2+2= ?

Let's do the math, shall we?

According to the New York Times, the Justice Department was busily sifting through laws and treaties precluding torture in order to determine that whatever Bush wanted to use as "an interrogation tactic" was pretty much fine. Pair this with an article from the same day's paper
in which the "few bad apples" in Abu Ghraib managed to radiate throughout the prison, stripping dozens upon dozens, perhaps hundreds of prisoners of both their clothing and their dignity. Here's a catalog:

The detainees said leaving prisoners naked started as far back as last July, three months before the seven soldiers now charged and their military police company arrived at the prison. It bred a culture, some soldiers say, where the abuse captured on film could happen.

Detainees were paraded naked past other prisoners and guards; some were ordered to do jumping jacks and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the nude, according to a several witnesses. Also, a father and his grown son were stripped, then forced to stand and stare at each other. The International Committee of the Red Cross, visiting in October, found prisoners left naked in their cells for days, modestly trying to shield themselves behind cardboard from meals-ready-to-eat boxes.

The point here is NOT to castigate our troops, but to encourage an exercise in common sense. The Bush administration was, it now seems clear, seeking to push the envelope with respect to the use of highly questionable tactics -- and ultimately torture -- when dealing with prisoners. Abusive treatment of prisoners was not isolated, but pervasasive. Thus, the blame for the shameful activities in Abu Ghraib lies not only with the perpretrators, but also with the chain of command, and the buck ought to stop right where Truman said it did, on the President's desk. The Times' editoral page comes to roughly the same conclusion. You should too. And vote accordingly.

MAChinations

Since last August, I have had two Apple computers nosedive on me, both beset with logic board problems. Additionally, I got a defective iPod, and it was replaced with an iPod that is now misbehaving. All of which goes to say that I am immensely grateful for my new Wintel laptop, which is in the process of persuading me that WindowsXP is, for all intents, a very ugly cousin of the MacOS. I have been an Apple user since before there were Macs, and have owned Apple products steadily since 1991. I don't ever see myself loving my Dell as much as I loved, say, my first LCIII, but I sure as heck like it. And given the quality control problems I've experienced, it's not like I have a viable Mac option. I'm about to undertake a hail-mary attempt at wresting justice from Apple. I'll post a blow-by-blow with Apple's response when I have it. In the meantime, normal service is slowly being restored, as I port my cathedral of files from machine to machine. And I just have to say, if you're using any e-mail client other than Mozilla's Thunderbird, you owe it to yourself to sip some Thunderbird.