Are the people of America guilty of murder? Who is accountable when an innocent man is tortured to death by US troops who believe they are following the will of their government (OUR government). Someday I would like to see the current leadership of the USA indicted for war crimes, but what about all the ordinary Americans who have cried out asking them to “take the gloves off.” Well, they took them off, and now what moral authority will we have to tell others not to torture our sons and daughters when they are captured in future conflicts?

UPDATE: Today the Washington Post reports that top officials of the Bush administration, including Cheney, Rice, and Ashcroft, interacted extensively with CIA director George Tenant concerning the legality of waterboarding. Eventually, the CIA was given some type of document approving the technique. Waterboarding is widely acknowledged as torture, and you can bet Americans would crying foul if it happened to any of our citizens. (Oops, I forgot, our government conspired to torture an American citizen and swept his case under the carpet already.)

Is Sarah Palin a “post turtle”? You decide. If the turtleneck fits…

From India Uncut: Malcolm Gladwell writes in The New Yorker that genius is not just being bold and originally creative. “There is another kind of genius that has more to do with searching than finding, that is realised through painstaking trial and error, that can take decades to reach fruition.   Gladwell illustrates this by using Paul Cézanne and Ben Fountain as examples, showing how luck and love are indispensable for this second kind of genius.” Now that’s encouraging!

Are the voices on the right free to disagree? Christopher Buckley’s offer to resign from National Review is accepted after his surprise endorsement of Obama last week.

Julian Sanchez elaborates on the market for conservative punditry saying: you can be pretty damn mediocre and still carve out a nice little niche for yourself at any one of a welter of generously funded ideological publications and think tanks.” He adds:

I’ve long observed a phenomenon in the blogosphere I call “audience capture,” where a once-interesting writer becomes rather dull and predictable, each post another jab at the lever, predictably rewarded with a tasty pellet.

Maybe that explains the evolution of Instapundit.

Finally, this fascinating video via TED | TEDBlog:

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