The Distant Ocean

Shoe-perman to be released early

In case you haven't heard this great news yet:

The Iraqi journalist jailed after hurling his shoes at former President George W. Bush, will be released next month after his sentence was reduced for good behaviour.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi’s act during Bush’s last visit to Iraq as President turned the 30-year-old reporter into a folk hero across the Arab world, amid growing anger at the 2003 invasion.

(The article has a still I hadn't seen before that captures that magic moment in all its sublime glory.)

Somewhere out there, George Bush is flinching involuntarily.

...and you shall be forgiven

Here was Obama's comment on the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the man convicted (most likely falsely) of the Lockerbie bombing:

We have been in contact with the Scottish government, indicating that we objected to this.  And we thought it was a mistake.  We're now in contact with the Libyan government, and want to make sure that if in fact this transfer has taken place, that he's not welcomed back in some way, but instead should be under house arrest.

And his press secretary's response after the actual arrival a few days later:

MR. GIBBS: I think the images that we saw in Libya yesterday were outrageous and disgusting. We continue to express our condolences to the families that lost a loved one as a result of this terrorist murder. We communicated with the Libyan government, and we continue to watch what they do in the days going forward about this individual, and understand that the video that you saw yesterday is tremendously offensive to the survivors that, as I said, lost a loved one in 1988.

Yes, how outrageous and disgusting it is to honor those who've taken hundreds of innocent lives.  We would never do something so tremendously offensive here.  And if you doubt that, just look at how the U.S. handled the return of the crew of the U.S.S. Vincennes, which shot down Iran Air flight 655 over the Strait of Hormuz in 1988, killing all 290 people on board:

In the end, nothing in the way of punishment happened to [Captain Will C.] Rogers and his crew. Rogers became a military instructor, and then retired in 1991. The crew of the Vincennes received combat-action ribbons. The air warfare coordinator on board, Lt. Cmdr. Scott Lustig, received a commendation medal for his ability to "quickly and precisely complete the firing procedure"--the same firing procedure that shot down Flight 655.

As Vice President George H.W. Bush said at the time, "I will never apologize for the United States of America—I don’t care what the facts are."  And in a special irony bonus, assuming it was in fact Iran that sponsored the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, it was almost certainly in retaliation for the killing of those 290 people on Iran Air flight 655.

But despite the intense hypocrisy and the textbook example of blowback here, the main thing I felt about this was pleasant surprise to see that Scotland is capable of acting like a civilized country (even in the face of massive pressure from the U.S. and others).  Setting aside the issue of Al Megrahi's innocence entirely, I think it's important to have such a prominent example of compassion trumping the kind of obscene culture of punishment we've created in this country.

Better two cell phones than a fish in your zipper

Some days you spend hours crafting a coherent chunk of prose, hunting down links for half-remembered articles from 1998, and trying to make it all funny enough that someone will spend the time to read it.  And other days you just crib shamelessly from Matt Taibbi's 2005 vivisection of Thomas Friedman ("Flathead"):

Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.

I'm sure some of you have read this essay before but I'm just as sure others haven't, and you must.  On re-reading it I nearly pissed myself.  Brilliant, every word.

And if that's not enough for you, check out Taibbi's followup from January of this year:

Even better was this gem from one of Friedman’s latest columns: "The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar. It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: "Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?" There are many serious questions one could ask about this passage, but the one that leaped out at me was this: In the "title" of that long-running play, is it supposed to be the same person asking all three of those questions? If so, does that person suffer from multiple personality disorder? Because in the first question, he is a neutral/ignorant observer of the Mideast drama; in the second he sympathizes with the Jews; in the third he’s a radical Muslim. Moreover, after you blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque, is the surrounding hotel still there? Why would anyone build a mosque in a half-blown-up hotel?

Stop, my sides, you're killing me.  This isn't quite the masterpiece the first one is, but it's still worth your time, if for nothing more than to give you a reason to spend a few moments of your life contemplating the size of Valerie Bertinelli's ass.  You will be richer for the experience, I promise.

I demand we stop Pampering these terrorists

You may recall a Los Angeles Times article from February which reported that Obama planned to continue Bush's renditions program in largely-unchanged form:

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

This led to the sorry spectacle of prominent liberals attacking the Times for publishing such a "wildly exaggerated" article.  Scott Horton dismissed this "breathless piece of reporting" as "buffoonery", and Glenn Greenwald wrote that "these reports about what Obama 'intends' to do ought to be taken with a huge dose of skepticism, especially where, as here, it is fed to uninformed, gullible reporters by anonymous intelligence operatives."

