"We prosecuted Japanese officers for subjecting prisoners to waterboarding in World War II"

I Can't Wait To Be Waterboarded: John Ashcroft "...responded to questions from the audience. The first question came from a woman who asked if Ashcroft would be willing to be subjected to waterboarding.

'The things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do,' he said."

Whatever the fuck that means ?

"Ashcroft apparently believes that torture should be allowed as long as it doesn’t kill him.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and William Delahunt (D-MA) have introduced the 'American Anti-Torture Act of 2007' to make clear no U.S. government agency feels it can apply the Ashcroft standard while interrogating detainees. They write:

'Waterboarding is not 'simulated drowning.' It is drowning. It involves restraining a detainee — usually by strapping him or her to a board — with the head placed lower than the feet. The face or mouth is often covered or stuffed with rags and water is poured over the face to force inhalation. The victim’s lungs fill with water until the procedure is stopped or the victim dies. Waterboarding has been considered torture — even by our own government — until recently. Indeed, we prosecuted Japanese officers for subjecting prisoners to waterboarding in World War II.'"

"Show me better facts and I'll gladly change my mind." - Phill Sawyer

"Don't Celebrate Turnaround in Iraq Just Yet": "Thomas E. Ricks: Well, that's the big question. Are the warring sides standing down until Uncle Sam gets out of the way? The Sunnis have largely stopped fighting while they seek to cut a deal to get a place at the table in post-Saddam Iraq. And the Shiites have stopped fighting the Americans for at least six months, they say -- and why not? With the Sunnis standing down, Uncle Sam would be focusing all his firepower on the Shiites. But what if the Sunnis get sick of waiting? And what happens when U.S. forces start declining in number next year?"...

...(a question posed to Rick) "Boonsboro, Md.: When will it be okay to state that we are winning in Iraq and all the naysayers ("the war is lost") were wrong? Even the New York Times is admitting things are going well.

Thomas E. Ricks: Well, things are going better. I just got back from Baghdad last week, and it was clear that violence has decreased. But it hasn't gone away. It is only back down to the 2005 level -- which to my mind is kind of like moving from the eighth circle of hell to the fifth.

I interviewed dozens of officers and none were willing to say we are winning. What they were saying is that at least now, we are not losing. But to a man, they were enormously frustrated by what they see as the foot-dragging of the Baghdad government."

"I am writing about someone I used to know."

"Like a lot of sensitive, gifted boys, he drifted into magic." - Steve Martin's self-penned 'Biography':

"'The appeal of writing', he added, was that 'I feel like I can get to the point where I know I did the best I can. I really love the sense of finality in writing, the sense of getting it right in a way that only I can know about. In comedy, if they’re not laughing, there’s no doubt.'...

"...he taught himself to play as a teenager from a Pete Seeger instruction book, practicing alone in his car with windows rolled up even on hot summer nights...

...he picked up the banjo and played a bluegrass song he had been learning. 'When I play music, it’s like an alternate form of living,' he said."

The Ann Hole

The Vagina Diatribes: "Perfected: The Ann Coulter Song (And The Barely Political Business Model)...

All the personal attacks on Ann show how we are deeply afraid of her."

Afraid ? Of What ?

She's a bomb that's already exploded. The danger is over.

If I had the time I'd train her to bark for you.

But if all you're looking for is an aging, neutered moll with enough cash to be obnoxious to store clerks, she's your bimbo. "

Small In So Many Ways

Prince Threatens To Sue Own Fans Over Fansites: He is so fucked-up on this issue that it's almost breathtaking. Getting sued by this little schlubb will be a badge of honor.

For a guy that uses no notes that aren't on the scale and uses no words not in the dictionary, the upwardly grabby little idiot somehow believes he should own what your eyes can see and what your ears can hear.

The honorable thing might be to steal everything he owns and give it to homeless kids. Then scream in his face until he cries.

How small is he going to get? "

"Waterboarding is torture, period"

Cleanse this stain from our national honor: "'Waterboarding is torture, period,' Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a former Navy instructor of prisoner of war and terrorist hostage survival programs, told a House constitutional subcommittee. I believe that we must reject the use of the waterboard for prisoners and captives and cleanse this stain from our national honor."

