extreeeeeeeeme hair splitting

The March 6 document about torture provides tightly constructed definitions of torture. For example, if an interrogator "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith," the report said. "Instead, a defendant is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his control." (New York Times)

why I love my job

<kathryn> waider: do we have a quotes file
<kathryn> ?
<waider> I have a quotes file.
<waider> http://www.waider.ie/misc/quotes.txt
<kathryn> hook it up to abusebot, then he can drop pearls of wisdom into the conversation at random points, we'll be nattering away about lunch and abusebot will pipe up with "As aimee says: as long as the estimated...."
* abusebot 's ears burn
<waider> we could, er, put a quotes file on the wiki
<aimee> i must say, i feel honored to have made the quotes file. this must be what's it's like to win a Tony award
<aimee> or maybe just a soap-opera digest award...
<waider> or maybe an entry in a random quotes file
<waider> let's not get carried away now.
<aimee> im easily pleased, that's a good trait
<waider> kathryn's reading the file. I can tell from the giggling.
<kathryn> Damn
<waider> wish, command
<waider> abusebot: quote
<abusebot> You're definitely in trouble when you look at a text parsing problem and think,
<abusebot> "this would be easier in Emacs Lisp".
* waider goes back to work :D
<rod> abusebot: quote
<abusebot> "Crying for sympathy / crocodile cries / for the love of the crowd and the
<abusebot> three cheers from everyone" - The Cure, _Disintegration_
<kathryn> yeay!
<waider> oh god. my bot is a goth.

What's cool about this is not just that I get to do this sort of stupidity on office time, but that the others in the office appreciate it.