Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

We have a veritible parade of the ridiculous today. Must be a day ending in “y”.

Let’s begin with a budding right-wing excuse for torture:

Just 48 hours after President Obama was inaugurated, former Bush chief speechwriter Marc Thiessen said Obama “is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office.” With a record like this, it’s probably unwise to expect much in the way of reasoned, sensible political insights from this guy.

Nevertheless, despite the vitriol and the fact that his claims haven’t withstood scrutiny, Thiessen has managed to become a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s op-ed page. Today, this former Bush speechwriter — the Post now features two — seems to argue that torturing Muslims is acceptable because they’re Muslims.

Critics claim that enhanced techniques do not produce good intelligence because people will say anything to get the techniques to stop. But the memos note that, “as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, ‘brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship.” In other words, the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can — and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that “Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable.” The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.

Got that? When U.S. officials torture detainees, some of us may be inclined to think this is illegal and morally degrading. What we didn’t realize is that the torturers are giving the detainees a hand.

As this argument goes, we’re not torturing suspects, we’re “helping” them.

That’s just precious. Watching these fucktards try to justify torture is somewhat akin to watching religious folks try to prove their faith to atheists, only we’re talking about torturing human beings here, not merely brainwashing them into believing in imaginary things.

We also have further reports of the extent to which the Bushies manipulated science:

In the past week, at least three scientists have come out and objected to their work on sleep deprivation being used by the CIA and Justice Department to justify torture. In one of his 2005 memos, the OLC’s Steven Bradbury said that sleep deprivation causes “at most only relatively moderate decreases in pain tolerance.” But one of the scholars, Dr. Bernd Kundermann from the University of Marburg, pointed out that that he was “working with healthy volunteers and didn’t deprive them of sleep for more than one day without allowing them to recover.” Similarly, from Dr. S. Hakki Onen from the Hôpital Gériatrique A. Charial:

“[The study subjects] were distracted from sleeplessness by playing different games, or watching soccer matches. They could eat, drink, read, and move about as they wished. [From] the American documents we learn that sleep deprivation spanned from 70 to 120 hours — and set maximum limits of 180 hours for the hardest resisters, which is over a full week without sleep,” Onen said. “In other words, they discuss starting the sleep deprivation process at nearly double the maximum we set for ethical reasons.”

Methinks they were trying to use science as a whitewash. And, like everything else they did, they fucked that up, too, not to mention lied out their asses. What a shocker.

And, really, it’s standard operating procedure for them. They don’t want truth. They want justification for preset ideas:

From time to time, I’ve suggested that congressional Republicans act as if they don’t believe in reading books. I stand corrected.

There aren’t any sex scenes or vampires, and it won’t help you lose weight. But House Republicans are tearing through the pages of Amity Shlaes’ “The Forgotten Man” like soccer moms before book club night.

Shlaes’ 2007 take on the Great Depression questions the success of the New Deal and takes issue with the value of government intervention in a major economic crisis — red meat for a party hungry for empirical evidence that the Democrats’ spending plans won’t end the current recession.

“There aren’t many books that take a negative look at the New Deal,” explained Republican policy aide Mike Ference, whose boss, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, invited Shlaes to join a group of 20 or so other House Republicans for lunch earlier this year in his Capitol suite.

Well, no, there aren’t many books that take a negative look at the New Deal, probably because the New Deal worked and helped pull the nation out of the Great Depression. When a leader addresses a crisis, and his or her strategy works, historians tend to write complimentary texts on the subject. They’re funny that way.

But the fact that House Republicans would seek out books critical of the New Deal tells us a little something about their approach to problem-solving. For these GOP officials, one starts with the answer — FDR bad, spending bad, government bad, Hoover good — and works backwards, seeking out those who’ll bolster their answers before the questions are even asked.

That’s how Cons roll – GOPSOP – but as far as proving they’re right, well, one book by a dumbfuck doesn’t really change the past, now, does it?

