Month: January 2009

A reader writes:

The crucial fact is that SERE techniques were designed by the U.S. military to mimic the illegal treatment of American POWs in North Vietnam. Let me say that again:  these tactics were SUPPOSED to be illegal, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and without any normative rules.  The SERE training that I went through and talk about on my blog was meant to prepare me for mental stress, physical abuse and torture.   A good chunk of that training was in methods for defeating such tactics.

So the illogic of this strategy becomes clear:  the Defense Department took a training simulation that demonstrated illegal treatment of POWs and applied it directly to the treatment of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib prisoners.

And told their lawyers to call it legal. It’s really not that complicated.

Thomas P.M. Barnett:

…the big [World Bank] fear is that no one can say who will start the global rebound. These are the uncharted waters we enter, because this is the first global recession since the intense connectivity of globalization kicked in.

A mustache dance:

I found the comments section on Steve Benen’s blog to be largely on the money about the issues at hand. This helps too.

"I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages," – Barack Obama, to the Windy City Times in Chicago, in 1996.

Some context from the emailed press release:

During the final weeks of the presidential campaign last fall, several media outlets contacted Windy City Times because of an old internet story from the 1996 Illinois state Senate race. In that campaign, Outlines newspaper reported that 13th District candidate Barack Obama supported gay marriage. Reporters wanted to know what exactly Obama had said. Outlines summarized the results in that 1996 article by Trudy Ring, but did not list exact answers to questions. In that article Outlines did note that Obama was a supporter of same-sex marriage and that article was never challenged or corrected by Obama. Just recently, the original Outlines and IMPACT surveys were found in the newspaper’s archives.

Does it get any better?

Australia’s Queensland Tourist Board is using the strained world economy as part of a new campaign giving job-seekers the opportunity to live six months rent-free on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef and make $150,000! In addition to basking in the sun all day, the job requires that the "island caretaker" keep a blog of their stay.

A reader writes:

Insufferable smugness?  Pot, Kettle, etc.

Please consider adding an award for pompous fuckwad intellectuals who look down upon aspects of popular culture with such a superior tone of snobbery that it disgusts even their most faithful admirers.  You can call it the Petite Scones award.

(Please don’t take offense to "pompous fuckwad".  I just like the way it sounds).

I’m honored by the neologism. But I never look down on pop-culture; just sideways with occasional spasms of great love and great hate.

The definitive parody from Ben Stiller. The Brits see through him more than anyone though.

First get a couple of ping-pong balls and a radio.

More Palin:

"Bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoy me … I’ll tell you, yesterday the Anchorage Daily News, they called again to ask — double-, triple-, quadruple-check — who is Trig’s real mom. And I said, Come on, are you kidding me? We’re gonna answer this? Do you not believe me or my doctor? And they said, No, it’s been quite cryptic the way that my son’s birth has been discussed. And I thought, Okay, more indication of continued problems in the world of journalism."

I find nothing wrong with a newspaper seeking facts about a public official and asking them directly of the official. I see a newspaper seeking access and honest evidence and a governor who refuses to cooperate. And the newspaper was prepared to let the matter drop and killed their story, for Pete’s sake. What more does she want if not Coulter-levels of media attention?

Palin should either answer the ADN’s legitimate questions or shut up. But she can’t seem to do either.

(Photo: Bill Pugliano/Getty.)