The Week in Review: Fascism, Torture, and Nukes, Oh My!

This week, we found out what they'd been doing to Jose Padilla during the three and a half years he's been incarcerated. And, once again, we were unsurprised.

Here's Glenn Greenwald's take on it, and the motion to dismiss(pdf) that describes his treatment. Good thing he's an American citizen - they hadn't waterboarded him. Yet.

Why should you care? Here, let Lambert over in the Corrente Building lay out, from the "Military Commissions Act of 2006", the provisions that kill habeas corpus and allow Bush to disappear you.

We have some argument as to The Lancet's figure, via a Johns Hopkins study, of 650,000 Iraqi civilians killed due to the occupation. Most of the arguments, of course, from people who haven't read the paper and wouldn't understand the methodology of the survey if they did pulling competing figures out of their asses.

GENERAL GEORGE CASEY, US COMMANDER IN IRAQ: I have not seen the study; that 650,000 number seems way beyond any number that I have seen. I've not seen a number higher than 50,000 and so I don't give that much credibility at all.

REPORTER: The 50,000 number, where did you see that from?

GENERAL CASEY: I don't remember, but I have seen it over time.

REPORTER: That is that a US military estimate?

GENERAL CASEY: I don't remember where I saw it.

Let me give you a hint, Gen. Casey. Just before you flushed.

As far as North Korea goes there is more substantiative discussion, which I cannot mock as easily as poor Gen. Casey, as to whether or not North Korea detonated a nuke and if they did, whether or not it worked. The one consensus appears to be that ol' Chimpy screwed up once again - unless of course you're one of his codpiece-worshipers, then it's because Clinton had sex.

Wrapping it up - I've been keeping an eye out for software and equipment in order that I may attempt one of these newfangled "pod-casts", although God only knows where I'd find the time to make one. Probably in 2017.

Update: Thanks for the heads-up on the typos. Dammit.