America Celebrates Another Year of Indefinite Detention!

• Happy belated Gitmo Day! On Jan. 11, 2002, the United States captured a few dozen civilians in Afghanistan, then shipped them to a lawless shithole Navy base on an embargoed island. It was there, at Gitmo, that these confused civilians morphed into Enemy Combatants and then lost all of their human rights -- sort of like how caterpillars emerge from their cocoons as a beauteous butterflies, except instead of turning into butterflies they were put in prison forever. (So, scratch that, being an enemy combatant is basically the exact opposite of being a butterfly.) And now, entering its ninth year of shame, there are still around two hundred persons imprisoned at Guantanamo! Will you end up at Gitmo one day very soon? Take our quick Enemy Combatant quiz and find out: 1) Is your name Julian Assange? 2) Have you ever tried to sneak a water bottle full of water through airport security? 3) Are you at least fifteen years old? 5) How brown are you? Scale yourself, 1-10. 4) Did you Forget? (If you don't "know" what we are talking about, you clearly Forgot.) Now count up how many times you have muttered to yourself, "oh no I really am a terrorist," add 1 to your score and then multiply your subtotal by 1,000. If your score is higher than, say, 10, you definitely qualify as an Enemy Combatant. Hooray for indefinite detention and secret military tribunals, the purest forms of Democracy! [ McClatchy]

• The Lebanese government is expected to collapse! Please please please not another civil war. [ NYT ]

• America's first black President says that our "political tone" must change. [ The Caucus ]