"... like pliers. Rubber hoses. Ice-picks. Batons in the rectum and/or vagina. Electrodes. Things like that...."

Haven't you heard? The vaginas Steve comes into contact with are already, uhm, occupied.

You know, cell phones, grenades, small creatures with very sharp teeth.....I'm pretty sure that last one was just one of his fantasies.

HEATHER?

-- Holly McLachlan

I don't agree at all but never mind that. I'm not asking for an elaboration. I'm just wondering what the "HEATHER?" in your title in that comment was connected to.

Data is for sissies.
- Holly McLachlan channeling the Ticking Vagina Man™ (scathew)

Yes. I can easily imagine him arguing that point.

The last refuge of the numerically illiterate.

You can't risk the links if your don't understand the math. You might inadvertently cross-cut your own argument. It's so much safer to simply make an assertion without the data, especially when you can't interpret what the data is telling you.

small creatures with very sharp teeth

It's those sharp teeth gnashing away.

Langoliers !!!!

So, Glenn: Our Shooting of Captured German Soldiers NOT In Uniform Was.. against Geneva?

Yes ... although I'd point out for the historically-challenged here that the 1949 Geneva Conventions (in particular GC3) hadn't been passed then.

I'd also point out that, except this one incident where prosecution was declined (but no affirmative acquittal was made on such basis), all instances of summary execution of spies, saboteurs, partisans, or such "out-of-uniform" soldiers in WWII was done by the Nazis, Imperial Japan, or the Soviets.

Cheers,

@WBRODERJR

I wish you well. I wish us all well. Let's end wars and begin universal health care. Let's stop hurting and start healing. I wish you well.

You are incorrect, though, to compare Glenn Greenwald with Bill O'Reilly. Glenn's position is based upon a well-informed knowledge of the facts and a graduate degree in constitutional law. Bill is an ignorant blowhard who esteems his biased opinions to be equal to sound reason and higher learning.

From what I read, they are not all narrow sects. -- Steele the First

I strongly suspect that some of your reading is derived from real anti-Semitic sources. (not that they'll out themselves as such -- they just pretend to be "unbiased" on their websites for the uninitiated... like global warming deniers who sneer at kumabayists worried about polar bears, but who fail to mention the sources of their funding anywhere in their otherwise capacious websites).

Anyway, here again is the double-standard. So I take it we can never quote the Pope, or an Ayatollah, or any Catholic Priest or Evangelical leader or Muslim cleric who argues for genocide or hate or war? Because none of those people or positions represent a large group of people, eh? -- Steele the First

The Lubavitchers are a distinct, extreme and controversial group even among the Orthodox. They had/have quite a non-orthodox cult of personality developed around that deceased rebbe you quoted. Shas, to the best of my knowledge, is a political party formed by & for Sephardic ultra-orthodox in Israel. Neither "represent[s] a large group of people". Unlike the other prelates you mention above.
Neither Kook nor the leader of Shas could speak ex cathedra on behalf of their own constituents. As for the authority of Schneerson to speak for his group --- that was part of what made him & them controversial.

Bill O'Reilly is a graduate of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. So much for "higher learning."

Skimming through wbrooksjr's banal and tiresome Pragmatism™-- it's what's for dinner!-- reminds me that I need to move Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" to the top of my reading list.

I believe I've gotten the gist of it from seeing Naomi on "Democracy Now" and reading intelligent blog comments from readers. Those of you who have read the book correct me if I'm wrong.

But isn't her thesis exactly that political and financial powers and principalities collude to produce economic crises, and take advantage of the resulting social shock and hysteria to pass malignant legislation that furthers the interests of the ruling elites at the expense of ordinary citizens, and otherwise act or fail to act toward this end?

OK, a bit of run-on there. Put another way, isn't Klein's analysis that it is decidedly not happenstance that We the People are recurrently led to crossroads designed and built by political and financial institutions in which the "reasonable" (practical, pragmatic, worldly-wise, urbane, sophisticated but sensible) citizen is led by the nose to declare, "Yes, government officials have committed serious irregularities and heinous wrongs, even possibly crimes. But given the dire state of the economy, and the continuing dire threat of terrorism, it's utterly insipid and foolish to attend to such abstract Merry Mixups instead of ministering to the masses afflicted by abundant sociopolitical evils!"

Damn the run-ons. It's sad to find that an incisive, insightful writer and thinker could so plainly expose the Games Powers Play, only to find the lemming-like populace taking the bait and sanctimoniously regurgitating it in response to sound critiques.

The duopoly and the gummint have these half-bright Sensible Folk right where they want them.

L.A. Times says California to go belly up:

The state will suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, Controller John Chiang announced Friday.... California is projected to be $346 million short of the funds it needs to pay all its bills in February. By March, the state would be so far in the red that even continuing to suspend payments would not cover the shortfall. California would be insolvent, making the issuance of IOUs likely.

The USA outspends the whole world in war making (not counting these suplemental bills for the two hot wars) and we could save about a trillion a year if we did not run an empire --- and give a few bucks to Arnold.

Will Obama reduce war spending? I say no, but time will tell.

"You work with what you have."

Suggest you save it for the wife, Derbig, 'cos its sure lost on us.