June 18, 2005 by s.z.

Yes, it's a new line of Cafe Press merchandise: the i heart gitmo collection!   (I think the creepiest item is the "i heart gitmo" classic thong.)  Link via Powerline Blog, your source of info on all the best torture humor. And that brings us to James Lileks latest screed.  It's about how "the hard left" shouldn't be allowed to endanger the war by talking about Gitmo any more.  In it, Lileks provides a way to reach consensus with these traitors, whiners, and big stupid babies. I have a solution. It’s time to institute Disintegration Chambers in our major America cities. If you recall that episode of Star Trek – and I would be rather stunned if you did not – there were two warring planets that had long ago decided against waging physical war, and started to wage a virtual one. Computers fought the war, and if your planet’s computer somehow let the other guy’s virtual cobalt bomb in, it would calculate the death toll. Those people who lived in the area hit by the virtual bomb would walk into a Disintegration Chamber and poof! Very tidy, and the infrastructure was left standing. Kirk, naturally, put a stop to it by wrecking the mainframes and snarling “now you have a real war on your hands, Chancellor.” Supposedly the planets would be so frightened by the prospect of ruptured sewer lines they would immediately sue for peace. They never did go back to that system. I would have liked to have seen if the planets stopped warring, or got together and started invading others, or just blew each other up six times over. But that was Kirk: he got the ball rolling, and that was his job. Anyway. Here’s the deal. We decide what constitutes torture, and identify it as the following: insufficient air conditioning, excess air conditioning, sleep deprivation, being chained to the floor, and other forms of psychological stress. The United States is free to use these techniques against hardened terrorists. Those who disagree with the techniques sign a register that records their complaints. When the terrorist finally spills the details of a forthcoming attack, on, say, Chicago, the people who signed the register and live in Chicago are required to report to the Disintegration Chamber. Very simple. Everyone’s happy. What a stupid post.  And I have a solution: that Lileks be forced to watch that Star Trek ep until he gets its point (which was that if you want a war, you should be forced to confront war's brutality).  Because it's clear that despite using this ep as the basis of his post, he doesn't get it.  If he got the point, he'd realize that If he wants to claim that some torture is necessary (and is just fine by him), then he should have the guts to write what it is that he wants done to other human beings by representatives of his country.  He can't say "insufficient air conditioning," he has to say, "I think it's perfectly acceptable if people suspected (but not charged, tried, or convicted) of being terrorists or terrorist associates are kept in unventilated rooms at temperatures of well over 100° until they are almost unconscious, and literally pull out their hair".  Instead of saying, "excess air conditioning," he has to write, "I want my government to subject barefoot, lightly clad prisoners to temperatures of circa 40° so that they will shake with cold."  Instead of saying, "being chained to the floor, and other forms of psychological stress," he has to write, "I demand that interrogators keep detainees in unbearably hot rooms for days at a time, while also subjecting them to extremely loud rap music -- oh, and the detainees should also be chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."  And so on. If he wants to talk tough, then he damned well should should talk tough.  Oh, and if he wants to talk tough, then he should show that he is tough, by volunteering to spend a couple of days in a pleasant 70° room, sitting unconfined in the comfy chair, listening to Shatner's Transformed Man.  5:50:30 AM

Some Good Stuff You'll Enjoy (Or Your Money Back) 1.  Over at Sadly, No!, Brad and Gavin have been blogging up a storm.  Brad brings us Debbie Schlussel's arch rivals, Debbie Daniel & Kaye Grogan.  So, read Brad's post and then try to decide who's the fruitcakiest: Debbie D., Kaye, or Little Debbie Snackcakes (a hat tip to whoever was the first to come up with that moniker; and a whole hat to Chris V for the lovely logo).  And if you aren't following Gavin's hardboiled tales of a private dick in Wingnuttown, well, you should.  Start with the first chapter, and then keep on reading until Brad stops writing.  You do know how to read, don't you?  You just use your eyes to send images to your brain, which assigns them meaning ... um, big boy. 2.  Steve of No More Mister Nice Blog discovers the latest threat to the physical and emotional well-being of your children: zany fonts.  Really. 3.  Mark at Fried Green al-Qaedas writes about the media frenzy that resulted when a black man went missing.  And in other news, Mark takes a bullet for the cause and listens to all three hours of the Rush Limbaugh show (like Steve Martin once said, comedy is not pretty, and neither is Rush).  Plus, Ann Coulter talks to Rupert Murdoch about her getting own Fox News program, and then she writes her dated column about Gitmo.  Wackiness and hunger ensues. 4. Ol' Doghouse Riley from Bats Left Throws Right discusses his hatred of blockbusters (the movies, not the video store) .  Here's a free sample: I did see the original Star Wars. It was not my choice. I was in the company of a college student/waitress with the carriage of an Amazon, except she still had both breasts. It wasn't worth it. Dear God, it was not worth it. You'll have to read the whole thing to learn why it wasn't worth it.  Here's the the Joe Bob Briggs review of this post: two breasts, one dead shark, Atlanta burning-fu, and two terms of Reagan.  Joe Bob says check it out. 5. Realist at the The Pink Chimpanzee shares a bayeau joke that I found pretty danged amusing. 6.  David at Journalists Against Bush's B.S. (AKA JABBS) blogs about the Pentagon's plan to win the war with comic books.  He also discusses what Dr. Hammesfahr (who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in medicine, the world's most prestigious award in that field, as you know) said on "Hannity & Colmes" and "Scarborough Country" about the Schiavo autopsy results. 7.  Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged brings you the info that the NY Times apparently didn't have room to mention in the article where they reported Dr. Bill Frist's claim that he never said that Terri Schiavo wasn't in a PV state, and would never dream of making a medical diagnosis without having examined the patient.  (Maybe the Times could use a smaller font in order to include this kind of info in the future.) More recommended reading tomorrow.  Until then, feel free to comment on how much better you like the above blogs than mine.  You can also add your own recommendations .  (And if YOU would like to be one of our recommended bloggers, just send me $10 in small, unmarked bills -- but don't tell the police, or you'll never see your blog alive again!) 4:03:43 AM

