The Rest of (Last) Week In Review

Yes, I'm finally getting around to this, just to clear out the closet.

• David Broder's apologia for torture is appalling, and yet telling. He has always wanted to shield his friends from the horrors of being responsible for their actions. After all, it's their town. Jamison Foser and Hilzoy dismantle this so I don't have to. The whole thing reads like it was put together by some Village-copying computer program.

• The Supreme Court's limit on vehicle searches was actually a pretty big deal, and unexpected, given the move toward a more expansive surveillance state, even on the court. Bravo to them for that one. Now somebody can sue New Jersey Governor candidate Chris Christie for trying to track crime suspects without a warrant using cell phone GPS.

• $4 trillion dollars is a lot of money to lose, even for a global economy.

• Ali Soufan's story is truly amazing. He's the FBI interrogator who actually yielded valuable information from terror suspects through normal means, by citing the Koran and gaining the trust of his Muslim prisoners, before the CIA came in and "took the gloves off," summarily obtaining no good information and violating international law. The entire argument about torture can be summed up by this dichotomy.

• The President marked Armenian Rememberance Day with a statement that avoided the word "genocide," and the Turks still had a problem with it, because the President didn't acknowledge "their" dead. No pleasing some people. However, the accord between Turkey and Armenia is very promising, as it would lead toward normalized relations.

• I'm glad someone is talking about holding conservative Democrats accountable for their policies that hurt average Americans, particularly holding up cram-down.

• Obama is doing the right thing by allowing Chinese Uighurs at Guantanamo to settle in America. They have endured a legal black hole for years, cleared for release from the prison camp but without a home to flee to. However, a reluctance to release other detainees to Yemen has frustrated efforts to close Guantanamo.

• My firends Euna Lee and the other Current TV journalist held in North Korea will be indicted and face trial. This has been lower-profile than the Roxana Saberi case in Iran, but higher-profile for me. I'm very saddened over what to do about this. Hopefully the State Department is doing everything they can to secure release.

• I thought only dirty hippie socialist Obamites forced corporate executives to do their bidding or face resignation. At least that's what Rush Limbaugh told me.

• If Janet Napolitano really gets the Real ID Act repealed, I would be impressed. She did oppose it while Governor of Arizona.

• The head of the Islamic Courts Union has returned from exile to Somalia. This could spell real trouble, as the ICU seeks to break the fragile transitional government and return the nation to open warfare, or promise, as the ICU becomes part of the solution. Time will tell.

• The House overwhelmingly passed a restoration of the COPS program, which Bush gutted after Clinton instituted it. Some money to revive it already appears in the stimulus.

• Interesting article on whether jobs necessarily follow broadband access. I would tend to think yes, but according to this article the picture is more complex. Obviously, you have to do more than wire your city to bring jobs.

• You too can buy the Goldman Sachs Love blog! Joking aside, there could be a market in the future for high-traffic URLs where the individual managing the site just wants to quit and get bought out. I'm opening the bidding at a million dollars!

• I've never read Gawker much, but this move to stake out O'Reilly stalker Jesse Watters' house is an all-timer. Really, nobody deserves this treatment more. It'll be fun to hear him claim that his privacy is being violated.

• I will admit that Twitter isn't all bad, if it can help the paralyzed communicate. However, I've seen computer programs that basically do exactly the same thing, so let's not give Twitter all the credit. I'd rather praise Google for these technology changes that are not duplicative.

• And finally, Auto-Tune The News is my new favorite thing. It'll be yours too. Watch.