Pelosi Denies Waterboarding Knowledge, Economic Fears Spread to Germany, Cops Behaving Badly (Again): P.M. Links
-
Obama's photo op in Kabul was only the beginning — the U.S. now enters a tricky period of defining its role in what is supposed to become an increasingly independent Afghanistan.
- Despite claims by a former CIA agent that he personally briefed her on waterboarding, Nancy Pelosi continues to insist that she never knew the practce was in use.
- Human rights activist Chen Guangcheng says he left U.S. embassy because Chinese authorities threatened to beat his wife to death.
- Invited to address the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, economist Robert Wenzel urged hs audience to "leave the building to the spiders, moths and four-legged rats."
- After his arrest for smoking grass, David Chong was abandoned by DEA agents in a cell for five days with no food or water. The DEA says it's sorry.
- Dan Halsted of Portland, Oregon, will get a a quarter of a million dollars from the city — four years after Portland Police officers tased and arrested him after mistaking him for a graffiti suspect. So … it's OK to tase taggers?
- A Tennessee man was jailed after the $50 bill he used in a convenience story falsely tested as counterfeit. Wow. Debit-card marketing is getting harsh.
- Confounding expectations of improving numbers, German unemployment rose by 19,000 people in April, raising fears that Eurozone troubles are spreading there.
- Crack open the plonk and live forever! New research offers evidence that resveratrol in red wine battles aging.
Do you want hot links and other Reason goodies delivered to your inbox twice a day? Sign up here for Reason's morning and afternoon news updates.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Confounding expectations of improving numbers, German unemployment rose by 19,000 people in April...
So Kraut professional expecters are just as easily surprised as American ones.
Now ist der time ve dance.
You may not touch my monkey.
Free shot. I'm not even touching the foosenschaften.
Sorry, luftballons.
Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?
That reminds me of this; dated, but good times nonetheless.
"99 Luftballoons....
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Hielt man fur Ufos aus dem All
Darum schickte ein General
eine Fliegerstaffel hinterher
Alarm zu geben, wenn es so war
Dabei waren da am Horizont
Nur 99 Luftballons..."
(Shaves pits)
Your story has grown tiresome.
Oh, you are so on that things have now become very much like Donkey Kong.
After his arrest for smoking grass, David Chong was abandoned by DEA agents in a cell for five days with no food or water.
Plenty of red faces at the DEA offices. No criminal charges, though.
"In a statement, DEA San Diego Acting Special Agent-In-Charge William R. Sherman said he was troubled by Chong's treatment..."
He was troubled, isn't that enough for you?
AND he apologized! Why must everyone continue to give him such a hard time?
Yeah! He's had such a bad week!
And *he* didn't write the laws!
The downside was horrible for him.
yes, but did he accept full responsibility?
Whoops! We really have egg on our faces on this one, huh? Sorry about the suicide attempts and the kidney damage, kid - nothing personal, y'see.
The question isn't if they start blaming the victim; it's when.
There are already people saying it's his fault for doing drugs. I didn't realize the penalty for weed was starvation now.
If you smoke the marajuana, any punishment you receive is deserved, including death.
You disobey the state, it comes with the territory.
Of course. Starving to death in that cell would've been nothing compared to what he would've done to himself if the police hadn't saved him by arresting him.
And they don't even get a thank you.
Like having no food when you have the munchies isn't punishment enough - amirite?
So ... it's OK to tase taggers?
Tasers are used by fat, lazy LEO as compliance devices. Soon the taser will completely replace verbal commands.
Just replace their mouths with tasers and the transformation will be complete.
That "wrong" technique? Forcing San Fran's Star-Kist company to pay its workers minimum wage.
Nancy Pelosi. Seriously.
But she's so GILFY in a Saccharin Man ditty sort of way!
A real inspiration for budding GILFS in the USA.
Quothe the Barfman:
*barf*
"Nancy Pelosi continues to insist that she never knew the practce was in use."
Yeah, well, she was recovering from the latest 'lift' and was tranq'd-out.
And she will continue to insist that she never knew until the lapdog media lets the story die.
I believe Pelosi any time she denies knowledge.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Thread winner!
