A parent complained about Sarah Brannen’s book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, about same-sex marriage, that was in the children’s book section in the Douglas County Library system in Colorado. Librarian Jamie Larue wrote an excellent, kind, and thoughtful response to the library patron about why the library is not going to move or remove the book.
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars reports on his recent exchanges on a religion law mailing list with former Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, in which Klingensmitt repeatedly makes false statements and attacks straw men. UPDATE: After reading more about Klingenschmitt, I’m going with dishonest. RBH (2008-07-24): Klingenschmitt: Intellectually dishonest or merely lazy?False dichotomy. You neglected the most likely alternative: "crazy." Lippard (2008-07-24): I'll be happy to accept that additional disjunct. ...
Scott Conover was arrested by a Johnson County, TN sheriff’s deputy for taking his picture during a traffic stop–not his own, someone else’s. He drove up to a stop in progress, slowed down, took a picture with his iPhone, and kept going. Officer Kenneth Lane went after him, pulled him over, falsely claimed that taking a picture of him was illegal and that he had to turn it over, and then arrested the guy, using two sets of handcuffs. The charge: “disorderly conduct, unlawful photographing, and pointing a laser at law enforcement officers”–all three of which were bogus. More information, including a link to the officer’s barely literate report, written four days after the fact, at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. UPDATE (August 9, 2008): Turns out there’s more to the story, and it makes the cops look even worse. Conover was taking a picture of what was part of an ongoing campaign of harassment against him, by going after the patrons of his bar. In this particular case, Conover knew that the driver of the car was a woman who was acting as designated driver for her husband, and only the husband had been drinking, and so he followed to take pictures to document what was going on. And this harassment of his patrons began after Conover was a witness to deputies beating up a man outside of his establishment, and he made a statement supporting that man. Conover had also previously sued the sheriff’s department and settled for an undisclosed sum.
If you’re the wife of a criminal defense attorney, you can get arrested for DUI even if you’ve not had a single drink. (This one was right here in Mesa, Arizona.) If you’re a cop, the expectation is that you won’t get arrested for DUI even if you crash your car because you’re so drunk you can’t remember what year it is. Because if a cop arrests a cop for DUI, things get ugly.
When in 2002 military trainers came to Guantanamo Bay to teach a course on interrogation techniques, they included a chart of the effects of prospective techniques. That chart came from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War on U.S. soldiers to extract false confessions. The study, by Albert D. Biderman, was titled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War." UPDATE (July 8, 2008): Ed Brayton comments on how McCain’s torture using these very techniques led to a false confession–so why do we believe that torture will lead to true confessions? ...
Christopher Hitchens decided to experience waterboarding first-hand at the hands of experts, and he did so twice. He vividly describes the experience in Vanity Fair, which also has video.
I just figured out that Trevor Paglen, the co-author of Torture Taxi, a book about how planespotting was used to track information about the CIA’s extraordinary rendition flights, is also the author of I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon’s Black World, for which he appeared on the Colbert Report. At his blog, I’ve learned that the pilots of the CIA rendition flights associated with Khalid El-Masri have been identified at Sourcewatch, where you can also find extensive information about the planes and the fictional owners of the companies that operate them (in particular see the companies Premier Executive Transport Services and Bayard Foreign Marketing, which have both owned the same Gulfstream V (PDF), nicknamed the “Guantanamo Bay Express”). El-Masri, a German citizen, was kidnapped in Macedonia and taken to a CIA black site called the “Salt Pit” in Afghanistan, where he was tortured, then later released in Albania after a second order to do so by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (the first was ignored). He was taken because his name resembled that of suspected al Qaeda operative Khalid al-Masri. El-Masri’s lawsuit against the CIA and three private companies that operated planes involved with his transport was dismissed in 2006 on grounds of state secrets privilege, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in 2007. He has also sued in Germany, where there are outstanding warrants for pilots Eric Robert Hume, James Kovalesky, and Harry Kirk Ellarbee. All three of these pilots work or worked for alleged CIA front company Aero Contractors Ltd., live in Johnston County, North Carolina and have been visited by the German press in unsuccessful attempts to interview them. The German warrants were passed to Interpol, but the German government declined to ask the U.S. for extradition after an informal request was given a negative reply. El-Masri was sent to a mental institution in 2007 after being arrested for arson and an assault on a truck-driving instructor.
Well, apart from those in the illegal drug business themselves, who benefit from the lack of legal competition, it looks like the big winners are government contractors–DynCorp and now Blackwater. Mark (2008-06-16): According to NPR today, various police departments in Texas are profiting very nicely from the war on drugs. Lippard (2008-06-16): Yep, good point--I didn't even make passing reference to the abuse of civil forfeiture in the war on drugs.It's not just Texas! ...
The June 7, 2008 issue of The Economist reports that Hugo Chavez issued a decree late last month which: authorises police raids without warrant, the use of anonymous witnesses and secret evidence. Judges are obliged to collaborate with the intelligence services. Anyone caught investigating sensitive matters faces jail. The law contains no provision for any kind of oversight. It blurs the distinction between external threats and internal political dissent. It requires all citizens, foreigners and organisations to act in support of the intelligence system whenever required–or face jail terms of up to six years.Though my employer operates in Venezuela, I think that’s one South American country I’d rather not visit at the moment… I hope November’s elections reduce Chavez’s power and he steps down from power in 2013 as he’s previously said that he would. And Daniel Ortega has suspended elections in Nicaragua… another country to avoid. ...
McCain continues to demonstrate mind-boggling ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, for someone who has already sworn numerous times to uphold it. He’s clearly unfit to be president–he’s either ignorant of U.S. history or being dishonest in order to pander to the religious right. (I previously reported similar remarks by McCain last October.) The Bible and the Christian tradition do not support a limited constitutional republic–if you got your politics from the Bible or Christian tradition, you’d argue for a monarchy with virtually limitless power. That’s probably part of the reason that the Bush administration has argued against any limits on executive power. (From Atheist Media Blog by way of Pharyngula.) ...