Hypocrisy is also GOPSOP. And no one’s done a better job demonstrating that today than Sen. Inhofe (R-Batshit Insane):

Yesterday on the Senate floor, Sen. James Inhofe announced that he intended to filibuster Obama’s nomination of U.S. District Judge David Hamilton to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Inhofe’s announcement comes nearly three weeks after the Republican membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee boycotted Hamilton’s hearing claiming that “they had not been given sufficient time to prepare for the hearing.” Inhofe’s filibuster is surprising given the fact that Hamilton is generally viewed as representing “some of [Indiana’s] traditionally moderate strain.”

Inhofe does not appear to have explained his decision to filibuster in front
of his collea
gues on the floor of the Senate. But in statements that he entered into the Congressional Record, Inhofe cited a 2005 ruling in Hinrichs v. Bosman in which Hamilton found that the Indiana House of Representatives may open proceedings with “non-sectarian prayers” only.

That’s right. He’s going to filibuster a judge for following Constitutional law – y’know, that whole Establishment Clause thing. He also seems to be confused over what the word “Allah” means. But it’s the hypocrisy that makes this truly entertaining:

Additionally, Inhofe’s vow to filibuster is surprising given his previous insistence that filibustering judicial nominees is “not only an illegitimate use of a senator’s power, but is also literally unconstitutional.” As Steve Benen notes, in 2003, “Inhofe went so far as to say any senator who would dare filibuster a judicial nominee would necessarily be violating their oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution.'”

I’m a writer. I should be able to make shit like this up. But the power of the Con imagination to outstrip my own is astounding, and if I tried to write a book in which people acted this fucking stupid with a straight face, I’d be rejected for being way too unbelievable.

And yet, we get an endless stream of this outlandish fuckery every single day from our elected leaders, celebrated pundits, and mainstream media.

What a world.

Happy Hour Discurso
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Poem o' the Day

A lot of people ask what poetry is. What makes a poem? Is it rhyme, rhythm, something else? Two poets, one Chinese and one Spanish, attempt an answer.

Hu Shih says:

Dream and Poetry

It’s all ordinary experience,
All ordinary images.
By chance they emerge in a dream,
Turning out infinite new patterns.

It’s all ordinary feelings,
All ordinary words.
By chance they encounter a poet,
Turning out infinite new verses.

Once intoxicated, one learns the strength of wine,
Once smitten, one learns the power of love:
You cannot write my poems
Just as I cannot dream your dreams.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer seems to laugh at the very question:

Rhyme 21

¿Qué es poesía?, dices mientras clavas
en mi pupila tu pupila azul.
¡Qué es poesía! ¿Y tú me lo preguntas?
Poesía eres tú.

(What is poetry? you say while you pierce
my eyes with your blue eyes.
What is poetry! And you ask me this?
Poetry is you.)

Poem o' the Day

Taking the Naturopaths Out to the Woodshed

Several days ago, PalMD threw a challenge in the naturopaths’ teeth: what would they do as the primary care provider for a patient with a specific set of symptoms? Several responded, trying to defend the woo. They failed rather spectacularly.

PalMD takes them apart in a concluding post. And I think that what he says goes a long way to explaining why medical doctors are rather hostile to naturopaths as a whole. It’s not because they’re competition. It’s because they’re dangerous:

You see, one of the problems with naturopaths, as opposed to other “alternative” healers, is that their education allows them to sound like they know what they’re doing. They are a lot like 2nd-year medical students—they know a lot, but they don’t yet know the extent of their own ignorance (and I think most doctors can tell you how humbling it is to move on from the pre-clinical to the clinical years). This also allows them to get it partly right, which in medicine can be mostly deadly.

The whole post’s worth reading. And if you do, you’ll understand exactly why doctors shudder when patients start to burble about “natural” medicine.

Taking the Naturopaths Out to the Woodshed

Handling Con Tantrums: Ur Doin it Rite

President Obama may be on the wrong road when it comes to torture prosecutions, but he’s doing a fine job handling the Cons’ manufactured outrage:

An interesting, if subtle, shift in Obama’s tone: He’s taken to openly mocking GOP criticism of his willingness to diplomatically engage hostile foreign leaders.

