The true nature and heart of America

AP: “Danes sent emergency relief to their Nordic neighbours in Norway yesterday to help eliminate a toilet paper shortage.” I dunno, seems to me the Vikings have become a little...dainty.

Perspective.

Specialist Sabrina Harman, responsible for the guy-standing-on-a-box-with-wires-attached-to-his-genitals thing, says the problem is they never showed her a copy of the Geneva Convention to read. Before going into the military, Harman was assistant manager of a pizza parlor. You don’t want to know what she did to employees who put too many pepperoni on the pizzas.

A French writer has produced a novel without verbs. 233 pages.

TORTURE, WHAT TORTURE? WaPo: “Mark Jacobson, a former Defense Department official who worked on detainee issues while at the Pentagon, said that at Guantanamo and the Bagram facility in Afghanistan, military interrogators have never used torture or extreme stress techniques. "It's the fear of being tortured that might get someone to talk, not the torture," Jacobson said. "We were so strict."” Strict may not have been the best word to use. But here’s my point: if you threaten torture, you are using torture, just like if you point a gun at someone and threaten to shoot them unless they do what you want, you are using a gun. The story is on Pentagon’s approval of a specific program of abuse.

Someone dragged out this Bush quote, 3/23/03, addressed to Iraqis: “I expect them to be treated, the POWs, I expect to be treated humanely, just like we're treating the prisoners that we have captured humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals.”

A Bush quote I missed: “I told His Majesty I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners. I told him I was as equally sorry that people seeing those people didn't understand the true nature and heart of America.”

Eric Idle comment on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ: “I gather Mel doesn't handle the comedy too well, and he seems to totally ignore the singing opportunities of the crucifixion.”