Happy New Year’s Eve to all of our blog family. We will be spending New Year’s Eve at home this year — preparing for our annual New Year’s party on January 1st. I will be toasting to everyone on our extended blog family.
Tonight Leslie and I will share our traditional bottle of Schramsberg Sparkling wine. This is my wedding anniversary. Thirteen years ago, Leslie and I eloped on New Year’s Eve after eight years years of dating. (There is an ongoing dispute over calculating the event, I insist that this is our 22nd anniversary but Leslie insists on not counting the eight years of dating). We always celebrate with a bottle of Schramsberg. This was the bottle I bought after we got hitched at Alexandria City Hall. I used my house school ring to seal the deal.
The kids made it to midnight and watched the painful display of Anderson Cooper trying to restrain Kathy Griffin. It turns out the Mayan Apocalypse merely predicted Griffin’s appearance on New Year’s Eve. This included her attempt to throw cash into the crowd – a moronic idea that had to be physically stopped by Anderson to avert a disaster. If this was Griffin’s idea of a joke, it came across as an unhinged, unfunny person trying to fill time. The kids insisted that we turn to NBC instead.
We are expecting 200 friends to share in Wasabi Bloody Marys) and our traditional soup: The Bowl of the Wife of Kit Carson Soup. I have smoked two turkeys to put into the soup. I also have enough Wasabi to light up Tokyo.
Everyone drive carefully and have fun. I will be giving a toast to our entire blog family tonight (and, of course, my marriage).
DonS, It would be helpful to me if you stated what type of interrogations you consider legit.
Nick, sleep deprivation is among the least credible sources of reliable information. Please read up on it’s effects if you haven’t. If you have, you’re sources are not reliable. Why you throw that in here, since whether it’s called torture or not, it not only violates human dignity but produces unreliable results, is beyond me.
I’ve got to go do something productive.
Coming out of my hidey hole — torture requires a moral stance, not to mention a legal one as opposed to twisted neologisms.
I’m total accord with those, like Gene (and all to follow), who see Panetta as motivated to lie about torture and it’s product from one end of the day to the next. And I totally reject the subjective characterization of .” the theoretical over reality.” where the basis for opining is mere conjecture. Working backwards from an applauded result (get bin Laden) to an approval (even implied) of the alleged method — no matter how tainted — adds not one whit of credibility where there is no probative evidence. The tapes having mysteriously disappeared for one damning factor.
ID, WE ALL AGREE on conventional interrogations being better both factually and morally. I should say I believe tactics like sleep deprivation are legit and effective. I would need to know if we agree on that. At my age..I would talk if you kept me up past midnight!
Here is a recipe for Hoppin’ John.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/hoppin-john-recipe/index.html
Wish I knew what secret spices OS uses. Anybody leaking? OS?
The holy trinity is there. But the spicing sounds very USA standard to me.
Cajun recipe books and spices disappeared ´many years ago. Didn’t catch on. Not enough whore houses and boygirls as in Thailand?
Zydeco (haricot) music was great. The black bands playing there had had the soul squeezed out of them years ago.
Tonight it will frozen pizza with add-ons of red bell peppar, anchovies, and parmigiano cheese. I won’t eat it cold!!!!!
Gene, If we review our civil and uncivil discussions it is often the case that we sometimes agree substantially. That’s the case here I believe. I doubt any scientist would say torture would NEVER work. I’m sure they will say it can work but as a policy it is both unreliable an ineffective. Then, as stated previously, there are the moral implications. The intelligence obtained from Khalid Sheik Mohammed via waterboarding and corroborated by other sources produced the courier and the courier led us directly to bin Laden. It was wrong to do it but you can’t unring that bell. I see you being emotional about this. You hatred of torture prevents you from admitting what is factual in that it did produce valuable intelligence in this case.
What started this discussion was the movie, ZDT. NONE OF US HAVE SEEN IT. I learned as a college student when thee Godfather was being boycotted beforew it’s release just how ludicrous that can be. It’s happened w/ many other flicks since. I don’t prejudge movies. Here’s my hope. The movie shows valuable intelligence was obtained but it left a black mark in our history. Because that’s the truth.
Don’t get between guys arguing, you only get shit. My nnnnnth violation of that rule.
NIckS,
I must go with GeneH’s arguments on the productivity of torture.
Besides, I have read reports by “soft approach=win confidence first” interrogators who make stats on output from same prisoner and parallel evalution separate cohorts. Hard cop vs soft cop. Soft wins handsdown
But ask TonyC and Mark E. They might join you.
GeneH,
Your base exceeds mine, and your reasoning is congruent with mine. Tortured people learn what the interrogator wants to hear and feeds that just to stop the torture. Having fooled you, he keeps his secrets to himself.
