Small reminder

(Most of) my co-bloggers have sites of their own, where you’ll often find things they haven’t cross-posted here, so don’t forget to drop in on them at home from time to time: Billmon, Jeanne, Greg, and of course Bob.

Kudos to Durbin

The wingnuts are in a tizzy because he had the courage to speak the truth:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay] — I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Life’s little mysteries

It’s always amazing to me, how you can have all the connections laid out, all the conflicts of interest, all the reasons that what Expert X says or Study Y “proves” may actually not be all that trustworthy — and yet, people will refuse to acknowledge even the possibility of doubt, holding firm to their faith in Expert X or Study Y. Now, this is fine when it’s a question of whether or not eating potato chips makes you fat, or whether blondes truly have more fun — but when it’s a question of “knowing” that Saddam is developing nuclear weapons, or “knowing” that injecting children with mercury is perfectly safe…I can only scratch my head…