He walked away. He walked back. He could not look at her. He could not look away. He began to say something. He could not say anything. What could he say? Whatever he said must appal Elenora, perhaps disgust her. Certainly discomfort and embarrass her. The last thing he wanted was to cause [...]

  In less than a heartbeat it was done. The Cupid’s, Bertrand’s, tiny arrow was buried deep in his heart. Cold as deep blue ice. Hot as white hot gold. From this moment there was no hope of Cupid’s cruelly-barbed steel ever being removed without tearing his heart out with it. And Hamgar looked up. [...]

Great article in Crikey today by Greg Barns, barrister and director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, on the strong skeleton argument by Assange’s legal team

I wish the whole lying, damaging, exploitative, self-serving, illusory, man-made pretence that is religion would go away so I didn’t need to talk about it

Former President George W. Bush said Wednesday he has no regrets about authorizing the controversial waterboarding technique to interrogate terrorist suspects

“Yes, I was the Torture Master and I think it was good. Torture is good, and hey, let’s forget about all those “high ideals” that America used to wrap around itself. It was all pretend and you know it.

1. the suggestion was to use waterboarding; 2. it came from the Vice President’s office; 3. the purpose was to find a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq.