Last week the Grizzly Peak neighbors of John Yoo received a “Neighborhood Alert” regarding Professor Yoo, in the form of a flyer letting them know he lives among them and providing information about his crimes, namely providing unethical and shoddy legal advice and cover to Bybee, Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. …

Unlike a sexual predator or burglar, Mr. Yoo is a criminal whom the police are not likely to point out to Berkeley citizens, though his crimes are horrific. …

I question the acceptability of sheltering a war criminal in Berkeley. I don’t feel safe living in the vicinity of someone who believes torture is legal. …

from comments:

vigilantism?? It’s not like they are the Klan rushing into his house to lynch him. They are barley on his (seems to be very long) driveway.

This is democracy in action. If we have freedom of speech, people should be able to express how they feel about a public figure, even if it is at there home.

This is who they are. Don’t be afraid, be prepared.
HotAir

“Legs, Lilly, Lilly, legs.” — Hedley Lamarr
Or, if you just read this blog for the articles.

from my beloved Backwoods Home May/June issue:

This is an extraordinary publication...sort of like “Organic Gardening” for conservatives...and I recommend it highly (so does Mr. Colonel Jerry, SIR! ;)
Which is not to say I don’t adore OG, they just get a little preachy at times. 

Was Susan Boyle Prejeaned?

I knew this crap was going to start happening…

Tonight Bill O’Reilly addressed his recent smear of HotAir.com, claiming that Hot Air has the responsibility to police its comments. Pronouncing that “it’s not enough to say, ‘I didn’t do it,’” O’Reilly sanctimoniously told his viewers that he polices comments on his own web site:

Here’s the money quote:

Miss Malkin is upset because I didn’t identify the “Hussein” comment was made by a civilian — not her or her staff. And that’s true. I should have been more precise. But we often cite hateful civilian comments on blogs and say they should be edited, as we do on billoreilly.com.

Oh really?

civilian???
And then there’s the follow up:

I wish I could share today’s “BillOReilly.com blog posting” . . . but my membership has been terminated:

Due to violations of the Terms and Conditions of BillOReilly.com attributed to your account, your Premium Membership is hereby terminated effective as of the date of this notice. The termination is final and any attempt to use the site or to renew membership either directly or indirectly will similarly result in termination and/or blocking use of the site.

I’m not sure what terms and conditions I supposedly violated. I never posted any comments (or “blog postings”) on O’Reilly’s site. All I did was quote (and screencap) two embarrassing comments from the message boards.......

This is a good example of why it’s so annoying when the Lympians refer to commenting at the Lympian as “blogging”. 

I am responding to the article about Washington’s lethal injection method and how it can still cause pain to those receiving the injections, which would violate the state’s constitution protections against unnecessary pain.

I think that the suit filed against the use of these particular injections has some credit to its arguments.

In Washington state people sentenced to death can either do so by hanging, or by lethal injection. Lethal injection includes a series of three shots.

The first shot (sodium thiopental) should knock out the inmate.

The second (pancuronium bromide) will cause all voluntary movements to be stopped.

And finally the third (potassium chloride) will stop the heart.

The second and third shots are the ones receiving grief. The second, if not administered properly, can result in a suffocating feeling where the inmate would try to breath, but fail in doing so.

The third shot, if not administered properly, could cause the inmate an intense and horrible burning sensation in their veins until their heart finally stops. With this knowledge, I find it difficult to want to subject anyone to this possibility of a horrible and excruciating death.

My logic is that even though these people have done horrible, cruel and irreversible damage; they are still people who can feel pain. I don’t believe that their last moments on earth should be spent dying in excruciating and unbearable pain.

Boys wait for their turn to be circumcised during a mass circumcision ceremony at a mosque in Kuala Lumpur

I bought the “environmentally friendly” dish washing liquid at Costco because it was the best buy. I made sure to ask if it sucked I could return it.

JR was the first to test it out so I asked him how it was.

Well, my conscience is clean..........

