To TL's usual (and well-founded) rule of thumb, of not celebrating when someone finds themselves in the prosecutor's sights.  

The Coultergeist's personal (alleged) vote fraud case has gone to the Prosecutor's office.

And it's all her fault.

I am not, by nature, a violent or vindictive person. Though I may rage at times against the injustice and inhumanity and incompetence that I witness around me, I thankfully seem to possess sufficient self-restraint and judgment not to act out the anger, frustration, and despair that such circumstances can evoke--at least, not physically. Of course, being human and not wishing to bottle up all my feelings, I do occasionally indulge myself in vengeful imaginings. It's a healthy tonic for these moronic times (and, apparently, still legal in 38 states). There's nothing like a little darkly retributive fantasy to put a spring in your step.

So what should greet my eyes like a rude poke earlier this week but news that the American death toll in Iraq for the month of October had reached 100, making it "the fourth deadliest month for American troops since the war began in March 2003"? Meanwhile, as the blood of these brave young soldiers seeps into foreign soil, the second coming of the Three Stooges--Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld--continue to insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that there is "a plan for victory" and "the outcome is certain. We'll prevail." What a load of horse manure! They can attempt to cover or pretty it up all they want, but, at the end of the day, it still smells like crap and draws flies. Such glib assurances from those who, by proxy, wreak horrible death and destruction anger me deeply.

We only have a few more days to the election, how about a pool on when the Osama bin Laden Tape will emerge.
I will put up a ten spot, on Thursday to be redeemed at the Boulder Drinking Liberally. The White House doesn't want it to get dumped along with all the bad news on take out the trash day.

Torture takes its toll on our society in many and different ways.  People who have been following this issue over the years sometimes say that the sanctioning of torture by the Bush administration is nothing new.  This is true, but only half true.

It is true, I think, that what we are seeing is a form of  "blowback."  Having authorized, winked at, and taught torture to regimes abroad during the Cold War (as has been amply documented by analysts like historian Alfred McCoy and human rights lawyer Jennifer Harbury), we now find it seeping back increasingly into our domestic life.  Harrowing reports about what has gone on police stations in places like Chicago and Brooklyn are only the tip of the iceberg.  

A vicious feedback loop seems to exist among various sectors, including prisons at home, detention facilities abroad, and training programs in how to resist if tortured when caught, the latter of which, as Jane Mayer has shown, have now morphed into training programs on how to do it.

At the same time, what we are seeing is a whole new level -- unprecedented in our history -- of blatancy and legalization.  The Military Commissions Act, if not overturned, will mark the end of democracy as we have known it.

The point I want to make, however, is that once permitted, torture proliferates, and that once it starts to proliferate, it touches many lives, and that it does so in many tragic ways.

"Criminal means, once tolerated," wrote Edmund Burke, "are soon preferred."  And once they are preferred, they begin to crush more lives even than those of the tortured.

Mystery Solved:

Interrogator Killed Herself Rather than Be a Torturer

Alyssa Peterson ?

Kevin Elston

KNAU Arizona Public Radio

October 31, 2006

www.publicbroadcasting.net/knau/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=989178

Army specialist Alyssa Peterson was an Arabic speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at the Tal-afar airbase in far northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border. According to the Army's investigation into her death, obtained by a KNAU reporter through the Freedom of Information Act, Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.

Instead she was assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards. She was sent to suicide prevention training. But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle.

Alyssa Peterson graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona, before being deployed to the Middle East in 2003.

[via Erin in Flagstaff at Daily Kos]

I wish I could love my country and still love justice. --Albert Camus

Those to whom the public delegates the ever vital authority to serve and protect must ever operate with good prudence and judgment. There is little question that these individuals and agencies are charged with great responsibility and have a challenging job to perform, particularly as that job often requires balancing competing needs and risks and making quick decisions upon which people's lives may depend. On occasion--though it may feel counterintuitive--the authorities must opt to forgo or relinquish intervention, because the potential costs of pursuing such exceed the potential benefits. Thus, however unfortunate, there are times when ending a pursuit is the wisest and safest choice.

These circumstances are brought to mind as a result of the Supreme Court's decision this past week to hear arguments on a case involving a police officer's use of deadly force while in pursuit of a suspect, as reported here by the Washington Post:

Vote flipping is happening already in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Funny little thing is that the machines are flipping Democratic votes into GOP votes. Not a peep heard from Bush Team about such voter fraud, which many see as the only November Surprise that the GOP can use to win the midterms. Not a peep until the possibility arises that Bush Team may not have control over all electronic voting machines. Now, we have a national security interest to be investigated by the feds and possibly laying the groundwork for a post-election challenge filed by the GOP.

• Reality has a well-known liberal bias
• Bush Hides Fold on North Korea aka Bush Blinked

details after a short commercial break

Angie Paccione

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berelusconi has been indicted in Italy on corruption charges, along with his lawyer.

• Scorched Earth


• No Fecal Matter Dick Tracy

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Angie Paccione

The new Bush Team myth is that the recent spike in the deaths of soldiers in Iraq is just an al-Qaeda campaign endorsing Democrats in the midterm elections. Not only does Bush belittle the tragedy of these soldiers dying, but he dishonors their deaths as mere political propaganda tools used by terrorists to kick the GOP out of DC. This year's version of the myth originated with Rush Limbaugh and then was echoed by Cheney, Bush, Snow and the military. But the truth is worse than Bush's fiction: The increased violence in Iraq is related to Bush's cut-and-run policy in slow motion.  

At the end of the day on November 7th all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 Senate seats will be held by people the citizens of America will ostensibly choose. Leaving aside for another day the serious questions that have been raised about whether any US federal or state elections can be considered valid and honest processes, which I think doubtful in light of evidence that has arisen the past few years, and assuming for the moment that America really is, as advertised, a true democracy and that these elections are not a suckers game, let's consider the meaning and the ramifications of the decisions, well informed I hope, though I think likely not, that the US electorate will make that day.

Their choices will affect not just America, but the entire world and the lives and the deaths, of people everywhere, and quite possibly the condition and continuation of `civilization' on the planet, and whether we are on the verge of The End of Empire, and another dark ages.

Awesome power. And awesome responsibility.

Or, maybe it's Veg-o-Matic.  In either event, in Court yesterday, Fitz personally sliced, diced, and made perfect julienne fries from Scooter's proposed memory expert.