Change we can believe in: 'White House drafting indefinite detention order.' What a disaster.

About half of the remaining detainees have been reviewed for prosecution or release, it added, while the other half "present the greatest difficulty" because they cannot be prosecuted in either a federal court or a military trial.

Evidence against these detainees is either classified, was provided by foreign intelligence services or was obtained through harsh interrogation techniques approved by former president George W. Bush.

If you can't try them because Bush tortured them, say so, and then start prosecuting the Bush administration. This "solution" isn't remotely legal, much less ethically tenable.

Recently added to my must-read list: One Article Per Day, which is exactly what it sounds like. Recent one-per topics include the golden age of conspiracy, Cuba and American empire, higher education as the next bubble, pornography as the next tobacco, Chomsky on the torture memos and historical amnesia, the self-inflicted recession of the Reagan Democrats, and global collectivist society online. Like everything else, it's on Twitter.

Late night shouldn't-have-taken-that-nap links.

* Stephen Colbert to guest-edit Newsweek. That's just weird.

* Yesterday marked the first night in my life where I had any real desire to see The Tonight Show; the Daily Beast has a few highlights. For my part I thought Conan did pretty good, despite some jackass fans who demonstrated that adoration and heckling meet again someplace on the other side. Someday I may even watch the Tonight Show again.

* But you don't have to take my word for it: Conan's got the coveted Obama endorsement now, too.

* Anthony Stewart Head is still teasing a Ripper spinoff.

* 'No Lifeguard on Duty': empty and abandoned motel pools.

* 75% of Americans now convinced terrorists have superpowers. Advantage: idiocracy.

* Production design for Pixar's Up.

* And ethanol still sucks.

It's becoming more and more apparent that conservatives simply take as fact anything that is broadcast on any Fox Network. First 24, now Prison Break.

Despite all that, we never tire of the specter of the Big, Bad, Villainous, Omnipotent Muslim Terrorist. They're back, and now they're going to wreak havoc on the Homeland -- devastate our communities -- even as they're imprisoned in super-max prison facilities. How utterly irrational is that fear? For one thing, it's empirically disproven. Anyone with the most minimal amount of rationality would look at the fact that we have already convicted numerous alleged high-level Al Qaeda Terrorists in our civilian court system (something we're now being told can't be done) -- including the cast of villains known as the Blind Shiekh a.k.a. Mastermind of the First World Trade Center Attack, the Shoe Bomber, the Dirty Bomber, the American Taliban, the 20th Hijacker, and many more -- and are imprisoning them right now in American prisons located in various communities.

We've been doing that for two decades. What are all the bad and scary things that have happened as a result? The answer is: "nothing." Take note, Chris Cillizza and friends: while it's true that "not a single prisoner has escaped from Gitmo since it was created," it's also true that no Muslim Terrorists have escaped from American prisons and our SuperMax prison "has had no escapes or serious attempts to escape." Actually, the only person to even make an escape attempt from a SuperMax is Green Arrow, who hasn't succeeded despite the help of Joker and Lex Luthor.

Seriously, that Green Arrow movie sounds pretty good. But how's he going to get hold of a bow while he's in prison, much less his trick arrows?

Meanwhile, Attackerman checks in from the Marvel Universe, where the picture is much more bleak.

Link dump #4, son of the mother of all link dumps.

* Still another Pac-Man text adventure. (Previously.) See also: Guitar Hero as text adventure (1, 2).

* It turns out the Bush administration didn't bother to keep case files on many of the prisoners in Guantánamo. Via Pandagon.

* Cultural treasures of New Jersey.

* Make Something Cool Every Day makes something cool every day.

* Crooker Timber had a Charlie Stross book event today with tons of links.

* Also at Crooked Timber: Should you delay parenthood till tenure?

* And Obama gets it.

On Guantánamo: Matt Yglesias has a great post summing up the various absurd turns the Guantánamo debate has taken since Obama has taken office. For me it begins and ends with the new 'supervillain' line, the notion that the people currently imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay are so cunning and all-powerful that we dare not trust them to any domestic prison for fear that they will somehow escape, Joker-like, and run amuck.



I think it's time to start bringing that "reality-based community" line back.

More catchup, First 48 Hours of the Obama Administration Edition.

