It means something we’re all finally saying the word “torture.” And now maybe it’s time to ask whether someone might actually be held accountable for the CIA’s willingness to put pureed foods in detainees’ rectums, keep them awake for weeks, or essentially drown them as they sat in chairs. An outgoing senator from Colorado has demanded the resignation of the CIA’s director (who likely won’t be going anywhere besides his office anytime soon).
Torture and “black sites” weren’t inevitable. In the weeks after President Bush signed the paperwork giving the CIA permission to capture, imprison, and interrogate terrorism suspects, the CIA briefly considered creating sites that resembled maximum-security federal prisons.
Another report on the Islamic State reminds us (how timely!) that the Al-Qaida offshoot, now occupying large parts of Iraq and Syria, was <a href=”Another report on the Islamic State reminds us that
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story”>born in an American prison. Also see this story more than a month ago.
But how about the weather, hah? Some weather we’re about to have here. Some weather.
While you were sleeping, Portland and Multnomah County each released a dispiriting report—even if they’re dispiriting for very different reasons. The county issued a comprehensive look at an overwhelming array of health disparities between black Oregonians and white Oregonians. The city’s auditor, meanwhile, released an audit of the Portland Streetcar that found gross overstatements when it comes to ridership and punctuality.
Three friends of the student whose rape accusation was chronicled in Rolling Stone‘s now-infamous story about the University of Virginia have given a different account to the Washington Post about what happened—with one friend complaining that Rolling Stone incorrectly said it tried to get in touch for an interview.
The Ebola vaccine is on hiatus. A clinical trial involving 59 people had to stop after four of those test subjects started to complain about pain in their joints and extremities. Researchers now have to figure out if that pain is “benign and temporary” or a reason to go back to the drawing board.
The nonstop police accountability protests in Oakland and Berkeley keep throwing off new and interesting drama. Last night, after protesters outed a pair of undercover officers who’d been marching with masks and allegedly pounding on windows like provocateurs, one of those officers was featured in a brilliant photograph pulling out his gun and pointing it at marchers gangster-style while his partner, still wearing a black mask, arrested someone.
Hong Kong’s Occupy protest camp survived for 11 weeks while activists protested “free elections” for the province that weren’t actually free because Beijing would get to pre-approve all the candidates. Police have finally surrounded the place on orders to clear it out.
The new Roman Catholic pope whom everyone likes better than the old pope isn’t going to meet with the Dalai Lama, whom everybody likes, because the Vatican’s more worried about courting the affections of rival China, which a lot of people are too afraid of not to pretend to like.
Sony’s hacked emails—500,000 of them—are unsurprisingly awful. Bitter fights over scuttled film projects are surfacing, along with formerly private insults of movie stars. Like when someone called Angelina Jolie “minimally talented” and a “brat.” Oh, and racism. Like when someone joked whether Barack Obama would like Django.
Just shut the hell up about karma, okay? A 43-year-old child molester and convicted thief won $3 million from the Florida Lottery thanks to a lucky $20 scratch-off.
MODERN COUNTRY MUSIC IS MOSTLY A CESSPOOL OF JINGOISM, LOUSY POP AFFECTATIONS, AND MALE-GAZE CREEPINESS. EXCEPT THIS SONG, WHICH IS THE MOST POPULAR COUNTRY SONG IN AMERICA RIGHT NOW—TO THE BITTER CHAGRIN OF THE “COUNTRY BROS” IT LAMPOONS.