So what's the latest word on this breathless, wildly-exaggerated bit of buffoonery fed to an uninformed, gullible reporter, which we ought to take with a huge dose of skepticism?

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture.

Yeah, sure, but what do they know?  And anyway, the Obama administration says they'll get diplomatic assurances that there'll be no torture (and if you can't take the word of a Syrian diplomat, I don't know who you can trust).  Isn't that enough?

"It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture," said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who tracked rendition cases under President George W. Bush.

Yes, but the Obama administration is also vowing to "closely monitor" the treatment of the people they kidnap and deliver to foreign governments that make a regular practice of torture, right?  Isn't that enough?

Ms. Singh cited the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian sent in 2002 by the United States to Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cable despite assurances against torture. [...] The task force has proposed a more vigorous monitoring of the treatment of prisoners sent to other countries, but Ms. Singh said the usual method of such monitoring — visits from American or allied consular officials — had been ineffective. A Canadian consular official visited Mr. Arar several times, but the prisoner was too frightened to tell him about the torture, a Canadian investigation found.

Ok, maybe not.

So it looks like the sum total of the "hope" and "change" we're going to see with Obama with regard to rendition is that the innocent people the U.S. kidnaps can hope their torturers will change the diapers they're forced to wear during their torture sessions, so the U.S. official sent to "closely monitor" their treatment (wink, wink) won't gag on the stench of their 3-day-old shit.  It's just sad that there are a few Obama-haters out there who won't admit this is progress.

Glenn Greenwald vs. Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is irked that Serious People won't give him the respect he deserves.  First, he took Marc Ambinder to task:

[Ambinder] still says journalists like himself were right to scorn [opponents of the Iraq War] "because these folks based their assumption on gut hatred for President Bush, and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence."  As always:  even when the dirty leftist hippies are proven right, they're still Shrill, unSerious Losers who every decent person and "journalist" scorns.

And then the whole Beltway political and media establishment:

The overriding Beltway dogma, still, is that the true irresponsible extremists are the "leftists" who stood in opposition to [torture, war, etc]. ...the conventional Beltway wisdom has ossified that it is the childish, petulant ideological Left that, as always, is to blame...

Now, he won't get any argument from me on this; no sir, I wouldn't even think of contradicting such richly-deserved righteous anger.  But he's going to have his hands full with this other guy I've read who goes by the name of Glenn Greenwald, who once made this odious argument:

Those who reflexively criticize every Obama action because they predicted long ago that he would be the same as Bush and want that prediction to be vindicated are but the opposite side of the same irrational coin as those who find ways to justify everything Obama does because they long ago placed the type of faith in him that no political leader should ever enjoy.

See what I mean?  Glenn Greenwald is not going to like that one bit.  And this same Glenn Greenwald repeated (and intensified) the same shoddy attack a month later:

Those who reflexively and blindly criticize whatever Obama does (based on the immovable, all-consuming conviction that he is intrinsically Evil) are nothing more than the opposite side of the same mindless coin as those who reflexively and blindly praise whatever Obama does (based on the immovable, all-consuming conviction that he is intrinsically Good).

It almost sounds like Glenn Greenwald is taking the "petulant, ideological Left" to task for being "irresponsible extremists" in these two quotes, doesn't it?  Like he's saying "these folks base their assumptions on gut hatred for President [Obama], and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence," and so they're just "Shrill, unSerious Losers who every decent person and 'journalist' scorns," right?

Well, just you wait until Glenn Greenwald hears about this, Glenn Greenwald!  I'm sure he'll write a scathing article denouncing you for attacking those who were right but "were still wrong and unSerious because their motives were bad."  You'll rue the day you directed such "condescending responses" to the "fringe, crazed, out-of-touch radicals" on your left!

Who will ultimately win this battle of irreconcilable viewpoints—Glenn Greenwald, or Glenn Greenwald?  Only time will tell.  But I genuinely hope it'll be the Glenn Greenwald who writes so many worthwhile and insightful articles, and not the Glenn Greenwald who dismisses the "reflexive", "blind" critics to his left one day and then cries foul the next when it's his ox being gored.

Divining the precise outlines of Democratic suckitude on health care

The Democrats suck (as usual) on health care.  But what exactly lies behind their epic suckitude this particular time around?  Glenn Greenwald has a theory—a conspiracy theory.  Take it away, Glenn:

The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill.  But -- given the impossibility of achieving that goal -- isn't it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn't really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill?  Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.

But Cenk Uygur, the guy whose name looks suspiciously like a dirty anagram, has a different theory:

So, how are [the Republicans] winning? Because the Democrats brought a scalpel to a gun fight. The Republicans have attacked and attacked and attacked. Meanwhile, what has been the Democratic response? They're reaching out in a spirit of bipartisanship. Why?