From a story in December of 2007, The Washington Post says Pelosi is a liar.
"Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002"
Only after information about the practice began to leak in news accounts in 2005 -- by which time the CIA had already abandoned waterboarding -- did doubts about its legality among individual lawmakers evolve into more widespread dissent.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....64_pf.html
She's lying.
This is part of the reason why the Democrat leadership was so disgraceful during the Bush Administration.
The Pelosi Democrats may have been loyal, but they didn't offer anything up like opposition.
They didn't oppose the enhanced interrogation techniques torture policy; they didn't oppose warrantless wiretapping; they didn't oppose the Patriot Act; if Hilary had offered any serious opposition to the Iraq War, she'd wouldn't have lost the nomination to someone who was basically unknown.
...but just like the rest of the Democrat leadership, just like Pelosi, she went along with whatever the Fear Monger in Chief was trying to do to stop the sky from falling.
Why lie about it now, Pelosi? You disgusting liar.
She's a lying liar who lies about her lying.
How cool would it be to make Liar, Liar 2 starring Nancy Pelosi?
Franken wrote a book about her?
Yes. The working title is "C.U.N.T."
Shultz baiter!
Can't understand normal thinking?
You get a first edition signed copy!
Either your mother's ashamed of you saying that, or you should be ashamed of your mother.
Incidentally, if Pelosi wasn't informed of the waterboarding, are there some kind of charges that should be filed against somebody?
Was the CIA required by law to inform Congress about that? Or were they just informing Pelosi, et. al. out of courtesy?
So I have a question for everybody:
What constitutes torture when it comes to prisoner interrogation?
I have my thoughts, it'd be interesting to see how in line we all are.
I think the definition the infamous Torture Memo tried to shrink is pretty good. I mean, if even the people who wrote and signed off on the Torture Memo thought that definition was worthy addressing, then why not go with that one?
Torture: severe physical or mental pain or suffering.
Something wrong with that definition?
I think it's a little subjective. It allows too much interpretation in both directions.
Inducing severe physical pain equal to or worse than being beaten, burned, mutilated...
Inducing mental anguish that places the individual in mortal fear of their life. (Snapping an unloaded pistol against their temple...)
I don't buy the mental anguish bullshit. Playing loud music and sleep deprivation isn't torture. Making human pyramids of naked prisoners (humiliation), while fucked up, isn't torture.
I don't buy the mental anguish bullshit.
Chinese water torture is bullshit?
The sorts of psychological shit the Chinese communists did to political prisoners and the North Koreans did to American GIs isn't torture?
Psychological torture is torture. I don't see any reason to think otherwise.
And in terms of of ambiguous language, that's the way it should be. There are as many ways to torture people as there are ways to irritate people.
Ambiguity isn't a problem when judging obscenity. Because obscenity doesn't have a clear definition, obscenity laws are notoriously difficult to enforce. Making the definition clear would make it easier to enforce... Making the guidelines on torture clear, likewise, would make it easier for the government to torture people--not harder.
That's one of the reasons why libertarians generally prefer not to make laws about everything. The law doesn't spell things out to make laws harder to enforce and get the government out of doing whatever it is. The law spells it out to make it easier for the government to do what it's trying to do.
The EPA making clearer rules isn't about to make their responsibilities fewer. It's gonna make it easier for them to do more. With torture, it's the same thing.
20 minutes with Nancy Pelosi.
I like to do a comparison to something really unpleasant. So think of a person that you just can't stand being around. In-law, boss, whatever. Now imagine you have to spend a week alone in a one room cabin with them. They will be conversing with you the entire time. Clearly, this sucks but we can probably agree it's not "torture". Now, you can undergo 3 minutes of abuse to get out of this. Dismemberment? No. Red hot poker? No. Splints under the nails? Probably not. Water boarding? You're probably at least thinking about it which is not to say it isn't torture, just to point out that it isn't the same as the more medieval practices. You get the idea.
The constitution prohibits the government from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments for a reason.
I question the efficacy of torture as well, but that isn't the only problem with it. Your scenario assumes a choice that torture victims don't have (albeit a false one).
In other words, torture victims aren't given a choice between talking with someone they don't like and being tortured. They just get tortured.
