From Fred, who finishes with:

I don’t accept these new rules. Here’s what I believe: I believe that torture itself is dishonorable. I believe that failing to condemn torture is dishonorable. I believe that condoning the practice of torture empowers our enemies and puts American lives at risk. And I believe that by embracing the immoral, counterproductive and utterly un-American practice of torture we make America more closely resemble the kinds of infamous and evil regimes we ought never to resemble in the slightest. I believe that those who defend the practice of torture lessen America. I believe that the condemnation of those who condemn torture lessens America. I believe that Joseph Darby is a great American and that Jeremy Sivits is not. But I can’t believe that we’ve fallen so far that I actually have to say all these things. I can’t believe that we have reached the point where statements like “Torture is bad” and “It is good to condemn torture” are seen as controversial. A United States Senator spoke the truth. He condemned evil and called it un-American. And then he was forced to apologize. Jesus God.

Flag-Burning Amendment Advances in House. Which justice was it that noted that the freedoms the flag purportedly stands for extend even to those who may hold it in contempt?

We’re pretty sure we don’t need to point out where a nation is going when it feels the need to alter its Constitution in order to prevent some kinds of political demonstration and, in the process, restrict what can be done with private property.

Atrios points us to Howler, who express pretty solidly our feelings on Durbin being forced to apologize for speaking truth to power:

Indeed, the lunacy of the flap about Durbin shows the disturbing point we’ve now reached; if you’re a Democrat, a “firestorm” can quickly spread around you if you make remarks which are perfectly accurate. In this case, a Democrat actually did say something that’s about as mundane as “the sky is blue.” Have you read that FBI report–the report which Durbin was discussing? No one would associate the conduct it describes with the nation described in our civics texts, with the country you were taught to believe in as school kids. […] Durbin asked an obvious question: If you’d read that report, would you ever have thought that it was describing American conduct? Or would you have thought what Durbin said–that it must describe an evil regime, the type we have long denounced? The answer to that is perfectly obvious–and so is the state of our fallen culture, the culture being trampled under by the Russerts, the McCains and the Wallaces. But we’ve now reached a miraculous point in the crumbling of our discourse. We’ve reached the point where citizens are mocked by major scribes for wondering if we were lied into war–and where United States senators are told to apologize for denouncing the conduct described in that report. But then, lunacy has spread throughout our discourse over the course of the past dozen years. And your fiery “career liberals” have known to be silent. They looked away again and again. Now we see what that has bought us. Remember: If you’re troubled to think that we may have been lied into war, that makes you a “wing nut” to today’s “mainstream” press corps. And if you think that FBI report sounds un-American, you need to apologize to the Senate! McCain, Russert, Kristol, Hume, Wallace? They’ve turned their backs on sanity itself. Everyone has to fight this spreading press culture–and you have to ask more from those who kept quiet while this culture of insanity was born.

Back to back brilliance! Giblets, Fafnir, and the Medium Lobster provide us with some much-needed balance by explaining how our little gulag problem isn’t nearly so bad as Hitler, Satan, or Galactus:

Galactus, Eater of Worlds: He eats whole worlds — with people on em an everything! Where would you be if Galactus ate your world? Nowhere that’s where — or just floatin in space feelin real sad on accounta you don’t got a world. How many worlds has the US ever eaten? Maybe, yknow, like one. Well that’s nothin for Galactus… he eats worlds all the time. “So delicious Fafnir,” says Galactus. “Mighty Galactus cannot devour just one.” As of this writing Amnesty International remains completely silent on the issue of Galactus. [Emph. added.]

One can’t be too careful when deliberating over the shifting and byzantine web of confusion and doubt that is so-called “climate” “change.” Whom should we believe: the unruly mob of every reputable climatologist on the planet, or the selfless sages at Exxon-Mobil? Uncertainty abounds, even among higher beings like the Medium Lobster. We must examine all sides of the issue, take input from all corners: from the side of science, and from the side of oil industry whores paid to lie about science. Someday, somehow, between these complex and opposing points of view, we may just find an answer.

There is, of course, more.

Just fucking read Truth and Consequences, on Durbin’s speech.

