Herald Sun: Muslim books of hate sold

This sort of hatred and bloodthirst is what the PR department of Islam has to deal with.

These books were sold right out of a bookstore attached to a mosque.

Psychologists employed to help break detainees

In an article sure to send Andrew Sullivan through the stratosphere with hysterical apoplexy, the New York Times is "reporting" that psychologists were employed by the military to give advice on how to break detainees at Guantanamo.

I can see the likes of Sullivan and others going batty with outrage, but let's just step back for a moment. Interrogation is a natural bedfellow with psychology and is intuitively developed by those trained in psychology in order to find efficient ways to extract confessions by either using mental tricks or the mental makeup of the detainee. I would think that those two fields are organically and inextricably intertwined, and really, a non-issue.

But let's just wait for the hyperventilators to come out of the woodwork.

Mental contortions

Wow, the Supreme Court today ruled in favor of allowing cities to seize private property through eminent domain for private development, as long as they are within state law. The weird party was that the 5-4 majority consisted of the more liberal members of the SCOTUS. Here is the majority siding with big business and minimizing the purview of the federal government, yet expanding the scope of the 5th Amendment. Whoa. The minority consisting of Scalia, O'Connor, Thomas, and Rehnquist stayed true to their conservative leanings and protect individual rights, limited the scope of government, and narrowly construed the Constitution.

My initial gut reaction: the Court got it horribly wrong today.

Democrats find 2004 voting problems in Ohio (Whodathunkit?)

This may come as a surprise to no one, but the Democrats, once again, have found voting problems in Ohio in the 2004 election. The reasons are the usual cast of characters: so-called "long lines", "poorly trained" election officials, "difficulties" with registration status, polling locations, and absentee ballots.

Rebels, the new terrorists

Apparently, the the NYT likes to call the terrorists in Iraq rebels.

Pathetic.

Sullivan pulls a John Kerry

Sullivan is now attempting to laugh off criticism of his praise of Sen. Durbin by talking about "nuances" to his argument, that, if hearing about such a story of "torture", no one would find it unbelievable that it came from a Nazi concentration camp.

You know what? I'm not buying it. His argument is crap. Take it from a survivor of such camps, Pavel Litvinov.

Put simply, if that detainee were in a Nazi, Stalinist, or Khmer Rouge concentration camp, he'd probably be dead.

GOP Congressman Calls Democrats Anti-Christian

Once again, the religious whackjobs in Congress come out to play.

Inconsistent and incoherent

Q: How does one square applauding Sen. Durbin's asinine"American military as Nazi's" comment with being outraged by Amnesty International's exaggerated "Guantanamo as gulag" statement?

A: You can't.

Apparently, in Andrew Sullivan's world, intellectual consistency doesn't matter. What matters is how hysterical and over-the-top you can get. Good for him. He just dumbed down the blogosphere a notch with that one.

Wisdom from a 12 year old kid

Matt Hufferd, a 12 year old kid playing baseball for goodness's sake, has wisdom beyond his years. Upon hearing that other teams in his baseball league were quitting because the his team, the Stars, were too good, he calls the parents of those teams quitters.

Refreshing to hear that coming from a kid in the age of "feel good" and "we're all winners" parenting.

No faking female orgasm in scientific research - Yahoo! News

Looks like Seinfeld got it all wrong.

You don't say!

Muslims tearing up their own Korans then blaming their guards??? No way, couldn't happen! I hear such acts are punishable by death.