Then we hear from the less-than-men that the GOP coughs up in defense of its barbarity.

"Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said at the panel's hearing that he is against torture but that 'sometimes we have to take measures to protect the innocent that we do not like.'

'Severe interrogations are sometimes part of doing that,' said Franks, the ranking Republican on the panel..."

"...Nance described the experience as a 'slow motion suffocation' that provides enough time for the subject to consider what's happening: 'water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feeling your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs.
The victim is drowning.'

Republican Rep. Trent Franks, Arizona, is a vile man with a diseased thought process.

"I would put him at a second level wannabe kiss ass"

"If you put it in writing and press that send button your butt can be on the line" - Yet John Matel Is As Safe As A Rightie In Crawford, Texas - Guess Why...:

"Being a retired civil servant, let me give you my take on this post, this guy is well connected, he has his ticket punched, 10 to 1 he is very close to the top and is required to make very little interaction with the locals. I would put him at a second level wannabe kiss ass. Second, if he did not want someone to see his letter - he cited the military, then why did he release it? Supposedly he is a smart guy and any internet savy person automatically knows that if you put it in writing and press that send button your butt can be on the line.

Not to sound paranoid, but considering the machinations of this administration why should I believe anything from anyone who supports their view. Frankly there is too much factual evidence from those on the ground, the grunts, and I believe them more than anyone else, that contradicts even the slightest reason to have an open embassy there." - arkansawtravler, on HuffPo

The "Nasty Man"

Rudy's Torture Talk: "John McCain, who is understandably appalled by the casual advocacy of torture, noted that Giuliani and the others in the GOP field come by their faux toughness without benefit of military service. This is a fair point, because as both McCain and Colin Powell have noted, all a POW has going for him is the hope of reciprocity. If we don't torture, maybe they won't, either.

This means nothing to Giuliani. He rebutted McCain with one of his signature your-mother-wears-a-mustache responses. McCain, he said, has "never run a city, never run a state, never run a government." Yes, but he has been tortured.

McCain's experience, though, makes no impression on Giuliani. He likened "intensive questioning," the term of art for a wee bit of torture, to what he practiced as New York's U.S. attorney and then mayor: "If I didn't use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of Mafia guys running around New York right now."

Is he serious? Did he waterboard the Gambinos? Did he deprive the Genovese family of sleep? Did he hang the Colombos by their thumbs? Did he bombard the Luccheses with opera from a regional company?

You could dismiss Giuliani's statements as campaign hot air and leave it at that. But to those who know something about his time as mayor, it is reminiscent of Giuliani's scary lack of empathy for victims and a concomitant inability to distinguish critics from enemies. These are the qualities that made him so unpopular in New York's black community (and elsewhere), and prompted Ed Koch to title his book about Giuliani The "Nasty Man."

I doubt Giuliani had Orson Swindle in mind when he trivialized sleep deprivation as a pillowless night on a bumpy campaign flight. But he should have had a somber appreciation for the realities of torture and not, as he did, make it sound like a scene out of a movie. Swindle laughed when he heard Giuliani's comment. "He obviously doesn't understand what he's talking about," Swindle said.

It's a habit."

Rudy can be stopped, but it might be very messy.

Rudy The Water-Boarder

"A small man in search of a balcony", according to Jimmy Breslin.

"Now, intensive questioning works."

America now means that place where - once upon a time, it was possible to see God smiling on our efforts.

For Whom the Writer's Strike...

"Let your life be a friction against the machine", said Henry David Thoreau. The writers strike should not be seen as the usual, ordinary petition by workers for greater pay and benefits, but as a battle in the new war by Big Rich against the individual.

"The fact is, this fight is very much about the future of our relationship to giant corporations. As individuals, as artists, as workers, as citizens. It is not a fight between one group of unlikable shallow and out of touch people on the coast and another. It is a fight for the value of work itself in a changing world."

It is a deadly fight for control of our identities and for a stake in the future of our culture.