So the Senate has passed a resolution apologizing for not doing more about lynching during segregation. You’d sort of expect this sort of pro forma gesture to go through without a fight, and in large part it did — except some senators refused to co-sponsor said resolution, and a few forced the Senate to pass it on voice vote instead of a “let’s see how everyone voted” roll-call vote, presumably because they think it’s bad politics back home to be seen as anti-lynching.

Kos and Atrios led with this, and eventually pointed to a list of those refusing to co-sponsor or publically vote in favor. Guess what? All three of the states in which we’ve lived are represented in this cowardly, craven, ridiculous, shameful group (the only one NOT from MS, TX, or AL is Lamar Alexander). They are:

• Shelby (R-AL)
• Cornyn (R-TX)
• Hutchison (R-TX)
• Cochran (R-MS)
• Lott (R-MS)
• Alexander (R-TN)

We’re not surprised by such behavior from the likes of Shelby, the Texas delegation, or Rent “Wish Strom had been President” Lott, but Cochran and Alexander are genuinely disappointing.

Fred Clark — a/k/a Slacktivist — opens his most recent post with this:

It was an experiment. The Initiative represented the government’s interest in not only controlling the otherworldly menace, but in harnessing its power for our own military purposes. The considered opinion of this council is that the experiment has failed. … The demons cannot be harnessed, cannot be controlled. It is therefore our recommendation that the project be terminated. … The Initiative itself will be filled in with concrete. Burn it down, gentlemen. Burn it down and salt the earth.

The context is a late 4th season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; the speaker is a high-level Pentagon type after the project went wildly wrong (big surprise). Fred’s using it to talk about Gitmo and our national experiments with what may charitably be called our less supernatural darker impulses in the wake of 9/11.

We’re supposed to be the good guys. Detention without charge, torture, abuse, extraordinary rendition, disregard for the Geneva Conventions and the unadorned murder of prisoners are not things that the good guys should tolerate, let alone actively embrace.

In fact, it’s at least part of the laundry list of post-WMD reasons Bush gave for invading Iraq. It isn’t enough to say we stand for freedom and justice. We have to actually act like it, too.

Gov. Goodhair’s comments have really pissed us off, so much so we actually wrote a physical letter. Text follows:

Gov. Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
P. O. Box 12428
Austin, TX
Dear Gov. Perry, As an independent Texan, I believe that that which governs least governs best, but within certain parameters; one activity that only the government can do is protect minority rights from majority tyranny. This principle is one of those that form the basis for our society; pure democracy, it has been said, exists when two wolves and one rabbit vote on what’s for dinner. Homosexuals are discriminated against in our country and in our state. Of this there can be no doubt. People of high ideals may disagree on why that is, or even that it’s justified according to the view of one faith or another — but the government must stand for all its citizens, and cannot let the dictates of the Southern Baptist Convention (e.g.) replace its occasionally unpopular yet profoundly necessary role in checking the power of the majority. I am ashamed that our state has joined others in the pointless exercise of marginalizing a portion of our citizens simply because their orientation is unpopular. Texans are an independant breed, set apart, and as such we should lead the way towards the right answer on this and other issues. Here we have failed, and thrown our lot in with those unaccountably threatened by the notion of homosexuality. I do not now, nor have I ever understood this response; even my Baptist mother is confused by this bizarre pursuit of additional marginalization for a group that wants only the protections afforded the rest of us. What I do understand, though, is that a truely conservative leader would not cotton to such distracting antics when far more pressing issues face Texas, our nation, and the world. Governor Perry, please stop kow-towing to the right wing of your party. Many Texans may live in that wing, but many more are offended by the blatently political machinations surrounding this crusade against our gay and lesbian neighbors. Stand up and be true to our state’s independent roots; stand up and fulfill the government’s duty to protect its minorities from the unjust tyranny of the majority. Stand for rights, not the abrogation thereof. Stand for protection, not governmental discrimination. Thank you for your time.

TPM points us to this NYT story echoed here:

“A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents. In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved.” NYT

It gets better:

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the “climate team leader” and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

No shame. These people have. no. shame.

Quoth Kos:

Local NBC Anchor: “Among the protesters were gay veterans and their partners. We asked the governor about his take on gay veterans, many of whom may one day have fewer rights than everyone else.” Rick Perry: “Texans made a decision about marriage and if there’s a state that has more lenient views than Texas, then maybe that’s a better place for them to live.”

Fuck him. Seriously. Fuck him.