Someone says they're going to bite your head off and will almost all vote against you, what is your purpose in continuing to reach out to them? They say they will under no circumstances vote for real health care reform with a public option, which you have said many times before is essential. They are in essence saying the only way they would vote for your bill is if they were positive it sucked. So, why do the Democrats continue to help the Republicans in killing this thing?

It is the unbearable weakness of Democratic being. They cannot find it in their hearts to strongly argue for their own position. To be fair, in this case, the weakness is mainly Obama's. The White House has clearly indicated this weekend that they have already given up on the public option -- and they're still begging the Republicans to work with them. Frankly, it's pathetic.

So, which is it?  Is Glenn Greenwald right that this was the Democrats' plan all along, and they're just using the Republicans as a beard?  Or is Cenk Uygur correct in his belief that the Democrats are unable to argue their health care position persuasively because of their tiny, tiny penises, and if they were only hung like Cenk Uygur, maybe they could finally get something done?  Or is it something else entirely?  Something so horrifying it cannot be named?

This strikes me as somewhat of an academic point, like wondering if the serial killer who's about to carve you into tiny pieces really did think you looked like Clive Owen, or was just saying that to trick you into letting your guard down.  So (for once) I'm expressing no opinion.  But I am curious to know: what do you think?

[ In fairness, the Democrats of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have vowed to vote against any bill that doesn't include a public option, and therefore don't appear to suck completely on this particular issue at this particular point in time...but as always with Democrats, it would be wise to wait until the votes are cast to pass final judgment on that. ]

The real death panels

As a fan of the oddly-shaped roll of toilet paper otherwise known as Investor's Business Daily, I'm deeply saddened to have remained ignorant of this outstanding performance of theirs for the past two weeks:

...many Britons were surprised to read a recent editorial in the American newspaper Investor’s Business Daily. The editorial stated, "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless." Well, Hawking was in fact born in Britain and has lived there his whole life. The newspaper was forced to run a correction. Hawking said, "I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. [I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.]" That’s the National Health Service of Britain.

After expunging this exquisite error from the original article (the soberly-titled "How House Bill Runs Over Grandma"), IBD issued a petty, quibbling non-apology of a "retraction", in which they stated that Hawking "was a bad example" to illustrate their thesis.  This prompted one pithy commenter to respond:

Picking Hawking wasn't just "a bad example." It was a counterexample. And one that shows sloppy, partisan thinking at that. Now ask yourselves, how many counterexamples do you have to see before you change your minds about something?

This is actually far too charitable, since it implies that IBD is concerned enough about silly trivialities like "facts" that any amount of evidence could convince it that the position dictated by its ideology is the wrong one.  But a second commenter offered an even better response, in the form of an anecdote which I think you'll agree is truly hilarious:

My brother died in January after about 15 years of living with ALS. His death occurred after his health insurance (top of the line) was exhausted. My efforts to get the insurance carrier to extend coverage three more months to permit him to be around for the birth of his first grandchild, after which he was to be removed from his ventilator, were denied. This is the American system.

Oops, did I write "hilarious"?  I meant "horrifying beyond imagining."  (Though to be fair, the corporate health insurer in this anecdote didn't technically "run over Grandpa", since they prevented this man's brother from becoming a grandfather in the first place.)

What is hilarious here is that while we're wasting time talking about absurd straw men like government "death panels"—meaning nothing more menacing than elective end-of-life counseling (formerly endorsed and even sponsored by many Republicans, until their lunatic wing's propaganda pushed them away from it)—there are actual, literal corporate death panels ending the lives of people in this country every single day.

These corporate death panels operate under the overriding principle of minimizing costs and maximizing profits.  And if you can't see what that means for the people unfortunate enough to need life-saving health care from them, you may have a promising future on the editorial staff of Investor's Business Daily.

[ Previous dust-ups with IBD here and here.  Funny stuff, but I can't take any credit for that, since IBD provides all the humor up front. ]

Hollywood movie Q & A

It's time for our first ever Hollywood movie Q&A!  First caller:

Q: Hi.  Should I see District 9?

A: No.

Ok, we have time for just one more question.  Next caller?

Q: Hi.  Should I see District 9?

A: Yes!  If, that is:

• You like your plot holes continual and gigantic.
  
