2006 August 09 | Hanlon's Razor

New bill would immunize many officials from prosecution in torture

By Hanlon, on August 9th, 2006 at 07:53 PM

Every time news comes out concerning the White House’s wheelings and dealings over torture, it’s a new benchmark for ridiculous. Today’s offender, a bill from the Bush Administration that would limit who can be prosecuted for torturing detainees.

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.

…

The draft U.S. amendments to the War Crimes Act would narrow the scope of potential criminal prosecutions to 10 specific categories of illegal acts against detainees during a war, including torture, murder, rape and hostage-taking.

Follow that line of thought. “We don’t torture people, and we even made sure to change the definition of torture to agree with our claim! And just in case, now we can’t be prosecuted for all of the torture we aren’t doing.” Well done.

[tags]torture, bush, geneva conventions[/tags]

Lieberman filing as an independent

By Hanlon, on August 9th, 2006 at 07:15 PM

Well, I’m sure by now most of you know that Lamont beat Lieberman. It wasn’t a 14% spread, but he still won decisively. Now, if Joementum really cared about the party he’d bow down instead of splitting the vote, but no. He’s running independent.

Hours after a Democratic primary defeat, Sen. Joe Lieberman filed petitions Wednesday morning to run as an independent in the general election. Senate party leaders in Washington quickly endorsed the anti-war businessman who beat the three-term senator.

Hours after. The man was ready to lose. And his support? None of his own party. Hillary sent Lamont a check, and Kerry, Schumer, and Reid are all expressing support for Ned.

If Joe runs, neither he nor Ned will win the election. The republicans will pick up another seat and make it that much harder to get back the Senate. Maybe that’s what Holy Joe wants, to ruin the election for Ned since he didn’t get the nomination.

[tags]joe lieberman, ned lamont, connecticut, senate, election[/tags]

Upgrades and a LiveJournal mirror

By Hanlon, on August 9th, 2006 at 06:47 PM

A few changes on the ol’ site. First off, I changed the manner in which posts get cut up. The link is on the right instead of the left, and it allows you to collapse and expand posts rather than being forced to open them up in a new page.

There’s also a brand-new LiveJournal mirror of the page. I initially made the account to chat with folks when I got linked to, but then I figured I might as well make ‘er a full-blown mirror. It isn’t perfect, since I’ve used relative paths instead of absolute, the images aren’t there currently. The ‘expand’ links don’t work either, so I scrapped most of those except in newer posts. Otherwise, anyone reading this on LJ will have to come to the main site to read the rest. I’m working on fixing that.

[tags]blogging, livejournal[/tags]

Rummy-nating…

By Hanlon, on August 9th, 2006 at 03:23 AM

So then…

Rummy was on Meet the Press and claimed he never said Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, and then video was found of him saying just that.

Then he was at a press conference and was asked about him saying that they knew where WMDs were. He claimed he never said that, only for video to be dug up that showed him saying exactly that.

Then he was asked by Hillary Clinton about his predictions about Iraq, claiming he never painted a “rosy picture” about the war. Video was then discovered wherein he said the war probably wouldn’t last six months and our troops would be greeted as liberators rather than occupants.

So my question is this: is Rumsfeld reliable on anything at all, and can we trust him on anything he says?

[tags]rumsfeld[/tags]

Fox with excellent analysis of a possible Lamont win

By Hanlon, on August 9th, 2006 at 01:53 AM

The primary is still going on, and as of this writing Lamont is still holding onto his lead by about 4% (live updates here). But in the meantime I leave you with an image of Fox’s brilliant analysis of the situation, stolen shamelessly from Media Matters.

Israel threatening to bomb all vehicles in South Lebanon

By Hanlon, on August 9th, 2006 at 12:52 AM

I’ve refrained from writing on Israel/Lebanon for a few days. It’s not changing and keeping up a tally of deaths is morbid and, frankly, unproductive. However, Israel’s threat to bomb any moving vehicles in South Lebanon is just disgusting.

Earlier Tuesday, Israel dropped leaflets warning people in southern Lebanon that their vehicles would be shelled if they drove them.

The leaflets, dropped in the city of Tyre, said Israeli troops planned to destroy any moving vehicles in an area south of the Litani River.

I’ll bet that’s comforting to the civilians. They can’t stay in their houses due to the falling bombs. They can’t drive away or they’ll be targeted. All they can do is run away on foot and I’m sure that’s not terrifying either.

[tags]israel, hezbollah, lebanon[/tags]