Actually I’m referring more to extreme interrogation techniques than to torture. Torture is cutting off fingers, ripping off fingernails or intensive electrical shock. Water-boarding is an extreme interrogation technique.

The fact that the CIA used water-boarding to extract information from a couple of terrorists has gotten a lot of play in the media lately. Despite the fact that the government claims that the extracted information allowed terrorist attacks to be averted, most of the media accounts have been highly critical of the use of water-boarding. (But they seem to have been more worked up over the fact that the CIA destroyed video tapes of the interrogations. If they think it’s so bad why do they want to watch it?) They seem to be saying that saving innocent lives does not justify scaring the crap out of a known terrorist.

If you think you’re opposed to using extreme interrogation techniques under any circumstances, consider the following scenario: Your daughter has been kidnapped. Due to a lucky break the police have arrested a man they are certain is the kidnapper. Although he won’t tell the police where he is holding your daughter he has told them that she is locked inside a large tank that is slowly filling with water. He says that she will drown in 48 hours if the police don’t meet his demands, which are to be given a million dollars in cash and transportation to a country of his choice. He says that he will tell the police the location of your daughter when he reaches his destination.

Would you bet your daughter’s life that the kidnapper will keep his promise? Or would you encourage the police to use some innovative forms of persuasion to convince the kidnapper to reveal her location?

Considering the possibility that the kidnapper is lying and your daughter is already dead, would you discourage the use of torture because doing so would make you as bad as the kidnapper? Or would you want the kidnapper to suffer as much as your daughter likely did?

If you would choose to take the so-called high-road on this I’m glad you’re not my parent. If it were my daughter in this situation I would choose to use any non-life-threatening means available to break the kidnapper.

In principle this scenario is no different than dealing with a person that you know has information critical to preventing a major attack on our country that could kill thousands of people. The key element in both is that there is no doubt that the person has critical information and is refusing to give it up.

I believe the reason so many people in this country condemn the use of extreme interrogation techniques under any circumstances is that they don’t have a clear stake in the outcome. It’s a lot easier to take the high moral ground when neither you nor close loved ones are directly threatened. We should all take the time to consider whether our moral stances would survive if the bad stuff is happening to us.

The Associated Press reports on a brawl involving thirty women in South Los Angeles. They state that "Unique Bishop, 21, fled but turned herself into authorities and was booked for investigation of murder." This raises several questions:

• If Unique now has the power of "authorities" why was she unable to avoid being booked?
• Why did she not choose to turn herself into a bird and fly away?
• Why doesn’t the AP do a better job of editing its articles?

Okay, you can probably find a mistake or two in my writings, but I’m just an armature.

Fox News has an article about the Feds arresting some men in Alabama for planning a machine gun attack on Mexicans. A federal agent said that the men call themselves the Alabama Free Militia. These very well might be some really bad guys who intended to harm some Mexicans, but I tend to be suspicious of cases like this. They might also be guys who went way overboard in preparing to protect themselves from what they see as potential threats. And who really knows what ‘overboard’ is in these days of terrorism and out-of-control illegal immigration?

The evidence, as reported by Fox, raises a lot of questions:

A federal agent testified they found two rooms loaded with guns and possible explosives components, including fireworks, ball bearings, primers, mouse traps, light bulbs and fertilizer.

Mouse traps? Light bulbs? As far as I know, every item listed is legal in Alabama. Notice that the agent said “possible explosives components.” I would venture a guess that most residents of Alabama have mouse traps, light bulbs and fertilizer that are not used as explosives components. A few may have some loose ball bearings in their tool sheds.

I don’t live in Alabama but I have every item on the list, except fireworks, in my workshop right now. I also have a couple of cans of gun powder. And some gun parts. (Whoops! Now the feds are probably going to come after me.) Years ago I used to hand load shotgun shells for skeet shooting and rifle cartridges for target practice and deer hunting. I haven’t researched the laws in that area recently, but as far as I know all that stuff is still legal.

The five are charged with conspiring to make a firearm.

I didn’t know that it was illegal to make a firearm, much less conspire to make one. I never made a gun myself but I knew back then of people who did. Perhaps they had a license or something. If I discussed with friends a desire to make a gun now could I be charged with a federal crime?

