• United States foreign policy is now operating under the Code of the West:
  

  America has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

  A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. […]
  
  “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”

• John Edwards: I care about autism enough to drop $500 on, but not enough to risk my hair for it.
  
  
• Want to know what's happening in Guantanamo Bay? Read a detailed analysis of the 2004 update to the Standard Operating Procedures manual. (From TPM)
  
  
• Some of Hillary's supporters are arming her with stories about being berated and getting angry calls from Obama supporters, which she's using to attack Obama. As far as I can tell, this is just a case of overzealous volunteers who've been stuck at a phone too long getting cranky, and should in no way be transferred to the candidate himself. To quote fictional journalist Spider Jerusalem, "There's one hole in every revolution, large or small, and it's one word long: people." If blaming Obama for his less tactful volunteers is legitimate, then I'd like to hold a posthumous trial for Jesus of Nazareth in order to hold him responsible by association for the Crusades, the Inquisition, all of the Matthew Shepards of the world, witch trials across the globe, and a other atrocities that have been committed in the name of Jesus and his God. However, I don't think it's legitimate, so let's just leave it at that.
  
  
• Wonkette sums it up nicely: "So we’re at a point now where a massive intelligence report says Iran is not making nukes, and Bush responds with they are going to nuke us tomorrow." If you want a really great read on this masterpiece of bullshit, though, check out Froomkin here and here.
  
  
• If anyone wants to read Mitt Romney's speech on being a Mormon president, you can find it here. I actually didn't think it was that offensive. Most of it is about how, as president, he becomes a representative of people of all faiths, of all Americans, and how it's his duty to uphold the law and the Constitution, and not to make religious judgments on behalf of people who don't hold his beliefs. I believe all of that is true. He does not, however, tackle the issue of his participation in a religion whose holy book describes dark skin as a sign of being cursed by God, and how Jesus left Israel in 33 AD and got to America to chill with the Nephites by 34 AD.*
  
  
• Speaking of unfortunate religious practices, the Pope is now granting indulgences to anyone who visits a shrine at Lourdes within the next year or so. They're not selling them, true, but was raised Lutheran, so I was thinking about trotting over to Holy Name Cathedral on my lunch hour and sticking 95 Post-Its on their door.
  
  
• Mike Huckabee defends a science teacher's to teach science, and postulates a heretofore unheard of form of rock and roll that incorporates neither sex nor drugs into the lifestyle around it.
  
  
• This probably won't be the last time I say this, but it deserves to be said and said often: possibly my biggest pet peeve in relation to current events is the term "playing politics." YOU'RE FUCKING POLITICIANS. THAT'S WHAT YOU DO. GET OVER IT. IT'S NOT A SLUR, IT'S YOUR JOB. SHUT UP. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

This is as much fuming as I can fit in before lunch. More later.


*It's worth saying that I do believe in freedom to be Mormon. Believing that angels showed Joseph Smith where to dig up some golden plates with scripture on them isn't any more outlandish from a logical perspective than say, believing that God parted the Red Sea and every Jew living at the time walked through it without getting a drop on them. I will also say that in my own very limited personal dealings with Mormons, I have found them to be kind, generous people who are dedicated to the collective good of the human race. I don't necessarily think that a Mormon shouldn't be president. I just think Mitt Romney shouldn't be president.