Otteray Scribe:
twice heated pizza is the best, the crust gets nice and crisp and the flavors have been enhanced by the overnight in the fridge.
I would recommend placing the pizza directly on the rack with a drip pan on the rack below to catch the cheese drippings.
May day old pizza bring you a happier 2013.
nick,
First of all, you keep it civil and you have nothing to worry about. As I’ve told you before, you act like an ass and I’ll treat you like one. That’s how the Ethic of Reciprocity works. Whether I pounce on you or not is entirely up to you.
Secondly, “Panetta did not say it is valid or valuable. He did say it produced good intelligence in this case. Big difference.” No, it’s not a big difference. It’s no difference at all. By definition, good intelligence is both valid and valuable and if he says torture produced good intelligence then he’s endorsing the technique of torture to obtain it despite the science to the contrary. Torturing someone will make them say something. Whether that something is true is less likely than getting them to say something by other means. There is nothing “theoretical” about that. That’s hard science.
There is also nothing ideological about the fact that torture is flatly unconstitutional and illegal under Federal law. That’s a legal fact.
Otteray Scribe Contributed:
For New Year’s, how about Auld Lang Syne as Robert Burns originally intended it to be performed,
~+~
That video was a delight. It does sound more true to form. The folk singer’s version seems more honest and true to Robert Burns than the dramatic by comparison one we hear today.
If in hearing both the folk singer’s song and what we saw played on TV last night, which would sound more like the manner of the man who wrote this poem?
“…
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run….”
I would think in the mind of a person who would write these two stanzas the folk singer’s rendition would be more of his intention.
The meter to the above is the same as Auld Lang Syne so one could actually sing it to that song.
Robert Burns, if my memory serves me correctly, made a point during his lifetime to reconstitute Scottish folk songs, poems etc in his desire to preserve some of its heritage. It does lend some evidence to believe a more accurate rendition of what Burns had intended would resemble more closely the folk songs prior to when he wrote his works.
And, let’s keep this civil as an homage to Mr. Turley’s request for the New Year.
Panetta did not say it is valid or valuable. He did say it produced good intelligence in this case. Big difference. By the way, I do not abide torture but I am not inclined to take the theoretical over reality.
Gene, Unlike probably few if any people here I read the book, Hard Measures by Jose’ Rodriquez. He handled the interrogations. It wasn’t a good book. I am skeptical about a lot of what he said, but NOT ALL. I think he is lying about the videotapes but he is adamant he was given permissiom to destroy them. Rodriquez was smart enough to hire Bob Bennett as his barrister. I will give the theoriticians their props that this is not an effective or reliable way to gather intelligence. And, as stated previously, I do not abide torture on a moral level. But this got us the courier that led us to Bin laden. I don’t like how it was done. But being a lover of history, I don’t want to see the facts changed to comport w/ ideology.
Smom,
“Hurt Locker” was excellent. ZDT may be technically a great film, but if that’s indeed what it says about torture, explicitly or implicitly, it’s simply propaganda for our internal bad guys and should be labelled as such. Leni Riefenstahl was a great director. That doesn’t make her films any less propaganda for the bad guys.
BarkinDog, HumpinDog, itchinBayDog, BlueDog, ChiliDog, HotDog, BadDog, OldDogNewTricks-
“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Are there no dog catchers?”
Happy New Year, and may the Milk-Bone be with you.
Let’s see . . . believe Leon Panetta or hordes of neurobiologists and psychologists?
As neurobiologist Shane O’Mara of Trinity College Dublin says, “To briefly summarize a vast, complex literature: prolonged and extreme stress inhibits the biological processes believed to support memory in the brain. Coercive interrogations involving extreme stress are unlikely, given our current cognitive neurobiological knowledge, to facilitate the release of veridical information from long-term memory.” In other words, torture tends to make the information provided less reliable. That’s the science.
Panetta’s primary interest is in covering the crimes of the previous and current administration in violating the 8th Amendment and Federal law.
I wouldn’t buy a used care from Panetta let alone his assertions that torture is a valid and valuable intelligence gathering method.
Nick, The movie is the most highly rated movie of the year. I did see Bigelow’s other movie “Hurt Locker”.
Happy New Year to all!
SWM, The trailer for the flick looks good. Does the flick “portray torture as valid” or just that it produced good intelligence? The latter is confirmed by many including Leon Panetta. And the director is certainly not an evil “right winger”. But, I abide boycott as a good way to protest. However, when Italian groups made a fuss about The Godfather I, and the vast majority of Italians saw it as stupid. Like Zero, The Godfather was directed by a righteous director who made one of the greatest flicks ever. However, “to each their own.”
Happy New Year to you and yours!
My bad, Smom. Too little coffee this morning and too much wine last night. Considering the buzz I’ve heard about ZDT portraying torture as a valid and valuable intelligence gathering method, I’m going to boycott that one myself.