We managed to make it from 1789 to 2002 without torturing people a matter of policy--despite all sorts of wars, etc. It's amazing the novel legal theories some people will entertain just to justify something stupid one president did.
I think Bush is an asshole. Has nothing to do with defending him. My personal opinion is that water boarding is right on the border of the definition of torture. I could go either way on it.
My point above was, without a clear definition, the left distorts it one direction and the right another. You claim, we haven't tortured anyone for 200+ years. Well, that depends on your definition of torture. Because we have been using certain techniques, that some on the left would consider torture, for years.
I've been through resistance training. The way I figure it. If the US applies a technique to its own soldiers during training, it probably doesn't rise to the level of torture. However, without a clear definition, the goalposts keep moving. There are some on the left who consider harsh language and humiliation torture and that's bullshit.
I still say the ambiguity is a feature rather than a bug.
And I still say that doing something that terrifies the shit out of people and making them feel like they're downing to death--in an effort to make them do what you want?
Is torture.
Sure, and I believe I did say, "Inducing mental anguish that places the individual in mortal fear for their life", was my definition (see above).
That's why I think water boarding is about the limit. There are other more mundane things that drive people to give up the information you desire that don't involve physical pain or permanent psychological trauma. Some are claiming these techniques to be torture as well. I'd say they don't rise to the level of torture and are effective in getting reliable intelligence.
I've got to say, when it comes down to a he-said, she-said between a power-hungry shyster and a CIA spook, it's pretty hard to pick which one to believe.
-jcr
I love that Wenzel specified "four-legged", implying that those who work there are rats of the two-legged variety. Classy.
Yeah, that one took me a second but in that second I swear I was one with all creation.
Great speech, depressing as hell though.
Junior Seau apparently killed himself
Holy shit! I mean, we all knew that football is not good for you, but fuck.
If this is linked to the concussion/head trauma stuff, that is super bad for the NFL.
I think it's just a case of uselessoldathleteitis.
The case that always comes to mind is Justin Stelzyk -- Was 36 when he died going 90 the wrong way on an interstate in NY. looked like an 80-year-old dementia patient when they examined his brain.
In my opinion, the worst post-football story is Mike Webster's. Even though he deserved it for playing for Team Scum.
Lyle Alzado's isn't much better.
Very sad, he was a great guy and a warrior. The reports say the gunshot was to the chest, so we'll see.
Well, that's a bummer 🙁
"Seau's death also follows the suicide last year of former Chicago Bears player Dave Duerson, who also shot himself in the chest."
Why would you shoot yourself in the chest and not the head?
To save the brain for concussion research. From wiki:
Wow.
Thanks.
Junior Seau puts himself out of his misery.
Former NFL great Junior Seau was found dead Wednesday in his home outside San Diego from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo!
You win this round PantsFan!
Crack open the plonk and live forever! New research offers evidence that resveratrol in red wine battles aging.
And people keep saying the era of new small molecule drugs is over. Well, technically it's old since it's found in nature, but you get the point.
That kind of thing might fly in Springfield, but not here in Shelbyville. Which is probably why we beat them at football nearly half the time.
Well, there is also our lovely monorail.
"Hey, look! Someone's attractive cousin!"
This is a tough one. Either the professional liar is lying or else it's the other professional liar who's lying. Can it be both?
Turns out HE didn't actually brief her, but one of his henchmen did.
Does that work?
Let's get to the bottom of this.
Waterboard everyone involved.
First I paid my respects to Glenn Gould.
But he's [horrified whisper]Canadian[/horrified whisper]!
Geek-Rock icon Jonathan Coulton to co-host trivia show on NPR; audiences everywhere are shocked to find the segment listenable, amusing.
Sonofa... I might actually put on NPR now.
I already tune in on my way back from work to stay in the loop about what people I disagree with will be rambling on about. It's come in handy, and sometimes the guests aren't totally insufferable.
Poster up for the new Gloria Steinem biopic:
http://www.wwtdd.com/2012/05/a.....-emotions/
boi-oi-oi-oi-oiiiiing
boiiiiing
There's no better look for sluts than that '70s slut look. God damn.
