It’s interesting to see conservatives calling for the U.S. Attorney General to ignore evidence that people have knowingly violated federal criminal laws against torture. Aren’t conservatives usually the law-and-order crowd in this country?
It is with shock and dread, albeit much anticipated, that I awoke to hear of Ted Kennedy's passing. My muse has been somewhat groggy since my mom's passing this Spring, and I am juggling a range of emotions and a series of body blows from 2009. It seems that whoever is in charge of these things wanted to make certain that everyone who was anyone should be taken away from us this year.
The New Press has just published seven of the torture memos with a 40-page introduction by David Cole and a 3-page forward by Phillipe Sands. For those who prefer books to lengthy PDFs or printouts thereof, this is a real service. If we were a literate society, a book like this would put a number of important people behind bars. In the type of society we actually are, only photographs and videos can possibly have that impact, which is why we may never see those.
Al-Qaeda has named the main it says was responsible for a suicide bombing targeting Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the deputy interior minister.
The US has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying US-made missiles to expand its ability to hit land-based targets, according to a report in the New York Times.
Israeli aircraft have bombed a building in the Gaza Strip, which it said concealed an entrance to a tunnel used by Palestinians to carry out cross-border attacks.
News_Alerts 
Hundreds of mourners have attended the funeral of US senator Edward Kennedy, who was a political force in America for over 47 years.
