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Torture doesn’t work.

Apparently when you have the country lead by people who wouldn’t consider inconveniencing themselves when the nation is at war by joining the military, you end up with people who can’t believe that everyone else isn’t going to give up their friends and country when tortured.

The fact that this administration continues to defend its desire to use torture, just shows that Helen Thomas isn’t the only thing they are afraid of, as terrified as they are of her.

People keep talking about a “ticking bomb scenario”. Our enemy doesn’t use ticking bombs, they use people willing to commit suicide to kill Americans. Why would any rational person assume that someone willing to wear several pounds of explosives and blow themselves up with their victims is going to be impressed by torture?

If your purpose is to coerce a confession from the innocent, then torture is the technique of choice. If you would like to compile a list of totally worthless names, then torture is very effective. If you would like to prove that you can be just as vicious and lawless as any group of thugs on the planet: accept no substitute for torture.

Torture doesn’t work. Torture violates treaties. Torture violates the Constitution. Torture violates US laws. Torture violates the moral teachings of the predominate religions of the United States. Torture is ineffective, unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral, so why is it still being discussed?

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Australian Broadcasting is reporting that an ancient church was found underneath an Israeli prison.

…excavations inside Megiddo prison in northern Israel have unearthed the remains of a structure that included a mosaic with inscriptions in Greek and murals of fish as well as an altar.

The significant part is that Megiddo is Hebrew for [insert sound of an ominous fanfare]: Armageddon.

No doubt Falwell et alii will be grabbing their dog-eared copies of Revelation and rushing to Israel to be the first, or last, to broadcast from the site of the Apocalypse.

[Update: CBS has an article on the find with a picture of one of the mosaics.]

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If you have ever wondered about the genesis of all the jokes about using duct tape for everything, you have never seen The Red Green Show. The CBC reports that after a 15-year run Red Green says goodbye to Possum Lodge.

While it was never “great television”, the Canadian show was an enjoyable way to spend some time on a weekend, along with the “Britcoms” on PBS.

Remember: “When all else fails, play dead.”

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Duncan Hunter [R-San Diego County] wants the Federal government to build a fence along the US-Mexican border from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf Coast to stop illegal border crossing. He doesn’t care about the cost, approximately $8 billion that we don’t have, or the cost of patrolling it, he wants it built.

I think we should build it by fining individuals and businesses $1000 per head for every undocumented worker found in their employ. We can call it the “Duncan Hunter Fence Fee” and begin by sweeping San Diego county during the harvest and sweep through the northern Gulf coast in the areas hard hit by the hurricanes.

No need to detain the undocumented workers, as the real goal is money for Duncan’s magic fence, which is going to solve all of the immigration problems.

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Andante has a great visual at Collective Sigh to go along with Upyernoz’s
post at Rubber Hose about Senator Frank Lautenberg’s attempt to rename the Republican’s “Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act 2005” to the “Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act”.

What the Republicans are doing is cutting $35 billion from Medicare and food stamps funding, which would cut the deficit, except they are also including $70 billion in tax cuts. The net effect is to increase the deficit by $35 billion. Calling a bill that increases the deficit a “deficit reduction bill” is a lie.

Enron/Tyco accounting is not going to get the United States out of this Republican fiscal disaster. “Borrow and Spend” is the new Republican mantra for government.

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