You saw the new tone on display over the weekend, where Obama was questioned by reporters about the widespread GOP criticism of a warm handshake moment he had with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. GOP Senator John Ensign, for instance, said it was “irresponsible” to be seen “laughing and joking” with him.

Obama replied, in part:

Venezuela is a country whose defense budget is probably 1/600th of the United States’. They own Citgo. It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. I don’t think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela.

Obama, in short, ridiculed the very idea that we should see Chavez as a threatening figure, and threw in a bit of mockery of the reporters, to boot.

Awesome.

And, just in case you think he’s being a little too harsh and divisive, consider the opposition:

With “socialism” talk having become tiresome, lazy right-wing voices have decided to climb the attack ladder — “fascist” is one rung higher than “communist.”

“Rhetorically, Republicans are having a very hard time finding something that raises the consciousness of the average voter,” said Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who recently lost a bid to became national party chairman.

Workaday labels like “big spender” and “liberal” have lost their punch, and last fall, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska gained little traction during the presidential campaign by linking Mr. Obama’s agenda to socialism.

So Mr. Anuzis has turned to provocation with a purpose. He calls the president’s domestic agenda “economic fascism.”

“We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” Mr. Anuzis said. “Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.”

Well, I certainly can’t argue with logic like that.

[snip]

But Anuzis’ perspective is especially interesting. He effectively concedes that the right has overused “socialist,” leaving activists like him with no choice but to embrace the worst political epithet they can think of, whether it makes sense or not. The point isn’t to make a coherent argument — perish the thought — but rather to scare the public with the most incendiary insults available in the right-wing imagination.

Anuzis added that it may sound bad to call the President of the United States a “fascist,” but that’s only because “we’re not used to it.” He added, “You’ve got to be careful using the term ‘economic fascism’ in the right way, so it doesn’t come off as extreme.”

Just take a moment. Savor that last sentence there. They want to get us used to hearing the word “fascist” aimed at the POTUS, but they don’t want us to think they’re extreme or anything.

Mockery’s really the only way to handle people this ridiculous. Excellent choice, Mr. President.

Handling Con Tantrums: Ur Doin it Rite

The Things I Learn Watching Teevee

I’ve got NatGeo’s Inside Kung Fu Secrets playing in the background, and I’m wincing. You all get to wince, too.

Did you know there’s such a thing as “Iron Crotch Kung Fu“? I wish I didn’t.

Last year in late October, an unbelievable qigong stunt caught the world’s attention. Three men dragged a truck loaded with 100 passengers a meter across a Taipei parking lot. While towing a meter isn’t very far (even with a 10-ton load) the size didn’t matter as much as the method. They pulled it with their penises. That’s right – read that again if you must – three men hauled 10 tons of truck and passengers by roping their penises to the truck fender and pulling backwards. These men practice the most forbidden qigong kungfu of all – they train their genitals.

[snip]

Master Tu has another extraordinary stunt in the works. He is in the process of getting clearance from the Taiwanese government to borrow a 747 jet airplane. Tu figures 20 to 24 of his top students, by strapping their penises, 6 to 8 men per wheel, can generate combined penis pulling power to move the 18,000-kilogram (39,780 lbs!) 747. That’s over a ton and a half per penis.

People are weird.

The Things I Learn Watching Teevee

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

The merry fuckwits at Faux News are having fun equating Dems to terrorists. Yes, again:

Fox News’ new website is a font of odd and mistaken information, but this one seemed more annoying than most.

An April 17 headline posted on TheFoxNation.com — Fox News’ new and allegedly bias-free website — claimed that the “Taliban Copies Democrat Playbook.” The headline linked to an April 16 New York Times article headlined, “Taliban Exploit Class Rifts in Pakistan.” In fact, the Times article — which described insurgency tactics such as roadside bombs — made no mention of the Democratic Party.