That Amanda Seyfried is just totally bangable. Mmm, mmm, mmm...
She looks like she is missing a chromosome.
Really? Really? Did you bang your head on something today, dude?
sticks, you, sir, are a homosexual.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but jus' sayin'
Please surrender your card, decoder ring and all libertarian effects. Regardless of your sticky gender.
Good day and get appropriate help.
Really? Really? Did you bang your head on something today, dude?
What, you don't like 70s sluts? No wonder you're gay.
No wonder?!?
NTTAWWT
Texting and tweeting harms kids, says writer Pratchett
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec.....pment.html
Unfortunately most texting and tweeting kids have no idea who Terry Pratchett is.
I mean, I think it is probably not great for early social development that no one interacts face to face anymore and gets the reps in to read facial and body cues, but I do love communicating via screen.
Of course, the two screens I hate communicating on are texting and Facebook, so there ya go.
"If you have the words to identify exactly what you mean, you can get your message across."
Whatever.
The Sun makes fun: WOY GETS ENGLAND JOB", the Red Top proclaimed, a day after Hodgson was confirmed as the successor to Fabio Capello.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/f.....oy-Hodgson
That's wiwwy, wiwwy juvenew...
Welease Woy!
A Tennessee man was jailed after the out-of-circulation $50 bill he used in a convenience story falsely tested as counterfeit. failed to pass the "marker" test which is used to authenticate modern US paper currency.
Sorry, but it's completely unsurprising that a convenience store clerk would fail to recognize an out-of-circ banknote as legit, especially when it failed the magic marker test. If I ended up with an antique note and intended to use it as tender, I'd take it to the bank.
Source article here. BTW, Tucille, somebody linked to the source article in an earlier thread. You're verging into KM-W levels of vapidity here.
Yeah, but KM-W's HAWT, so we cut her more slack.
And that's why there aren't more female libertardians, etc. etc. etc.
That happened to me once. I had a $20 bill from the 1950's and tried to pass buy beverages at a liquor store. It didn't pass the pen test. The clerk said the bill was no good - whereupon I pointed out that it was 50 years old. Said clerk gave me a blank stare are repeated her prvious statement. I took the bill back and gave her another one.
In her defense, she wasn't old enough to know a time before those counterfeit-checking pens existed.
You're lucky she didn't tase you, bro!
Damn straight. Happened in Hoboken, NJ. I'm probably lucky I wasn't shot.
Man arrested, cuffed after using $2 bills
Best Buy customer on being jailed:
'At this point, I'm a mass murderer'
http://www.wnd.com/2005/04/29732/
police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."
No, Bill. It's a sign that some people are fucking idiots.
There are new bills?
Who actually uses cash anymore?
I humbly apologize. I do try to give proper credit, but I can't read every comment in every thread. You can always email me article links, ya know!
Cool story bro:
Some guys robbed my mom's vintage money collection and went on a shopping spree that included buying pizza with a King George twenty dollar bill and smokes with a silver dollar commemorating the Montreal Olympics.
They were quickly caught.
After his arrest for smoking grass, David Chong was abandoned by DEA agents in a cell for five days with no food or water.
Dave: Hey, Tommy! It's your cousin, Dave!
Tommy: Dave's not here, man...
Dave: No - this IS Dave! You gotta get me outta jail, man!
Tommy:......Dave's not here, man...
Okay, does anyone else think that this Chen Guancheng thing would make an EXCELLENT episode of The West Wing?
A Tennessee man was jailed after the $50 bill he used in a convenience story falsely tested as counterfeit.
Obviously he should sue the magic marker manufacturer.
SWAT raid of the company, Gibson guitars style. Impound all their shit, then do nothing for months, and months, and months...
Obama admits girlfriend in memoir was a composite character, media puzzled at how to react.
The scene in question is so obviously 'just so' contrived that I don't know how anyone bought it.
You have noticed that his fellow TEAM members aren't really into critical thinking, right, especially about anything he says?
Yeah, but you'd think that seeing through phoney would be a basic survival skill. You can spot prey with a minimum of 11 million differentiations in color and tone, this should be as easy. It undermines the theoretical basis of evolution.
