Mmmmmmm… Torture

I really want to rant about this ridiculous debate over whether Torturo Gonzales should be confirmed.
The answer, of course, is no. This is a man who was more interested in the “legal opinions” of torture as the Abu Ghraib horror broke than the fact that, you know, people were being tortured.
His belief that the President is above the law should also raise eyebrows, which natch endears him to Dear Leader, but is nary of any interest to Americans. If he had epic tits, or lip synched, or had an adorable white baby consumed by the tsunamis, just then America might take notice.
NYT: (bold mine)

Mr. Gonzales’s role in seeking a legal opinion on the definition of torture and the legal limits on the force that could be used on terrorist suspects in captivity is expected to be a central issue in the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings scheduled to begin on Thursday on Mr. Gonzales’s nomination to be attorney general.
The request by Mr. Gonzales produced the much-debated Justice Department memorandum of Aug. 1, 2002, which defined torture narrowly and said that Mr. Bush could circumvent domestic and international prohibitions against torture in the name of national security.

We are so thoroughly fucked.

“Stop Hurting America”

CNN’s Crossfire is dead. Tucker’s been whining about his poor treatment at CNN for some time, so this was expected, but Crossfire had devolved into a circus over the past few years mixing all the worst elements of political hackery and facts-free punditry. It hasn’t always been that way, and it was one of the last places this side of Neptune you could find a partisan Democrat who had a bigger voice than writing angry letters from his Montana cabin. It’d be nice to have a show where useful debate took place on the air, as Crossfire once longed to be, but I don’t really see this happening outside of Air America holding a winning $500M Powerball ticket.
And no, Jon Stewart didn’t kill Crossfire. It sucked enough on its own. Didn’t hurt tho.
Poking through the blog world today, I picked up that CNN’s Capital Gang, which no one watches anyway, is also slated for exile. The good news here being these were the two permanent homes of “Douche Bag of Freedom” Bob Novak. As Novak recovered from hip replacement last month, Stewart noted on The Daily Show, “He didn’t break it. It tried to ESCAPE!”
So, good riddance Crossfire. Thankfully, Tucker’s bowtie continues to be adorable.

I Love Egg

Friend at work sent me a link saying “my countrymen are exceptionally weird. I’m mesmerized and very disturbed.”
Enjoy!

Sony Ericsson K700i

So, I finally gave up Sprint PCS after, what, 8 years?
I will say this about Sprint: their service is probably less shitty than most others, and they were first in the game to really provide decent nationwide coverage without invented ass-ramming charges such as “home regions.”
Anyway, that was then. It’s highly competitive right now, so it’s a wash as to what’s better, and coverage is pretty good no matter where you are. (Of course, all this will change as all the providers merge into one… ugh.) I won’t go into the CDMA vs. GSM/GPRS argument right now, but in short, CDMA is the superior technology. Slightly.
But Sprint’s phones blow. Big time. Crap Korean phones, few Nokias, and only one Sony Ericsson — ever — which you had to call a special number to acquire. No Bluetooth unless you bought the $600 Treo (and then another $100 card) or got that secret SE phone mentioned above.
Sick of drooling over all the cool gee-whiz-bang shit other people had, I bought an unlocked SE K700i. (No carriers in the states sell this yet, anyway.) This is the way normal sane people (read: Europeans) buy phones. Buy phone, then buy service. The two aren’t connected as they are here. So I had my pick for service: T-Mobile, Cingular, some smaller ones. And when I travel, I can just pick up a local SIM card and pop it in. Bitchin’.
So I took my ass over to Cingular, just because it was there, not because I heavily researched the various providers, and because I have a friend who works there who I must work on myself to receive some sort of discount on my $108 monthly bill. Anyway, the process was surprisingly painless.
So, setting up the various data inside the phone is somewhat of a pain in the ass and involved much Googling: GPRS settings and Bluetooth dialing from my Powerbook. I still haven’t figured out how to set up sending pictures via email yet, but I don’t have my MEdia Net (or whatever the fuck it’s called) stuff set up completely yet, I don’t believe. Word on the net is I may have to call Cingular and use a bit of subterfuge to get some needed services enabled. We shall see.
So, anyway, I’ve been playing with the phone for just a few hours, and the following things are totally rocking my pussy:

• Bluetooth! I had this before, but it’s much smoother/faster on than my old T608. iSync works. Remote Desktop! Will have to play with Sailing Clicker too.
• FM Radio.
• I can finally use normal SMS. Up yours Sprint.
• Camera and video. I had a camera with a Samsung A600, and ended up missing it with my T608.
• Speakerphone
• 41MB onboard. Huge for a phone.

Anyway, so far, quite pleased. Kicked your locked phone to the curb…
UPDATE: Use Sony Ericsson’s configuration service here to simplify things. It sends configs directly to the phone, and you just select “Yes” to import. Worked beautifully for setting up GPRS, WAP, MMS for my phone and Cingular.

Tsunami Kills 23K

Yesterday, a 9.0 earthquake in the Bay of Bengal triggered massive tsunamis killing more than 23,000 from Indonesia to Somalia to India and Bangladesh. A massive tragedy impacting some of the most impoverished places in the world. Just awful.
The ICRC has set up an aid website. Donate.
The local news here in Atlanta saw this story so important it ran it 15 minutes into the broadcast, the last story before weather. The lead story being after Christmas sales, of course. God our media sucks.

Capital?

Bush poised to be most unpopular president ever on inauguration day.
Think about that. With all this “political capital” and those HOT HOT HOT Man Dates.
This all doesn’t add up. Either people voted for him despite disapproving of him, which is of course, shameful and monumentally retarded, or of course, someone cheated. Probably both.
This country is so squirrelly.
Oh, and fuck you Time. What about the dead soldiers? (Well, that was last year.. kinda) What about all those dead Iraqis? No, let’s honor he who lied and then let die.
Granted, this is the same magazine that gave 1938 person of the year to this man and then in 1939 *and* 1942 to this man. [UPDATE: Look at list here. Other links are subscription-based. Stoopid.]

This genital electrocution sponsored by…

Try and look surprised:

NEW YORK — A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as “torture” and a June 2004 “Urgent Report” to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

Why not just brand a giant “USA” on their asses?
Oh, we’re gonna still pretend we’re helping these people out? Oh, okay.
Also… 20 dead in Mosul this morning. Hope Rummy doesn’t get carpal tunnel!

Do these huggies make my ass look fat?

Which Family Guy character are you?

Ho Ho Ho

I’ve been to two grocery stores today, and in both cases, the whole thing just left me kinda down. It’s that mix of cheery Christmas music pumped out of tin-cans in the ceiling, harsh overhead florescence, plasticy non-denominational holiday displays, and a sparsely populated store which only features trance-like pseudo-people who move slowly and keep their heads down. Depressing.
Kinda like a post-apocalyptical movie starring Lori Petty in a lesbian haircut sporting a super-weapon, some sweaty dude with an itchy trigger finger and a British accent in toe — and right before something upsettingly awful happens.
Perhaps tomorrow I’ll head down to Union Square to have some manufactured holiday cheer forcibly shoved up my ass while buying overpriced trinkets for people I could care less about. Now, that is what Christmas is all about!