Please excuse the slight delay.

Please excuse the slight delay in posting to this blog. The Left Hand will soon be moving to its own domain, where it will become even more fantastically interesting and will pique your interest in ways that your interest has only ever dreamed of being piqued. Believe me, piquing will happen.

Until then, there will be a slight delay.

Thank you.

End transmission.

Abu Ghraib General Lambastes Bush Administration

When Karpinski inquired, "What's this about photographs?" the sergeant replied, "Ma'am, we've heard something about photographs, but I have no idea. Nobody has any details, and Ma'am, if anybody knows, nobody is talking." When Karpinski asked to see the log books, the sergeant told her that the Criminal Investigation Division had taken everything except for something on a pole outside the little office they were using.

"It was a memorandum signed by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, authorizing a short list, maybe 6 or 8 techniques: use of dogs; stress positions; loud music; deprivation of food; keeping the lights on, those kinds of things," Karpinski said. "And then a handwritten message over to the side that appeared to be the same handwriting as the signature, and that signature was Secretary Rumsfeld's. And it said, 'Make sure this happens' with two exclamation points. And that was the only thing they had. Everything else had been confiscated."

Karpinski tried to get information, but "nobody knew anything, nobody - at least, that's what they were claiming. The Company Commander, Captain Reese, was tearful in my office and repeatedly told me he knew nothing about it, knew nothing about it," Karpinski said. But in a later plea bargain he entered into after the Taguba Report came out, "Captain Reese said that not only did he know about it, but he was told not to report it to his chain of command, and he was told that by Colonel Pappas. And he claimed that he saw General Sanchez out there on several occasions witnessing the torture of some of the security detainees."

And now from the "should be in a rubber room" department

Pat Robertson wants to assassinate Hugo Chavez.

Why does this maniac have a television show? Why do people continue to listen to him even as his lunatic ravings become ever more incoherent and psychotic?

Hugo Chavez is many things, but he's not a dictator. But that's not even the point. For someone as publicly visible as Pat Robertson to call for the assassination of a world leader is not only lunacy, it's criminal, and he should be prosecuted for it.

Here's the quote (from CNN):

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson told viewers on his "The 700 Club" show Monday. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war."

Israel has no more settlements in Gaza

It's done. Israel has left the Gaza Strip, and with its departure, the Palestinians are one step closer to having their own state. This departure is absolutely monumental. Its effect on the political dynamics of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is, at this point, unknowable, but will surely be profound.

Perhaps with this departure, those who sympathize with the more militant sectors of the Palestinians will start to see Israel as less of an enemy. Unfortunately, it's much more likely that Hamas and Islamic Jihad will use the withdrawal as a vindication of their attacks and continue their call for the destruction of Israel itself.

I just hope that the international community sees through their hateful rhetoric to the truth--that the vast majority of both Israelis and Palestinians really do seek peaceful coexistence: one Jewish state living peacefully next to one Palestinian state.

Next up: the dismantling of four settlements in the West Bank.

Merck Fined $253 Million in Vioxx lawsuit

Big news. Drug maker Merck has been found liable for the death of Robert Ernst, a 59-year-old marathon runner who died of a heart attack after taking Vioxx for his arthritis. The drug company has been assessed a fine of $253 million.

Here's my take on the whole situation. Drug companies are motivated primarily by the quest for greater profits, and this leads to a reduced emphasis on safety and quality of products, as illustrated previously in the Fen-Phen debacle, and now again with Vioxx, and in several other cases. If we were to nationalize these pharmaceutical companies, we might be able to enforce stricter standards of research and quality control, and we would certainly end the drug companies' unjust price inflation. True, nationalization is an extreme option, and there is probably a better solution somewhere in the middle. But something needs to be done, and fast, before more people die because a drug company was more concerned about making a buck than curing disease.

I have a serious ethical and moral problem with the concept of for-profit health care, and this case serves as yet another example of why I feel justified in this position. I do not believe that it is ethically justifiable to make a profit off of another person's illness or injury, and I certainly don't believe that these drug companies have a right to charge exorbitant prices for drugs that haven't even been tested properly in the first place. This country needs a fundamental change in the way it does health care. We need to start thinking of health care as a right, rather than a privilege or a "product" that can be marketed. We need to start thinking of people who need health care as citizens, not consumers. If we can do that, then we'll be on track to joining the rest of the industrialized world and creating a good national health care system that covers everyone equally and comprehensively.

And then maybe we can start focusing on curing cancer and AIDS rather than baldness and erectile dysfunction.

BBC News on the vigils for Cindy Sheehan

"Around 1,600 vigils had been planned by liberal advocacy groups MoveOn.org Political Action, TrueMajority and Democracy for America.

In Crawford, several hundred people lit candles and gathered around a wooden flag-draped coffin at the camp, situated about a mile from Mr Bush's ranch, to remember the dead.

"Each one was a valuable human life," Ms Sheehan said, quoted by Reuters news agency. "Each one was an indispensable member of his or her family."

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New "Intelligent Falling" Theory

The Onion, America's Finest Newspaper, weighs in on the science versus theology debate with its own particular brand of merciless biting satire. I love it.