Horrible, horrible Star Wars Made in France

Strangely not Japanese, but I guess that's why it sucks so hard. The Japanese would have done this right!

Seriously. Don't watch this unless you really hate yourself.

SO F***ING BAAAAAAAD.

America's 1984

"On Thursday the spirit of George Orwell visited America, three times."

A chilling essay in Harper's .

The anti-torture CIA chief

Obama's pick to head the CIA is unambiguously against torture. What a powerful message his appointment will send.

I hope he and Obama are somehow able to hold Bush people accountable for systematically abusing and killing detainees. (Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side" documents at least one case of a detainee who died during CIA interrogation. I think she wrote there were probably more, but I can't remember everything in the book.)

Uh-oh

I'm not sure if Obama should prosecute the sadists who trashed 230 years of U.S. policy (yes, going back to George Washington!) that Americans must treat detainees with dignity. I can understand both sides laid out in this story. But our government needs to investigate who decided we should torture terror suspects and how these people were able to get away with it. We should also find out which Democrats knew what Bush/Cheney were doing, but declined to stop it.

Also, beware of sneaky moves before Jan. 20:

Whether Bush will protect his top aides and interrogators with a
pre-emptive pardon - before they are ever charged - has become a hot topic of
discussion in legal and political circles in the administration's waning days.
White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto declined to comment on the
issue.