I can so kick a Chinese second grader’s ASS in 30 seconds.......... but only once......
James

Why are people afraid of sending terrorists from GITMO to our street corners, but not afraid of people running around the national parks with loaded guns?

Judy Kimeldorf, Tumwater

Congratulations, Judy!

You probably won’t be seeing much of me today.........I have some pooches to walk, 30 tomato starts to plant and some weather to enJOY!

JR asks:
Would you hire any of these people to be your lawyer?
(this is one of them very expensive back cover of the phone book ads)

“direct access”—Holy Clap!

Do we really need another unelected, unaccountable Czar?  [and weren’t Czars the whole raison d’êtr for that Russian Revolution thang and it’s charming aftermath?  just, yanno, sayin’...]

And what’s the actual goal [as opposed to the stated goal] for this Czar at this time?

Cyberspace is real, and so is the risk that comes with it.’

“Our pursuit of cybersecurity will not — I repeat, will not — include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic,” Obama said. “We will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish. I remain firmly committed to net neutrality so we can keep the Internet as it should be — open and free.”

Here’s your incidental laff of the day:

Mr Obama noted that his own computer system for the presidential campaign at one point last year was compromised by hackers, but said the security of the names and financial information on contributors was intact.*

ToDaZeD Pop Quiz
answer first - “Finish your assignment!” after

Two Questions:

Would you be willing to slap your father in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit?

Does it disgust you to touch the faucet in a public restroom?

[answer first - *clicky* “Finish your assignment!” after]

raadio draama

I heard this am on da raadio that purported “conservative” host Mancow decided to get himself waterboarded and then reversed his previously stated opinion and declared it “torture.” Because it made him uncomfortable.  Very uncomfortable.

Then he got up and walked away.  And went on Olberdoosh.

Now I gloogle it and find that *shock* Mancow is just another radio dooshtool:  Mancow’s ‘Waterboarding’ Was Completely Fake Whatever.

Dooshnozzles and publicity whores aside, the controversy remains:  is waterboarding actual ‘torture’ or merely an extremely uncomfortable and frightening method of squeezing out some intel?

We seriously demean the term, torture, if we use it to describe every uncomfortable experience.  [Otherwise they’d hafta hold Congressional hearings over every speech by the TOTUS.  And every bone broken on a soccer field.  And every irritating spouse.  And TehDailyKox]

So are the Howling Masses calling waterboarding and other enhanced techniques “torture” because they are involuntary experiences?  IOW, we made the detainees do it?  Whereas similar experiences undergone by our own armed forces during training are considered voluntary and therefore not ‘torture’?

Or is the definition based on the degree of discomfort? [whereupon, given that being ‘detained’ and questioned by infidels or women eek would be extremely uncomfortable, we would have to have them question each other.] Is the definition based on long-lasting physical harm, like a drill to the knee or random missing bits ‘n’ pieces?

Frankly, I don’t much care what happens to those who are genuinely responsible for acts of war against the US and the West: I do care that we stick to our own Values [simmer down—our American Values—not ∏eh n∅∅b’s pseudo, politically advantageous “values"].  I do care about those tasked with this distasteful chore.  I want them to have room enough to accomplish their mission, constraint enough to keep them on the up and up, and support enough that they know the rules can’t be changed on them after the fact.

So.  How do we manage that?

Palestinians fly kites atop a destroyed Hamas police headquarters during a summer camp on the beach of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip

Restoring America in the eyes of the World as a laughing stock

...German officials complained that the Obama administration has not shared enough details from the Uighurs’ files to allow an independent assessment of whether they pose a security risk. More trouble emerged when Washington stipulated that the Uighurs would be barred from traveling to the United States.

“If the U.S. says they should come here, but they cannot travel to the U.S., we would have to ask why not?” said a German Interior Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. “Does that mean they are dangerous?”

...European officials involved in the negotiations said Obama administration officials had assured them that some detainees who are not considered security threats would be released in the United States, while others would be prosecuted in U.S. courts…

“Our European allies have made it quite clear that they expect our help and participation in solving the problem of Guantanamo, which we created,” [said Susan Baker Manning, a Washington lawyer who represents two Uighurs seeking to go to Munich.]

