Considering prosecuting the "torturers."

Attorney General Eric Holder is considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation practices, a controversial move that would run counter to President Obama's wishes to leave the issue in the past.

Holder plans to make a final decision within the next few weeks, a Justice Department official told The Associated Press on Saturday night. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on a pending matter.

Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said Holder planned to "follow the facts and the law."

"We have made no decisions on investigations or prosecutions, including whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct further inquiry," he said. "As the attorney general has made clear, it would be unfair to prosecute any official who acted in good faith based on legal guidance from the Justice Department."

BTW: Remember, it was Eric Holder who decided to void the conviction of the armed, uniformed Black Panthers who stood outside a polling place and intimidated voters. Even the ACLU was upset at the Obama administration's decision to allow a little voter intimidation, just as long as it was coming from the "right people."

So apparently the rule of law applies vindictively against those who seek to secure our right to life itself, but not so much to those who seek to take away our right to vote.

Some constitutional guarantees are more important than others, and some victims more worthy of vindicating. Swarthy third-worlders who wish to murder us > white suburban voters just trying to cast a vote.

Distraction: Ah, distraction. Obama's favorite meme. As a commenter points out, maybe he's doing this to distract us from the fact he can't fix the economy and in fact seems to be hurting it.

There is a long-storied presidential tradition of turning to foreign policy and emphasizing foreign policy initiatives and successes when the economy goes sour. Jimmy Carter and George Bush the Elder used this tactic a lot, preferring to meet with the press only in the Rose Garden when flanked by foreign leaders, strongly hinting that foreign policy was the important thing to ask about.

Obama can't do this as he seeks no foreign policy victories. His plan is simply US capitulation in almost all foreign disputes.

So what does he turn to? "Defending the constitution" by prosecuting CIA officers. That's sort of foreign policy, kinda. And the only "foreign policy dispute" he can win, as it doesn't involve an actual outside foreign power.

Posted by: Ace at 10:31 AM | Comments (11)
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They found their cover.

Some Democratic senators are calling for an investigation after learning Congress wasn't briefed about an covert CIA counterterrorism program allegedly ordered to be kept secret by former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Forget it Jake. It's DC.

UPDATE: Andy McCarthy on the politicization of intel. Yeah, it's that ugly.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:59 AM | Comments (3)
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As many of you already know, Kathy over at Cake Eater Chronicles is a dear friend of mine, who started attending Iowa State University about the same time I was wrapping up my academic endeavors there. Every year around this time, she asks her readers to donate to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in the name of her nephew, James.

This year there is a twist: James could potentially have his design painted onto a Funny Car and get to travel to North Carolina to see it unveiled and pal around with drag car drivers for several days. Go over to her site and check it out, and please give to this cause if you can afford it & if you feel the cause is worthy. I'll be giving, like I do every year.

Big bonus for life enthusiasts like me: these donations to JDRF are earmarked so that they WILL NOT go towards stem cell research. Big thanks to Ace for giving me this opportunity to pimp a good cause, and thanks to the vast Grand Moron Army of the Republic out there for humoring me by listening to this pitch.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 07:28 AM | Comments (1)
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Public Enemies. Mildly Recommended. If you can't wait for DVD. But you probably can and should wait for the DVD.

Addendum: This review is more critical than is fair. The criticisms, I think, are valid, but I focused on those and gave short-shrift to the movie's strengths. There's interesting stuff here, good dialog in places, and Michael Mann continues to be a good action director. And there is a lot of action here -- this is no intimate character study. This is an action movie with some quiet character moments in between the gun battles, bank heists, and prison breaks.

It's a good movie, but not as good it as it should be, and nowhere near as great as Michael Mann wants it to be. If you see it in theaters, you'll be entertained but a bit disappointed. But, I stress, entertained. And the "wait for DVD" thing is an advisory only, because if you're highly selective about which movies you go out to and must see now, this one, while worth seeing, can wait for the convenience of in-home viewing. Partly because the limitations of DV shooting mean there's not much value-added in seeing it on the big screen.

...

I had half-anticipated this movie just because I dig the 30s. I only half anticipated it because I'm really haven't liked a Michael Mann movie since Manhunter, and yeah, I'm including Collateral and Heat, both of which I thought were just okay and frankly didn't get what the fuss was about. So that's my bias. Whatever Michael Mann's doing that's so great, I'm just not getting.