Dude, they buy everything their TEAM leaders say. They buy everything Castro says. They buy everything anyone who is on their TEAM says.
Not seeing through phoney is an essential skill for being a partisan.
Reads like an slightly updated version of Rich Man, Poor Man. The dollar signs from selling the rights to Hollywood could be seen in his eyes as Ayers read it back to him the first time:
One night I took her to see a new play by a black playwright. It was a very angry play but very funny Typical black American humor The audience was mostly black and everybody was laughing and clapping and hollering like they were in church After the play was over my friend started talking about why black people were so angry all the time I said it was a matter of remembering nobody asks why Jews remember the Holocaust I think I said and she said thats different and I said it wasnt and she said that anger was just a dead end We had a big fight right in front of the theater When we got back to the car she started crying She couldnt be black she said She would if she could but she couldnt She could only be herself and wasnt that enough
Punctuation fed to the squirrels.
Holy shit, people read this garbage and still thought he was intelligent? Fuck that sack of shit and fuck all his groupies.
It's pretty amazing. The contortions these people have to go through to think they're the smart ones are incredible.
Why are you so angry all the time?
I think his fucking chair broke.
My fucking chair broke!
Here's a good rule of thumb: If the person in question is a politician, he or she is not very intelligent.
It's appalling how hard some people try to portray these idiots as scholars and brains. It's just not a profession that attracts that sort of person. The left is particularly guilty of this, especially in recent years.
It actually works better as one, long run-on sentence, read in the voice of a valley girl.
Valley Girl
Needz MAOR "Like, grody to the max, while, ya know, like, gag me with a silver spoon...so totally, like, bogus. Like, fer sure, dood! Like, gnarly!"
God I miss the 80s!
Holy shit, people read this garbage and still thought he was intelligent?
What, do you think he wrote it? Ghostwriter, dude.
-jcr
They bought it because they bought all of the fictional versions of this they (including Obama) all read.
media puzzled at how to react
The Media: Barry is so dreamy...we wish we could be his composite girlfriend. But we'll settle for being his simple bitches.
Careful with that, or his bottom bitch at the NYT will cut you!
-jcr
A composite character? Isnt that referred to as fiction, as in lies? Arent all lies composites?
Watching the left is like watching a fucking cartoon, the surrealness of it takes my breath away.
"He said he has personally ordered an extensive review of his office's policies and procedures."
Of course, it's the policies that at at fault.
TOP. Men.
Damn, that Robert Wenzel speech contains some strong stuff. Naturally, it's a non-event in the MSM.
In conclusion, it is my belief that from start to finish the Fed is a failure. I believe faulty methodology is used, I believe that the justification for the Fed, to bring price and economic stability, has never been a success. I repeat, prices since the start of the Fed have climbed by 2,241% and there have been over the same period 18 recessions. No one seems to care at the Fed about the gold supposedly backing up the gold certificates on the Fed balance sheet. The emperor has no clothes.
Results don't matter. Intentions do.
Is that an official Iron Law? RC?
I said in another thread that there should be Iron Laws for Statists. That one would be number one, I'd guess.
Fuck chairs.
This wasn't what I thought it would be.
Fuck chairs.
Thank you.
Fuck chairs
I'd rather have the swing.
I have a quibble. There are good chairs. Just not many and rarely priced at a ridiculous amount. I want photographic evidence that this guy spends all his time standing up.
Those kinds of articles always freak me right the fuck out and make me want to be that weirdo at the office who convinces them to hook up a treadmill, or puts my computer on a box and stands all day. Or something. Fuck.
There was a supervisor in my department who sat on a yoga ball.
A friend once stepped on a nail....
You dont have a strait-pin?
I did that for a while, actually. Now I just sit on the edge of my chair so that it functions as a stool. I'd take the back off if I could.
Yeah, but surely everyone at your work already knows you're a freak. I manage to maintain a veneer of normalcy.
The problem with my desk, as is the case with so many things in our short-person-centric world, is that it is too damn low. When will there be justice for the long-legged? WHEN?
Why?
I'm 6'2". My desk is puny enough that I can use it while sitting on my heels. Short people are morons.
