Just Keep Winning 'SC

Doesn't matter by how many points.

It's Probably Like Time Travel

Ok, I passed the California Bar Exam, generally regarded as the toughest in the country, on my first try. So I'd really like to know if there's any way I can transform my law degree from a non-ABA school into a law degree from an ABA school.

In a Word...

Absolutely. And it isn't torture. (See especially Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8).

Update: The Case For Waterboarding

Although waterboarding is normally employed as the last resort and the frequency of its use kept secret, it has been made known that so far it has worked every time it has been tried. Thanks to its extraordinary efficacy, we have been able to obtain a great amount of critical intelligence that would have otherwise remained inaccessible. With the help of this information we have captured al-Qaeda operatives, stopped deadly plots, and saved many innocent lives. One of the fruits of Mohammed’s confession, to give one example, was the thwarting of a conspiracy to fly an airliner into the Library Tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles.

Given these facts, it is almost incomprehensible that there are some people in this country who insist that we relinquish this life-saving tool. Resting their objections on ethical grounds, they try to convince us that the procedure is morally unacceptable. But theirs is a misguided stance, since careful consideration shows that waterboarding is in fact one of the least injurious among interrogation techniques.

To see why this is so, it is enough to contrast it with the most common approach which involves a combination of sleep deprivation and cold exposure. Frequently requiring days and even weeks to break the captive’s spirit, it carries a real possibility of long-term physical and psychological damage. Worse still, it often fails to achieve the desired effect with the result that the captive is subjected to prolonged hardships, but we still end up without the information we so urgently need.

Waterboarding, on the other hand, is fleeting in duration with the actual discomfort lasting seldom more than a couple of minutes. And since a man can be safely deprived of oxygen for at least twice as long, there is almost no risk of long-term harm. The possibility of injury is further reduced by the fact that the procedure calls for no direct physical contact between the subject and his interrogators. Not even as much as pushing or chest slapping is required at any time, making waterboarding one of the safest and least confrontational among interrogation methods. Involving the lowest risk of long-term harm and the least amount of cumulative discomfort, it is also the most humane. Most importantly, it is the most effective.

Update 2 (9/30/06): So, in Mark Shea's anti-"torture" world, would these guys be regarded as pro-torture torture victims?

ATM for Jay-sus!

Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Evangelical Mega-Church, although it appears that at least one Catholic diocese in the U.S. had seriously thought about using an "Automatic Tithing Machine".

Those kinds of reservations emerged in Baton Rouge, La., before Baker went into business. About three years ago, the Roman Catholic diocese there worked with a Canadian company to produce a machine that would accept bank card donations from churchgoers. Church officials hoped to place it in the Cathedral of St. Joseph, an imposing Gothic Revival building near the banks of the Mississippi River that dates to the 1850s.

It's not an Aerosmith kind of place. Church officials eventually changed their minds.

"I think that when it actually came time to put a kiosk in the back of a cathedral, it just wasn't quite, well — I'd like to say 'kosher,' but we're Catholic," said Mark Blanchard, the stewardship director for the diocese.

7-11Eleven Drops Citgo

That would be the Citgo owned by the country of Venezuela, which is currently being ruled by the sulphur sniffing Hugo Chavez.

As a long time Big Gulp and Big Bite Hot Dog consumer, I salute your decision 7-11Eleven! Now, about those semi-pornographic "mens' magazines" you keep displaying in front of the cash registers...

A Place for Mark Shea

Never let it be said that the "Party of Torture" doesn't have a big tent.

Update: Shea gets taken down by Victor Morton (not sure if it's the same Victor Morton who occasionaly writes for National Review).

Yeah, Mel's an Idiot

He follows up drunken stupid remarks about Jews with (apparently) sober stupid remarks about the U.S. military in Iraq.

It's one thing to be against the war; it's quite another to basically suggest that military personnel are a bunch of lemmings. Borrowing from Laura Ingraham, shut up and act or direct movies, Mel.

Arizona Roadkill

A smothering defense helps give 'SC a win in the desert. Fight on!

Bubba Goes Berzerk

See the video clip here.

Clintoon is obviously counting on the American public to have a short memory. Fortunately, blogs like Ace of Spades are around to easily deconstruct the disingenuous finger wagger. (Warning: some foul language)

Update(9/24/06): Remember the last time we all saw Bubba Bill wagging his finger? (link via Michelle Malkin)

Update 2(9/24/06): Fox News never grilled Bush Administration officials about going after bin Laden before 9/11? The heck it didn't, Bubba.

