The CIA as kidnappers, and the hub-bub over Supreme Court Justices

Read a few f'ed up articles today, mostly on the Voice website. Someone is finally is doing something about the outsourcing of torture in this country (to use an over-used term). For those that don't know what I'm talking about, for the past couple of years during America's war on Terror, Gitmo and Abu Ghraib have not been the only places where questionable acts on prisoners have taken place. The US has been engaging in a practice known as Extraordinary Rendition. This practice just reaks of immaturity. Since we can't legally torture people here for info (which does not mean it does not happen) we send them to other countries where we know there are no limits on torture, to have them interrogated there. The administration says that they don't condone torture then turn their faces the other way as the countries we should be labasting for their terrible treatment of humans get us our much needed information. Finally a country has refused to let this type of thing happen under their noses. The Country of Italy was location of one of the CIA's covert missions to kidnap a suspect, take him back to his own country (Egypt) and have him tortured. The Italian Governement has long been after this guy, he was already under surveillance so it's not like everyone necessarily thought he was innocent. The Italians did NOT know that the CIA was going to pull a move like they did. So the Italians traced the CIA agents responsibe for the kidnapping and issued arrest warrants for them. Classic. I wonder how this is going to play out on the US media. There have been many references to this practice of rendition in various stories, but I have yet to really see it on news magazines or local news channels. I wonder how they are gonna explain this one? Pobably with the lame "They would do worse to you and your family if they captured you!". Yeah, it's real likely that Mr. and Mrs. podunk living in the middle of no where are gonna get captured and totured. For the full story, check out the voice article here.

Tom Tomorrow graces us with another awesome cartoon. This one is particularly good because Supreme Court fights like this don't happen that often. My favorite part is when they nominate Cthulu: Destroyer of Worlds as Supreme Court Justice, freaking hilarious. I had no idea who Cthulu was at the time so I looked it up, here's a picture for your pleasure.

In all honesty though, this fight over supreme court justices is getting pretty heated. After O'Connor's surprise that she was stepping down, Rehnquist (who in my opinion is so old he should not even be allowed to drive) made a surprise announcement that he won't be stepping down despite his many health problems and frequent hospital visits. Honestly, there should be some type of governing body that can decide when a justice should step down. This man is not fit for any other job in the world besides listening to cases of great importance and speaking his opinion about them. When is his horrendous age (and by association his connection with the current state of American Culture) going to outweigh his supposed knowledge in legal matters. I think Supreme Court Justiceship should have a statute of limitations. For some telling info on the way the Justices come to power, please read this article from the voice. Apparently these days you can buy youself a supreme court judge.