The scenario given is the unlikely but altogether familiar: you have captured a terrorist who knows the location of a nuclear weapon which will be detonated in a US metropolis 24 hours hence.

Normal investigations are closed to you. There are no more leads. Nothing can be done except bear down on this one man who you have evidence and a good faith belief can furnish the information necessary to save a million lives and avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in property loss.

Should torture in a case like this be legal?

I answer: Yes!

If we’re sure—like 100% certain sure—and it will save other lives, frankly even saving one life would be okay if the man being tortured shares responsibility for the impending loss of life, it’s completely moral, ethical, and it should be legal. It’s simple self-defense.

However, the real problem is, has been, and forever will be, torture ends up being used against innocent individuals who have no information to offer, have committed no crime, and don’t deserve so much as a talking to, let alone water boarding.

Therefore the crux, the modest proposal toward legalizing torture, being:

If it comes to light later—whether it’s a day or 10 years—that the tortured man was innocent or that the threat could have been nullified without torture, everyone involved in the torturing, from the executives who cleared it, to the thugs who beat him with phonebooks and told him he was dead if he didn’t display some alacrity in squealing, all receive 25 years in a federal penitentiary without the possibility of parole. Or if the tortured individual dies as a result of the treatment, all responsible parties are given the death penalty without appeal.

Oh, and the tortured man or his surviving family would receive the proceeds of one year of the USA’s gross domestic product or 1 trillion dollars, whichever is less, as compensation. Gotta make it hurt for everyone so they take an interest.

That ought to keep torture where it belongs: in history books and pointless Socratic jibber-jabber. We’ll call it the Wiesenthal Law. We’ll also take a moment to remind any jet-setting CIA personnel busy burying evidence this week that the Freedom of Information Act will probably run out before you do.

Seattle, the west coast haven of coffee, culture and the Arts has been named America’s most literate city.

I just want to cover three main points.

1. One of the last times I was walking around downtown Seattle in the afternoon someone in a primer gray, ’70s model, American four-door pulled up outside the courthouse. The driver got out to piss on the curb in plain sight.
   1. I had a gun drawn on me in downtown Seattle at 1pm.
   2. I’ve never walked through the piers or the Market section of Seattle after dark without someone trying to sell me drugs.
   3. You can’t buy half of the cold and allergy medicines available without bringing a ticket up to the pharmacy because Seattle and surrounding areas are Meth Central, USA.
2. My last manager at IMDb.com was a Christian who tried to bully me out of taking unpaid leave to care for my newborn daughter because it was woman’s work and my wife should be doing it.
3. It snowed in Seattle last week. The local news station—my hand to God—had a crew on the street and they panned down to focus on 1/2 inch of slush in the road. Slack-jawed urban yokels agog with yet-another “Storm Watch.”

More T1s than espresso shops does not uber-literate make.

The article did make the point that–

At the family level, even the simple step of turning on the closed captioning of TV sets can significantly improve literacy.

Hooray! and confirmation for foley folks everywhere (yes I’m talking to you, Bob—what’s the matter, don’t you get it?). The CC has been on almost non-stop since the birth of my kids as they won’t even look up for whatever murder and whoring is going on during Deadwood, Rome, Law & Order or anything else I watch with the volume off.

Also, if Dale Chihuly and Frank Gehry are “the Arts” then I’m the Space Pope. When you could catch Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam at The Crocodile in a given month was the last time there was any art worth scribbling about in this concrete village.

update

How could I forget #4!?

Seattle is the new Mecca, if you will, of a 200 year-old Frankenstein’s monster resurrected: Intelligent Design.

Of course Mein Kampf, Das Kapital, and Manufacturing Consent are books too. So “literate” isn’t necessarily a compliment.

The Wolf and the Lamb

Wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus addressed him: “Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.”

“Indeed,” bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, “I was not then born.”

“You feed in my pasture.”

“No, good sir,” replied the Lamb, “I have not yet tasted grass.”

Again said the Wolf, “You drink of my well.”

“No,” exclaimed the Lamb, “I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother’s milk is both food and drink to me.”

Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, “Well! I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.”

The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.

I have no idea how anyone gets paid to discuss politics. It was all explained quite plainly 2,600 years ago.

Dear friends, family, potential employers, and victims of this site,

My name is Ashley and it being Christmas time, and “Blog Against Racism Day” in particular, I have to get this out there at last. I hate whites blacks Arabs Asians Chicanos Canadians everyone.

It’s been a boring insufferable overlong dull hobbled pointless wretched dissatisfying life. Made all the moreso by family colleagues friends co-workers band-mates employers cops the Internet.

Today, I can barely leave the house without becoming enraged sad really sad depressed suicidal homicidal over the neolithic manners opinionated stupidity clumsiness dishonesty sense of entitlement displayed with pride everywhere around me.

In conclusion, I blame it on the Jews women mulattos gays Republicans crypto-anti-Semite PC commie bloggers who don’t think Sarah Silverman is funny you.