* Obama signed a few executive orders today, including one ordering a reevaluation of interrogation procedures and another ordering the closure of Guantánamo Bay within the year. Glenn Greenwald is pretty happy about it, as are Steve Benen, Ezra Klein, and Spencer Ackerman, who writes:

For all the talk about Obama not governing as a progressive, take a look at his first not-even-48 hours in office. He's suspended the Guantanamo Bay military commissions, a first step toward shuttering the entire detention complex. He's assembled his military commanders to discuss troop withdrawals from Iraq. He's issued a far-reaching order on transparency in his administration that mandates, among other things, a two-year ban on any ex-lobbyists working on issues they lobbied for. And now he's shutting down the CIA's off-the-books detention complexes in the war on terrorism.

* Obama has 62% approval in Texas and 60% in Tennessee.

* And the Senate has passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Yes we can?

The Big Picture comes through with its inevitable, much-needed dose of inauguration porn.

Something else I am gushing over: CBS is reporting that "President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an executive order his first week in office — and perhaps his first day — to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two presidential transition team advisers." Via Daily Kos.

The Big Picture has characteristically stunning pictures of Guantánamo Bay.

One down: Obama to close Guantánamo Bay.

At last, the truth: Condoleezza Rice admits she, Ashcroft, and other Bush Administration officials held high-level talks on torture. This is nothing less than an admission of active complicity in war crimes, and it underscores the necessity that some sort of legal accountability be undertaken by the next administration. There are good arguments for criminal prosecution and good arguments for a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, but there must be something—the things that have happened over the last eight years simply cannot be swept under the rug. For the soul of the nation and to make good with history, we need to admit and come to terms with what this administration has done in all our names.

Slate has a helpful Venn diagram tracing the network of major Bush administration illegality, and surprisingly it's Alberto Gonzales and not Dick Cheney who emerges as the Worst of a Very Bad Bunch.



Meanwhile, via MeFi, Salon asks whether or not Congress might pursue a Church-Committee-style truth commission in the wake of the criminality of the last eight years.

That question was answered in the seven-page memo. "The rise of the 'surveillance state' driven by new technologies and the demands of counter-terrorism did not begin with this Administration," the author wrote. Even though he acknowledged in interviews with Salon that the scope of abuse under George W. Bush would likely be an order of magnitude greater than under preceding presidents, he recommended in the memo that any new investigation follow the precedent of the Church Committee and investigate the origins of Bush's programs, going as far back as the Reagan administration.

The proposal has emerged in a political climate reminiscent of the Watergate era. The Church Committee was formed in 1975 in the wake of media reports about illegal spying against American antiwar activists and civil rights leaders, CIA assassination squads, and other dubious activities under Nixon and his predecessors. Chaired by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, the committee interviewed more than 800 officials and held 21 public hearings. As a result of its work, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which required warrants and court supervision for domestic wiretaps, and created intelligence oversight committees in the House and Senate.

...Some see a brighter prospect in Barack Obama, should he be elected. The plus with Obama, says the former Church Committee staffer, is that as a proponent of open government, he could order the executive branch to be more cooperative with Congress, rolling back the obsessive secrecy and stonewalling of the Bush White House. That could open the door to greater congressional scrutiny and oversight of the intelligence community, since the legislative branch lacked any real teeth under Bush. (Obama's spokesman on national security, Ben Rhodes, did not reply to telephone calls and e-mails seeking comment.)

But even that may be a lofty hope. "It may be the last thing a new president would want to do," said a participant in the ongoing discussions. Unfortunately, he said, "some people see the Church Committee ideas as a substitute for prosecutions that should already have happened."

I find the blog form is exceptionally good for discussions about film. Here's just two recent examples, Scott McLemee at Inside Higher Ed talking about Wall-E in the context of Kenneth Burke's Helhaven and the Pinocchio Theory on Harold and Kumar Go to Guantánamo Bay.

In the news:

* In response to public outrage—and who thought that could still accomplish anything?—the Bureau of Land Management has reversed the absurd two-year moratorium on public-land solar projects that got me so riled up a few days ago.

* Is Bush about to close Guantánamo? I imagine extralegal prisons are a whole lot less fun lately, though knowing the Bush administration they'd probably only plan to close it in preparation for Guantánamo II on the Moon.

* Utah responds to the high price of energy by moving to a four-day workweek for state employees. Meanwhile, Sal Cinquemani at Slant Magazine takes aim at the central contradiction that has crippled the Democrats' ability to properly respond to the high price of gasoline: so long as we are unable to think the crisis outside a capitalist, market-oriented framework, $140 a barrel still isn't high enough.

* Jesse Helms died today, one day after Bozo the Clown, and everyone else has already made the joke.

* Despite the latest denialist meme, volcanoes are not melting Arctic ice.

