RelentlesslyOptimistic

Congress authorizes torture, secret arrests and trials

I would never have guessed that I'd ever quote from conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan without criticizing what he said. But on this momentous day we have Andrew Sullivan united with liberal columnist Molly Ivins in opposition to the Military Commissions Act passed by the Senate yesterday. Sullivan calls the Democrats cowards for not standing up to the President, and notes that Bush will use opposition to torture as a campaign weapon against Democrats in upcoming elections.

Habeas Corpus is a legal right that allows those arrested to challenge in court the reasons for their arrest. It was first implemented in the Magna Carta in 1215 to eliminate the then-common practice of secret arrests, and has always been a part of American law. This bill allows secret arrests of enemy combatants with no timeline for charging the arrestee with a crime and no right to a lawyer other than one appointed by the military.

Of course, we're assured that only dangerous "enemy combatants," someone who “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States” will be arrested under this bill. According to Ivins, "One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network."

The bill also allows those dangerous cable TV salespeople to be tortured, but only up to "serious pain, "defined as “bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain." In the secret trial before a military panel the government can use information collected without warrants to convict the detainee.

Ivins quotes George Bush in a speech from July 2003: “The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.” I guess the example is that torture is OK, even if it is a human right.

The image above was posted by Andrew Sullivan yesterday pointing to a post from David Corn's blog with photos from Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which has been turned into a museum documenting Khymer Rouge atrocities. We'll probably just create our torture museum in the Smithsonian, don't you think?

Powell and Rice say Saddam not a threat - in 2001!

John Dvorak posts a clip showing Colin Powell in February 2001 and Condoleeza Rice in July of 2001, both discussing Saddam Hussein's lack of WMD's and weak conventional forces. Of course, those who believe that Hussein was behind 9-11 won't think that's a big deal.

Self-jerking fishing rod

Wonderful title, isn't it? From Modern Mechanix

Dude! Robotic frisbees of death

  Defense Tech is reporting that the US Air Force has awarded a contract to develop the true ultimate in frisbees, a "Modular Disc-Wing Urban Cruise Munition." The University of Manchester's Jonathan Potts, who has a PhD in Disc-Wing Aerodynamics [no, really] and works with Discwing, a company that makes frisbee golf discs, said that "[t]he Frisbee disc has proven its potential on the sports field as a platform for short free-flights." Once the frisbee has reached the target area it "will use a series of armor-piercing explosives, shooting jets of molten metal, to eliminate their targets."

Via Eyebeam reBlog by way of Engadget; image from ebay

Otherworldly cattle rustlers seek butter

A new scourge is hitting the dairy industry. Aliens are abducting cows.

"It's a serious problem. Countless bovines have disappeared from dairy farms everywhere. And the numbers of missing cows are on the rise."

"The cow abductions seem to be the most concentrated in California. One theory may suggest that the milk in California is particularly creamy and delicious."

The site provides pictures, stories and reenactments, and they review products that farmers can use to protect their cows. Note: Product shown is horse version. Horse and farmer not included.

Via: Dvorak Uncensored

Selected items: Harper's Index for August 2006

• Ratio of the estimated U.S. cost of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol to the cost of the Iraq war so far: 1:1
• Portion of all fuel consumed by the U.S. government that is used by the Air Force: 1/2

• Percentage of Americans in May who believed that democracy would take hold in Iraq: 54
• Number of the fourteen other nations surveyed where a majority believed this: 3

• Number of new skin-whitening products that have been introduced to Asian and Pacific markets since 2002: 189
• Number of films since 1960 that feature an evil albino: 55

Harper's Index for August 2006 (Harpers.org)

Image from The Albino Code