Reason Morning Links: Private Police, Oriental Orientalism, and the Difference a Soundtrack Makes

Jesse Walker | April 24, 2009

• The next big policy fight: credit card fees and interest rates.

• The next big foreign policy story: North Korea to put two American reporters on trial.

• The soldier who didn't want to torture -- and killed herself.

• The interrogation strategy of "learned helplessness."

• Tracking citizens' cell phones without a warrant.

• The State of Michigan ponders the privatization of my alma mater.

• "Cash-Strapped Cities Try Private Guards Over Police"

• A vigorous defense of Twitter.

• A revival of interest in Orientalist art -- among Arabs.

• Illicit radio activity in Brazil.

• And finally, your Friday fun link. Note: By link I mean embedded video clip, and by fun I mean the creepiest thing you will see today.

Comments

Dave W.|4.24.09 @ 7:48AM|#

The US military did bad. I am not sure I like them or trust them now.

PantsFan|4.24.09 @ 8:03AM|#

yo, whatchoo talkin' about Jesse?

BeesInTheBrain|4.24.09 @ 8:17AM|#

Jeeeze. Didn't they learn anything from Robocop.

You too can compose clever pos|4.24.09 @ 8:32AM|#

"I know you feel that anything beyond what the Fed has done would be overkill," the president was quoted by one participant as saying.

Yup.

|4.24.09 @ 8:39AM|#

I feel a little sick agreeing with Keith Olberman, but his bit on the torture memo's last night was right on. Now if we could only get Obama to forswear torture...

High Every Body|4.24.09 @ 8:43AM|#

Now if we could only get Obama to forswear torture...

Didn't he already rename it thus avoiding any conflict?

|4.24.09 @ 8:47AM|#

Different Strokes: The Taking of Arnold Jackson.

|4.24.09 @ 8:51AM|#

Didn't he already rename it

It's "Morture," guys, honest - totally different this time around. What? Hell no - we would never torture, no way, that was Bush...

|4.24.09 @ 9:42AM|#

Maybe some people missed the last episode of 24. If they had seen it, they would fully understand the importance of monitoring cell phone signals without warrants. That is unless we want to live in world where the evil privatized corporate army unit steals bioweapons then gets themselves blown up only too have one pod saved by a former good guy gone bad and then that pod gets hidden near a vacant building where C-4 is rigged to a dozen cell phones and made to blow up when the FBI agents are searching the building. Tell me, is that the sort of world you want to live in? Didn't think so.

Jordan|4.24.09 @ 9:56AM|#

Seizing on the growing unpopularity of credit card companies, President Obama on Thursday threw his support behind legislation moving swiftly through Congress that would restrict the ability of banks to impose higher fees and interest rates on consumers.

What the fuck? Are they not even pretending that they're not fascist fucks anymore?

High Every Body|4.24.09 @ 10:00AM|#

Are they not even pretending that they're not fascist fucks anymore?

They don't wear snappy uniforms and they don't vote Republican so they can't be Fascists, in their own eyes.

Wannabe Brown Shirt|4.24.09 @ 10:46AM|#

Don't dis the snappy uniform, Mein Herr.

What would be the point of joining up if you didn't get a snappy uniform?

Naga Sadow|4.24.09 @ 10:48AM|#

Jesse,

I can't remember who, but someone at Grylliade beat you to that video by a few weeks.

|4.24.09 @ 10:52AM|#

"I know you feel that anything beyond what the Fed has done would be overkill," the president was quoted by one participant as saying. "I just disagree."

Ugh, its like he's the national mother. "I know you don't want to eat broccoli, junior, but I know what's best and I'm bigger than you."

miche|4.24.09 @ 10:53AM|#

Ok, am I the only one who doesn't get that damn video?

|4.24.09 @ 11:35AM|#

BTW, the resolution from representative Jay Love (R)Montgomery, commending miss California for being anti Gay marriage has passed the Alabama house.

|4.24.09 @ 11:47AM|#

Miss California was not anti Gay marriage, she did not support it. There is a difference.

economist|4.24.09 @ 12:24PM|#

What's with the "Disturbing Strokes" video?

economist|4.24.09 @ 12:27PM|#

bigbigslacker,
If Jack Bauer tortures people, it must be OK.

|4.24.09 @ 12:34PM|#

If Jack Bauer tortures people, it must be OK.

Maybe Jack will swallow a bullet in the grand finale.

Joel|4.24.09 @ 12:44PM|#

Hey guys? Y'know that menu option on your cell phone that disables the GPS? Yeah, assume that doesn't really do anything.

Cell phones should come with a label that says Remove Battery When Not In Use.

Not, you know, because I'm paranoid or anything...

jtuf|4.24.09 @ 12:57PM|#

The reason I bring this up is this. As I have noted before, acts intended to produce "severe mental pain or suffering" count as torture under the US Code. "Severe mental pain or suffering" is defined as "the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from" various things, one of which is "the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."

A few points about the torture debate. First I agree that we should not use water boarding, electrocutions, or the forced administration of mind altering drugs. However, the latter two techniques are standard medical practices in any county psychiatric ward. Why isn't anyone protesting those hospitals?

Second a major point of jail is to get the criminal to give up his resistance and start obeying the law. Current law allows judges to send people to jail for contempt of court. Contempt of court includes refusing to privide testimony about another person's case when it doesn't incriminate you. If learned helplessness is your benchmark for torture, just about every civil case out there extracts information out of people under the threat of torture.

So, I put the red line somewhere between learned helplessness and waterboarding. Where exactly would you guys draw the line between interorgation and torture?

jtuf|4.24.09 @ 12:59PM|#

Regarding the video clip, LMAO.

|4.24.09 @ 1:39PM|#

I am fully in favor of the U of MI privatizing. It'd be nice to have somebody in the Innumerate Eleven to root for. However, I'm sure the pols involved will make the argument that decades of state spending on capital projects would mean that, even if they zeroed the annual subsidy, the Wolverine will remain on the state leash ad infinitum.

A modest proposal:

Privatize all state higher education. Convert the current operating subsidies to scholarships for the in-state students, on the model of the New York State Regents scholarship program. States could make reciprocity agreements to honor each others' scholarship programs.

Eventually we could phase out tax support for the scholarships.

Kevin

Who, since he went to school out-of-state, never got to cash in on the Regents.

libertarian democrat|4.24.09 @ 2:10PM|#

ECT has no pain associated with it, and is mainly used voluntarily for major depression.

As to drugs, if the drugs are comparable to those used in psych patients (such as anti-psychotics or anti-depressants), I think that is whole orders of magnitude less bad than the box+spider routine. Hell, in most cases it's better than imprisonment itself.

|4.24.09 @ 2:17PM|#

I thought for sure that there was no way I'd see anything creepier than that video today.

And then I saw this.

Guy Who Does Research Based on|4.24.09 @ 4:06PM|#

"ECT has no pain associated with it, and is mainly used voluntarily for major depression."

Didn't you ever see One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

jtuf|4.24.09 @ 5:50PM|#

libertarian democrat | April 24, 2009, 2:10pm | #

ECT [Electroshock Therapy] has no pain associated with it, and is mainly used voluntarily for major depression.

As to drugs, if the drugs are comparable to those used in psych patients (such as anti-psychotics or anti-depressants), I think that is whole orders of magnitude less bad than the box+spider routine. Hell, in most cases it's better than imprisonment itself.

Ok, libertarian democrate, I believe in empirical proof. Hook your temples up to some electrodes. Send 150 volts through your head. Repeat regularly for a month. Then report back on your observations.