Thank you. I'd not been able to get in touch with him to find out. I knew it was imminent. I am sorry I missed the post.

I hope you're still around. I've been waiting to respond to your letter which I read much later. I thought I had lost the announcement, but did eventually find it. I have sent a copy to Jebbie for you.

The last three lines were:

I tried to focus on the innocent beauty.

Wonderful moment. Precious moment.

So, and I toast... I hope. Good to you.

eriposte at The Left Coaster wrote something a few days ago which some of you may be interested in:

The Jewish State

My question to [Tom] Segev [of the WaPO] would be:

Why does he believe there is a need today to consider Israel a Jewish state - as opposed to the State of Israel that would allow its Jewish majority to advance their interests and preserve their traditions and culture?

[harpie just has to put something here because I don’t know how else to end a double blockquote :-)]

The link:

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/013708.php

also[maybe] at sig.

Try and try again

Are the icicles thawed out yet?

Ondelette said [many moons ago on this thread]:

That is a goal here, and it is as much an American goal as an Israeli one. It has nothing to do with Judaism or (in America) Christianity, it has nothing to do with Islam, it has nothing to do with age old tribal disputes, hatreds, or anything else than a determined group of people who want an end to laws and restrictions that prohibit inhumanity.

One of the tactics in this attack on The Law is the misuse and misconstruing of language, such as:

September 15, 2006-Bush lobbies for the Military Commissions Act, asserting that the Geneva Conventions Article III [“outrages upon human dignity”] is “very vague” and that it is a “statement that is wide open to interpretation." The MCA is signed into law on October 17, 2006. [16]

There were plenty of people who knew, and stated, what that phrase meant. But who is master?

'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.”

</ harpie's "broken record" rant

...that is really great! Thanks!

wrt:Condi. I thought is was interesting that the story was put out as a "shaming" of Condi. To me, it seemed like a perfect picture of the "calling to heel" of GWB.

I have long thought that Powell and Rice were placed in the administration [and in the DoS in particular] precisely in order to "shame" them and because it was thought they could be kept "in their place", all the while making it possible for the GOP to appear to be open-minded.

Latvian and Lithuanian...but not Latin.

1. The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.

Maybe a dumb question...but...

I read a while back that Bush purchased a large amount of acreage in Paraguay. Is Paraguay a signatory of the CAT?

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/catsigs.html

But what does it mean? Paraguay has ratified it but not "made declaration, under Article 22, that they agree to allow individual complaints to the Committee against Torture"?

for the answer.

of signatories to the CAT

http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&id=129&chapter=4&lang=en

Retzillian: I am in total empathetic agreement with what you wrote.

Ondelette: [A big] thanks, once again, for helping me out.

Iokannan in the Well: wrt: “perhaps we've been numbed by the antics of the fictitious Jack Bauer, held up as a model 'American hero'”

Last week I had this conversation with friends who are addicted to that show. I told them that Jane Mayer had written an article in The New Yorker in 2007, in which she said

"[...] In fact, [U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point] and the others had come to voice their concern that the show’s central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. “I’d like them to stop,” Finnegan said of the show’s producers. “They should do a show where torture backfires.” [...]"

Read the article:

Whatever it TakesThe Politics of the Man Behind "24"

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

They listened to me wide-eyed, and all they could say was, “Really? You know I had noticed that they had recently tried to humanize him [Bauer] somewhat.”

They seemed pretty “numbed” to me.

linked to the article about Executive Office e-mails.

I would just like to re-iterate my rant about Executive Order 13233.

Permalink at sig.

He even uses the "ticking time bomb" rationale for his musings. What a load of crap.

If I would only use that nifty "preview" feature.

Mukasy is worried about protecting lawyers...