The term “enhanced interrogation” was coined by the Nazis…or Verschärfte Vernehmung, in the original German.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The term “enhanced interrogation” was coined by the Nazis…or Verschärfte Vernehmung, in the original German.
We might as well start wearing black and putting skulls on our caps. The Senate Torture Report (it’s chilling that we even have to have a “torture report”) has been released, and it’s just full of the evil crap the CIA has been doing.
They really are the dumbest people in America, and most obnoxious, too. Here’s an example: police in Texas set up a DUI checkpoint, where cars were stopped and drivers quickly checked to make sure they weren’t driving with a blood alcohol over the legal limit. That’s a nuisance, I’m sure, but a minor inconvenience compared to sharing the road with drunk drivers.
Kory Watkins, a Texas libertarian and open carry proponent (so you already know he’s an idiot) objected to the police doing this job, so he was protesting at the check point, and apparently also somehow warning drivers approaching the check point so any drunkards could avoid it (a truly civic-minded fellow), when irony struck.
Just go look at the list. The police are really good at eliciting final words of disbelief and desperation.
The obnoxious creationist is not being sued for being a world-class ignoramus, however — that’s perfectly legal. She’s being sued for interfering with the education of children.
She’s been on a bender of offense because her local library provides open internet access to the public, and apparently she once saw someone viewing porn on a library computer. Most normal people would point this out to a librarian, who would politely ask the person to move on, but no, not Megan Fox! She is outraged! So she’s been harrassing the library staff.
She’s upset that the library provides unfiltered access to the internet (sounds like a good library to me). The legal documents (pdf) list a great many of Fox’s offenses against truth: she has posted photos of the librarian’s home (creepy!), has falsely accused her of drunkenness at work and of making anti-gay slurs, and has disrupted library board meetings. But the real nuisance is how she’s been abusing the law to torment librarians.
I had this unthinking impression that all of Scandinavia was far more liberal and progressive than the US, and I generously included Finland in that category (yeah, I know, it’s not actually part of Scandinavia proper, but it is one of those Nordic countries). But I just learned that only today did the Finnish parliament approve same-sex marriage.
The Canadians have arrested Jian Ghomeshi on four counts of sexual assault. That was quick.
Meanwhile, in the USA, Bill Cosby had reruns of his old show cancelled. We are TOUGH ON CRIME.
Glenn Greenwald has a great long piece tearing Sam Harris’s ideas apart. It was so satisfying to see my own opinions reflected with such clarity and reason — I have to agree with it all. Read it. It is a thing of beauty.
Obama announced some changes to immigration policy. Like everything Obama, it’s a mess of compromise, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. It’s also all dressed up in religious language, which drives me a little nuts: I don’t consider Scripture a source of racial and ethnic tolerance. But he also shows a little spine.
Had the House of Representatives allowed that kind of bill a simple yes or no vote, it would have passed with support from both parties. And today it would be the law. But for a year and a half now Republican leaders in the House have refused to allow that simple vote. Now I continue to believe that the best way to solve this problem is by working together to pass that kind of common sense law. But until that happens, there are actions I have the legal authority to take as president, the same kinds of actions taken by Democratic and Republican presidents before me, that will help make our immigration system more fair and more just.
It looks like that’s what I’m going to get, though. Mother Jones sent a reporter to the Urban Shield conference, a gathering of cops and their new toys. It’s chilling.