Yeah.  Of Course.  It’s Bush’s Fault©.  ‘Cept it’s not.  Bush didn’t attack the US—iSlamopithecus did.  Then they attended training camps/indoctrination centers, dressed down, armed up and hit the battle field.  We responded. 

So, ∏eh Bambi; if yer so damn burdened by the “inherited problems,” whyinhell did you apply for the job in the first place?  It’s not like those extant “problems” were a mystery.

President Barack Obama on Friday personally sought to deflect criticism about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who finds herself under intensifying scrutiny for saying in 2001 that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge. ”I’m sure she would have restated it,” Obama flatly told NBC News, without indicating how he knew that.

~ * ~
”I think if she had the speech to do all over again, I think she’d change that word,” presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Gibbs said he did not hear that from Sotomayor directly, but rather from people who had talked to her [ a friend of a friend’s brother’s proctologust } , and he did not identify who those people were. Sotomayor herself has made no public comments about the matter and was not available for comment.

I give it about a week before she never said it at all.........and she becomes an NRA member too.

Americans forget their rights

What would say if the county asked you these questions about a private gathering of 15 or so people in your own home?

‘Do you have a regular meeting in your home?’
‘Do you say amen?’
‘Do you pray?’
‘Do you say praise the Lord?’

Every Tuesday night about 15 people drive to [pastor David Jones]’s Bonita home to eat dinner and discuss the Bible. They usually park on Jones’ property, he said, but sometimes that parking spills out into the cul-de-sac.

Last month, someone filed a complaint about the number of cars.

A county code enforcement officer visited the house and asked Jones’ wife about the weekly Bible studies.

That code enforcement officer asked the questions above, to which the pastor’s wife answered “yes.” First mistake.

In April, Jones received a written warning for “unlawful use of land” and was ordered to stop hosting his “religious assemblies.”

They’re trying to make the Jonses’ get a permit for a ‘church’—which won’t happen in a residential neighborhood.  But what if they were holding a weekly ACORN meeting?  or discussing string theory - in Mandarin?

“We want to make sure—whether they’re on a public road or a private road—that they’re parking safely; that we can get fire trucks in; that we can get police vehicles in,” [Chandra Wallar of the county’s land use and environment group] said.

Well, that’s fine.  That’s their job.  If there’s a complaint, go give out some tickets.  Suggest car pooling.  But the content of their discussions is strictly none of the county’s business.

Jones said a visitor to a neighbor’s house called the County after a Bible study member hit the visitor’s car while leaving. Shortly after, a county code enforcement officer gave him a citation that said he needed a permit to host the weekly Bible study meetings, he said.

Revenge by zoning board—not uncommon.  ...for Statists.

But it brings to light one of the biggest hazard areas of the Shadow Government of regulators, bureaucracies and agencies which pass regulations that carry the force of law with hardly any oversight by elected officials and damn near none by citizens who have to live with ‘em.  That’s our mistake—not taking time to keep an eye on these regulators or supporting the people/organizations who do.

I was under the impression that one is only legally required to answer questions posed by an actual police officer when he is investigating an actual crime.  And he must demonstrate to you, the citizen, that those questions are relative to the crime under investigation.  No fishing expeditions.  [this is where ya’ll PMs jump in and correct my naive assumptions][please]

Without that restriction, a “zoning enforcement officer” can—and often does—become a petty tyrant.

I look forward to Pacific Justice Institute being all over this one.

The audience, which gave Bush a warm welcome at his arrival, cheered when he said he wanted to be remembered as a president who “showed up in office with a set of principles and he was unwilling to sacrifice his soul for the sake of popularity.”

Mark Brewer, chairman of the state Democratic Party, disagreed.

“I think it takes a lot of gall for him to come into Michigan without acknowledging the damage that his policies have done to the state,” Brewer said. He did not offer any specifics.