Author: cosmo

05/20/2006

From today’s Washington Post (emphasis mine):

At the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday on Gen. Michael V. Hayden’s nomination to head the CIA, Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the nominee a simple question: Is “waterboarding” an acceptable interrogation technique? Gen. Hayden responded: “Let me defer that to closed session, and I would be happy to discuss it in some detail.” That was the wrong answer. The right one would have been simple: No. Last year Congress banned cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment of detainees; one of its explicit aims was to stop the CIA’s use of waterboarding, which induces an excruciating sensation of drowning and is considered by most human rights organizations to constitute torture. So why couldn’t Gen. Hayden say clearly that the technique is now off-limits?

It just gets worse and worse. Why is the Bush administration so afraid of the truth?

05/18/2006

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

— Ayn Rand

05/16/2006

Below is an awesome (real) sign from someone’s Flickr photoset. There was a contest on Fark to caption it, and some of the results were riotous.

Don’t transport pebbles in your mouth; you could sink the boat.

When that rolling tire slams you into the rail, you’ll surely blow chunks.

No running on the deck! We have determined the precise “ball racking” height of the guardrails.

Danger! Do not run into groin-level railing when escaping.

Be careful not to bump your head on minor constellations.

05/15/2006

According to today’s Denver Post, the city of Boulder is considering a taxpayer-funded “hate hotline”. This hotline will allow residents of Boulder to call and report racist language. Apparently they think that will put a damper on “hate speech” or something.

Yeah, so if I’m standing on the Pearl Street Mall and some guy is shouting epithets about blacks, Jews, Hindis, Republicans, short people, panhandlers, or whatever, I guess I’m supposed to whip out my cell phone and call the hotline. I’m sure it’ll stop him cold when he realizes what I’m doing. And I’m sure the police will drop everything to rush to the Mall and cuff this guy.

As David Harsanyi, the Denver Post columnist says,

The council should realize, however ugly it may be, Americans still have the constitutional right to be racist, homophobic, Jew-hating or even to make bad jokes.

Even more to the point, he goes on to say

Phillip Martinez beat up a 22-year-old African-American mechanical-engineering student named Andrew Sterling last year in Boulder. He was sentenced to the maximum of 16 years in prison. The jury wisely decided to drop “ethnic intimidation” charges.

Would a hate-line have helped Sterling? Martinez was from Lafayette, not Boulder. He was drunk. He may not have even cared that Sterling was black.

Should everyone keep the hate-line number on their cellphone speed dial from now on? And remember, only call if your attacker uses racist or insensitive language while beating you to a pulp. After all, according to hate-law advocates, it’s not genuine hate unless the perpetrator makes fun of your heritage.

I guess we’ll see how the city council vote goes tomorrow. For now, I just shake my head and wonder who comes up with this stuff.

05/13/2006

In a rousing discussion on Slashdot about whether the government should be permitted to compile a DNA database of all citizens for criminal investigations, one comment caught my eye.

The problem here is that we can’t trust the government. We already know that. They said that the SSN would only be used for social security. They said that there would be no new taxes. They said that there were weapons of mass destruction. They said that eminent domain was a tool never to be used for commercial interests. They said that no citizen could be held without a right to a hearing or the ability to contact a lawyer. They said that no person’s privacy could be invaded without a warrant. They said the patriot act was only to fight terrorism. They said that they would make no law regarding the establishment of religion. They say that intrastate commerce is magically interstate commerce. I could go on for pages.

They lie. They lie all the time. They’re not lying for our benefit, either– they lie to do us harm, to hide things from us, to get certain people into office (or keep them there), they lie to take our property, our freedom, to erode our rights, and to diminish our ability to hold them accountable.

Anything you do to extend the power of the government will be misused. Anything. Our government is completely, utterly, absolutely out of control.

05/13/2006

Today’s spam message (only one!) was the usual source of “enhancement” drugs, but I thought it was interesting that the dummy text used to fool the spam filters was a little snippit from The Hobbit. To stoop so low…

05/12/2006

So just for kicks, I created a login on the RNC web site under the pretense of hosting a crazy GOP House Party. Here’s the e-mail message I received after I completed the registration:

Welcome to the GOP Team! GOP Team Members are empowered to share the Party’s message with friends, neighbors, elected officials and the media as well as garner support for candidates and the President’s and our Party’s agenda.

Stay tuned– we’ll be in touch shortly. With your help, we’ll bring new faces and new voices into the Republican Party and maintain our majority for years to come.

Awesome. I’m “empowered to share the Party’s message”.

For some reason, though, seeing Party capitalized like that makes me think of the Communist Party, and suddenly I feel like I’m the propaganda minister for Red China or something. Now I have to go wash my hands.