A quote from conservative Andrew Sullivan:

Late last night, before nodding off, I wondered, as I often do, whether I'd hyperbolized the threat from the looming detention-torture bill. "Legalizing tyranny" is a very strong phrase and I don't want to cry wolf. In the sense that this president intends to seize random Americans and rush them into black sites and torture them at will, it's hyperbole. But in a deeper sense, I think it's completely accurate. The system we're talking about is to do with wartime. A president in the past has had the option of seizing enemy combatants on a battlefield and detaining them without charge as POWs. There's no threat to liberty there. What's new is that in this war, enemy combatants have been designated as such not just on the battlefield - but anywhere in the world. What's new is that they are no longer entitled to POW status. What's new is that this war is for ever. So any changes are not just for a time-limited emergency but threaten to alter basic balances in constitutional order. What's also new is that torture is now allowed on the down-low, on the president's authority. And what's also new is that an enemy combatant may or may not be an American citizen.

Put all that together and you really do have the danger of taking emergency measures for wartime and transforming a peace-time constitution into an essentially martial system, where every citizen or non-citizen can be apprehended at will and detained without charge. I repeat: this is a huge deal. It really should be a huge deal for conservatives who care about restraining government power. Its vulnerability to abuse is enormous; sanctioned torture, history tells us, never remains hermetically sealed. It always spreads. It eats away at decency and law and civility. If the president sincerely believes that torture is our most potent weapon in this war, and that habeas corpus is a quaint relic from the past, then we are in far greater peril than even the most dire pessimists believe.

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Now all we need is a rocket and a buttload of tinfoil.

And a giant robot, with a butt big enough to contain all that tinfoil.

The only thing in your life that is offensive to me is all the work that keeps you from hanging out here! And I can't really fault you for that, so.

Yes, this, though the whole being so far away thing is less than ideal too.

I'm planning on cursing the darkness, personally.

I was going to try kicking at it.

My autumn clothes don't fit right.

See how much this sucks?

Yes, this, though the whole being so far away thing is less than ideal too.

Exactly! Sheesh!

I had my first real omigawd overslept! in a long while. Usually it is a semiconscious choice. Today? NSM. No idea why. I even went to bed at 11:30!

I'm not sure who to root for here....

Zombie Rights March Protested by Pirates

Here's a flickr set of pictures documenting the zombie rights march to Austin's City Hall last Friday. The zombies' signs in the march included badly spelled slogans such as "Mairage = 1 Zombie + 1 Zombie", "More Binifits for Zombie Vets in Our Necronomoconomy", "Brains...The Other White Meat", "We're here, we're dead, get used to it!" and "Zombies Was People Too." The zombies, shouting "What do we want? Brains! When do we want them? Brains!" was unhindered by a group of pirates protesting the undead's demands for their rights.

Arr... brains....

Goddamnit. Someone just deleted the directory with 90% of my code. Which only me and root can do.

They've done this shit before, and I'm tired of it.

Put all that together and you really do have the danger of taking emergency measures for wartime and transforming a peace-time constitution into an essentially martial system, where every citizen or non-citizen can be apprehended at will and detained without charge. I repeat: this is a huge deal. It really should be a huge deal for conservatives who care about restraining government power. Its vulnerability to abuse is enormous; sanctioned torture, history tells us, never remains hermetically sealed. It always spreads. It eats away at decency and law and civility. If the president sincerely believes that torture is our most potent weapon in this war, and that habeas corpus is a quaint relic from the past, then we are in far greater peril than even the most dire pessimists believe.

There goes my good nights' sleep for...well...ever.

Which only me and root can do.

Don't your superusers know that with great power comes great responsibility?

Zombie Rights March Protested by Pirates

And who will speak for the poor zombified pirates?