Socialist Sushi

The Red Cross has found abuse of prisoners in Cuba.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I wish I could say I was shocked. I wish I was more hopeful that we’ll hear from so-called Pro-Life Christians who voted for Bush, that they’ll come out denouncing this. As I’ve mentioned before, time will tell.

Something you should read.

“Of all the terrible things done at the roadblocks, this story is one which negates the very possibility of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. If [the military] does not put these soldiers on trial we will have no moral right to speak of ourselves as a state that rose from the Holocaust,” he wrote.

It goes on to write about the dehumanising of Palestinians. Too many people are being dehumanised.

This is just weird. Via JWZ’s blog.

One phrase I hate is “the next level.” As in: “let’s take it to the next level.”

It’s rampant in writing about J2EE, which is what I work with in my day job. I did a quick google search for j2ee and it reported finding about 6,950,000 results. This dropped to about 3,820,000 searching for ‘j2ee -”the next level”‘

That’s just sad. About 45% of the documents have that awful phrase.

Mr. Mann gives suggestions on beating writer’s block. These certainly look worth a try.

His post today on Ulysses is interesting, too. Something else to check out.

Doing research for a paper before my Saturday class. The reference librarian, Jennifer, just saved me a ton of time. Makes me happy.

Amber and I went to an Indian restaurant called Curry Corner last night. We each had some dish we can’t pronounce. Amber liked hers; mine was incredibly good. Highly recommend it if you’re in the Savannah area.

Tried to find a homepage with no luck, but here’s a review I mostly agree with (registration required; use bugmenot). Our service was fine, though.

Bruce Schneier points out the Amtrak is gonna start checking IDs randomly. “This works,” he says, “because, somehow, terrorists don’t have IDs.

For a good explanation of why encryption is a good thing, check out this Boing Boing post. Because paying $25 will make you safe, mmkay.

And now for something completely different: NYC may require bikes to be registered.

I’m sitting in the Sentient Bean, finishing my tea after downing some great black bean quesidillas. There’s some wireless network nearby, so I’m on IRC while munching and working on a project.

Never been to the Bean before. I think Garrett told me about it a while back, but I’m slack.

But those quesidillas rocked. Oh yeah baby — life is good

[update]: Several photos are on the wall here, a lot of em election-related. Just realized that the photograph on the wall next to me is entitled “Democratic Victory Party.” I wonder how that party went…