Reason Morning Links: Torture, Tabloids, Terrifying Wikis

Jesse Walker | May 15, 2009

• A former aide to Colin Powell endorses the claim that the torture program was aimed at finding links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

• Timothy Carney explains why the insurance and pharmaceutical industries support Obama's health care proposals.

• Ron Paul's son looks into a Senate run.

• Mohawk Indians protest a plan to arm guards along the U.S.-Canadian border.

• Your daily horrifying allegation of police abuse.

• Do animals have moral codes?

• A journalist defends The National Enquirer.

• Cracked lists "5 Terrifying Bastardizations of the Wikipedia Model." And on a related note: Wikipedia art.

Comments

! </a|5.15.09 @ 8:34AM|#

A journalist defends The National Enquirer.

Without even wasting tim on the click-through:

1. Must be an article reminding people that the Enquirer has been doing extensive fact checking for a long time and are rarely caught with inaccuracies.

2. It is in the Washington Post, so it must be the Post reporting on a journalist from another publication doing the defense to make the quote work.

! </a|5.15.09 @ 8:34AM|#

wasting time, that is wasting time

Richard|5.15.09 @ 8:57AM|#

I don't know what the "Canadian Border Services Agency" is but here in Vermont Border Patrol agents have always been armed.

|5.15.09 @ 8:58AM|#

Re: blind diplomat detained in Philly

Airport police are like mall cops who have been been affirmed by society as the latter-day paladins they see in the mirror.

! </a|5.15.09 @ 9:01AM|#

Can't get to Cracked from here: The category "Tasteless" is filtered.

Have to go home to find out if my customer's version of "Tasteless" is the same as mine.

creech|5.15.09 @ 9:02AM|#

It would be nice to hear Dr. Rand Paul's solutions for the health care crisis now instead of in 2010. Congress will be taking up the matter shortly. Who knows of any white paper, etc. done by libertarians that can give us the intellectual ammunition now to fight these measures designed to put health care in government hands?

! </a|5.15.09 @ 9:05AM|#

creech,

Dr. Rand Paul? Is that Rand as in, well, Rand or Rand as in Randian changed his name to be more like Ayn? Short for Randy?

He is from Kentucky, so that is a plus.

Warty|5.15.09 @ 9:11AM|#

God, I had forgotten about Conservopedia. Is that abomination really still around?

! </a|5.15.09 @ 9:18AM|#

God, I had forgotten about Conservopedia. Is that abomination really still around?

It came up on a post not long ago. Forgot if it was the story or a comment.

ExclamationSushi </a|5.15.09 @ 9:26AM|#

Five out of nine posts? Really?

robc|5.15.09 @ 9:27AM|#

After reading the wiki model story, I think there needs to be a randompedia. You search for a topic and you get a result from a random one of these *pedias (including wikipedia and others not mentioned). Without it telling you which one.

Could be awesome.

robc </|5.15.09 @ 9:28AM|#

Maybe ! is following my idea of trying to get reason to clean their input by being annoying with this.

robc|5.15.09 @ 9:30AM|#

!,

His name is Randall (according to one of the pedias).

robc|5.15.09 @ 9:31AM|#

He started going by "Rand" instead of "Randy" during his father's 1988 run for U.S. president as a Libertarian, in order to invoke the memory of novelist Ayn Rand; Paul was actively involved during this campaign as well as many of his father's successful Congressional runs.

From wikipedia.

|5.15.09 @ 9:31AM|#

Dr. Rand Paul? Is that Rand as in, well, Rand or Rand as in Randian changed his name to be more like Ayn? Short for Randy?

It's Rand as in Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn. (Source: Jordanpedia).

libertarian democrat|5.15.09 @ 9:33AM|#

Conservapedia is my home away from home. It's still around, although less and less active as an ultimate parodist has banned pretty much every productive member.

There is still lots of funny there though.

Citizen Nothing|5.15.09 @ 9:33AM|#

Damn all the airlines to hell forever.
Except Southwest.

! </a|5.15.09 @ 9:35AM|#

ExclamationSushi #

Five out of nine posts? Really?

vs. 4 from robc. Oh the humanity!

Warty|5.15.09 @ 9:40AM|#

No no no no. We're not having another Wheel of Time thread. Fuck Robert Jordan's verbose corpse, yo.

|5.15.09 @ 9:59AM|#

A former aide to Colin Powell endorses the claim that the torture program was aimed at finding links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Although you have to admit that his statement of "I couldn't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate," is hardly the strongest one around. More credible than Dr. Michael West, though.

Mr to you NG </a|5.15.09 @ 10:03AM|#

Although you have to admit that his statement of "I couldn't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate," is hardly the strongest one around. More credible than Dr. Michael West, though.

The Dan Rather method without the paperwork.

|5.15.09 @ 10:15AM|#

"Who knows of any white paper, etc. done by libertarians that can give us the intellectual ammunition now to fight these measures designed to put health care in government hands?"

