A National Research Council (NRC) 2008 report on a conference on Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies examined briefly what it characterized as a “contemporary problem,” the possibility of doing research on “war on terror” detainees, removed by the U.S. government from Geneva protections against experiments done on prisoners of war.

Chaos erupted at the bedbug-infested CPAC conference tonight when the results of the presidential preference straw poll were announced, and Congressman Ron Paul (R-NotVasectimized) won, for the second year in a row.

Egypt, what’s next? Mona Eltahawy will be part of This Week’s roundtable. Fox News is diving into the 2012 Presidential sweeps, seems so depressing really, but I guess it’s never too early. And don’t miss Jamie Dimon on GPS, is the meltdown our fault?

Scarecrow hosts today’s Book Salon with Wendall Potter, can’t miss that one. And Virtually Speaking runs a science segment (space) tonight before Sam Seder and Joan McCarter appear, tune in.

Woo For Two starring Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks. This Hanna-Barbera cartoon was first aired on October 9, 1960.

If any especially socially incompetent or intellectually adolescent persons of your acquaintance have been behaving in an unaccountably excitable fashion lately — fondling themselves in public with unwonted spasmodic vigor, perhaps, or else strutting about striking dramatic poses with their undergarments worn outside their pants — here is why:

So, for your Friday evening’s viewing pleasure (courtesy of DougJ aka A Writer At Balloon Juice, LLC) and pretty much everyone else who has stumbled across this youtube nugget – Atlas Shrugged: The Movie, coming soon to cinema emporium hopefully nearer to you than me.

Collectively as a country we can claim no credit for this positive popular revolution against a dictator we spent so much money trying to keep in power.

Maris Taylor has an important update on the OLC exigent letter opinion. Last year, DOJ’s now-retired Inspector General Glenn Fine released a report revealing how the FBI had used exigent letters to get call data information from telecoms with no oversight. Ryan Singel noted a reference to an OLC opinion that basically melted away the problems created by use of these exigent letters (see pages 264-266 of the report).

Wyoming’s two Republican senators, Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, are pushing for a rules change that would only allow an individual bill to deal with a single issue, in order to prevent the current practice of Congress passing massive omnibus bills. From Politico:

Massachusetts issued the New World’s first paper currency in 1690. With poor soldiers returning from a failed campaign against the French in Quebec, the colony found itself short on silver and copper coins to pay the men for their service. To solve the problem, the government printed bills of credit—promises of payment once the colony had collected more taxes. These slips of inked paper, deeds to a future fortune, quickly spread, offering a convenient medium of exchange for all thirteen colonies, whose reserves of precious metals were scanty and often concentrated only in the hands of the rich.