Nesmith (a federal agent) said one of the men told an informant that the group, which calls itself the Alabama Free Militia, saw government agents as “the enemy” and had a standing order to open fire if anyone saw government agents approaching.

Notice that he is getting this information from an informant, not from an undercover federal agent. We all know how reliable informants are. Is the informant a current or former member of the group with a grudge? Who knows!

I’m going to try to follow this case and see how it turns out.

As expected, the Virginia Tech massacre has resulted in a hue and cry for more restrictions on the ownership and possession of guns. There should be debate about why such horrendous attacks occur and how to prevent them, but the primary focus should be on the attackers and what motivates them to commit such heinous acts. Take away guns and evil people will find other means to wreak havoc. Timothy McVeigh proved that possibility in Oklahoma City more than ten years ago.

Suppose that Cho Seung-Hui had encountered difficulty in legally acquiring a gun. Then the obvious alternative would have been to try to get one illegally. But suppose he wasn’t street-wise enough to do that. Would a psychopath, or whatever label properly applies to this pond scum, just give up? Not likely. It might take him longer to pull off an attack but he would most likely just find another way. If he could manage to chain all the doors to a large building without being challenged, he could probably manage to improvise a backpack full of explosives. Instructions on how to build bombs are readily available. The death toll from an alternative approach could have been much higher than 32.

We have to accept that for law-abiding citizens to have guns the criminal elements are also going to have access to guns. And we have to acknowledge that banning guns won’t keep guns out of the hands of the criminal elements. Remember, that’s why they are called ‘criminal elements’; they don’t abide by laws. Virginia Tech, with its ‘gun free zone’, gave Cho an advantage; he knew that he could methodically gun down the students and teachers without any significant resistance. If just one student, teacher or staff member had a gun available to use against Cho the death toll might have been much less.

The liberal media would like us to react emotionally and agree to further inroads against our rights as indidviduals. Instead let’s try to look at the issue logically. Which would give you the most comfort when you hear someone trying to break into your home: knowing that it is against the law for anyone to have a gun or knowing that you legally have one beside your bed? Which do you think gives the criminal contemplating breaking into your home the most discomfort: knowing that it is against the law for anyone to have a gun or knowing that you might legally have one beside your bed?

The PROTECT Act became law in 2003. PROTECT stands for Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today. It has numerous provisions but the one that caught my eye is the one called the ‘pandering provision’. It conferred criminal liability on anyone who knowingly:

… advertises, promotes, presents, distributes, or solicits through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains (i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

On this blog, Akismet traps spam comments promoting child porn sites most every day. What if one gets past Akismet and appears on my blog for the public to view? Does that make me a criminal? Does the fact that it is there on my blog satisfy the ‘knowingly’ qualifier?

Some think this provision is overly broad and have challenged it in court. The Supreme Court has taken a case regarding the Act, but I couldn’t find any details on the case. I don’t know if they are looking at the pandering provision.

The Associated Press reports that in New Orleans:

Police plan to set up checkpoints beginning Wednesday to help curb a crime wave that has claimed nine lives since the start of 2007, Mayor Ray Nagin said, stopping short of imposing a curfew on this tourism-dependent city.

Nagin acknowledged the criminal justice breakdown extended beyond the police force and said a corps of volunteers will be recruited to monitor homicide cases moving through the courts. “We’re sending a signal that the system that used to allow you to commit a murder and there were no consequences is over.”

It took nine murders in nine days for Nagin to figure out that murderers should be punished? It seems that what New Orleans needs is some adult supervision. It’s clearly not going to get that level of supervision from the Louisiana governor’s office. So, should the federal government intervene and force regime change?

The Associated Press reports that Houston’s murder rate has hit a 12-year high and increased by 13.5 percent over 2005.  There were 379 homicides in 2006.  The mayor thinks at least part of the increase is due to the Katrina evacuees that settled in Houston.

Regardless of who’s responsible that’s a lot of murders — more than one a day on average.  It seems that violence in this country is widespread.  I’ve mentioned before the level of violence in the City of Brotherly Love.  The army trains its surgeons there before sending them to the battlefield.  A professional athlete was gunned down while riding in his limousine in Denver recently.  Hip-hop artists seem to shoot at one another for diversion.

The average American is probably much more safe from violence than the average Iraqi, but how long will that be true?  Today there are areas in this country that are not that different from Baghdad.