News, some good, some bad.

Well, the good news today is that SpaceShipOne successfully completed its mission. I just shut down the feed from NASA TV after watching the little craft come in for a perfect landing. I'm hearing that there were some scary moments at the top of the ride, but if the pilot keeps his head on he's got a lot of time to get the ship back under control. It is, after all, 100km to the bottom.

Baldrick on the worst jobs in history. The actor who played Baldrick on the old BBC series Black Adder now has his own little series. Number one worst job: Master of the King's Stool. You work it out.

"Your rage is useless in a capitalist culture. It will merely be packaged and sold back to you. As entertainment." I said that once to some ranting lefty, and it seems that I was right. The book Why Culture Can't be Jammed works through the thesis that capitalism can embrace progressivism and sell it back to the progressives. There is some criticism that the authors never really engage in a distinction between "progressivism" and "counterculturalism" which I perceive as legitimate, but I don't really see an effective progressive movement these days.

Outsourcing torture: A bill before the U.S. Congress proposes legalizing extraordinary rendition. Extraordinary Rendition is a legalistic term for turning over someone to a nation that uses torture. It's illegal under international treaties we signed, but in the name of our "fight against terrorism," we're considering ignoring it. Lovely.

And The World Health Organization disses multiculturalism. While mouthing multiculturalist platitudes on the one hand, the WHO admits finally that some cultures are simply better than others; some serve the needs of the people who live within them, and some don't, and makes sweeping statements about the need for reform. Huzzah!

And if you want to see just how batshit crazy the right-wing can be, read this. Just read it, okay? I'm gonna go cower under my desk, thinking that I have to breathe the same air and vote in the same election as this guy.

I just had to add this...

I wouldn't vote for Bush if I were you. Too kewt for words.

Writer's block? What writer's block?

Well, I went out to lunch and proceeded to write out a story. Forty-five minutes later I had to stop, but I had 2265 words to show for my effort. And y'know what? It's pretty damned good stuff. Eshi wanted me to write her another tale, and I did.

I hope she's pleased with the trouble she's caused. And there's a happy ending.

Maybe my objection wasn't strong enough.

Do this. Go to The Library of Congress. In the search bar, type in HR 10. Scroll down to section 3032.

Read it.

Or, read this:

( Pure Evil )

The United States is supposed to be "The City on the Hill," a beacon unto the world. That's what the Christian Exceptionalists are supposed to believe. People like George Bush and his followers are supposed to believe that we are different, somehow, blessed, an example that others are to look up to.

But we are now seeing the other side of exceptionalism: if we have God's blessing, we can do no wrong. Everything we do is with God's blessing, after all.

There is no way that someone detained in secret and denied his full rights to defense and a confrontation with his accusers can, as specified in section (3), meet the burden of "guilty until proven innocent." There is no way that someone can defend himself if there's no judicial review, no appeal, no chance of having his voice heard.

These people are voting to authorize torture. Rumsfeld and probably Bush started out tacitly approving "optimal almost-torture" like the near-drowning in ice water that was so popular at Abu Gahraib, and now seventeen Republicans have come forth to say that the deportation of individuals arbitrarily deemed to be "terrorists" by administrative (not judicial) process to countries where they will be tortured is acceptable.

( These seventeen people. )

I don't know how to put this any clearer: Seventeen Republicans find torture morally acceptable in the prosecution of the War on Terror.

My disgust is now complete.