William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

Happy International Cephalopod Awareness Day, everyone. Because two arms are good, but eight arms are better. Read more here.

–WKW

Will “secret opinions” from the Bush Administration authorizing torture shock and shame Americans? Or have we already become numb to the fact that we are a nation of torturers?

From today’s N.Y. Times:

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Read the entire article here.

–WKW

I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Snake-handling principles, personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn’t mean that I’m sure that someone who is Christian would not make a good president. I admire the Christian. I would vote for a Christian if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values. But the Constitution established the United States of America as a nation of Snake Handlers.

Seriously, it’s no more ridiculous than some other claims.

–WKW

Currently on the front page of CNN.com the words “Iraq” and “Iran” do not appear at all. The word “Britney” appears five times.

–WKW

WASHINGTON — In a press conference by the nation’s business leaders and a smattering of government officials, it was announced that everything bought over the past seven years has been immediately recalled, and that all personal information held by all businesses had been lost.

“If we can just get everyone to form an orderly line outside of every store they’ve purchased things from, that would just be great,” said a government official.

The recall comprises more than 53 trillion products - everything ranging from canned beets and meat to children’s toys to electrical appliances to medicine to sports equipment.

“Basically, if you bought anything since early 2001, you’re going to need to bring it back,” said a government official. “Whatever it is, it could, and will, very likely kill you.

“We’re finding e-coli in everything from pork products to handbags,” the official added. “We didn’t even know that was possible.”

Calls to governmental regulation agencies were answered by a recording.

“Hey ya’ll, Bob and Linda aren’t in right now, but if you have a product you’d like us to regulate, you just leave a message and we’ll get back to you. Thanks and God bless.”

When returning products, customers will not receive a similar product in return, but a store credit for up to half the products value, due to devaluing of the products. Nonetheless, some government officials were optimistic about the recall.

“This truly shows the efficiency of the system, if you ask me,” said Terry Hansen of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “You see, after only a few dozen or so deaths from e-coli and lead poisoning, we were able to announce this recall. This is good government in action, really, and gets people back to stores.”

In related news, it was announced that all businesses currently operating in the U.S. and overseas have lost all personal data from all customers. The information had been stored in a laptop, which apparently has been stolen out of the back of a pickup truck.

“We really dropped the ball on this one,” said Chief Executive Glenn Murphy of Clothing retailer Gap Inc.

Still, one anonymous government official said the problem was not as dire as it seemed.

“The fact is, your information is very likely available over the Internets or the Google, anyway, so this shouldn’t really affect too many people.”

–WKW