(And what the hell was Miami Vice?!! Are you kidding me? Seriously, what the hell was that?)

I came away from the movie partly satisfied and greatly frustrated, because, while it's not a bad movie -- not bad at all -- several key decisions were made that keeps it from being much more than merely good.

This is the longest review I've ever written, and I've written some colossal ones. I always wind up writing these monster reviews when I want to like a movie, and almost really like it a lot, but come away disappointed.

I really have to start off with Michael Mann's decision to shoot on DV. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:18 AM | Comments (11)
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Last week's disk crash managed to cause low-level corruption in the RAID array (which is not supposed to happen) as well as bringing down the server (which is not supposed to happen). The only way to fix it is to wipe the array clean and rebuild it, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a RAID array in the first place.

So we're going to be taking a short outage soon to add a new array. Then I'm going to migrate everyone onto it, and then we're going to wipe and rebuild the old array. This is a lot of work for me, but it means that we'll be down for 10 minutes here and there instead of six or eight hours all at once.

I've also done a complete backup to another server, because I've seen too many things that aren't supposed to happen, happen.

This never happened with my 3Ware controllers.

Update: New RAID array addded without anything actually catching fire! Some of the virtual machines didn't come up quite right, and it took several seconds to reboot them, but all good apart from that. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:11 PM | Comments (3)
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Maybe some linky later. If not, then consider tonight's ONT a do-it-yourself project. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:05 PM | Comments (1)
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They are not going to stop. Just like they couldn't stop after Alger Hiss.

I predicted it. I'm a fargin genius.

A "superduper secret program", so doggoned secret that Leon Panetta didn't even know what it was, and when he "discovered" it, he promptly put a stop to it.

And DICK CHENEY IS LINKED TO IT!111!11!! It was considered important enough after 9/11 to be monitored at the highest levels of the government.

Cheney's involvement suggests that the program was considered important enough by the Bush administration that it should be monitored at the highest levels of government, and that the White House was reluctant to risk disclosure of its details to lawmakers.

No shit, really?

The fundamental unseriousness of this crap is almost too much to bear, because lives hang in the balance. We are going to relax our state of observation and intel, and American citizens will die as a result of this goddamned witchhunt.

What will Nancy Pelosi say then, that she was kept in the dark and she could have made a difference?

Ridiculous. But happening as we speak.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:44 PM | Comments (1)
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The good news for all you zombie enthusiasts out there is that there are three upcoming and released z-flicks that look promising. Trailers are below the fold to avoid bogging down the main page.

Colin
This movie was a surprise hit at this years Cannes and is mainly known for two things: it’s told from the point of view of a zombie and its total budget was $72. I’m a little skeptical of the budget given – they claim their largest expense was a crowbar – but even if the budget was 100x larger, it would still be an impressive achievement. A single ‘Redacted’ could have financed dozens of 'Colin’s each with a far better chance of actually breaking even. From the trailer it looks decent with only few hints at its micro-budget.

Zombieland
Coming in October this movie is a zombie-buddy comedy (zombedy?) starring Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg which has been described as a Hollywood version of ‘Shaun of the Dead’. They play Columbus and Tallahassee who have found different ways to survive the zombie-apocalypse, but must somehow learn to work together. From the description I was hoping that it would be Pegg-Frost good, but based on the trailer it seems to consist mostly of 2 hours of funny ways to kill zombies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Bill Murray makes a cameo appearance as a zombie. Could still be worth seeing.

Deadworld
This is coming out sometime next year and is based on a comic book series of the same name. It takes place four months after a zombie-apocalypse when the undead have taken over the earth. The main character is King Zombie, a Harley-riding corpse who holds a grudge against the surviving humans who made him an outcast.
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 01:51 PM | Comments (1)
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Ohhhh.. ok, it's a two year plan.

Nevermind all that crap about "we have to act now to stem the tide of unemployment". We are stimulating the economy.

It's a two year plan. (NYT link).

It'll take years. Which is why we should pump more into it.

Hope for the best, expect the worst. Mel Brooks.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 11:57 AM | Comments (1)
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110 pitches, 77 strikes. His dad was visiting from Puerto Rico and was watching from the stands.

3-8 this year, got the call to fill in for Randy Johnson, on the DL with a shoulder injury.

Sweet.

Check out the 9th inning 2nd out by Aaron Rowand against the wall.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:56 AM | Comments (2)
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