Torture: Kratman was right, if horrific

Kudos to Tom Kratman for being right about the (horrific) effectiveness of torture, and to the CIA for being smarter than people give them credit for. Torture done properly is effective; otherwise there wouldn't be a moral dilemma. (This is true whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture--any negative conditioning that can be performed with waterboarding would work as well or better with more horrific punishments.)

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/01/the_case_for_torture_ex_cia_officials_explain_enhanced_interrogations.html

'Hayden acknowledged that prisoners might say anything to stop their suffering. (Like the other panelists, he insisted EITs weren't torture.) That's why "we never asked anybody anything we didn't know the answer to, while they were undergoing the enhanced interrogation techniques. The techniques were not designed to elicit truth in the moment." Instead, EITs were used in a controlled setting, in which interrogators knew the answers and could be sure they were inflicting misery only when the prisoner said something false. The point was to create an illusion of godlike omniscience and omnipotence so that the prisoner would infer, falsely, that his captors always knew when he was lying or withholding information.'

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

"Where babies come from"

Whenever I eventually have to give my kids the "where babies come from" talk, I plan on giving them the full scientific treatment. The discussion will include words such as "chromosome," "ovipositor," "meiosis", "fission," and "spermacyte." There will be a brief discussion on alternatives to mammalian fertilization techniques, including ovuliparity (external fertilization, as in fish), oviparity (internal fertilization but egg-laying, as in birds), and viviparity (internal fertilization, as in mammals).

Then I will simply say, off-handedly, "humans are a hemotrophic viviparous species like most other mammals," and refer them to textbooks for further details.

My kids will know so much about sex that they'll view it as boring stuff for old people only.

'My dad said a penis is kind of like a mammalian ovipositor for males, except instead of a rotting tree, the host is a female of the same species, and fecundation occurs after implantation instead of before. Yech. Oh yeah, and there's some kind of pleasure stimulus involved.'

--
Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.
Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.
Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.
Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Doubt is essential to faith?

Lesley Hazleton has a talk in which she thoughtfully asserts the importance of doubt.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazleton_the_doubt_essential_to_faith.html

I see her point, but I think she misstates things when she says that the absence of doubt leaves behind nothing but fanaticism. I think a willingness to entertain doubt to far more important than doubt.

It doesn't particularly matter at any given moment whether I doubt a proposition, say, the reality of my own mind as an actual mind (as distinct from "the brain": a stimulus-response system constructed from neurons and governed entirely by physical laws) as long as I am willing to entertain doubt if and when it becomes appropriate. (Say, someone manages to build a device which can control my mind.)

I understand the Pythagorean theorem well enough that I have zero doubt of its truth (in the Euclidean domain). Hazleton's formulation would make that lack of doubt a statement of arrogance, fanaticism, and self-righteous zeal, but in fact it's nothing of the kind. It is simply knowledge. I am willing to allow challenges to that knowledge, but I know full well that those challenges will be met. I have comprehended it and it is true.

Faith is what you do while you are waiting for either falsification or comprehension.

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Excessive Force

Snippets from a fascinating article on modern law enforcement.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/

Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn't a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.

Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. "To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends," a friend of Culosi's told me shortly after his death. "None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation." Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation. And that's when they brought in the SWAT team.

On the night of January 24, 2006, Baucum called Culosi and arranged a time to drop by to collect his winnings. When Culosi, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt and jeans, stepped out of his house to meet the man he thought was a friend, the SWAT team began to move in. Seconds later, Det. Deval Bullock, who had been on duty since 4:00 AM and hadn't slept in seventeen hours, fired a bullet that pierced Culosi's heart.

Sal Culosi's last words were to Baucum, the cop he thought was a friend: "Dude, what are you doing?"

