Month: November 2005

De-”24″-ing the Torture Issue

Thanks Kevin, well put:

Torture should be flatly illegal because that’s the message we want to send both to our own people and to the rest of the world. Legal torture should be reserved for regimes like Cuba and North Korea, not the United States of America.

However, in the fantastically unlikely 24-esque event that we capture a terrorist who knows the location of a ticking atomic bomb, he’s going to get tortured regardless. The torturer will immediately get pardoned by the president for doing so, and would be unanimously acquitted by a jury even if he weren’t. And I’m fine with that.

So please. Enough with the idiotic ticking time bomb already. If we’re going to talk about torture, let’s talk about how it’s used in the real world.

Drive-by blogging

Busy week; exam tomorrow, case study & presentation Wednesday, another exam next week, other projects due on the horizon.

In the meantime, Digby‘s got a few good ones — taking on habeas corpus, Wal-Mart and Target, not to mention the lies of GW Bush.

Plus of course all the usual suspects in the blogroll.

And if you’re a cat person, head on over to NTodd‘s place; one of his kitties is dying & I think he’d appreciate some well-wishers.

Reason #265,382 Why Bill O’Reilly is a Jerk

by way of KRON-4:

O’Reilly reacted to San Franciscans approval of Proposition I, which discourages military recruiters on public high school and college campuses.

He advised President George W. Bush to react by withdrawing any military protection for the city. “…If al-Qaida comes in here and blows you up, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead,” O’Reilly said.

On the one hand, jerky people are going to make jerky statements, and calling them out can make the jerks seem more important than they are.

On the other hand, it is important to call jerky people on their jerkiness, because silence can equal assent. And saying that it’s OK to bomb San Francisco is not OK.

Coit Tower, for those unfamiliar with it, is a memorial honoring San Francisco firefighters.

Friday iTunes Blogging

Haven’t done this in a while … here’s my totally random 10 from iTunes today:

I Like It Like That – Tito Puente
Bon Voyage – Vangelis
Hear the Voices – The Manhattan Transfer
The Safety Dance – Men Without Hats
Zanzibar – Billy Joel
With Every Breath I Take – City of Angels (Original Broadway Cast)
Land Of Confusion – Phil Collins
I Guess I’ll Miss The Man – Pippin (Original Broadway Cast)
H.M.S. Pinafore – My Gallant Crew, Good Morning – Gilbert & Sullivan
Everyday – Phil Collins