Miranda Devine writes in the Syndey Morning Hearld:

I am all for compassion and pity but what kind of message is the Vatican sending about mass-murdering dictators? Reuters reported yesterday the words of Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department, on seeing footage of Iraq’s former tyrant Saddam Hussein being examined by a US doctor. “I felt pity to see this man destroyed, [the military] looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures.”

Did I miss the electrodes attached to Saddam’s testicles, bamboo sticks under his fingernails?
…
Less saintly people than Martino might look at Saddam and feel pity, not for him, but for the voiceless thousands he and his regime pals tortured, shot, gassed and buried in mass graves.

After all, being videotaped with a tongue depressor in your mouth seems less grim than being hung upside down and beaten on the soles of your feet, or having bits of your body cut off, or just living each day in fear of capricious arrest.

There were so many ways for a person to be “destroyed” in Saddam’s Iraq.

Read what Ron Bailey has to say about the death of the star of Free Willy.

Via Hit & Run comes this provacative Law Review article: Are Cops Constitutional? The abstract says:

Police work is often lionized by jurists and scholars who claim to employ “textualist” and “originalist” methods of constitutional interpretation. Yet professional police were unknown to the United States in 1789, and first appeared in America almost a half-century after the Constitution’s ratification. The Framers contemplated law enforcement as the duty of mostly private citizens, along with a few constables and sheriffs who could be called upon when necessary. This article marshals extensive historical and legal evidence to show that modern policing is in many ways inconsistent with the original intent of America’s founding documents. The author argues that the growth of modern policing has substantially empowered the state in a way the Framers would regard as abhorrent to their foremost principles.

Rob Neyer has posted his conspiracy theory about why Pete Rose’s new book is coming out on Jan. 8th. Neyer writes:

Here’s my guess, dollars to doughnuts: Rose will finally admit that he did wrong, that he did bet on baseball and he’s really, really sorry. Really.

Of course, the minute this becomes public, it will be the big story for days. Weeks, probably. And that explains the release date. On Jan. 6, the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2004 will be announced. That will be big news on the 6th, and also the 7th. Dennis Eckersley and Paul Molitor will get their two days in the limelight … and then on the 8th it’s Charlie Hustle’s turn.

For months, I suspect (and that’s all it is, speculation), all this has been carefully orchestrated by Rose and baseball. And this time next year, Pete Rose will be headed for the Hall of Fame.

James Lileks on how Today’s Democrats are Mainstreaming the Extreme:

Dean, talking to Diane Rehm — the Mother Teresa of Beltway radio — excoriated Bush for undue privacy in the Sept. 11 investigation. It produced some “interesting” theories, Dean said, such as the idea that the Saudis warned Bush of the imminent attack. Very clever, this; it allowed Dean to move the charge from the fever swamps of Internet forums to the national spotlight. Did he believe it? Oh, no — but it’s interesting, he said, and can’t be disproved. OK, then: Dr. Dean sealed his gubernatorial records, and this makes some suspect he was an abortionist who sold the sundered remains to Satanists for Black Mass rituals. Hey, it’s an interesting theory. Until we see the records, who knows?

The Washington Times reports:

Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state in the Clinton administration, in a conversation with Morton Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call and a Fox News Channel political analyst, suggested that Osama bin Laden has been captured by U.S. forces and will soon be produced to the public.
“Do you suppose,” she asked, “that the Bush administration has Osama bin Laden hidden away somewhere and will bring him out before the election?”
Mrs. Albright said last night she was kidding. “She was not smiling when she said this,” Mr. Kondracke said.

By the way, Kondracke is no ultra-conservative, but rather he is pretty centrist in his political views.

The Guardian reports that the amount of sunlight that is reaching the earth is decreasing. This has big implications for Global Warming, solar power, photosynthesis and many other things that rely on the sun. But many climate scientists aren’t listening.

It turns out that Ohmura was the first to document a dramatic effect that scientists are now calling “global dimming”. Records show that over the past 50 years the average amount of sunlight reaching the ground has gone down by almost 3% a decade. It’s too small an effect to see with the naked eye, but it has implications for everything from climate change to solar power and even the future sustainability of plant photosynthesis. In fact, global dimming seems to be so important that you’re probably wondering why you’ve never heard of it before. Well don’t worry, you’re in good company. Many climate experts haven’t heard of it either, the media has not picked up on it, and it doesn’t even appear in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Link via Slashdot.

Athlon64 3000+ & The Future : Facts, Fiction & Predictions?

How Prescott prices will shape up

Athlon 64 is a top ten seller

Is Microsoft Delaying Win for AMD64 so Intel Can Catch Up?

Slowest Athlon 64 humbles fastest P4 in gaming

I saw the Return of the King tonight. It was great. Now I need to get to bed.

Cardinal Renato Martino is nuts. Upon seeing the pictures of Saddam he said:

“I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures,” he said.

“Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him,” he said in answer to questions about Saddam’s arrest.

I feel no pity to see Saddam destroyed. The man is absolutely evil and he deserves far worse than merely getting a checkup.

Rep. Jim McDermott, (D-Wash) is a moron. Newsday reports:

The Washington congressman who criticized President Bush while visiting Baghdad last year has questioned the timing of the capture of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., told a Seattle radio station Monday the U.S. military could have found Saddam “a long time ago if they wanted.” Asked if he thought the weekend capture was timed to help Bush, McDermott chuckled and said: “Yeah. Oh, yeah.”

The Democratic congressman went on to say, “There’s too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing.”

When interviewer Dave Ross asked again if he meant to imply the Bush administration timed the capture for political reasons, McDermott said: “I don’t know that it was definitely planned on this weekend, but I know they’ve been in contact with people all along who knew basically where he was. It was just a matter of time till they’d find him.

“It’s funny,” McDermott added, “when they’re having all this trouble, suddenly they have to roll out something.”

I find it ironic that people like McDermott, who think the military does nothing right, turn around and think that military is omniscient.