[snip]

Indeed, that's exactly what happened to seventy-two-year-old Aaron Awtry in 2010. Awtry was hosting a poker tournament in his Greenville, South Carolina, home when police began breaking down the door with a battering ram. Awtry had begun carrying a gun after being robbed. Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door, wounding Deputy Matthew May in both arms. The other officers opened fire into the building. Miraculously, only Awtry was hit. As he fell back into a hallway, other players reporting him asking, "Why didn't you tell me it was the cops?" The raid team claimed they knocked and announced several times before putting ram to door, but other players said they heard no knock or announcement. When Awtry recovered, he was charged with attempted murder. As part of an agreement, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. Police had broken up Awtry's games in the past. But on those occasions, they had knocked and waited, he had let them in peacefully, and he'd been given a $100 fine.

[snip]

In 2010 a massive Maricopa County SWAT team, including a tank and several armored vehicles, raided the home of Jesus Llovera. The tank in fact drove straight into Llovera's living room. Driving the tank? Action movie star Steven Seagal, whom Sheriff Joe Arpaio had recently deputized. Seagal had also been putting on the camouflage to help Arpaio with his controversial immigration raids. All of this, by the way, was getting caught on film. Seagal's adventures in Maricopa County would make up the next season of the A&E TV series Steven Seagal, Lawman.
Llovera's suspected crime? Cockfighting. Critics said that Arpaio and Seagal brought an army to arrest a man suspected of fighting chickens to play for the cameras. Seagal's explanation for the show of force: "Animal cruelty is one of my pet peeves." All of Llovera's chickens were euthanized. During the raid, the police also killed his dog.

[snip]

But Stamper says that like many aspects of modern policing, dog shootings may have had a legitimate origin, but the practice has since become a symptom of the mind-set behind a militarized police culture. "Among other things, it really shows a lack of imagination. These guys think that the only solution to a dog that's yapping or charging is shooting and killing it. That's all they know. It goes with this notion that police officers have to control every situation, to control all the variables. That's an awesome responsibility, and if you take it on, you're caving to delusion. You no longer exercise discrimination or discretion. You have to control, and the way you control is with authority, power, and force. With a dog, the easiest way to take control is to simply kill it. I mean, especially if there are no consequences for doing so."

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Religious analogy

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/07/02/stranger-in-a-mormon-land

My visit to the Mormon ward was far removed from all of those experiences.

The closest analogy might be something along these lines: Imagine that you are an observant Jew attending a Christian church for the first time. There are many things that you will recognize, including concepts and even scriptures, but they will be recast in a way that is weird, in fact, utterly foreign to you.

Sure, members of this relatively new faith will use the same Hebrew Bible, but they will call it something different, the "Old Testament," which hints at a divide. They also use other authoritative books, and their method of interpretation has little to nothing to do with your own tradition. They have transformed the Passover meal into something barely recognizable to you. They profess faith in a messiah, but their idea of him is different from your own hopeful notion of the savior of the Jewish people and the world. They affirm the truth of your religion to a point, but insist on a newer, fuller revelation from God that has superseded yours, and invite you to join them in this final dispensation.

My visit to the Mormon ward was a bit like that...

--
Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.
Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.
Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.
Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Bunny inspectors redux

[Cc B. and K.]

D.,

This may amuse you if you're in the right humor. USDA regulations now say magicians' rabbits need full-scale disaster plan. Death by paperwork.

-M.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/1/agriculture-department-tells-magician-write-disast/

"My USDA rabbit license requirement has taken another ridiculous twist," he continued. "I just received an 8 page letter from the USDA, telling me that by July 29 I need to have in place a written disaster plan, detailing all the steps I would take to help get my rabbit through a disaster, such as a tornado, fire, flood, etc. They not only want to know how I will protect my rabbit during a disaster, but also what I will do after the disaster, to make sure my rabbit gets cared for properly. I am not kidding–before the end of July I need to have this written rabbit disaster plan in place, or I am breaking the law."

Mr. Hahne also detailed the guidelines the USDA reportedly gave him:

• The new regulation became effective Jan. 30, 2012.

• The written plan must be completed by July 29, 2013.

• Mr. Hahne and his wife, Brenda, must be trained to implement the plan as written.

• The written plan must be available for review by USDA inspectors by Sept. 28, 2013.

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.