Well. Both being 6'2" and unfairly disparaging short people are correct and praiseworthy. So congratulations on getting something right, finally.
A stopped cock is right at least once in a lifetime.
er...something like that.
Nothing is worse than the "back chairs," where you basically kneel on the chair. All. Day.
There a woman on the last job who had one and loved it, and I hated having to work on her computer because of it. She was fairly hawt and nice, so I got over it.
I have two friends who use treadmill desks.
I prefer just finding a bar to set my laptop on. We have a new bar that just opened that actually put outlets all the way around for laptops and cell phones. They all should do that.
I've actually been thinking about something like that. I've also been devising a way to hook the treadmill up to the computer and use it as a game controller. Running across Cyrodill would take on a new meaning...
Here's the money quote:
"Not only are chairs a health hazard, they also have a problematic history that has inextricably tied them to our culture of status-obsessed individualism."
Ahem...
Fuck off, slaver!
You know who else used a standing desk?
Do lecterns count?
I was actually going for Donald Rumsfeld on this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....screen.jpg
Admiral Cain?
It's weird that chairs even exist when you're not sitting on them.
There is a practical reason why thrones are elevated over all others. To prevent the occupant from being stabbed.
Holy shit. "I was only hazing him/her" is going to be my new murder defense.
"State Attorney Lawson Lamar said 11 of the 13 people will face a hazing resulting in death charge, a third-degree felony. If convicted, they could face up to nearly six years in prison."
Although I have no clue what "up to nearly six years" means. 35 months? 5 years and 364 days?
It means a bunch of folks are going to prison. As they should.
Beat a guy to death because you don't like him -- life in prison. Beat a guy to death because he dropped his drum major's baton in a competition -- six years. Should have been manslaughter 5-25.
Hazing has long been a problem at fraternities and sororities, and in marching bands, particularly at historically black colleges in the South, where a spot in the band is coveted and revered as much as the sports teams. On HBCU campuses, band members are often given perks and treated like celebrities.
I read this, but for some reason, my brain retains it as saying "stupid-assed shit that happens at HBCUs in particular and colleges in general."
Does Tom Friedman still want us to be more like China?
Is he still an idiot?
Krugman, still feeling the sting of the Paul debate, is now desperately quoting David Frum.
http://www.economicpolicyjourn.....ugman.html
http://www.economicpolicyjourn.....ugman.html
"I have a Nobel prize! I should've won the debate! I'm smarter! I'm younger! It's not fair I lost to a guy who delivered babies for a living!"
Weren't there any revelant Kermit the Frog quotes he could use?
It's not easy being green.
He should have known better than to try to debate a man whose academic accomplishments put him to shame. Medicine is a rigorous course of study, unlike court astrology.
-jcr
Do I have better luck posting from IE?
What are you trying to do? If you paste text from elsewhere make sure you only include approved punctuation - apostrophes and such.
Otherwise, forget it, it's squirreltown.
Just delete all the punctuation after you paste, we'll get the idea.
I've cracked the code! Open notepad, paste the desired text into notepad, then copy paste the text into the handy Reason reply box!
Notepad will "dumb" your quotation marks, apostrophes, periods, commas, and any other "smart" punctuation the server squirrels don't approve of.
Thanks AC!
Anonymous Coward|5.2.12 @ 7:57PM|#
"I've cracked the code!"
I do appreciate your efforts. Whether I remember to do that next time there's something worth pasting is another matter.
Besides which, is this a geek test site or a libertarian bbs?
Fuck 'em if I have to open an app, copy/paste to that app, and then copy/paste from that app.
That works, but not for dashes. So you still have to re-type dashes.
lol, another bought and paid for pompous windbag lol.
http://www.Privacy-Guys.tk
whether it's ok to tase taggers, or anything else is a matter of what the person is doing, not their 'identity' iow tagger etc.
the controlling case in portland, since portland is in the 9th circuit is mcpherson
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/da.....-55622.pdf
note that not only was the tasing found to be unjustified, but iirc the officer was stripped of qualified immunity for the tasing, which was later restored by the scotus
mcpherson is a VERY IMPORTANT CASE. it establishes the use of tasers as an "intermediate level of force".