Day of Rage Observation Deck

See the latest news on what's going on during this high holy day for adherents of the Religion O'Rage. (link via The Anchoress)

It Seems "Rough" Interrogation Works

Bill O'Reilly had ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross on tonight, and according to Ross, the controversial interrogation methods (e.g., waterboarding) that the CIA has been widely rumored to be using on captured terrorists like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has produced information that led to the breakup of at least 14 planned terrorist attacks against the United States. 14! One of the apparent targets of these planned attacks was the historic Library Tower in downtown Los Angeles.

When some so-called anti-torture human rights advocate, whose name escapes me, was confronted with this information on O'Reilly, the best response that she could give was: How do we know that we couldn't have gotten the information in a less drastic manner? Exactly what that less drastic manner is, she (predictably) didn't say, nor would she answer the question of whether she would allow a captured terrorist to be roughed up for information if doing so would save the life of a loved one. No better friend of the terrorists is this woman.

Correction: It wasn't 14 planned terrorist attacks that were thrwarted, but 14 cases where reportedly rough interrogation tactics were used, and which resulted in information that led to the breakup of several planned attacks, including one against the Library Tower.

Dehellenization and Protestantism

In the very same speech from Pope BXVI that adherents of the Religion O'Rage are all riled up about comes this illuminating comment about the dehellenization of religion (Christianity specifically):

Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the fundamental postulates of the Reformation in the 16th century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this program forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.

What the pope is essentially suggesting here is that Protestantism is a historical cause of the separation of faith from reason. This is quite an indictment, which I am quite sure many Protestants, Fundamentalists in particular, would take umbrage with. Despite such disagreement, though, I'm fairly confident that there will be no worldwide Protestant fatwas to assasinate the pope or burn Catholic church buildings. At most, we might see an offensive anti-Catholic tract by Jack Chick, which I personally find more amusing than anything else.

Did Pat Buchanan Write His Script?

Iranian President, and known Holocaust Denier, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks directly with the al-Jazeera like American MSM in a dinstinctly Buchananesque manner:

President Bush’s policies in the Middle East are “moving the world toward war,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, maintaining that Iran was a peaceful nation that merely wanted to be left alone to “stand on its [own] feet.”

“The U.S. government thinks that it’s still the period after World War II,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News,” a mindset that led Bush to believe that he “can rule, therefore, over the rest of the world.”

Stick to Your Day Job Mark

Exhibit number 23923283 that when it comes to foreign policy and the law, uber-Catholic apologist Mark Shea doesn't know sh!t. His suggestion that the Bush Administration's desire to narrow (i.e., clarify) the meaning of the word "torture" in Article 3 of the Geneva Convention necessarily amounts to a desire to codify or sanctify Abu Ghraib is just over the top idiotic. Though I am not hopeful it will ever happen, I'd like to know how Shea doesn't think having his blog or one of his books seen by an inmate down at Club Gitmo couldn't fall under Article 3. After that, I'd like to know what alternative solution Shea has for interrogating terrorists who want to KILL not only him, but his wife, kids, and pets.

Of course, actually proposing anything would require Shea to obtain and possess some knowledge of information beyond what is reported in the very same MSM he regularly lambastes for knowing sh!t about Christianity. Why bother doing this, when ignorantly bitching and moaning is so much easier.

And So It...Continues

Michelle Malkin reports on the latest murder committed by the Religion of Rage.

Churches Attacked in West Bank and Gaza

So in accordance with liberal/anti-Iraq war logic which blames President Bush for increased terrorism in Iraq, the pope is at fault for these attacks on Christian churches because of his recent verbal "attack" on Islam. Right?

Saddam is Trustworthy

Such is the inference one can only draw from a Sept. 8 Senate Intelligence Committee report which basically takes the former dictator at his word and concludes that Saddam had no ties to al-Qaeda or Islamofascist terrorism.

And if you believe that, then you won't mind if I start calling you Ms. Sheehan.

Fight On 'SC!

Beat the Cornholios!

I Support the Pope

But you probably could have already guessed that. It's good to say, and see in other places, anyway.

Religion of Rage Rages On

How making a sincere critical inquiry into Islam gets you mindlessly branded as another Hitler and Mussolini. (link via Drudge)