This conservative thinks many of his supporters are paranoid. This story suspects he’s a closet spammer. Jay Reding voices understandable outrage. Some Paulites suspect that the Wired alleged spamming story is designed to yank extremely popular Ron Paul videos off YouTube. There’s even an unsubstantiated claim that Giuliani was behind the Wired story. Meanwhile, Ron Paul himself continues to say and do things that just feed the cult. According to Time, he had little idea who Tom Cruise was, when they met on the Tonight Show. Yay!
Greening Your Sex Life
Conservative Epiphany Watch
John Cole goes there and switches his party registration:
Long story short, I got up there to register as an independent, said “Fuck it,” and now I am a Democrat. I certainly don’t agree with all their positions, but they are not bat-shit crazy like the GOP. That has to count for something. Additionally, I no longer have to read posts by the 24% crowd calling me a “true conservative” with quotes o’sarcasm (you know who they are). Not any more, bitches. I repudiate you, your party, and whatever the fuck it is you are currently pretending is “conservatism.” It isn’t.
Now send me my check from Soros and the 40 virgins.
Thanks
October was the biggest month in the seven-and-a-bit-year history of the Daily Dish: around 3.5 million pageviews. And we’re at an all-time high Technorati ranking of 71. Thanks to you, Jessie, the interns, and the Atlantic.
Watching Wikipedia Correct Itself
A new feature allows you to watch in real time as Wikipedia evolves around the globe. One blogger response:
While I watched for several minutes, someone in India edited an entry on Ghandi, then someone else in the UK edited a page on Puerto Ricans living in the United States, and some very determined person in Mississippi, US, repeatedly edited a page about a British database computer programmer called Edgar F. Codd.
Watching paint dry has nothing on it.
Ygelsias vs Goldfarb
Harder, pussy cat! Kill! Kill!
One Reason I Love America
In a presidential campaign, a black man grooves with an out lesbian on national television.
The Democrats and Mukasey
The NYT argues today that Michael Mukasey cannot condemn waterboarding as torture before he becomes AG because that would risk war crime prosecutions against many military and CIA personnel and those who authorized them, i.e. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. In my dreams. Jack Balkin’s riposte is more likely:
Do not believe it.
The Congress twice bestowed immunity in the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act. And if CIA operatives acted in good faith on OLC opinions, which are binding law in the executive branch, they are immune from prosecution. Even if these immunities do not extend to civil lawsuits, such lawsuits are likely barred by a combination of immunities created for government (and military) personnel. The Administration has been quite careful to ensure that its members– and those obeying its orders– will never be held to account in any American court of law.
To be sure, if Bush Administration officials travel abroad, they may be indicted and tried for war crimes. But if so, that is already true, and Judge Mukasey’s statement would not trigger liability: it would merely be additional evidence– if any were needed– that waterboarding is a war crime.
The real reason why Judge Mukasey cannot say that waterboarding is illegal is that Administration officials have repeatedly insisted that they do not torture, and that they have acted both legally and honorably. If Judge Mukasey said that waterboarding is illegal, it would require the Bush Administration to admit that it repeatedly lied to the American people and brought shame and dishonor on the United States of America. If Judge Mukasey were to say waterboarding is illegal and not just "a dunk in the water" in Vice President Cheney’s terminology, he would have announced that, as incoming Attorney General, he is entering an Administration of liars and torturers.
He is. This is a critical cojones moment for the Democrats, and, especially Schumer. Are they finally going to take on this administration’s precedent of authorizing illegal torture that wrecks our ability to get reliable intelligence and destroys our moral standing in the world? Or do they not have the steel to do what’s right?
Close The Baghdad Embassy?
Juan Cole gets up in Bush’s kool-aid:
The US embassy in Iraq should be closed. It is not safe for the personnel there. Some sort of rump mission of hardy volunteers could be maintained. But kidnapping our most capable diplomats and putting them in front of a fire squad is morally wrong and is administratively stupid, since many of these intrepid individuals will simply resign. (You cannot easily get good life insurance that covers death from war, and most State spouses cannot have careers because of the two-year rotations to various foreign capitals, and their families are in danger of being reduced to dire poverty if they are killed).
There is, in addition to the daily danger, no good escape route for civilian personnel from Baghdad. The troop escalation will be reversed by next year this time, and as the US draws down, the Green Zone is in danger of being overwhelmed by the Mahdi Army. The State Department employees sent there for two year missions are the ones who may end up in secret JAM prisons, as happened in Tehran in 1979.
Bush should not be allowed by Congress to commit this immoral act against the civilians who serve us so faithfully.
A report on the diplomats’ revolt can be read here.
Sanctions On The Burmese Junta
What use are they if they exempt gas and oil concessions and sales?
