Center for Advanced Sarcasm

...has been a good one for our society. If nothing else, it shows that we’re finally able to self-reflect again after years of generally being self-defensive. And unlike many of these debates, there are more than two vantage points given consideration: torture is wrong, torture doesn’t work, torture is a necessary evil, what we do is not really torture, and so forth.

At this juncture, however, the cases have been made for each of the various perspectives on the issue and it’s time for our nation to make its choice: to torture or not to torture?

If we decide that we’re not going to torture, then we’ve got to go all the way and stop using any interrogation technique that could be construed as torture by others. No more pushing the envelope with things like waterboarding and stress positions. Whether or not individual Americans think these practices constitute torture is irrelevant since clearly many people across the globe do (and there’s no doubt we’d consider them to be torture if done to our soldiers). We probably will even need to take the position that if our non-torture policy means that terrorists will have an easier time attacking us, then so be it. Nobody said doing the right thing was painless.

On the other hand, if we’re going to approve of using torture to obtain intelligence then we need to be honest about it. We should let it be known that any enemy of the United States may be subject to any treatment deemed necessary to glean information that will help us. Torture and war go hand-in-hand, and if we’re going to wage war against terror then we might as well be committed to it. Any time you wage war you’re suspending your sense of morality to begin with, and often times in war the side that is most committed and most ruthless is the one that wins.

The only other option is to continue with our lukewarm acceptance of torture as long as it’s not too gory and generally kept off the official record. But denial and rationalization are never healthy for individuals or societies.

This is a good one:, spotted on a SUV at the local mall: "Jesus is coming.  RUE?"

It would be interesting to look back at records of people who commit suicide and see what percentage of them were dog owners.    My guess would be that very few are.

... but I'm kind of siding with the AIG employees on the whole bonus controversy. For one, I don't think the government should be using taxation as a form of punishment especially when it is levied specifically at people who have not been found guilty of breaking any laws nor given due process. Second, AIG is a large and diversified company and it's fair to assume that many of the employees were probably not involved in the credit default schemes that brought the company down. If it's anything like Wachovia or Citibank, most of the businesses units remained profitable. Third, it seems reasonable to assume that if the government is going to loan money to a company to keep it afloat then one of the things they're going to do with that money is meet payroll and contractual obligations.

I get the sense that this whole controversy over a drop in the bucket is a smokescreen/attempt at scapegoating. Obama and Congress are out of line on this one.

for those folks that fell for Bernie Madoff's investment scheme.  Sure, he defrauded people, but he only took money that they were willing to do without.  

...I've never had a virus fuck up my computer.  And I've been using computers on a regular basis since probably 1997 or so.  

http://www.sixwordstories.net/

is that they try to decide what the Best movies and actors are before the films and performances have undergone the test of time.  We really won't know what the best movie of 2009 was until around 2019,  at least.  For example, if the vote was held today, would Dance With Wolves still be considered a better film than Goodfellas?  Does anybody really think that Star Wars was not the best movie made in 1977?