How the US set the gold standard for torture

Jeremy Scahill’s book Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (2013) describes how the US became one of the most sophisticated torture regimes the world has ever known. It started out by the government creating the program known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) that was meant to train US forces to be able to resist torture if they were captured by enemy forces. They studied all the torture practices from medieval times onwards to distill out the most effective ones and created a SERE manual to be used as part of survival training exercises. [Read more…]

The oppression that is being scandalously ignored

Suzanne Venker has come to the defense of the most beleaguered group in America, one that is cruelly put upon from all sides, from being bashed in the media to having schools and colleges stacked against them, all the while being falsely accused of all manner of abuses while their own victimhood is ignored. She says this group has become second-class citizens. [Read more…]

Another mysterious burglary

Remember the mysterious burglary of a computer laptop in Brazil in Glenn Greenwald’s home just after he emailed that he would be sending an encrypted message home? We now have another mysterious burglary at a Dallas law firm which only computers were taken and other valuables (including silver bars and video equipment) were ignored. The firm had been hired by a different whistleblower, this time in the State Department. [Read more…]

Hovercraft golf cart

So you have achieved your dream of making a ton of money and have been accepted to membership in an exclusive country club. But you still feel dissatisfied because you do not stand out from your fellow members as being obviously more wealthy than they, since all of you drive the same expensive cars, wear the same expensive clothes, and use the same expensive golf clubs. [Read more…]

Truth values of conditional statements

Conditional statements (i.e., statements of the form “If p, then q”, where p and q are statements) are staples of logic and are used widely in mathematics, science, philosophy, and everyday life. How do we judge whether such statements are true or not? Normally this is achieved by looking at whether each of the statements p and q are true or not, and whether the consequence follows from the antecedent. But it is not always that simple. [Read more…]

A different look at the Snowden case

Via Juan Cole, I came across this excellent news clip from a British TV station below that summarizes the status of the Edward Snowden case. While it is a pretty accurate summary of the current situation, what I found particularly is interesting is skeptical tone that the reporters display about the US government’s claims, unlike the major US media that tends to treat them as if they have automatic credibility. They also point out the hypocrisy of Microsoft’s claims to protect their customers’ privacy, the hollowness of which was exposed by the latest revelations, though this big news disappeared rapidly from US news channels. [Read more…]

It feels good to have the right opponents

Sometimes people write in the comments that in support of some position or another, I have quoted people who may have dubious views on other issues. This does not necessarily bother me. I don’t expect people to agree with me on everything and when I read something that is persuasive, I do not check on the other views of the person writing it, unless he or she is basing the argument on something factual that requires checking. If the facts underlying it are not in dispute, the persuasiveness of an argument should stand or fall on the quality of the argument itself. [Read more…]