Some of the nastier conflicts saw their share of atrocities, but there was never an attempt to redefine and legalize torture.

And how do you know, that there was not? Because foreign democracies aren't as open as ours?

But, for the umpteenth + first time: waterboarding is not torture. Torture works via pain. Waterboarding causes not pain, but fear. Calling it "psychological torture" does not make it "torture" any more, than a guinea pig is a pig.

Stooping low is bad

Those who 'abjure' violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf. —George Orwel

Yeah, I see that argument a lot. I am a heterosexual man in a 28 year marriage in which we have not, and never intended, to "produce children".

So by your logic, my marriage is no better than that of two men.

Yes, indeed, your "marriage" is a fraud — had you honestly declared your intentions to whoever issued you the marriage-license, they would not (or should not) have issued one to you.

You are, of course, entitled to love, cherish, and have sex with whoever you please, but for the rest of the society to consider your union as something particularly noteworthy and privileged (such as marriage), simply living together and having sex is not enough. If the State has any legitimate reasons to recognize unions, instead of simply considering the union-members individually before the law, the unions must be producing children.

Go read about the origins of marriage

No, why don't you present the points you wish to argue, rather than send me collecting them for you?

which is more like slavery and men's property rights

That may be (or has been) the contract between the partners. Our argument here is about the society's recognition of the partnerships — whether or not to bestow the respect and the legal privileges traditionally granted to children-producing unions to all other cohabitating couples (and why not groups, BTW? or will that come later?) having (or having had at some point) sex?

Your mind can be shredded in a day. It wouldn't even be 'you' walking away.

Perhaps, it could. But it did not, by all accounts, happen to the four or five thugs, who were subjected to waterboarding.

Waterboarding is regarded as torture by any other civilized country of the world.

Only until they find it necessary to use it in order to defend their citizenry.

Asshole.

Insults... Ran out of arguments so quickly? How pathetic, yet how typical...

It was torture when the North Koreans were doing it to US prisoners of war.

Citation needed.

Please tell me what has changed.

You can not do even that (whatever it is called) to POWs, Geneva Conventions are quite explicit about it.

But, see, I am not trying to do business as the owner of said file copy and profit therein.

A distinction without difference to the point I was making. You copied a file created by someone else. That someone else's own copy is still in place and just the same, therefor, the prevailing logic went, your copying can not be called "theft". What you do with the copy your created after you created it (enjoy it yourself, show to others, attempt to profit) is completely irrelevant to whether your act is eligible for the sordid title...

Now, I had always held the opinion, that if the 10 Commandments were the same sort of "living and breathing document" that certain folks would like our Constitution to be, the Scripture would've by now included an injunction against such file copying together with the more general "Though Shall Not Steal". Unfortunately, mine was not the prevailing opinion — not around here. Not since the Napster infamy — until now, when, suddenly, the majority is realizing, the victims of such thefts can be perfectly relatable humans.

1000 imaginary terrerists [sic]

According to TFA, the terror attack included snipers shooting at the electrical equipment. That's not "imaginary", that's as real as it gets.

A hard-working and benevolent (as opposite to "lazy and greed") corporation would've been just as helpless against a determined group of attackers like that.

the criminally shoddy work of a corporation that managed to explode an entire neighborhood.

I don't think, it is fair to accuse a corporation of "shoddy work", when it took an armed group — sophisticated enough to be still at large — to cause the mayhem.

Or do you want each power-transmission mast to be guarded by soldiers? What about fiber-optic cables, which were cut — should that too be patrolled by the military — the alternative to "corporations" you despise so much? To me the "cure" you are implicitly proposing — nationalization of power- and Internet-infrastructure and heavily armed guards for all facilities — is worse than the disease.

Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday was brought before the Senate Energy Committee to explain why the FERC disseminated via insecure media a sensitive document describing where all the nation's power grids are particularly sensitive to a physical attack. FERC responded with assurances that databases are currently being scrubbed and procedures being implemented to safeguard critical data."

A little late to be scrubbing them now that the information is out there... Better begin addressing the enumerated problems ASAP instead.

For years highly-moderated posts on this very site kept repeating, that, because by copying a file one has taken nothing from the owner of the original, such copying can not be called "theft"...

And now this... What happened? Could we really be so shallow in our convictions, that they change to opposite as soon as the victim of a crime is someone we find easier to relate to? A small-time photographer vs. a large studio or a music label? Why is it Ok to steal from the latter, but not from the former?

Gonzales who said habeus corpus wasn't really a right

So did Abraham Lincoln...

Who said that torture was OK?

For the umpteenth time: waterboarding is not torture. At most, it is "torture-lite" — anything, from which the subject walks away without bodily harm, does not qualify.

Sorry, but pretty much anybody from the Bush era (and quite honestly a bunch who are still in Washington) has no business working at a place which has a privacy policy.

First of all, Obama's era is only worse in this regard. I understand — and share — your contempt for all government officials, because, regardless of the party they all tend to buy into the "government knows better" concept. But a company with a privacy policy must be able to balance users' privacy with the government's requests (and demands) for cooperation.

Whats worse, a AG who doesn't know or AG who knows and ignores it anyways.

Definitely the former. Absolutely. Because the law-enforcer ignorant of the law is likely to violate far more laws — in a worse manner — than the knowledgeable one, who'll only break those he must.

And, BTW, it remains rather arguable, whether Gonzales has broken any laws...