Creech, check out the new book put out by Pacific Research Institute entitled "The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care" by Sally Pipes. You can get it at Amazon.

Chad|5.15.09 @ 10:21AM|#

Who knows of any white paper, etc. done by libertarians that can give us the intellectual ammunition now to fight these measures designed to put health care in government hands?

The only thing you need to know is that American corporations are more than willing to let old people and small children die of preventable diseases so long as they can maximize their profits.

! </a|5.15.09 @ 10:26AM|#

The only thing you need to know is that American corporations are more than willing to let old people and small children die of preventable diseases so long as they can maximize their profits.

Don't they maximize their profits when the government gets out of the way and allows them to provide treatments for old people and children at a reasonable price?

Xeones|5.15.09 @ 10:26AM|#

Keep it up, Chad. Hilarious!

|5.15.09 @ 10:31AM|#

RCD, should this continue to be covered up?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/15/hersh/index.html?source=refresh

Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape

After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon's custody more horrific than anything made public so far. "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse," Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.

Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko's media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:

"Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out." ...

! </a|5.15.09 @ 10:38AM|#

jsh,

If Reason can cover up that Pelosi circus from yesterday they should cover this up too. Fair and Balanced.

|5.15.09 @ 10:46AM|#

The only thing you need to know is that American corporations are more than willing to let old people and small children die of preventable diseases so long as they can maximize their profits.

Chad- You fucking NAILED IT!

|5.15.09 @ 10:51AM|#

Ah, Seymour Hersh. You can always count on him to ruin the credibility of a perfectly good reason to be angry.

|5.15.09 @ 11:00AM|#

Just about all Wikipedia editors will tell you that not all citations are created equal -- for instance, most blogs are not considered reputable sources

!!!!!!!!

|5.15.09 @ 11:06AM|#

A former aide to Colin Powell endorses the claim that the torture program was aimed at finding links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Wow! If you toture somebody long enough, they will confirm exactly what you already "know" is true. Torquemada is laughing his ass of in hell.

Timothy Carney explains why the insurance and pharmaceutical industries support Obama's health care proposals.

No competition and guaranteed market share certainly makes expensive things like innovation and customer service easier. See local cable company, DMV, Social Security Administration, Bath Iron Works and the your city hall construction licensing department for further details.

hmm|5.15.09 @ 11:30AM|#

• A former aide to Colin Powell endorses the claim that the torture program was aimed at finding links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

This screams of a smokescreen/counterattack for Pelosi's bumbling performance yesterday. The timing is impeccable along with the theme of this guy was worse.

Washington is turning into the "aide wars." My aide did this, past aide says this, aide bob likes tuna.

ed|5.15.09 @ 11:31AM|#

that Pelosi circus from yesterday

I watched the whole thing live. It was great entertainment, a press corps feeding frenzy at its best. Later on, for kicks, I noted how FOX and MSNBC covered it. Olbermann's show played the only continuous clip in which Pelosi appeared sane and sober. FOX News, on the other hand, showed the flustered, flighty, deer-in-the-headlights Pelosi that we've all come to love. Same event, wildly different interpretations. They propagandize, we decide.

hmm|5.15.09 @ 11:42AM|#

I watched both Fox, MSNBC, and CNN. CNN showed most of her both sane and bumbling. Fox showed the end of the sane reading from her written speech and all of her meltdown. MSNBC had two reports neither showed any of the questions or meltdown and Olbermann treated it as if she was some how victorious. It's news, watch and read it all and have the brains to make your own decision.

|5.15.09 @ 11:51AM|#

It's Rand as in Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn. (Source: Jordanpedia).

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP NOOOOOOOOOO

Chad|5.15.09 @ 11:52AM|#

It clear that the CIA has been spiking Pelosi's coffee with hallucinogens to make the Democratic Party and the Obama administration look bad. This just the start of the rat-fucking exercises for the 2010 elections.

! </a|5.15.09 @ 12:03PM|#

It clear that the CIA has been spiking Pelosi's coffee with hallucinogens to make the Democratic Party and the Obama administration look bad.

Looks liek you have that backwards. She was showing blatant signs of withdrawl from the normal hallucinogens that she is used to. The CIA probably stopped spiking her coffee just to make her look bad.

Jesse Walker|5.15.09 @ 12:17PM|#

This screams of a smokescreen/counterattack for Pelosi's bumbling performance yesterday. The timing is impeccable

Actually, the timing is off. He posted his charges online late Wednesday afternoon.

hmm|5.15.09 @ 12:46PM|#

I was talking about the reporting on the statements not the aides accusations. It seems every time someone does something stupid in Congress or the White House there is an almost immediate reporting of a similar action pointing the finger back at the last administration by most of the media.

I don't think the aide's actions were a smokescreen. I think the media actions are. Maybe I'm just too cynical about the media.

hmm|5.15.09 @ 12:53PM|#

The timing was just particularly convenient for the media this time. They didn't have to dig something up.