However, has anybody ever thought about judging our enemy by the same rules that we are judged?

I pulled the following from the handy website GenevaConventions.org, an indexed, plain-English guide to the Geneva Conventions:

• The insurgents have been using mosques and other places of worship as a base of operations, and often launch attacks out of them. According to the Geneva Conventions, places of worship cannot be used as a base of military operatons.
• One of the toughest problems our soldiers have been struggling with is differentiating civilians from combatants. The insurgents are operating from within the civilian population and are attempting to blend in to conceal themselves. Feigning civilian status is tantamount to false surrender, a prohibited action. At the very least, they would be acting as guerillas yet not openly displaying their arms, which is also forbidden.
• While we’re on the subject, insurgents have started luring American soldiers with false surrender and then attacking. This, of course, is also forbidden.
• It is belived that many of the insurgents are actually foreign fighters being paid to come to Iraq and fight the Americans. In this case, they would be mercenaries, who, surprise surprise, are not allowed protection under the Genevea Conventions.
• The day before the shooting of the injured insurgent, a soldier in the same unit was killed by a booby-trapped body of a dead insurgent. Under the Geneva Conventions, the dead are to be respected (i.e. not used as booby traps).
• And the biggest, ugliest, nastiest Geneva Convention violation of all? The systematic slaughter of innocent civilians by the insurgents. A war crime, according to the conventions.

I’m not saying that this means we should ignore any war crimes committed by Americans. If we’re all going to follow the rules, we all need to stand up and admit that we are guilty if we really were wrong. Those individuals committing war crimes should be punished for their actions.

However, I feel that it is extremely important that if we are going to be judged by the rules of war, our enemy should be as well.

As is to be expected, I took a whole bunch of photos while I was there.

I did get TSA’ed though. Big Quadruple-S Sweepstakes Winner!

A nice man named Robert patted me down, but he didn’t give me his number afterwards.

Overall it wasn’t all that bad of an experience, but it does kind of shake you up a bit. I’m pretty careful about not packing anything bad, but there is that “Shit, what if I DO have something?” moment. Basically they just make you wait in line forever, check your bags for bomb residue before searching them, and make sure you aren’t metallic.

• Thomas Jefferson

I just finished Lawrence Lessig’s The Future of Ideas. Great book. Highly recommended.

From its website:

The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. What was responsible for its birth? Who is responsible for its demise? In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the Internet revolution has produced a counterrevolution of devastating power and effect. The explosion of innovation we have seen in the environment of the Internet was not conjured from some new, previously unimagined technological magic; instead, it came from an ideal as old as the nation. Creativity flourished there because the Internet protected an innovation commons. The Internet’s very design built a neutral platform upon which the widest range of creators could experiment. The legal architecture surrounding it protected this free space so that culture and information - the ideas of our era - could flow freely and inspire an unprecedented breadth of expression. But this structural design is changing - both legally and technically. This shift will destroy the opportunities for creativity and innovation that the Internet originally engendered. The cultural dinosaurs of our recent past are moving to quickly remake cyberspace so that they can better protect their interests against the future. Powerful conglomerates are swiftly using both law and technology to “tame” the Internet, transforming it from an open forum for ideas into nothing more than cable television on speed. Innovation, once again, will be directed from the top down, increasingly controlled by owners of the networks, holders of the largest patent portfolios, and, most invidiously, hoarders of copyrights. The choice Lawrence Lessig presents is not between progress and the status quo. It is between progress and a new Dark Ages, in which our capacity to create is confined by an architecture of control and a society more perfectly monitored and filtered than any before in history. Important avenues of thought and free expression will increasingly be closed off. The door to a future of ideas is being shut just as technology makes an extraordinary future possible. With an uncanny blend of knowledge, insight, and eloquence, Lawrence Lessig has written a profoundly important guide to the care and feeding of innovation in a connected world. Whether it proves to be a road map or an elegy is up to us.

I’m supposed to write an “External Viewpoint Report” (read: Book Report) on it for one of my classes, and I’ll probably post it here if anyone is looking for a good summary of the book.

It’ll be Creative Commons licensed, of course.

On November 3rd, those lovable San Franciscans decided to remind us that they are, in fact, smarter and better than the rest of us…

[link stolen from Instapundit]

7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any old nut — a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut. May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.

The University of Michigan plays Ohio State on November 20th, not November 6th. Maybe you were thinking Michigan State, who is playing Ohio State this Saturday. Or perhaps you got football confused with soccer, since the University of Michigan men’s soccer team is the only UofM team playing Ohio State this weekend.

Mr. Moore, you are from Michigan, right? Most Michiganders don’t make the mistake of confusing UofM with MSU. Thanks for the shout-out though…

• Harper’s Magazine has more information on how to immigrate to Canada.
• The Daily Kos seems to think that because Bush wasn’t elected by a landslide he doesn’t have any authority.
• John Kerry’s address on his website is actually very good. Thank you very much for not being a bitter loser. You will be respected for it.
• William Saletan on Slate gives the Democrats some advice - stop being so complicated. I agree. But I doubt anybody will ever be able to unite the thousands of different agendas that is the Left into one coherent message.
• BlackFive and his story about nearly being “disenfranchised.” Please note that he is a Republican.

This is the point where I remind all the liberals of their promise to “like, totally move to Canada if Dubya gets re-elected.” Go go… shoo… leave now…

My Canadian friend Arthur has even provided a step-by-step guide on how to immigrate to our socialist neighbor to the north. You have no excuses.

Update: In case you live in a cave and haven’t seen the news, Kerry has conceded.

Update: Engadget noticed too…