This, apparently, is “Fox Nation’s” idea of being clever. You see, the Taliban is exploiting class rifts in Pakistan, so the Taliban is necessarily emulating the “Democrat [sic] Playbook.” How droll.

As Steve points out, the “fair and balanced” folks at Faux News didn’t get terribly upset when Rep. Pete Sessions had this to say:

“Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. “And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban — I’m not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.”

He added that if Democrats don’t give the minority party more “options or opportunities,” Republicans “will then become an insurgency.”

So, Republicon takes page directly out of Taliban playbook = not news. Taliban does something that can be connected to Dems only in the overheated imaginations of insane right-wing fucktards = totally news. Got it.

This is even more amusing as news arrives that al Qaeda is begging Muslims to stop liking Obama so much.

In other amusing news, another Con has been forced to kiss Rush Limbaugh’s abcessed ass:

Last week in an interview with the Kansas City Star editorial board, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) risked alienating thousands of ditto-heads by giving his honest opinion of whether Rush Limbaugh was the “de facto leader of the GOP.” “No, no, he’s just an entertainer,” Tiahrt said.
According to the Wichita Eagle (via Kansas Jackass), Tiahrt’s office is now also rushing to apologize:

Asked about the episode and resulting Web buzz, Tiahrt spokesman Sam Sackett said Tiahrt was not speaking negatively about Limbaugh but was trying to defend him against the suggestion that Limbaugh could be blamed for the GOP’s woes. “The congressman believes Rush is a great leader of the conservative movement in America — not a party leader responsible for election losses,” Sackett told The Eagle editorial board. “Nothing the congressman said diminished the role Rush has played and continues to play in the conservative movement.”

As ThinkProgress has noted, other Republicans have made similar courageous statements, only to eventually back down in the face of Limbaugh’s great power.

Wow. That was one of the most self-effacing, pathetic retractions I’ve ever seen. Rush Limbaugh is “a great leader of the conservative movement in America”? That’s really over-the-top. Funny to watch them quiver in terror at the wrath of a disgusting gasbag, innit?

Speaking of kissing ass, the New York Times appears to have their lips firmly planted on some Con backside today:

Today’s New York Times has published a whole article devoted to the claim by former Bushies, and some Republicans, that Obama’s release of the torture memos endangered our national security by revealing secret torture techniques that we can now never use again.

It is a matter of simple fact that much about these techniques were already publicly known, well before Obama’s release of the memos.

But today’s Times treats this as a matter of debate, as a claim being made by “Democrats” — even though the Times has itself reported this as outright fact in the past.

Today’s article features paragraph after paragraph from former CIA director Michael Hayden and other Republicans claiming that Obama has tipped off the terrorists to all kinds of secret torture techniques. Here is the only sentence in the article addressing whether this is, you know, true:

Democrats on Sunday played down the importance of the release of the documents, saying that most of the information was already public.

[snip]

As it happens, this info can be found in the paper’s own archives. The Times published an article earlier this month detailing the revelations in the Red Cross report — and even linked to the report itself!

Seems to be a severe case of “theysaiditis
” there. Looks like they’re terrified of being called dirty libruls by the rabid right. Sad.

Ron Paul’s thrown his hat into the secessionist ring with this idiotic statement:

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) recently raised the idea of Texas seceding from the Union as one possible response to President Obama’s fiscal policies. Now, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is following suit. In a video post on his Campaign for Liberty PAC, Paul said the secession debate “is worth a discussion“:

[Perry] really stirred some of the liberal media, where they started screaming about: ‘What is going on here, this is un-American.’ I heard one individual say ‘this is treasonous to even talk about it.’ Well, they don’t know their history very well, because if they think about it…it is very American to talk about secession. That’s how we came in being. Thirteen colonies seceded from the British and established a new country. So secession is a very much American principle.

Hmm. The colonies rebelled, so secession is an “American principle.” Interesting. I’d have thought the Civil War would’ve put paid to that idea, but apparently not in what passes for their minds.

