I’ve interviewed guards at Guantanamo and heard their frustrations, to the point where I was kind of shocked there weren’t more severe beatings at the hands of 19 year olds who have cocktails of excrement thrown at them. Obviously I’m not excusing any such beatings; I’m just saying that when someone is given responsibility over other people in an environment of legal impunity, standards of acceptable behavior can slip very fast. That’s just human nature.

So how is it that professional misconduct has been downgraded to poor judgment?

Anytime a criminal defendant wanted to change the venue of his trial, all he has to do is arrange for a credible threat to the neighborhood around the courthouse. Yeah, that’s really smart.

Sean Carroll’s From Eternity to Here sets out to explain the nature of time, particularly what’s known as the “arrow of time,” the fact that we experience time as a flow in only one direction, from the past into the future. This is a daunting prospect, as just setting up the question requires a discussion of just about every important physics discovery of the 19th and 20th centuries. Carroll manages to make it all readable, though, and whether or not you end up agreeing with his preferred approach, you’ll leave the book with a clearer sense of the problems and the physics involved in the nature of time.

Obama visits GOP lawmakers and a debate breaks out.

The involvement of Margolis in defanging the OPR report is perhaps not an incidental fact.
The role of Margolis, and the man himself, deserve a closer look. It does not take long to see that 40+ year DoJ veteran David Margolis has some skeletons in his closet, and that his track record is not unblemished.

Now that only 50 votes are needed to pass a public option in the Senate, guess what? They magically disappear.

A senior administration official said no decision has been formalized, but the Justice Department is already considering other venues. Said another official close to the discussions: “New York is out.”

Three trials have been on my mind: the lawsuit over Prop 8 in San Francisco, the trial of Scott Roeder in Wichita, and the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in NYC where ever it might be held. The first two trials have been models of openness, revealing the twisted logic of small minded people for what it is. KSM’s trial has the potential for doing the same, if only people would quit cowering in fear.

Roger Ailes, the Chairman and CEO of the Fox News Channel, will appear on ABC’s “This Week” on the roundtable segment. He will be joined by George Will, Arianna Huffington and Paul Krugman, in what could be one of the more interesting Sunday morning shows in recent history.