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On television, in the newspaper, in discussions with friends, and even in the comments on this weblog, I’ve seen people draw a distinction between coercion and torture. First, let it be said that the military (and other people who interrogate prisoners, like policemen) have come up with lots of ways to interrogate prisoners to get [...]

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Today the Senate Web site celebrates the Constitution.

May it rest in peace.

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You know what I want to write about at this site? Cool stuff on the Web, better ways to develop software, and generally speaking, stuff that fascinates me. You know what I find myself writing about? Torture. Habeas corpus. Assertions of executive privilege. I’d prefer not to, but I just can’t stop myself.

While [...]

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These are the covers of various editions of Newsweek from around the world. Draw your own conclusions. (I had a terrible version of the picture up here, but since everyone and their brother is doing the same thing I outsourced the graphics component.)

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In recent weeks, the Bush administration has tried to justify its requests for Congressional authorization to torture prisoners by saying that the language of the treaties by which we are already bound is overly vague. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley went on TV and said, “I’m saying that nobody knows what humiliating treatment is. What [...]

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BoingBoing has a post about a machine that reminds people to wash their hands after they use the restroom. The people who make the machine claim that it increases hand washing by 12%. I wonder how much further the percentage would rise if they included a picture of eyes with the machine?

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Some old friends and I were enjoying a spirited discussion of torture via email yesterday, and I presented them with a hypothetical that I thought I’d post here as well. It neatly bundles up all the reasons why torture is wrong. While the situation is hypothetical, Pete is a real life friend of mine who [...]

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This morning I read that Al Gore’s news network, Current, is bringing four broadband channels online with Yahoo as a partner. I can’t say the announcement interests me all that much, but I do think that Current will make a fascinating case study one day, mainly because it arrived at the same time as YouTube [...]

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If you’re a Ruby on Rails developer (or perhaps a wannabe Ruby on Rails developer), the one blog you must read is Err the Blog. I just discovered it this morning, and every post I’ve read has both educated and astounded me. This post has about ten useful tips that I can apply today. [...]

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I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been paying enough attention to the crazy spying story involving Hewlett-Packard. Today we learn that the company was spying on journalists. It sure looks like this thing is headed toward criminal charges.

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