Jack Bauer and Ticking-Time Bombs

Mortimer Hayden Smyth of the Center for American Free Thought (click title for more videos).

Spinal Tap meets Lego

Jesse Ventura on that Hannity show

I am sad that Ventura seems to have washed his hands of politics. 

From the same link:

Yeah, it's from The View. Don't worry, you won't get cooties.

Obama's Bad Week:

From Glenn Greenwald:

Monday - Obama administration's letter to Britian threatening to cut off intelligence-sharing if British courts reveal the details of how we tortured British resident Binyam Mohamed;

Tuesday - Promoted to military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChyrstal, who was deeply involved in some of the worst abuses of the Bush era;

Wednesday - Announced he was reversing himself and would try to conceal photographic evidence showing widespread detainee abuse -- despite the rulings from two separate courts (four federal judges unanimously) that the law compels their disclosure;

Friday - Unveiled his plan to preserve a modified system of military commissions for trying Guantanamo detainees, rather than using our extant-judicial processes for doing so.

A Forensics Charlatan Gets Caught in the Act

Christopher Ploud, a lawyer and legal specialist in forensic science, angerd by the misuse of bite-mark analysis in courtrooms, manages to expose a prominent fraud:

In October 2001, working for Plourd, a private investigator named James Rix sent West the decade-old photographs of the bite marks on Ancona’s breast. Rix told West that the photos were from the three-year-old unsolved murder of a college student in Idaho. Rix then sent West a dental mold of his own teeth, but told him that they came from the chief suspect in the case. He also sent a check for $750, West's retainer fee.

Two months later, West sent Rix a letter and accompanying 20-minute video. In the video, West meticulously explains the methodology he uses to match bite marks to dental molds. Using the photo of Ancona’s bitten breast and Rix's own dental mold, West then reaches the conclusion Plourd and Rix suspected he would: That the mold and the photos were a definite match.

Obama Seeks to Block Release of Detainee Photos

The President today said that he would attempt to block the release of photographs of detainee abuse by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. His rationale was that these photos could endanger the troops, while adding nothing to our knowledge of what occurred. While he may be correct that the publication of such pictures would inflame anti-American sentiment (though whether the open acknowledgement of such wrong doing by our government would have the same effect as the knowledge of the wrong doing itself is questionable), practical expediency does not seem to be a legitimate reason for this sort of action.

The ACLU had won a motion at the Federal District Court level related to the release of these photographs, and the Obama administration, along with the DOD, had agreed to release the photos, reasoning that they could not succeed in convincing the Supreme Court to weigh in on the matter. Obama's decision today is a reversal of his own position from last month, and is in opposition to the lower court ruling (I am guessing that the administration intends to make an appeal to the high court in this matter).

The long and short of this is that Obama is engaging in a cover-up of Bush-era policies that, by now, are hardly disputable as crimes. He is reneging on his campaign promise of transparency, and is doing so not by appealing to firm legal grounds, but by appealing to national security (the sort of rationale that lay behind much of the Bush administration's attempts at secrecy). By now, the country, and the world, knows that the US engaged in abuse - torture and worse. The release of these photos isn't necessary to prove that. But it would be helpful in establishing the extent to which these things occurred, and could help justify in the minds of Americans the need for investigations. Their release would also signal to the world that the US has changed course, and is attempting to regain its place among the decent, lawful nations of the world. Preventing their release, on the other hand, would be inimical to investigations (and perhaps this is one of the motives) and would signal to the world that the US will, above all else, protect its own, justice be damned.

Commentary by Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald (as per usual). Chris Cillizza weighs in with whatever it is he does. 

zombie ants

This is furkin awesome! Just one question? What problems are these zombie making flies gonna cause? If one crawls in my ear at night then what? Sorry, two questions.

R.L. ain't gonna lend you no 40 nickles for a bag of chips

RATM Covering Cypress Hill

Cameo by an old lady.

Jesse Ventura has some opinions on stuff...

From Ventura's appearance on Larry King's show.

A highlight:

"I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."

Dranks

Yesterday I found myself with a powerful desire for some ginger ale, Blenheim, preferably. But being as I live in America's Wang™, I am unable to purchase any. There is plenty of the Seagram's/Canada Dry stuff, but I wanted something a bit more robust. Anyway, whilst browsing the tubes, I came across this site, which details how to make ginger beer in one's own kitchen. Given the simplicity of the instructions, and that I have some free time on my hands, I cooked up a batch (which is fermenting as we speak).

The above site also clued me into OpenCola, the open-source soda. 

Wanda Sykes Causes the Right to Have a Hissy Fit

More Rush jokes here. My favorite: "Q: What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg? A: One's a flaming Nazi gasbag, the other's a dirigible."

Damned hippies

Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am In White House Driveway

Vice President Biden ditched a day of presiding over the Senate to "give the twin cannons some sun."

Shieeeeeeeeeeeet

Anthony Jeselnik impersonates Dane Cook

Hanns Scharff, Chief Interrogator for the Luftwaffe

Hanns Scharff was an interrogator for the Luftwaffe during World War II. Eschewing violence, his methods were so successful that the United States began teaching them during the post war period.

From the wiki:

After a prisoner's fear had calmed, Scharff continued to act as a good friend to the prisoner, including sharing jokes, homemade food items, and occasionally alcoholic beverages. Scharff was fluent in English and knowledgeable about British customs and some American, which helped him to gain the trust and friendship of many of his prisoners. Some high profile prisoners were treated to outings to German airfields (one POW was allowed to take a German aircraft for a trial run), tea with German fighter aces, swimming pool excursions, and luncheons among other things. Prisoners were treated well medically at the nearby Hone Mark Hospital, and some POWs were occasionally taken from captivity to visit their comrades at this hospital for company's sake as well as the better meals provided there. Scharff was best known for taking his prisoners on strolls through nearby woods, first having them swear an oath of honor that they would not attempt an escape during their walk. Scharff chose not to use these nature walks as a time to directly ask his prisoners obvious military-related questions, but instead relied on the POWs' desire to speak to anyone outside of isolated captivity about informal, generalized topics. Prisoners often volunteered information the Luftwaffe had instructed Scharff to acquire, frequently without realizing they had done so.

Justice Cincinnatus

Kermit Roosevelt, former clerk for Supreme Court Justice David Souter, attempts to shed light on the retiring jurist.

The Supremes respond to the announcement of Souter's retirement.

The Nith U.S. Circuit Court has ruled on the Jeppesen case

The court makes short work of the Obama administration's invocation of States Secrets to quash legal actions against the government:

"According to the government's theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law."

The upshot of this is that the court has (re-)affirmed that the only legitimate use of the State's Secrets privelege is for individual pieces of evidence which are evaluated by the courts.

A stirring victory for government accountability and transparency. 

As always, Glenn has more.

Best Movie Review Ever

Paul Constant, writing for The Stranger, reviews Crank 2.

"It's like if Michael Bay and John Waters had breakup sex and made a little ADD baby who hated humanity. Awesome! Awesome!"

via Crooks and Liars.