And speaking of Rick Perry, guess who’s been pallin’ around with terrorists:

Media Matters recently released some very disturbing information about Perry:

Media Matters Action Network released a memo outlining Texas Governor Rick Perry’s ties to a Texas secessionist group whose former leaders are responsible for numerous acts of domestic terrorism. “From bomb threats, to kidnapping, to planning attacks using biological weapons, the Texas Nationalist Movement has a long violent history that cannot be ignored,” Media Matters Action Network Managing Director Ari Rabin-Havt said. “Governor Perry should be ashamed of his association with these domestic terrorists.”..read onVery disturbing indeed.

I guess we can expect that bombshell to hit the Faux News headlines right about… never.

Happy Hour Discurso

Building Character

Things may get a little thin around here. I’ve met someone. He’s monopolizing my time, and it’s glorious. You know how it is.

Well, if you’re a writer, you do. Meeting a new character after a long dry spell is indeed a lot like falling bang in love just after you’d resigned yourself to a lifetime alone. Your heart races, you can’t sleep, you can’t eat, and all you want to do is spend every waking moment with them. You obsess over the slightest detail. And you discover something new about them every few moments.

I didn’t want to tell you about him until I had a name. And lemme tell you, finding out his name was a pain in me arse. Some of my characters arrive on the scene fully-named; this guy didn’t. So what’s a writer to do? Turn to naming resources, that’s what.

What’s in a name? A hell of a lot. Deciding to use the link to Shakespearean names shows me that his parents are cultured and a little loopy. This guy’s either going to be super-confident or a bundle of complexes from a childhood of dealing with schoolyard taunts.

But it’s not as simple as just reading down a list of names and picking one at random. For some reason, Tiberius was floating through my head today. I knew it had something to do with his name, but wasn’t what he was called. Middle name. Brilliant. So instead of slogging through the plays one-by-one, head over to a character list to see if Tiberius is in Shakespeare’s plays. Strikeout. However, a quick trot through the intertoobz reveals there is a Shakespearean connection – he may have played Tiberius in his friend Ben Jonson’s play Sejanus. That means his parents are seriously Shakespeare obsessed. Perfecto. And for the first name, Cornelius – easily shortened to Neil, present in both Hamlet and Cymbeline. At least the poor bugger gets to pretend to have a normal name.

Last name – Lancashire echoes through my head. Wrongo. Too many syllables. Dig into British surnames (as he’s from Britain) and discover Leyland. Click on it and discover that Leyland is a name from, guess where? Lancashire. Genius. I’ve got an idea of his accent already. Use Google-fu to discover archival recordings. Oh, dear. Wrong accent, but Wikipedia tells me it’s dying out. The traces of it underlying the typical cultured British accent lend precisely the right flavor. Voila.

And thus we have a name: Cornelius Tiberius Leyland, but you can call him Neil. Please call him Neil. I also know something of his family history, and that he has a healthy sense of humor. His name fits with what I knew of him already: cultured but easy-going, with a very warped idea of the world. He’s a psychiatrist hired on to keep the warriors from developing severe psychological problems. After he’s spent some time with my main bunch, his Parthian shot to a room full of skeptical fighters is, “You’re all completely psychotic. Come see me immediately if any symptoms of normalicy develop.”

I think we’re all going to get along brilliantly.

I’ll be posting his origin story as I write it, if any of you lot are interested. If nothing else, it might help answer the “where do you get your ideas?” question that is the bane of the writer’s existence.

Building Character

Get Yer Treasure in the Chest

We be setting sail from Slobber and Spittle next weekend – submissions are due no later than the end of day Friday, and ye know ye don’t want to be left behind. I’ve seen only one o’ ye step aboard – surely there’s more elitist bastards out there. Send Captain Cujo yer links!

