Recently, Lindsey Graham said in a hearing: “[…] one of the reasons these [torture] techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work.”

In that, Mr. Graham is 100% correct. Torture does work, but not in the way touted by its proponents. In order to examine the issue more closely, we need to first clarify—come to agreement on, as it were—the definition of the word “work”, in this context. It’s just tossed in there, at the end of the sentence, as if its intent were... [More]

Hold on to your hats, citizens of the world, the American president is rattling sabers at a former ally. A parenthetical was left off the end of his statement, though. It should have ended:

“…that you don’t end up having a [another] nuclear-armed militant state ... [More]”

The Convention Against Torture (CAT) is an American law passed during the Reagan administration. It extends the provisions to which America was already bound as a signatory of the Geneva Conventions.[1] Even if we assume—as so many of the leading light’s of America’s intellectual elite and media have already done—that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to America, we have to acknowledge our own laws, don’t we? We can assume that a 21st-century America doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Geneva... [More]

If only this were really the way it was:

Jeff Danziger: On the Elevator to the Executive Suite

That would be awesome, if only the subjugated classes—the other 90% of us—would realize our awesome power and bring those responsible for our current plight to justice. Make them give up every dime and shred of power and settle our accounts. If only we were brave enough to jettison all the criminals instead of putting up with those only willing to work with them. I’m looking at you, pretty much all of the Clinton (Greenspan, Summers, Rubin and co.... [More]

Culled from Republicans: The Stupid Party by Brad DeLong (Grasping Reality), written in response to the House Republicans publishing a “19-page pamphlet that does not include a single real budget proposal or estimate”. Instead the pamphlet consists almost exclusively of criticism of the House Democrat proposal, offering no concrete alternatives.

It is not known whether taking the pulse of political opinion via political cartoons is statistically valid, but it is kind of fun—fun in a way that makes your teeth grind in righteous indignation.

Chavez chooses SocialismPut a Fork in it; it's done

At a time when the U.S. and all the nations that followed it down the rabbit hole of pirate/casino capitalism are suffering massive hits on all fronts, it takes real dedication to turn one’s laser-like focus from the U.S. economy to criticize Hugo Chavez for choosing socialism instead. Mort... [More]

Conservatives recently gathered at a large conference to deliver a yearly report to one another on the state of the nation. Though the president was invited—and lauded—last year, they didn’t see fit to invite the still decidedly conservative[1] current president this year. It is more than mildly appalling to watch, however, as one commentator after another blithely acts as if conservatism had had nothing to with the ruling of the country for the last three decades or so. Though fiscal policy... [More]

A meme is an idea that takes root and spreads from person to person. A quick-fix meme[1] is such an idea, usually a solution, that sounds good but doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Often the meme preys on people’s basic ignorance of the subject matter and their desire to believe that their gut instinct won’t steer them wrong.

One example of such a meme is that countries should pay people to scrap their cars, commonly called “scrappage payment” plans. Germany has something like this in place and... [More]

Conservatives are fond of invoking the Constitution and the “founding fathers” in order to end all discussion when a proposed change to existing law would evolve in a direction that they don’t like. This is not always wrong, but often seems quite cherry-picked. For example, when the Supreme Court granted corporations full rights as citizens in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (Wikipedia), there was no hue and cry about activist judges. That single decision has arguably had a tremendous... [More]

Obama joins the mainstream media as well as his compatriots across the aisle in a call to forgive and forget. As a constitutional lawyer, it’s not that he doesn’t see that crimes against the Constitution were committed, it’s that he sees more important tasks at hand. It’s an interesting logic that he is likely only willing to apply to the greatest criminals this nation has seen since, well, ever. It is unlikely that he will find a similar softness in his heart for more everyday criminals who... [More]

With an unwavering adherence to the party line, several political cartoonists giddily convey far-right talking points word-for-word, promulgating a severely twisted—and context-free—view of history and the world. Let’s take a look at a sampling from the last couple of months.

The Failing economy proves that Social Security doesn’t work

With Bernie Madoff’s admission that he’d been running a Ponzi scheme for decades, astute commentators asked whether there was a difference between Madoff’s... [More]

In a move that should suprise no one who actually read his foreign policy statements, President Obama ordered his first attacks of autonomous foreign soil just three days after his inauguration. As reported in the article, President Obama ‘orders Pakistan drone attacks’ by Tim Reid (Times Online), the strikes took out 15 people, 3 of them children and 7 of them “foreigners” (assumed to be code for legitimate targets) and were delivered by drones. Perhaps the change is in the improved actual target/innocent victim ratio,... [More]

As reported in Obama Ends Global Family Planning Restrictions by Julie Rovner (NPR), president Obama issued an executive order “rescinding a policy that since 2001 has barred U.S. financial aid to international family planning groups that “perform or promote” abortion.” That now-rescinded “global gag order” was also broadly used to funnel public funding to organizations whose primary measure in family planning was abstinence, with the expected scintillating results.[1] This is fantastic news, despite pro-life opponents... [More]

The article Of the Algorithms, by the Algorithms, for the Algorithms by Chris Wilson (Slate) discusses the U.S. state-of-the-art in redistricting theory. The art/science of districting involves designing electoral districts to optimize representation. On paper, this optimization is supposed to focus on representing the people in a particular district. In practice, instead of being dividing by geography, districts are divided by prevailing ideology in order to stabilize that district—make it “safe”, in the... [More]

It seems everyone’s got ideas for the Obama administration. Organizations and causes that have had nothing to do with the office of the president for at least eight years are crawling out of the woodwork and once again offering up their agendas to the president-to-be’s scrutiny.

