Happy May!

It finally seems as if we're getting good weather. Aside from another month or so of questionable temp drops and heavy duty thunderstorms...it's almost summer! Sort of.

I'm enjoying all the tulips and plants starting to sprout -- but on the blog front, its all about torture. The last couple of weeks has been eye-opening to say the least. The left is calling for criminal prosecutions and accountability and the right (including former Bushies) is saying they changed the laws, so it wasn't illegal, and that it is justifiable because it worked. One guess which side I fall on.

Here are a couple of things that caught my eye:

*DB Watch - The Deluxe Edition.

*Andrew Sullivan's Quote of the Day for April 23rd:
"I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture..." - Official proclamation by President Bush, June 26, 2003.


*A New York Times op-ed by Ali Soufan, former FBI interrogator on why torture does not provide "actionable intelligence" -- here.

*Another quote - from a Greg Mitchell piece on the Huffington Post. Former Army Sgt Kayla Williams on being in "over the line" interrogations in Mosul.

In general, interrogation is not fun, even if you follow the rules. And I didn't see any good intelligence being gained. The other problem is that, in situations like that, you have people that are not terrorists being picked up, and being questioned. And, if you treat an innocent person like that, they walk out a terrorist.

*Urban Word of the Day - April 25th.
April 25: tolerance juice

Any concoction of alcohol used to help tolerate a person, a place, or a situation.
In theory, the more tolerance juice you consume, the less annoyed you will be.

Without tolerance juice the person, place, or situation is quite simply, well, intolerable and you could potentially slip into a rage blackout.

Warning: Excessive consumption of tolerance juice may result in memory loss and/or loss of clothing.

Can we find a way to distribute in local water supplies?

*A quote from Condi (via The Dish). Almost Nixonian.

"The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture... The United States was told, we were told, nothing that violates our obligations under the Convention Against Torture, and so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture," - Condi Rice.