You’ve probably seen this already, but I wanted to make sure it was permanently (as anything is) archived here on NiS.

During the “bad old days” of George W. Bush, people were kidnapped off the street by the CIA, drugged, chained to the floor of an airplane, and secretly flown across the world to be tortured, in a policy known as “rendition.” Five of these people tried to sue the responsible Bush administration officials, but the Bush Justice Department had the case thrown out of court on the grounds of “state secrets.” These five are now bringing a civil suit against Jeppesen DataPlan, the Boeing subsidiary that coordinated, enabled, and profited handsomely from these secret flights to hell. The Bush DOJ lawyers argued before the Ninth Circuit that this civil case, too, should be thrown out based on the state secrets privilege, but the Court gave the Obama administration a chance to alter their argument.

The Obama administration, and Eric Holder’s Justice Department, actively reviewed the facts of the case. The facts of the case are known publicly – in addition to having been widely published, other nations have investigated the claims, and one of the plaintiffs even received compensation from the Swedish government for its ancillary role in the kidnapping and torture.

Obama chose to maintain the Bush stance: the case, in its entirety, must be dismissed, because for a Federal Court to even examine the matter would be to violate our precious National Security. Notice that the claim is not that specific pieces of evidence must be withheld; or that the Court should make a determination as to whether the case may proceed with publicly available evidence. No, the Obama administration is making the same sweeping claim the Bushites did: our entire program of rendition and torture is a secret, and may not be subject to any judicial review.

This stance is in direct contradiction to the Democratic consensus that emerged during the Bush years, and stands in opposition to candidate Obama’s repeated pledges to roll back the Bush administration’s abuse of executive power.

I find today’s action horrifying, depressing, and entirely unsurprising.

But, you know – Obama’s a great guy. I’m sure he won’t abuse his dictatorial powers the way Bush did. So, y’know, it’s all good.

Our buddy Ray has found a new way to market his vision of the future — right around the corner from me, at NASA Ames Research Park.

From CNET:

Starting this summer, some of the world’s leading thinkers in exponentially growing technologies will be gathering annually at NASA Ames Research Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley, for 10 weeks of discussions on how to change the future. And you could join them.

The gatherings will be part of what is known as Singularity University, a brand-new academic institution co-founded by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, X Prize chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, and former Yahoo Brickhouse head Salim Ismail, and anyone can apply.

I’ll admit that I didn’t read this whole article, but I did skim for the punchline that I knew had to be there:

The students, meanwhile, will need to pony up some serious money to take part in Singularity University. The base fee for the 10-week program is $25,000, though Diamandis said that there will be a significant number of full and partial scholarships available, funded by private companies, and other contributors.

Nice gig, Raymona!

That’s what the HD digital broadcast of the Stupor Bowl looks like here at our house. Now, to be fair, the analog signal isn’t much better. But at least with the analog signal, we get a fuzzy picture that’s still decipherable. The image above is the best I could make the picture look, and it wasn’t consistent. Fortunately, I don’t care about the Stupor Bowl.

Our elevation is about 65 ft above sea level. Directly to our south, between us and the WHDH-TV transmitter, we’ve got Spring Hill, approximately 145 ft high, and only 1/3 of a mile away. The transmitter in Newton is 950 ft in the air. By my figuring, the transmitter would have to be over 2000 ft high for us to have a line-of-sight from our house over the hill (please correct me if I’m wrong). It’s a shame they couldn’t locate their TV transmitter on top of one of the buildings in downtown Boston. I guess if I really wanted good digital over-the-air reception, I’d move.