Happy Saturday

Bad week, cranky mood, exhausted,... here's what I've been saving:

• Southern evangelical Christian Americans like torture best.
• But Americans are still generally one of the more supportive peoples on the planet... of torture.
• Alan Dershowitz, still plugging the torture warrants idea so that Americans can get their fix.
• American sadism.
• At least, the American Psychological Association is on the right side.
• Despite appearances - a little more economic growth trumps all in Washington - the reality is that the US supports other torturing regimes and their techniques too.
  

There's no argument, despite the ongoing attempts by the intellectual mess that is Charles Krauthammer, and others supportive of the Bush administration and a policy of torture. Torture is morally and politically and legally wrong, without real question, and it's also practically pointless. At some point, you have to ask the real questions about the root of support for torture. Is torture actually an end in itself, a brute, sadistic expression of power and arrogance? To what extent has fear-mongering, racism, and ignorance led towards American complicity in the regime of torture? And, now, the question remains about accountability for crimes against humanity.

The mess in Bolivia:

• Massacres
• The role of the internationals. Also, here on the US role.
  
• Talks.
• Continuing....
  

A petit Chavez may not be a good thing for Bolivia. But neither is a reclaiming of the land and resources on the part of the already well-off. As with many or most conflicts in Latin America, racism and classism are the root problems.

By the way, that surge in Iraq that some people are resting their entire careers on turns out largely to have been ethnic cleansing.

A little exasperated lesson about this week in finance, from John Cole:

In other words, folks spent years making billions upon billions of dollars on risky transactions, more money on the stock of companies that was artificially high based on those transactions, more money bundling all those transactions into more transactions, and made a killing, and when it turns out the whole thing is a big pile of shit, you and I get the god damned bill.

I do not ever want to hear another damned word about the free market. I don’t want to hear another thing about letting the market regulate itself. I don’t want to hear about the free flow of capital. I don’t want to hear about government getting out of our lives.

Hey, did you know that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans (and you can see why Republicans want to turn it into a battle over taxes)?

US politics:

• Our friend the smear.
• Women's rights groups endorse Obama. Women!
• Yet another article suggesting Obama's fair-minded pragmatic approach to inquiry and communication.
  

George Saunders does Sarah Palin:

Explaining how she felt when John McCain offered her the Vice-Presidential spot, my Vice-Presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, said something very profound: “I answered him ‘Yes’ because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink. So I didn’t blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.”

Isn’t that so true? I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink, because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t.

That is just how I am.

Do you know the difference between me and a Hockey Mom who has forgot her lipstick?

A dog collar.

Do you know the difference between me and a dog collar smeared with lipstick?

Not a damn thing.

We are essentially wired identical.

So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.

A lose-lose for the pig.

There’s a lesson in that, I think.

Shifting gears, The Guardian provides a handy roundup of the 100 greenest companies in Europe.