* Christopher Hitchens now agrees waterboarding is torture. Why? He let himself be waterboarded. (Here's video.) I really hate to kick a guy just when he's finally starting to see the light, but it's worth saying that there are still plenty of people whose moral sense is not so deformed by eight years of Bushism that we knew better than to torture people without an object lesson in basic human decency—and it'd be nice if, you know, we were maybe listened to occasionally. Via MeFi.

* And, at NPR, the strange odyssey of Napoleon's penis.

In a too-close 5-4 split decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Guantánamo detainees can appeal their imprisonment in civilian courts.

Justice Kennedy declared: “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

The decision, left some important questions unanswered. These include “the extent of the showing required of the government” at a habeas corpus hearing in order to justify a prisoner’s continued detention, as Justice Kennedy put it, as well as the handling of classified evidence and the degree of due process to which the detainees are entitled.

Months or years of continued litigation may lie ahead, unless the Bush administration, or the administration that follows it, reverses course and closes the prison at Guantánamo Bay, which now holds 270 detainees. Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court here said the court’s judges would meet in the next few days with lawyers for both sides to decide “how we can approach our task most effectively and efficiently.”

More links and discussion at MeFi, including this look at the realities of Guantánamo six years in:

More than half of the 270 detainees currently at Guantánamo – including many who are slated for release or transfer – are housed in high-security facilities akin to U.S. "supermax" prisons. They spend all but two hours a day in small cells with no natural light or fresh air. Their meals are slipped through a slot in the door, and they are given little more than a single book and the Koran to occupy their time. Even their limited "recreation" time – which is sometimes provided in the middle of the night – generally takes place in single cell cages so that detainees can't physically interact with one another. None of these detainees have been allowed visits by family members, and very few have been able to make phone calls home.

As a result, many detainee lawyers say, their clients are suffering from serious and even dangerous mental health problems. Several have tried to commit suicide, some of them multiple times. Others have reported having visions and hearing voices. Some show strong signs of depression and anxiety disorder.

In other Supreme Court news, our old friend Antonin Scalia continues to embarrass himself. You're a Supreme Court justice, not the substitute host for Sean Hannity's radio show. Have some decorum.

While we're waiting for the polls to close, here's Keith Olbermann with a helpful primer on which states count and which don't.



In other useful K.O. videos, Chuck Todd explains why the race is effectively over tonight, while Kal Penn explains how it was that Harold and Kumar came to Guantánamo. The hometown heroes get their names deservedly dropped.

Dueling Harold & Kumar reviews! Salon says "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay isn't a political picture, but it is a patriotic one, in the nonpartisan sense of the word," while the House Next Door opines "Somebody needed to do a merciless sendup of Homeland Security bullshit, but are Harold and Kumar up to the task? Not quite."

Either way, Randolph! Catch the fever.

When we last discussed the sequel to Harold and Kumar, the Guantánamo plotline was making people rather unhappy:

Someone at the end of the screening called out at the end, "Gitmo is a real place. People are tortured there. It's not funny."

But don't let someone yelling out at the end of the screening tell you what's funny and what isn't; decide for yourself with the new trailer for the new movie from hometown heroes Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg:

Depressing weekend politics triple threat:

* World authors on climate change, including George Saunders. Via blucarbnpinwheel.

But then again, who can resist the allure of springtime? Last spring a "mini-hurricane" lifted our house off its foundation, and what a wild, lovely ride we had, flying over the city, observing the beauty of the new-blooming roses and orchids and the dear friends being slung willy-nilly into the sides of downtown buildings, and the river overflowing its banks and flooding entire sections of town.

So let the global-warning nuts complain all they want. I love nature, just as it is, however it is.

*Poems from Guantánamo, via MeFi.

DEATH POEM
Jumah Al Dossari

Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.
Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.
And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden, before their children and before history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the "protectors of peace."

* The Nation's Alex Cockburn explains how the Democrats blew it in just eight months. Via I cite. He makes a lot of good points, most notably this harsh rebuke to those (like me) who waste their time fantasizing about impeachment:

The left is as easily distracted, currently by the phantasm of impeachment. Why all this clamor to launch a proceeding surely destined to fail, aimed at a duo who will be out of the White House in sixteen months? Pursue them for war crimes after they've stepped down. Mount an international campaign of the sort that has Henry Kissinger worrying at airports that there might be a lawyer with a writ standing next to the man with the limo sign. Right now the impeachment campaign is a distraction from the war and the paramount importance of ending it.