• You're fond of great premises that are all but abandoned halfway through the film in favor of a procession of ear-splitting action sequences.
• You look forward to contemplating the perplexing conundrum of a film that's basically one long metaphor for South African apartheid, but which simultaneously features a gang of savage, superstitious, leering, ultra-violent Nigerians.
• You prefer the minimum possible amount of exposition and plot development in between shootouts.
• You just can't get enough of the "characters can't be hit, no matter how many bullets are flying and how exposed they are, until the script says so" school of action.
• You're unfamiliar with the word "fuck".  This all-purpose obscenity can function as a verb, a noun, an adjective, an interjection—just about any part of speech, really!  And you'll get the educational opportunity to hear it used in every one of these ways in District 9, a movie in which about 47% of the scenes feature "fuck" or  its derivations as the sole dialogue.  If you haven't become a fucking "fuck" expert after hearing this fucking word used 6,758 fucking times by the end of this fucking movie, well, fuck, you'll never get it, you dense fucker.  Ha ha!  Just kidding, you're great.
• You're similarly hazy about the Latin phrase deus ex machina, and would like to see it demonstrated a few times in order to enhance your understanding.
• You felt that the "This is a Unix system...I know this!" scene in Jurassic Park was thoroughly plausible and convincing, as was the "hacking the alien mothership with a Mac" bit in Independence Day.  Isn't it great that ISO user interface standards are being adopted galaxy-wide?
• You're curious to see if this attempt to break the world record for squandered potential in a science fiction film was successful.  I won't spoil it for you, except to say, yes.

Ok, that's our show for today.  Thanks for calling!

Global warming in the PARALLEL UNIVERSE

Two entirely unrelated articles for your consideration.  First, "Study Finds Big Storms on a 1,000-Year Rise":

The North Atlantic Ocean has spawned more hurricanes and tropical storms over the last decade than it has since a similarly stormy period 1,000 years ago, according to a new study. [...]

The study's lead author, climate scientist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, said finding a reliable way to reconstruct centuries of past hurricane activity could help scientists tease out whether future climate change will alter storm patterns.

Next, "Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama's climate change strategy":

The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama's climate change strategy, according to campaigners.

A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ''energy citizen'' rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a "sensitive" plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a "human face" on opposition to climate and energy reform. [...]

The API strategy also extends to a PR drive. Gerard cites polls to test the effectiveness of its arguments against climate change legislation. It offers up the "energy citizen" rallies as ready-made events, noting that allies – which include manufacturing and farm alliances as well as 400 oil and gas member organisations – will have to do little more than turn up.

"API will provide the up-front resources," the email said. "This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns."

As I pondered this second article, I thought: what if in some parallel universe we were facing a similar global threat, but with the difference that this threat could only be resolved in a way that promised to be massively profitable to the oil companies?  Maybe the only practical solution to this planetary crisis (known on parallel Earth as "global flensing") was to release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through increased usage of fossil fuels.

Imagine the American Petroleum Institute financing "energy citizen" rallies calling on politicians in Washington to pass mandatory SUV-ownership laws in order to counter global flensing and create jobs.  Imagine endlessly repeated TV commercials with Chevron spokespeople telling you that if you really love the planet, you'll a) stop taking the bus to work and b) call your representatives to demand that they take action to recarbonize the atmosphere.  Imagine high-priced PR firms sending lobbyists to Capitol Hill to guarantee that corporate emissions minimums would be mandatory rather than voluntary.  Imagine oil company CEOs fanning out on Sunday talk shows to demand swift, binding government regulation to address this dire threat.  And finally, imagine comprehensive global flensing legislation, backed by every oil company in the country, sailing through Congress in 1997—rather than some pathetic set of half-measures limping along (and under withering attack) over a decade later.

(Fun, isn't it?  And beyond the oil companies: imagine the Clinton administration backing the Kyoto Flensing Protocol to the hilt—even going so far as to insert a controversial clause mandating lower gas mileage in all new school bus-size SUVs.  Imagine hoards of angry conservatives screaming that it's our patriotic duty to drive any distance over 75 feet.  Imagine dozens of leftist global flensing skeptics signing a letter claiming the whole thing is a hoax cooked up by the oil companies, but being mocked—when they weren't being ignored—by the corporate media.  And imagine the problem being resolved so quickly that some people would wonder if there'd ever really been anything to worry about.)

That's life in the parallel universe.  Unfortunately, in this universe the only obvious way to address the global threat we face has the entirely unacceptable side effect of reducing the profits of the most powerful corporations on the planet.  And next to that, what is the continued existence of human civilization as we know it?  Not much, apparently.

Oh well; just our bad luck for ending up in a reality whose existential threat has such an unfortunate profit distribution.  But while we're fighting over the last few cockroaches and waiting for another mega-typhoon to put us out of our misery, we can at least console ourselves with the thought that in maybe half of the other parallel universes out there, everything turns out just peachy.