I’ve noticed a dramatic decline in new recruits of late. This won’t do. Allow me to repeat meself: For any o’ ye who’ve never sailed, but think ye might be Elitist Bastard enough to sign on, now’s yer chance! Let’s review the requirements:

1. Write a blog post that blasts ignorance or celebrates some aspect o’ wisdom, or if ye be really ambitious, does both.

2. Post yer post.

3. Send us the link no later than the deadline, or ye be dead in the water.

Simplicity itself, innit? Which means no o’ ye should be left sittin’ on the docks when we sail.

Get Yer Treasure in the Chest

Poem o' the Day

Poems of a political prisoner today, my darlings. Seemed appropriate, considering the subject of the previous post.

Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet spent over a decade in prison for his communist views. His poetry captures his experiences perfectly, and gives us a glimpse of what political dissidents must endure.

POEMS FOR PIRAYE (9 TO 10 O’CLOCK POEMS)

Our son is sick
his father in prison
your heavy head
fallen in your tired palms
the laughter drained from your golden eyes.

People
will surely carry people
on to sunnier days
our son will get well
his father out of prison
your golden eyes
will fill with laughter once more…
Our fate
is the world’s fate.

AFTER RELEASE FROM PRISON

Awake.
Where are you?
At home.
Still unaccustomed-
awake or sleeping-
to being in your own home.
This is just one more of the stupefactions
of spending thirteen years in a prison.
Who’s lying at your side?
Not loneliness, but your wife,
in the peaceful sleep of an angel.
Pregnancy looks good on a woman.
What time is it?
Eight.
That means you’re safe until evening.
Because it’s the practice of police
Never to raid homes in broad daylight.

Poem o' the Day

Prosecutions. Now.

This is what the Bush regime turned us in to:

Marcy Wheeler scrutinized some of the Bush administration’s torture memos and discovered a striking statistic.

According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. […]

[T]two two-hour sessions a day, with six applications of the waterboard each = 12 applications in a day. Though to get up to the permitted 12 minutes of waterboarding in a day (with each use of the waterboard limited to 40 seconds), you’d need 18 applications in a day. Assuming you use the larger 18 applications in one 24-hour period, and do 18 applications on five days within a month, you’ve waterboarded 90 times — still just half of what they did to KSM.

[snip]

If waterboarding was an effective torture technique, why on earth did officials feel the need to administer it 183 times on one individual? What kind of sadist thinks, “We didn’t get the information we wanted after torturing him 182 times, but maybe once more will do the trick”?

The kind of sadists who are now walking free after committing war crimes. They’re giving speeches, teaching law students, and presiding over courtrooms. We used to prosecute and imprison other torturers. We used to be morally outraged over sadism like this. Now, our leaders seem to think it’s not that big a deal.

It’s time we got outraged. They need to understand that this isn’t partisan or dwelling on the past. Crimes against humanity must be prosecuted. We have to face what we’ve done.

I was going to write a long, detailed post about this. Cujo got there first, and said all that needs to be said:

The New York Times published an editorial today on the Dept. Of Justice (DoJ) memos released last week by the Obama Administration. These memos were an attempt to put legal lipstick on the pig that was the Bush Administration’s desire to torture detainees suspected of terrorism. The editorial starts out:

To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity.

Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before being locked in a box with an insect — all to stop just short of having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture and abusive treatment of prisoners.

The Torturers’ Manifesto

[snip]

We’re bound both by treaties we’ve signed and as a civilized nation to investigate these crimes. Doing any less will not only be a stain on our honor as a society, but will probably encourage more such crimes in the future. If we don’t behave by these rules now, we can’t expect that anyone else will do so later when they are holding our people.

What’s worse, if we don’t do our duty as a civilization, there are others who will do it for us. Should that happen, we will be forced to choose between extraditing former Bush Administration officials as Article 7 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture demands, or not living up to that treaty obligation, as well. History won’t be kind if others are required to clean up the mess we’ve made, especially if we refuse to cooperate in that effort.

One thing you can do to demand that these crimes be investigated is sign this FireDogLake online petition that demands that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate these memos and decide if charges should be brought.

Take action. We must show our current leaders that the crimes of the past can’t simply be buried and forgotten.

Prosecutions. Now.