The Constitution's Project's Report on Detainee Treatment

I urge people to read this report which demonstrates that:

"U.S. forces, in many instances, used interrogation techniques on detainees that constitute torture. American personnel conducted an even larger number of interrogations that involved “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment. Both categories of actions violate U.S. laws and international treaties. Such conduct was directly counter to values of the Constitution and our nation."

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/684407/constitution-project-report-on-detainee-treatment.pdf

A Memory of camping at Sawyer Pond, New Hampshire, with Bill Griff

Silently slips the loon
Tranquilly, without a ripple
Under a silver moon.

Sawyer Pond

Our Precarious Future

Here is an interesting essay on our world's future, near-term anyway. The first part lays out a lot of problems, the second part is as optimistic a take on our possibilities as I have seen. 

First Part:    http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-limits-of-the-earth-part-1-problems?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3e797b98a3-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

Second Part   http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-limits-of-the-earth-part-2-expanding-the-limits?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3e797b98a3-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

what do you think?

Cambridge-Boston and surrounding communities in "Lockdown."

This is pretty weird - sitting on our patio while less than a ten minute walk from here the police prepare to set off a precautionary explosion to clear their way into the premises previously occupied by the older of the two madmen who killed and maimed so many at the Boston Marathon and killed a policeman during the night. It's sunny and warm. I would like to be walking to downtown Boston to do some work at the library but that is no longer on my agenda as we are all - something like a million of us - supposed to stay at home. All of the public transportation in the area has been shut down. All I can hear and see are helicopters going this way and that. No traffic on our usually busy street. A strange feeling, indeed.

I would like at least like to take a walk but I am stuck here as if under house arrest for who knows how long. The crazies who did this horror are from my neighborhood, which brings their crimes close to me personally. I may well have walked past these people on my way to my favorite coffee shop on Cambridge Street last week.