable and indelible. Milt Bearden notes another consequence of the new policy:

"One can expect a torrent of cases to be filed against the men and women of the CIA in the coming months and years. They’ll have to get used to either staying pretty close to home, or taking their ski holidays in North Korea. Stepping off a plane anywhere in Europe will become a little dicey."

That applies to Cheney, Addington, Rumsfeld, Tenet and Bush as well.

The military is experimenting with the next generation of soldier:

The Pentagon is now extending its desire to manage information all the way to a soldier’s brain, where DARPA and other research agencies are seeking to exploit neuroscience in pursuit of better battlefield technology. This year DARPA started a project called the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System—more catchily dubbed Luke’s Binoculars (a reference to Luke Skywalker from Star Wars)—that combines advanced optics with an EEG system that monitors brain wave activity in the prefrontal cortex. Certain patterns of activity suggest that the brain has subconsciously detected a threat, and the system will alert the soldier immediately instead of waiting for his conscious mind to finish digesting the entire scene. DARPA anticipates field-testing a prototype in 2010.