WILL THIS PRE-PLAGIARISM NEVER CEASE?  Ralph Nader often says that "If the oil companies owned the sun, we'd have solar by now."  I really wish he'd stop stealing my bits before I make them up, since people may get the crazy notion that it's me copying him and not the other way around.

Meanwhile, in a civilized country

While we're fruitlessly begging our government to please, please, please prosecute the torturers among us, Argentina is actually doing it:

A former general who headed a notorious detention centre during Argentina's military rule has been sentenced to life in prison for human rights abuses.

Santiago Omar Riveros commanded the Campo de Mayo military barracks on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

He was found guilty of involvement in the 1976 murder of 15-year-old communist youth member, Floreal Avellaneda, who was tortured to death.

Some 30,000 people disappeared or died in Argentina's 1976-1983 "Dirty War".

Riveros's former intelligence chief, Fernando Verplaetsen, was also jailed for 25 years in connection with the boy's killing.

Even if it did take 33 years, these vicious bastards will be spending the rest of their lives looking out through prison bars.  Beautiful.  Thanks yet again to Latin America for giving us a glimpse of what a civilized society looks like.

For comparison, let's take a look at how the United States is currently dealing with one of its most infamous at-large criminals, three decades after his worst crimes:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech on July 28 to the U.S.-China Business Council that Kissinger has been a close adviser and praised the former secretary of state for his contributions.

"And on a personal note, let me say that since taking this job, I've relied on the wise counsel of many of my predecessors, and Secretary Kissinger has been among the most generous and thoughtful with his guidance and advice," Clinton said.

Learning at the master's feet.  Brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?

Maybe this is apples and oranges, though; after all, it's not like Kissinger had any connection with the military junta that tortured that 15-year-old boy to death and murdered thousands of other human beings in Argentina.  Right?

The new documents are two memoranda of conversations (memcons) with the visiting Argentine foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti - one with Kissinger himself on October 7, 1976. At the time, the U.S. Congress was about to approve sanctions against the Argentine regime because of widespread reports of human rights abuses by the junta. [...]

According to the memcon's verbatim transcript, Secretary of State Kissinger interrupted the Foreign Minister's report on the situation in Argentina and said "Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the better… The human rights problem is a growing one. Your Ambassador can apprise you. We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties."

Oh, right.

Given Kissinger's "old-fashioned views", I think he should consider supporting his misunderstood "friends" Riveros and Verplaetsen by protesting their convictions in a way that's dramatic enough to draw the appropriate level of international attention to this grave injustice.  Let me be the first to suggest self-immolation.

[ Previous paean to the long arm of Argentinian law here. ]

Cheney: Bush just not evil enough

Hilarious:

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times -- never apologize, never explain -- and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

Look, the rehabilitation of John "I want your library records" Ashcroft as a principled defender of civil liberties was at least good for a laugh, but this really is going too far.

Your futile gesture of the day

Vince Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights implores us to get out there and do something!, dammit:

News reports are now saying the Attorney General is close to appointing a Special Prosecutor, but it doesn't look like good news. Insiders say Eric Holder wants to limit the scope of the prosecutor's investigation to low-level CIA operatives and let those who ordered, designed, and justified the torture program off the hook. Before it's too late, please write Holder today, and tell him not to tie the Prosecutor's hands but to let the investigation go as far up the chain of command as the facts lead.

This is a key opportunity for us to put the Obama administration on the right track, because it is currently in violation of U.S. law: Dick Cheney admitted his role in waterboarding and said he would do it again; the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, said that waterboarding is torture; and the Convention Against Torture, which is U.S. law, requires the administration to initiate a meaningful criminal investigation when torture occurs.

Now, I did in fact take the 15 seconds to click through and send a message.  And anyone who's read much of my writing knows I love CCR.  And I realize they feel compelled to tread carefully around the delusions of their Democratic donor base.  But...a "key opportunity for us to put the Obama administration on the right track"?  Hey, sure—and with Jupiter so close to the Earth right now, we have a similar key opportunity to send it hurtling out of its orbit by blowing simultaneously in the general direction of the sky.

So while (as I always say) this is almost literally the least you can do, I won't think less of you if you don't.  But consider this: even if you're absolutely certain this won't make a whit of difference as far as convincing the criminals in the Obama administration to prosecute the criminals in the Bush administration, you can at least do it to make Vince Warren and the good folks at CCR happy.  And that's worth something, isn't it?

Your number 5 source for puppies!

As a result of Google's indexer contemplating my posting about adorable puppies while I was away, I'm now the fifth hit for a "puppies" image search, and my logs are crammed with entries for a global bevy of canine admirers.

Will this madness never end?