If any of you Californicators need some help with judicial elections, the LA County Bar Association will at least tell you how qualified the candidates are. If you're feeling easily led, you can always go with the LA Times recommendations.

The Pentagon is in the midst of rewriting various sections of Army field manuals. The old version useta say that the US military would "comply with the principles, spirit and intent" of the Geneva Convention. The new version (still under debate) will just sorta skip over parts of the Geneva Convention that are apparently too restrictive of the American military's overwhelming need to offer "humiliating and degrading treatment" to its detainees. '"The overall thinking," said a participant familiar with the defense debate, "is that they need the flexibility to apply cruel techniques if military necessity requires it."'
I know *I* find this new development humiliating and degrading. George the Cruel has a nice ring to it. Not so sure about George the Cruel-but-only-by-military-necessity.