Those agitating for marijuana legalization seem much more hopeful than the situation warrants. Obama ran on a “law and order” ticket—interested in enforcing the laws the way they are—and, though he’s shown... [More]

The protest footage starts off promising, with the happy chant and music. A few seconds in, the lyrics are translated from the Hebrew as “bomb a ghetto, raise a cheer”. The event was attended by both New York Senator Charles Schumer and New York Governor David Paterson. If Hillary hadn’t been interviewing for her new job[1], she would doubtless have been there, dancing.

Pro-Israel Against Gaza by Max Blumenthal (YouTube)

Choice quotes from the interviewees in the street are:

“Nothing good is going to come of this; they’ve got to keep fighting... [More]”

Most of the news coming from the Obama transition team is about appointments to various positions within the administration. For those who voted for Obama because they thought he was a progressive, the appointments provoke reactions ranging from disappointed to appalled. For those who listened to the words coming out of Obama’s mouth during the campaign—instead of hearing a prettified translation in their own heads—Obama’s mostly center-right choices are unsurprising. Some are more utterly... [More]

The latest series of pictures, Scenes from the Gaza Strip (Big Picture), has some pictures of the conflict that have squeezed out of the area, despite the blockade on reporters in the area. Two that stood out in particular for the contrast were these two:

The Hamas rocket lies in the road in which it barely made a dent on impact. The winter ice in upstate New York does more damage to a road than that rocket. Not to make light of a metal tube falling out of the sky,... [More]

The video below is interesting and starts off strong, though the lengths a CNN anchor feels he has to go to in order to report a fact that runs counter to the standard received wisdom are ridiculous. Once the facts have been presented, however, the co-anchor (you’ll forgive me for not having noted the names of what looked like two guys transported from Monday Night Football to the news desk) ignores them and plows forward with more-or-less the standard line. After one more attempt to get an... [More]

The first film is called Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. It is of interest for one main reason: a DVD containing the film was sent to 28 million households in America in the last month leading up to the 2008 election. The primary sponsor of what is estimated to be a $50 million marketing campaign is completely separate from the pro-Israeli organization that has the same address and three of the same original founders.[1]

The film is almost pure propoganda, shot very nicely, but... [More]

Though many say that the tendency to question authority fades with age, there are several notable exceptions.

One is[1] Harold Pinter, the legendary British playwright, who was outspoken critic of war—the Iraq War in particular—and of the British role in it. His Nobel acceptance speech, called “Art, Truth and Politics” by Harold Pinter (Democracy Now!) (Part 1) and Part 2, is absolutely fantastic and worth listening to all the way through. The links contain video, audio and transcripts.

“The United States supported the... [More]”

It looks like Thomas Friedman really does know where the wind blows, on which side his bread is buttered and so on and so forth. Now that it’s politically safe to do so, he’s going full-bore liberal and no longer arguing how flat the world is or how awesome it is that people around the world can buy a Lexus. Time to Reboot America rips the U.S. government for having gotten into the mess it’s in, one very analogous to that in which General Motors finds itself. His column is kind of short, so he... [More]

It’s hard to tell which round they’re on, but Israel is winning this one decisively; as of this morning, the score—in human lives, of course—is nearly 400 to 2[1], according to the BBC. Israel would dispute this—of course—because they don’t agree that Palestinians are human. According to Israel, there is no such thing as a Palestinian civilian, since, in the words of one commenter[2], “[t]hey’re all guilty, and paying the price for their recklessly voting into power the murderous zealots of... [More]”

The U.N. is mostly powerless; they have the power to create recommendations and suggestions, but their ability to force countries to conform to international standards is quite limited. They have relatively limited funds and enacted measures must be approved by an overwhelming majority. At this point, the average American is beaming ear-to-ear because their view of the U.N. has been corroborated. But there is a logical fallacy to the inevitably-drawn conclusion that all international... [More]

Accusations fly fast and furious about the mismanagement of car companies and investment banks. Demands are made for reparations, for punishment, for some semblance of shame or accountability on the part of those responsible. Take a $1 salary for a year; forget the exhorbitant bonus for once; tighten your own belt first. Show some humility or basic human decency instead of claiming the market rules above all else like a broken record, as if those of us with principles and ethics care about how... [More]

It’s going to take some advanced mental yoga to justify Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation speech at his inauguration. Without further ado, let’s let John Sherffius put it in perspective:

John Sherffius: Obama's Inaugural Program

As if a ridiculous level of homophobia wasn’t enough—he’s compared “gay marriage to incest, polygamy, and pedophilia”—he’s also strongly anti-abortion and supports the repeal of Roe vs. Wade. Can you feel the progressive change? Can ya? Granted, he’s not as singularly bad as other... [More]

It is rather difficult to conceive of the person capable of writing the following passage from Dreams from My Father as being particularly open-minded vis-a-vis the unknowable “other” that threatens our fair shores with its mindless desire to wipe us from the face of the earth (to borrow a popularly misquoted phrase):

“Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into... [More]”

The names that Barack Obama has consistently thrown into the ring for his cabinet and other important posts throughout his administration have been primarily center-right in their political views. The Obama Transition Team ™ (OTT) has explained this away so far by pointing out that Obama is stressing a “team of rivals” approach similar to that taken by Lincoln in his presidency. He is choosing the most qualified and experienced people for the job, it is said, and will remain the undisputed... [More]

From the article, Farewell to the Windfall Profits Tax by Ken Silverstein (Harper's), there’s this news about the Obama campaign’s promise to “make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we’ll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills”. The Obama Transition Team™ (or OTT) has a much more practical approach that involves a lot less boat-rocking than the campaign team promised in order for the OTT to even come into existence. That’s why the “language... [More]”