Kudos to all of you. What I take away in summary (buttressing what I have already long believed) is that the utilitarian ends-justify-the-means upside of torture is almost purely speculative and not advanced one whit by the "Imminent Mass Attack Threat" canard, whereas, in my view (and I'm in good company on this point), the downside could not be more obvious. It is plausibly estimated that our aggregate WOT detainee false positive rate has been about 90%. Unless we kill them all after torturing them, we simply add, long-term, to the likelihood of terror attack. And, that's just the utilitarian cost/benefit piece, aside from the "war crimes" and wholly moral concerns.

FYI- technical point (I am a quantitative risk analyst by training and experience), in proper usage, "threat" means a hypothesized "risk" of unknown (and frequently unknowable) magnitude, whereas "risks" are properly those that can be quantitatively estimated. That's why the phrase "known imminent threat" is oxymoronic.

BTW- Read this:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2008/080212-letter_ret-mil-ldrs.htm

But, hey, what the fuck do they know?

In particular, Slackie Onassis hit it right on the head. His Supreme Excellency Jorge W. Somoza-Bu'ush and his entire retinue of Oligarch-wannabees pine for a time when the insolent serfhood will just have to STFU of be summarily dealt with harsh finality in secret.

in an otherwise on-point and substantive post.

http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/02/15/oreilly/permalink/17e1d013667749bb4605e0f172e6294d.html

If that's gonna be cause for deletion/expulsion, you can have this prissy place. I'll take my observations elsewhere.

... the victims must have done something wrong. Otherwise, why would they be detainees?

_________

Ahhhh...straight out of the Mickey Meese Club School of Ronnie Raygun Constitutional Jurisprudence. Recall (Oct. 1985)?

"If you're not guilty, you're not a suspect, by definition."

Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese.

LOL.

A relatively small ragtag cohort of cave- and mudhut dwellers, armed mostly with the most crude weapons this side of rocks and spears, have managed to stymie our 400 billion dollar military and cow our Dollar-Dazed population in into deer-in-the-headlights acquiescence toward and complicity in the conversion of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave into a perpetually frightened fascist/neo-Nazi state, one increasingly no better than the putative radical Caliphate of our fevered nightmares.

My father left a leg behind on a battlefield in Europe in 1944 for this?

My Dad is approaching the age of 92, wheelchair-bound in a nursing home and addled with dementia. I am now his legal guardian. He, a life-long Republican, would be aghast at what is being done in our name by this administration.

A: Start out with at least two million dollars.

I do PR and marketing stuff for the baddest band in Las Vegas, Santa Fe and The Fat City Horns. 14 of our best casino show players who do this soul/salsa/jazz band on the side, for mental health. I used to play for a living. I pay more in taxes than I used to gross when I was gigging.

These cats make less money on this gig than I made in my last band in the early 1980's.

At least our horn section got picked up by Bette Midler for her new show which starts here Wednesday (check my blog).

Nice observations about jazz vs rock cats, Gary. I feel ya.

Missed opportunity last night:

CLINTON: “…change you can Xerox.”

OBAMA: “Right, You’re gonna these voters in the eyes and expect them to believe that you made that ‘got’cha’ one-liner up.”

What was the joke that Legend-In-His-Own-Mind Limbaugh got away with? (I don't think he originated it, but he repeated it) "...the reason Chelsea is so ugly is because her father is Janet Reno."

'eh? The knuckle-dragging wingnuts (including Limbaugh's father, Ann-The-Mega-Skank Coulter) get to routinely spew the most egregious shit imaginable, but a "librul" does it, and it's time for Falafel Bill's "lynching party."

Just checking.

To White House Spokesmodel Dana Peroxide, STFU.

at Hillary's overblown claims of "35 years of experience." If that hyperbolic shit was put in a normal resume and proffered for a normal civvy job, your ass would be toast in a heartbeat. Moreover, her "experience" regarding her ham-handed "Mrs Proxy President" attempt at health care reform during the 90's (driven by Mr. Legend-In-His-Own-Mind Ira Magaziner) doesn't assure me one whit, as neither does her cowardly AUMF vote.

I agree with other posters as well that running around the world meeting and shaking hands with other functionaries and diplomatic glitterati at receptions and banquets does not sum up to substantive policy decision making experience of the kind that will be required.

Her chops are mostly limited to those of the domestic backroom political knife fighting type.

I think people are gonna see right through this Fear Card tactic, and I bet Obama will shoot it down straight away, just as he's been rather effectively doing with every cheap canard thrown at him to date.

desperation.

"The Law of the jungle is 'Eat or Be Eaten.' The law of civilization is 'Define or Be Defined.""

In other words, don't let Hillary (or McCain) frame the argument.

Sans-Lapel-Pin Sheik bin al BaraBlackHusseinOsamaBama's focused retorts have been nothing if not adept.

I was initially pro- John Edwards, marginally. Then I was OK with either Clinton or Obama. But, I gotta say, she looks increasingly shrill and desperate (and phony), while Barack evinces steady aggregate poise.

I am no longer comfortable with her.

'eh?

BTW- I had to scratch my PhotoShop itch this afternoon.

http://www.bgladd.com/JohnMcBuush.jpg

LOL.

http://www.bgladd.com/JohnMcBuush.jpg

Something is happening in the world...

...and the phone doesn't ring in the Bu'ush White House because these dipwads are outa money and didn't pay the fucking phone bill on time.

North Of The Mexican Border Free Trade Agreement.