I write a great many things which I would prefer were not read by children. There are gentler ways to explain that celebrity is a golden calf—its worshipers doomed to sad, small endings. There are less psychologically blunt ways to explain that politicians are nothing but grafters and mass murderers in their Sunday best.

So, no kids—not mine, not yours—is my preference. But I’m not worried about mine.

I saw Arlo Guthrie in concert in Taos years ago. In the middle of a set he related a story of school one day when the teacher lead everyone in singing, “This Land Is Your Land.” Every single kid in the class knew all the words to all the verses.

Every single kid except little Arlo. He ran home crying.

They sang songs, including that song, at home of course. As you know, his father, Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land.” So Arlo never took it as something interesting or something to which attention might be due.

So my blue tongue, my foibles, my follies, my sentence fragments, the genito-political warts and all. Safe as houses. I don’t think one member of my family has read one tenth of 1% of my writing. I doubt my kids will even get that far.

On one of the nicest local flowers, a lupin (nootka lupin, I think).

With the bulletin boards, blogs, and now even the mainstream media flooded with the raging and increasingly acrimonious debate I think it’s time we at Sedition·com stepped up to discuss the shortcomings of both camps.

Let me start by saying “to me.” This is just to me, okay? I don’t have to even attempt to find the truth here. I know what I think and you can’t. So everything I say that follows to me is completely accurate because I’m just describing my own opinions. There, I win. No tag backs.

To me, the easiest imaginable way to push someone’s buttons is to go after one’s mother. But no one seems to really understand this. Not those making disparaging remarks about others’ mothers and not those defending motherhood on principle. Those making the remarks don’t even seem concerned whether or not one’s mother literally “sits around the house.” Those defending the pure, unassailable virtue of motherhood seem oblivious to the oceans of evidence that some mothers are less than virtuous.

So when one side says that Scott Adams’s mother has ruled on more balls than a Wimbledon line judge, how am I supposed to know if it’s true?

Relax! I’m not saying that Scott Adams’s mother is really a whore. I’m just pointing out that she’s an easy target. Just like those who suggest that every mother will gargle spunk for a pocket-sized lithograph of Andrew Jackson.

Let me give you an example. When I was a corporate lackey I handled a project that spanned four countries and came in about $243,000 under budget. During that time I had the chance to speak ill of maybe 200 mothers in six different languages. But do you think the 36 hour work week stopped me? Déjà vu s’ils plaît, non!

His mom may not be a whore for all I know. She may not even be a slut. But I think you’ll agree that there is no way she’s a virgin. So, anyone who claims she’s not addicted to bone needs to offer clear proof against this damaging fact.

Maybe there is proof she’s a whore. T’would be pity. Maybe she’s a saint just because she gave birth as the other camp asserts. I have yet to hear anything irrefutable about it.

The point is: evidence notwithstanding, neither side is credible. And it shouldn’t be my job to make an informed judgement about it. Someone should convince me. Mr Scott Adams himself seems to have tremendous portions of free time on his hands.

I’d be surprised if his mom is a whore. But if you think it’s impossible, you should share what you’ve been smoking.

I bought the DVD for Star Wars III because A) it was $14.99 and two tickets for the “film” would have been $18.46, B) I was misled by a Target® clerk as to the details of deleted scenes included in the DVD. (Note to those concerned who have not seen the DVD, the birth scene contains no details of Naboo bikini-area hair styles nor close-ups of of Luke and Leia crowning from Natalie Portman’s midichlorian-swollen birth canal — complete disappointment on all fronts.)

So, that’s it. The circle is complete. Well, except that originally there were going to be 9 movies and then there were only going to be 3 and now there are only going to be 6. But it seems like the story is all told; until Lucas decides it’s time to edit out the blasters and replace them with flashlights.

I did learn some things from the entire series however and I share them with you, my seditious diaspora.

#1

Storm Trooper armor is purely cosmetic as it stops neither blaster fire nor little rocks thrown by teddy bears.

#2

Slaughtering children doesn’t necessarily make you an unappealing hero to children as long as you call the butchered kids, “younglings.”

#3

Not all Jedi are gay.

#4

A beautiful idea about an interconnected, tangible magic, created by life, which rewards the virtuous can be completely shit on just by saying, “Microbes.”

#5

Jedis never scream when they fall from high places. Yes they do. No they don’t.

#6

Digitally generated slapstick can only improve the dramatic tension of a scene.

#7

R2D2 can fly when he battles robots but not when he battles swamp creatures.

#8

Maybe Samuel L Jackson has been in enough movies.

#9

The laws of physics don’t apply to jumping Wookies.

#10

The cost and time to get a Death Star fully operational is inversely proportionate to its size. A small one takes about 19 years. A gigantic one takes about 9 months.

I’m pitching a new cartoon to Adult Swim. Some of my “friends” think I don’t stand a chance but I get the feeling the time is nigh.