Charles P. Pierce has once again eloquently stated what should be obvious but sadly is not. The short summary is that the founders of our nation quite clearly understood that it was extremely important government not be allowed to torture people. I wouldn’t post this if the nitwits at Fox News and Meet the Press hadn’t recently argued that torture is okay if it is done by Americans who are scared.

For a very long time I viewed NPR as my primary source of news and highly recommended it. Sadly I haven’t felt that way for over a year. They still refuse to use the word “torture” when discussing our actions towards suspected terrorists or merely people who might have had contact with a terrorist. The continuously osculate the rump of religion — to the point where I’m surprised when I hear them say anything critical regarding religion.

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Charles P. Pierce sums up why John Brennan, the current head of the CIA, needs to fired: Actually, John. Your agency did not “live up to the high standards” of the NKVD, but let’s let that slide for the moment. You either stand with the president who appointed you — and took some not inconsiderable heat for doing so — or you stand with the torturers who shamed this country before the world.

I see many attempts to attack my server via SSH or HTTP every day. I automatically blackhole most of them and that’s the end of it. However two days ago a server on linode.com started pounding on my SSH service. I reported the attack since Linode is an ISP in the US and might actually act on my report. Imagine my surprise when I actually received an email from a human acknowledging my report.

This afternoon I saw “Antartica: A Year on Ice”. Now I have to decide whether to find my dogs a new home so I too can experience what living at a research station in Antartica is like. Not really, but no other documentary film has had such an impact on me. I really did leave the theater pondering the idea of uprooting my life. I’ll be truly surprised if it isn’t at least a candidate for an Academy Award this year.

This weeks call to prayer by the FRC (Family Research Council) is more incoherent than usual. The suggested prayer that everyone should repeat opens with This year, especially, we give thanks for free government. I didn’t realize government was “free”; that is, incurring no cost to me. Apparently I’ve been doing it wrong by wasting time evaluating the merits of the ballot proposals I’ve been asked to vote on.

I thought I had seen members of the GOP (aka Republicans) sink as low as possible. I was wrong. Elizabeth Lauten, the communications director for Tennessee representative Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), thought it was appropriate to write Dear Sasha and Malia, I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re a part of the First Family, try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play. Then again your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ department.

An anxious citizen in Pontiac, Michigan called the police to report a black man walking with his hands in his pockets. Bear in mind that the temperature was near freezing and it was snowing lightly. The police officer didn’t shoot the scary black man. On the contrary, he acted with a surprising amount of professionalism given what we’ve come to expect for such encounters. Nonetheless, the officer did attempt to interrogate the person on the basis of nothing more than a, presumably white, person who was made uncomfortable at the sight of a black man in their neighborhood.

I just read Jerry Coyne’s monologue about the “Shroud of Turin”. I then read Dennis Smitton’s “My Selfish Gene” excellent explanation for someone not knowledgeable about physics how carbon dating tells us the “Shroud of Turin” is a fake. These are only two recent examples, of many, that make it obvious the relic is fake. So why do so many people continue to believe this is the actual burial cloth of their patron saint?