torture
 

Coming to this entirely out of context, and without reading the thread... what now? How does the case in question deal with Filartiga?

Or perhaps it need not given that, based only on the last few posts, there is simply no grounds for tort claims against foreign sovereigns other than those that are state sponsors of terror. I guess that is not inconsistent with my previous understanding.

torture
 

Filartiga was brought under the old Alien Tort Crimes Act - passed way back when, in the First Congress, I think. You could sue an individual, if you could get jurisdiction over them, in the US for crimes that violated some notion of international morality or treaties. This was developed to allow victims to sue pirates. (Humor me - I'm working off of dim law school memories here.)(ETA - Not sure if the ATCA still exists.)

The newer FSIA sort of cleaned up the old ATCA, but it still (according to the newer rulings) requires an individual named defendant. You still can't sue a "state", so, no difference. Filartiga could still go forward under the FSIA, I suppose, if they could satisfy the "engages in torture" language.

There's been no weakening of anything. There's simply been no expansion, which, I suppose, in an age when a decline in the rate of growth of spending can be called a cut, can be called a coddling of torturers.

for Hank
 

I believe that the "theory" of "intelligent design" is presented as an alternative to the theory of evolution. In other words -- God made everything directly -- too complex to have just evolved. As Ty's blogger noted -- has the benefit of being impossible to test or disprove. (Which means there is no science to it at all.)

OTOH, one can believe in the presence of a divine creator who created the Universe (with, e.g, the Big Bang) and still believe that all of the various events that our science has discovered or deciphered happened thereafter -- including the evolution of life on Earth via principles of natural selection or some variant thereof.

S_A_M

Caption Please
 

I can't _believe_ I have to sit up here and watch this! And what's with that frickin' hat, anyway?

for Hank
 

So do IDers believe that the "designer" is still controlling what others decribe as evolution?

Caption Please
 

"I'm John Kerry, and I did not approve this message."

Bilmore Outed?
 

Caption, Please (Inaugural Edition)
 

http://www.wonkette.com/images/so%20...ese%20days.jpg

Young Republicans pledge to stay as true as Troilus.

BR(is it a joke if you are 99.98% sure that no one will get it - particularly if it's not very funny anyway?)C

for Hank
 

No, they don't believe in evolution at all. For example, "young Earth" creationists take a literal view of the Bible and believe that the Earth is only some thousands of years old, not long enough for much evolution.

Caption Please
 

The hat guy in front of Kerry looks sorta like JR Ewing, and the guy to Kerry's left looks like Adam whatshisface, the former-former DA from L&O.

Caption, Please (Inaugural Edition)
 

"Why should our endeavour be
so lov'd, and the performance so loathed?"

Caption Please
 

Hat guy's hat is riding a bit high. Actually, it makes him look weirdly like a rastafarian in disguise with huge dreads hidden under there holding his hat up.

No one should EVER wear a western hat without first verifying through reliable third-party advice that one is pulling it off. That guy comes close, but no sombrero.

Caption Please
 

Good point. Actually, at first I suspected that Hank had photoshopped this image, a suspicion that faded only when I realized that there wasn't also someone in the frame with Lincoln's stovepipe hat.

Caption, Please (Inaugural Edition)
 

That's the easy part (though I much prefer Chaucer's, and I was making more of a swipe at the presumed hypocracy and whorishness of the Republican Youth Brigade). In any event, the link to the picture you're missing is that armadillos carry leprosy.

BR(like I said, not very funny, and probably not worth spoilerizing, but all those smiling blondes touching those nasty things just sent my ick meter running)C