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Current music:	The Offspring - Pay the Man

Etc

I rarely disagree with E.J. Dionne's columns and twice in a row is unprecedented, but this nearly made me laugh out loud:

But the more important question is whether conservative judges will see fit to do exctly what conservative courts did for much of the New Deal era by using a narrow, 19th-century definition of property rights to void progressive economic, environmental and labor regulation.

Yeah, he is upset that those 1930s judges respected the precedent of the time. Dionne writes as if being "progressive" should have made the constitutionality of New Deal legislation unassailable when there were serious questions at the time of whether Congress had the lawful power to pass these types of laws. FDR got around it by lasting long enough to appoint judges that he knew from the start would support his programs. That does not make these judges any more correct in interpreting the Constitution than their predecessors, and there are valid arguments that they might not have been.

There remains a valid cause for concern that conservative judges would throw out some federal laws as unconstitutional. The commercial groups that would rather not be regulated have spent a lot of money promoting interpretations that would be in their favour.

Guantanamo Bay torture techniques based on Korean War era document titled "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War". Seriously. Read that again and try not to laugh or cry.

Now think of all the times you have had some Republican tool tell you that the information gained from this torture is so important and reliable that ending the torture would threaten our national security.

Clever workaround: The Pentagon has become so comfortable with lying about Iraq that they probably lie to themselves about it, but the mercenaries who have money involved in the war will want to know what is really going on. The Washington Independent has a tidbit of information in that regard. I would like to see more.

A student in Britain wrote "fuck off" on a writing test. The amused professor decided to give him two points out of the 27 possible because he at least spelled "fuck" and "off" correctly, and the essay certainly conveyed a meaning. Judging by most of the headlines I've seen on the subject (example), the media is having a hissy fit about it. In all the fuss about the integrity of English instruction, no one has done the math to see that 2/27 is a failing grade. It is bad for a failing grade. It is a "fuck off, yourself!" grade. The student is not exactly being rewarded here.

Other linkage:

• The latest news on the Gora Prai incident, where the US bombed a Pakistani border outpost. Here's a link to my earlier LJ post about the incident.
• A Time Magazine article on the current goings-on in Afghanistan.
• A CIA agent says he was ordered to lie about Iran's nuclear activities
• You think corruption is bad where you live? In south China, a man went to the police to complain about the lack of progress in investigating the rape and murder of his niece. So they killed him.
• Rioting in Mongolia over disputed election returns. In other news, there is news coming out of Mongolia.
• Nelson Mandela is still considered an active terrorist by the US
• Someone was arrested for making a bomb threat at Los Angeles Airport. Knowing absolutely nothing more beyond that, as this is a new story and the facts aren't in yet, what do you think the chances are that the "bomb threat" did not in any way resemble a bomb threat but was a sarcastic comment making fun of airport security?
• US soldier goes AWOL and flees to Canada, Pentagon fails to notice and gives him a normal discharge a few months later, soldier fails to notice and becomes a celebrity refusenik in Canada
• Fox News alters photographs of New York Times journalists to make them look ugly
• A corporation called "BMW Direct" raises millions of dollars for lesser-known Republican candidates, then keeps the money. The numbers make me wonder if they are just swindling the candidates or if there is money laundering going on.
• Wall-E is a warez hound
• Information about the Tunguska event of 1908