Rich and Strange Aeons

Dark
* Bishops were covering up for abusive priests back in 1957. here and here (pdf).
* And the current Pope led much of the obstruction of justice.

* The high costs
of being poor

* Man pleads guilty to manga porn. Also, and Neil Gaiman.
* Inverse correlations between rapes and porn; rape rates have apparently declined, either modestly or drastically.

* David Brooks: "Cheney lost to Bush". Says the high point of torture was in the early years, and the policies Cheney is publicly defending now were largely backed away from in the Rice years, with Obama continuing those policies.
* Conservative Erich Muller calls waterboarding torture after 7 seconds of exposure. That's him and Chris Hitchens. Torture defenders say "we waterboard our troops". Yes, in torture resistance school.

* Permission slips required for schoolgirl to give a talk on Harvey Milk

* Headline: "U.S. EPA to rely more on scientists for air rules". (As opposed to the political appointees of the Bush administration.)

Cool
* Military not as Republican or polarized as thought, though old officers kind of are.
* Obama's security speech
* Southern contraction of the GOP
* Where a Marine friend will be leading troops in Afghanistan.
* Back to manual trades?

Silly
* David Frum on mustardgate. This is a Bush speechwriter calling the thing silly.