As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree.
– Sen. Harry Reid, in a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell, regarding the claims by Republicans that reconciliation is somehow anathema.
OK, we are mostly back now. The only loss is of pictures in prior blog posts. Otherwise, we should be good to go.
Further administrative improvements will be coming this weekend, including the return of a mobile theme for iPhones/Blackberries, and various other minor tweaks.
OK, so the blog is all screwed up. Notice the new (i.e, default or quasi default) theme. We have had a major malfunction here at Bits & Pieces. Rebuilding is in progress, but will likely take the rest of the weekend to complete. So please be patient, as we try to get back to where we were.
Onward and upward.
Update: The theme has been fixed and, lucky you, there will be no annoying ads for a bit.
Update 2:All Most still images have been lost (at least for now). Also previous pages are currently lost. Working….
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, summarizes the “man points” he scored during a weekend home improvement project. The concept of “man points” is new to me, but I really like it. Hilarious.
Excerpt:
Yesterday I decided to make some man points. (-1 for knowing I need them.) Recently we purchased online a big metal rack to hold free weights. (+1). The delivery guy left the package outside the door when we were gone. I wasn’t strong enough to carry it inside. (-1 for having no upper body strength.) So I tipped it on its end and “walked” it into the garage. (+1 for using science to move a heavy object.)
The rack required assembly. This was a problem because all of my tools had been stolen from the garage last week. (-1 for leaving tools unprotected. -1 for having so few tools that they all fit in one basket. -1 for not replacing them the same day. -1 for not having an attack dog in the garage.)
The main tool I needed was a rather huge Allen wrench. I didn’t own that sort of tool even in the days when I had tools. (-1 for inadequate toolage.) So I dropped everything, jumped in the car, and headed to Home Depot for a tool buying spree. (+1 for going on a hunt for tools. -1 for calling it a spree. +1 for intending to buy tools for which I had no immediate use.
If you have any doubts that waterboarding is torture, take a look at this article from Salon which summarizes the contents of internal CIA documents recently released.
The documents … lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.
***
One of the more interesting revelations in the documents is the use of a saline solution in waterboarding. Why? Because the CIA forced such massive quantities of water into the mouths and noses of detainees, prisoners inevitably swallowed huge amounts of liquid – enough to conceivably kill them from hyponatremia, a rare but deadly condition in which ingesting enormous quantities of water results in a dangerously low concentration of sodium in the blood. Generally a concern only for marathon runners , who on extremely rare occasions drink that much water, hyponatremia could set in during a prolonged waterboarding session. A waterlogged, sodium-deprived prisoner might become confused and lethargic, slip into convulsions, enter a coma and die.
Therefore, “based on advice of medical personnel,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury wrote in a May 10, 2005, memo authorizing continued use of waterboarding, “the CIA requires that saline solution be used instead of plain water to reduce the possibility of hyponatremia.”
The entire range of techniques used by the CIA and explicated in the article is beyond sickening and horrifying. I cannot comprehend how this country could have allowed this to have happened, and to have planned the torture sessions in a careful and systematic manner to enhance the discomfort and terror of the victim.
How can the Obama administration continue to take the position that a criminal investigation of these activities is not essential to restore our country to the rule of law, both domestic and international?
Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn’t know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.
– from movie The Treasure of Sierra Madre, quoted by Paul Krugman in response to Republican claims that the unemployed are intentionally not looking for work.
My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not — this was in the ’60s — we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.
– Sarah Palin, supposedly opposed to government healthcare, speaking to Canadians. Ironic? That is not the word I would choose to describe it. It seemed to work pretty well for her then, huh?
