Ashcroft Willing to Be Waterboarded

When asked at Cornell University whether he would be willing to undergo waterboarding, John Ashcroft said, "The things that I can survive, if it were necessary to do them to me, I would do." Wait a minute, buddy. Take a number. It's not that easy to get waterboarded. We don't willy-nilly waterboard every nutjob who wants it; this is a well-thought out, approved-at-the-highest-level procedure which we meticulously document before destroying the documentation. In the meantime, while we're waiting to jump through all the hoops of plausible deniability, the best we can do is secretly kidnap your Second Life avatar, rendition him extraordinarily through democracy-loving Second Life Romania, and send him to Second Life Gitmo http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/3470767/. Our only fear is that within five seconds of being waterboarded, you'll sing like a baby. Torture, indeed!

Cheaters Suck

What can be more discouraging than grown men - millionaires - cheating at a kid's game?

It's a bad day for baseball, including this Yankees fan. The estimable former Senator George Mitchell (how come he's not president?) has exposed what too many have long suspected. It's especially discouraging to put the word "Yankee" into the search column and see how many times it comes up. Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Stanton - all insults to the pinstripes.

All Hail the all-time home run champ, Henry Aaron, and the single-season record holder, Roger Maris!

What caliber does God recommend?

Yet another asshole with a gun and a grudge, this time in Colorado. Good job by the volunteer security guard who killed the shooter - a woman (the guard, that is) who told reporters she was on the third day of a fast and who credited God with steadying her aim. We'll let that speak for itself.

But this toxic bouillabaisse that is fundamental Christianity in the Rocky Mountain West deserves a closer look. One of the shootings took place in Colorado Springs - home of the Air Force Academy, whose officers pestered male cadets to take some time off from raping female cadets to pray that Muslims and Jews burn in hell. Some of the victims are from the same New Life megachurch where the ineffable Rev. Ted Haggard preached before Mike Jones, the World's Busiest Male Prostitute, "blew the whistle" about their "affair" (in the words of New York Times Magazine). The same Mike Jones now says he tapdanced with Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who isn't even a little bisexual, thank you very much Mr. Nosy Parker Matt Lauer, just your average Methodist Republican homophobic married closeted anonymous gay sex-haver, like the ones who represent your state.

Guns? Rape? Jesus? Closeted gay sex? Weenie blue USAF uniforms? (sorry, gratuitous Navy insult)

What the hell are they feeding you people on the Front Range?

Bush Fulfills Promise: "No One Here Is Smarter Than I Am"

Kudos to W. for employing Dana Perino, who has admitted that she didn't know what the Cuban missile crisis was. The American people are sick and tired of pointy-headed burrycrats who ramble on about "facts" and "history" and other pointless crap that they slept through in sixth grade. Real men - and mildly hot spokesmodels - go with their gut, and their faith in Jesus that lets them see into the hearts of democratic heroes like Vladimir Putin.

In unrelated but equally important news, my dog has sprained his ass, evidently from wagging his tail too hard.

Who Would Jesus Cast a Non-binding Straw Poll Vote For?

Today's candidate for Best Thing Anyone has Ever Said about Religion is Chris Kelly's Huffington Post blog about Mitt Romney.

Say Cheese

Who says nobody learns from history? The CIA clearly has absorbed the major lesson of Watergate (not to mention the maggots who murdered Michael Jordan's father): if you're dumb enough to record yourself committing crimes, destroy the evidence.

Whattaya mean, the destruction of evidence is a crime? Crap - hey look, over there, a debt crisis!

Meanwhile, Beyond the Looking Glass . . .

For those of us still mired in the reality-based community, learning new facts about Iran's nuclear program might lead to a reappraisal of our bellicose policy. (Let's leave aside for a moment the clear fact that W. is lying about when he learned about the NIE.)

But no - W is attempting to pull off a spectacular rhetorical performance, simultaneously: a. taking credit for closing down Iran's weapons program in 2003; and 2. arguing that the very LACK of a program makes Iran more dangerous.

The blogger Bob Cesca (see the link above) has put his finger on the key phrase, repeated endlessly in Bush's characteristically language-challenged style: we can't let Iran have the KNOWLEDGE necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

W. would have us commit ourselves to a War on Science. I suspect (and hope?) that his anti-Iran campaign will go about as well as his "reform Social Security" campaign: the more he talks, the less support he gets.

Torture Tips (Number 2 in a Series)

While the CIA Torture Manual of 1983 is supposedly anonymous, careful textual analysis has determined at least the questioning room portion of the manual was written by Hogan’s Heroes actor Bob Crane. One tip-off is that the word “QUESTIONING” is in quotes - wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

A study of Crane’s life would not be unfruitful in understanding the true roots of torture, if you know what I mean – w,w,n,n. And thinking of refreshments is such a nice touch. Details like this really attract repeat clientele.

Torture Tips (Number 1 in a Series)

I was searching for an online course in torture to fulfill general credits for my major in War on Terror Studies and ran across the training manual for the School of the Americas (I heard they changed their name, hired a new assistant principal, and have a new mascot – Go Vultures!). Talk about open source! They made this 1983 torture training manual available free online for us independent learners. Check it: http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/en-tortures_2.pdf . Here’s a tip I learned from Chapter II on Techniques which includes such well-known strategies as “NOBODY LOVES YOU,” “GOING NEXT DOOR,” and my personal favorite “WE KNOW EVERYTHING.” (It bothers me that when using this technique the subject must wonder why we are so interested in what they have to say if we already know everything.) The new technique is called “DOUBLE INFORMERS:”
“PLANTING AN INFORMANT IN A SUBJECT’S CELL IS A WELL-KNOWN TRICK. LESS WELL KNOWN IS THE TRICK OF PLANTING TWO INFORMANTS (A & B) IN THE SAME CELL. NOW AND THEN. “A” TRIES TO PRY A LITTLE INFORMATION FROM THE SUBJECT. AT THE PROPER TIME, AND DURING A’S ABSENCE, “B” WARNS THE SUBJECT NOT TO TELL “A” ANYTHING BECAUSE “B” SUSPECTS HIM OF BEING AN INFORMANT.”
I love it. I wonder if you could even have three informants (A, B, & C) or if that might be too suspicious. Or confusing.