"The simple truth is that public sentiment in America is the reason that solitary confinement has exploded in this country, even as other Western nations have taken steps to reduce it. This is the dark side of American exceptionalism. With little concern or demurral, we have consigned tens of thousands of our own citizens to conditions that horrified our highest court a century ago. Our willingness to discard these standards for American prisoners made it easy to discard the Geneva Conventions prohibiting similar treatment of foreign prisoners of war, to the detriment of America’s moral stature in the world. In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement—on our own people, in our own communities, in a supermax prison, for example, that is a thirty-minute drive from my door."

Free Ann Arbor screening, Monday, November 6 at 5:00 at the Michigan Theater.

The treaty was OK'd, to be adopted in the next UN session; US weirdly abstains.

"We seldom legislate new technologies into being."

"The legislation passed easily, making Canada only the third country in the world, after the Netherlands and Belgium, to officially recognize same-sex unions."

"Real Americans don't take away the freedoms of other Americans."

Once Tariq Ahmed changed his name to Daniel Jacob, he started to make some progress in his job search. (He's since changed it back.)

"I’m not an American, so this is just a hint from a friendly neighbor: being better than the gulags isn’t good enough."

"The goal of the research conducted in this lab is to learn about how people use the Web in their everyday lives and in particular, how differences in Internet use may contribute to social inequality."

May 14 & 15 at the Michigan Theater.

This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't entirely stupid-looking.

Bonus points for gratuitous mention of that fair creature, the "geep."

Very low-key, customer-friendly online (PDF) game store from SJG. Excellent!

"You just can’t make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing."

"Abu Ghraib, Flannery O'Connor, and the Problem of American Innocence"

Now there's no excuse for calling it "abuse" anymore.

"How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib."

"Complete text of Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba."