Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.
The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.
That seems to me to be the big news out of Jonathan Karl's interview with the former vice-president today. There is not a court in the United States or in the world that does not consider waterboarding torture. The Red Cross certainly does, and it's the governing body in international law. It is certainly torture according to the UN Convention on Torture and the Geneva Conventions. The British government, America's closest Western ally, certainly believes it is torture. No legal authority of any type in the US or the world has ever doubted that waterboarding is torture. To have subjected an individual to waterboarding once is torture under US and international law. To subject someone to it 183 times is so categorically torture is it almost absurd to even write this sentence.
To give the Wikipedia definition:
Waterboarding is a torture technique that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards; water is then poured over the face into breathing passages, causing the captive to believe he or she is dying.[1][2] In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates an almost immediate gag reflex.[3] It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, if uninterrupted, death.[4] Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years.[5]
So the former vice-president has just confessed to a war crime. I repeat: the former vice-president has just confessed to a war crime.
There is no statute of limitations for such a crime; and the penalty under law is either the death penalty or a prison sentence for life:
Nations who are party to these treaties must enact and enforce legislation penalizing any of these crimes.[9] Nations are also obligated to search for persons alleged to commit these crimes, or ordered them to be committed, and to bring them to trial regardless of their nationality and regardless of the place where the crimes took place. The principle of universal jurisdiction also applies to the enforcement of grave breaches. Toward this end, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia were established by the United Nations to prosecute alleged violations.
The question is therefore not if, but when, he is convicted as a war criminal – in his lifetime or posthumously.
In fact, the attorney general of the United States is legally obliged to prosecute someone who has openly admitted such a war crime or be in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture. For Eric Holder to ignore this duty subjects him too to prosecution. If the US government fails to enforce the provision against torture, the UN or a foreign court can initiate an investigation and prosecution.
These are not my opinions and they are not hyperbole. They are legal facts. Either this country is governed by the rule of law or it isn't. Cheney's clear admission of his central role in authorizing waterboarding and the clear evidence that such waterboarding did indeed take place means that prosecution must proceed.
Cheney himself just set in motion a chain of events that the civilized world must see to its conclusion or cease to be the civilized world. For such a high official to escape the clear letter of these treaties and conventions, and to openly brag of it, renders such treaties and conventions meaningless.
… How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends'
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate meAs I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?
Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recallsThe diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner émigré, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerneEscaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing rose.
"Exposure" by Seamus Heaney. The full poem – with the omitted beginning – is here.
A reader writes:
While I agree with your assessment that the former vice president is engaged in a desperate strategy to cover up (and avoid the consequences of) his own official misconduct in authorizing torture, I also believe that he (and the GOP in general) are engaged in a crude political calculation–that since the odds favor another terrorist attack within our borders, they are willing to play those odds by preemptively blaming Obama and the Democrats. There is, bluntly, a level at which they see the potential for mass loss of life and destruction of property as a political "plus". It is because this is true that the right has overreacted so savagely to John Brennan's pointed remarks last week.
People who regard this kind of speculation as outrageous and unseemly fail to understand that Cheney and his supporters–having already not only rationalized but celebrated torture and the weakening of the constitution in the name of national defense—have crossed a bright line into truly Strangelovian territory. These people are shameless; it is virtually impossible to malign them, it is simply that the truth itself is so malignant we can hardly bear to give it credence.
I agree; and I also agree it is about as despicable a strategy as one can imagine.
My Sunday column:
Could this person become president? The odds remain against it. A poll last week revealed that Palin’s favourability ratings have dropped to a new low of 37%; 70% of Americans believe she is unqualified to be president, up from 60% last November. Even among conservative Republicans her ratings have slid: 45% now view her as qualified for the presidency — 66% said so last autumn… Even Michael Savage, the far-right radio host banned from Britain because of his hate speech, said last week: “If you want Obama for a second term, just make sure Sarah Palin is the Republican nominee … She is not electable as president.”
But there are two unknowns, it seems to me.
The first is: who else have the Republicans got? No one out there equals her grip on the base or her charisma. In the primaries she has a solid phalanx of devoted supporters who are exactly the kind of voters who show up come rain or shine. If the Republican establishment tries to counter her with a blander candidate, she could easily run as a Tea party candidate — a George Wallace-style option and one that might well guarantee Obama a landslide.
The second unknown is the economy and the war. Both could get worse. A slide back into recession or a terror attack could give the sub-rational forces that Palin channels so well a real chance to break through. This is a country of deep and dark populist moments and she is seeking hers.
I have to say I fear her. Or, rather, I fear a country that has allowed such a person to come so close to power and to dominate its discourse quite so powerfully. It is a sign that all is not well. And the world needs an America which is more stable and more calm than the one Palin represents.
The whole thing here.
Washington, DC, 7.28 pm
The first president Bush, of course:
Even if KSM stands accused of war crimes, it doesn't necessarily follow that he should be put before a military tribunal. The War Crimes Act, passed by Congress unanimously in 1996, gives federal civilian courts jurisdiction to prosecute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in wartime — in other words, war crimes. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is leading the Republican fight against civilian trials, says that the United States has never put combatants captured on foreign battlefields in civilian courts. That is flat wrong. The George H. W. Bush administration did that to Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of the Panamanian armed forces who was captured during the U.S. military invasion of Panama. Noriega demanded the right to be tried by fellow officers in a military court. The Bush administration conceded that he was a prisoner of war, but tried him before a civilian court anyway to drive home the point that he was nothing more than a drug trafficker.
A reader writes:
Dreher finds Grindr dehumanizing. Yes, that's why he's such a staunch supporter of integrating gay relationships into the culture.
Another writes:
I live in Manhattan, where every iPhone-owning gay man I know has Grindr. It's actually starting to ruin gay life here.
I can't tell you the number of parties I've been to where young, attractive, single gay men spend a majority of the night off in some corner cruising Grindr instead of having fun with their friends; I've been to gay bars where several hot guys will be standing next to each other at the bar, each one with his nose buried in Grindr instead of, you know, talking to the hot guys next to him. Even if they're all getting laid successfully from all this Grinding–and I doubt they are, from what my friends have told me–doesn't that sound like some really shitty nightlife to you?
The future is now, and it is lame.
Another writes:
Let's be real. The world without Grindr is not a world of chastity, it is a world of risky (physically, legally, emotionally) hook-ups at rest stops or public parks. Yes, I've used it to trick out on more than one occasion, but I also found a weekly lunch partner in the office building next door when I moved to a new city and started a new job. I can't quite pinpoint why, but I actually find Grindr rather sweet and innocent as compared to craigslist, manhunt, etc. Maybe it's because the apple terms of service won't permit any nudity in the main pic and because you only get a short space to write your blurb. In any event, I love it.
Ali Mottahari recently called on opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi to stop calling for protests for a bit and let government insiders like him take care of Ahmadinejad and his ilk.
In the interview he seemed to be auditioning to replace them, echoing their calls to restore civil liberties. "The government should respect social freedoms and stop its press bans," he said. "The government should also take action to secure the release of political prisoners and create a climate of friendship and affection."
Know hope.
Chris Crain digs up video of a 1967 report by Mike Wallace.
The Dish 