Jet Jaguar Confidential Thanks to those of you who inquired after the state of Jet's health.  He's feeling much better today (thanks to time, the vigor of youth, and the cat heroin the vet prescribed).  As to what happened to him, well, it all started while I was blogging in the early A.M. Thursday.  The cats were bugging me, so I let them go in the backyard so I could have some peace (I left the door open, so they could come and go as they pleased, and so I could hear if there were signs of trouble).  Anyway, a couple of hours later, Sheena and Andy told me that they were hungry, so I abandoned the Pulitzer-worthy piece I was working on to feed them.  The first sign of trouble was that Jet didn't come running at the first hint of food (he's never forgotten his beginnings as a skinny street waif, and so chows down with gusto at every possible occasion, including many that he creates by telling me that he's starving to death whenever I go near the kitchen). So, I went over to where he was lying by the door, and noticed that he was drooling, had vomited, and that it seemed to hurt his stomach when I picked him up (in that he hissed at me, something he's never done before).  I tried to get him to drink some water, but he seemed nauseous.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him -- the only thing I could think of was that he had wandered over to the neighbors' and eaten something poisonous.  I watched him carefully until the vet's office opened, and then called for an appointment.  (I told the receptionist that he may have been poisoned -- she said, "Would you like an appointment today, or later this week?")  Anyway, they had an opening a couple of hours later.  The vet examined him, but could see no physical signs of trauma except that two of Jet's teeth were broken (one down to the root).  He did blood work -- and I waited around for that to be completed an analyzed.  All the results were normal (Jet tests very well -- oh, and he also weighs 15 pounds now).  Finally, the vet concluded that Jet somehow broke his teeth, and that was responsible for the lethargy, pain, nausea, and hissing.  I still don't know what he was up to -- I think he may have tried climbing on something, and fallen (he's really into climbing, and is the first in cat history to jump from the easy chair to the entertainment center, and then land on the top of the 15-foot high wall that separates the living room from the kitchen  -- it was a big leap for a cat, and a small step for catkind).  Maybe he tried jumping on the railing on the back stairs, and fell on the cement, resulting in a mild cat concussion and two broken teeth.  In any case, he's not talking, holding that discretion is the better part of maintaining the cat mystique.  (Sure, he tried to imply that he lost those teeth while serving his countryin Iraq, but I think he knows that I'm not buying it.) But for now, he's feeling better, and is back to begging for Meow Mix kibble.  (Back story: I buy expensive premium fish and rice cat food for him and his siblings, but I have a bag of Meow Mix that a neighbor gave me because I cared for her cat last summer.  One day when I left the pantry door open, Jet found it, clawed a hole in the bag, and proceeded to get addicted to it.  He now begs for a hit of Meow Mix whenever I'm near the pantry.  His cries of "Please, man, I need another fix really bad" are both pathetic and heart-rending, and I usually give him  4 or 5 pieces.  Sure, I'm enabling him, but I often make him work for that Meow Mix, by sliding the pieces across the linoleum so he has to catch them.  Someday I'll show you photos of him catching Meow Mix in mid-air,  playing hockey with other pieces, and batting some behind the fridge, so that I have to sweep back there, which I would never do otherwise).  But let him enjoy his convalescence and his cat heroin, because as soon as he's stabilized, it's back to the vet's to have one tooth extracted.  To mangle two commericals: "For vet bills, there's Master Card.  Having a psycho cat: priceless." 2:33:44 AM