11-YEAR-OLD TASERED

In Florida, in an elementary school classroom. Incredible. A deputy in Orange County says she had to do it, especially after taking a punch to the nose.

WFTV reports:

The girl at Moss Park Elementary punched the deputy in the nose so hard the deputy went to the hospital. While an 11-year-old shocked by a Taser sounds extreme to some parents, other parents told Eyewitness News the girl deserved it. ...

According to the arrest report, before school Thursday morning, another student told teachers at Moss Park that Thaliamar [Jimenez] pushed a boy into the street. When teachers tried to talk to the girl she became combative, started pushing her desk and chair and even spit at the teachers.

The school resource officer, Orange County Deputy Donna Hudepohl, tried to take Thaliamar to the principal's office and that's when the child started swinging, hitting the officer in the nose. Hudepohl was transported to Florida East Hospital. She sustained severe bruising to the nasal cavity as a result of the injury. ...

Jimenez was transported to Florida East Hospital to have the Taser prongs removed, but she had no other injuries. She was arrested and charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, disrupting a school function as well as resisting with violence.

Mom says the girl has a learning disability. The Taser probably won't help.

AN AGONIZING COLLISION

Say this, if nothing else, about the current administration -- it really does create its own reality. Not as tasty as making your own gravy (unless you believe Nick Lowe was right about that whole cruel-to-be-kind business), but it's fascinating to watch. Almost funny in a macabre way, until you realize it's happening in the United States.

Thursday's New York Times rolled with a deep, detailed story about the redefinition of torture by this country's leaders. The skinny: Congress outlawed “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment of prisoners. In a legal opinion, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed. But in a secret opinion, Justice said things like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, sensory overload and blows to the head are not cruel, inhuman or degrading.

Problem solved. Secrecy preserved -- until The Times opened a few windows so all of us can see what the government is doing in our names.

Do yourself a favor, if you haven't already. Read the story and go from there.

DEMS CAVE ON WARRANTLESS SPYING

In their rush to prove they're not "weak" on terror, House Democrats voted early Sunday to approve President Bush's spy program.

The vote was 227-183.

As the Washington Post reports:

Privacy and civil liberties advocates, and many Democratic lawmakers, complained that the Bush administration's revisions of the law could breach constitutional protections against government intrusion. But the administration, aided by Republican congressional leaders, suggested that a failure to approve the legislation sought by intelligence officials could expose the country to a greater risk of terrorist attacks.

Democrats facing reelection next year in conservative districts helped propel the bill to a quick approval. Adding to the pressures they felt were recent intelligence reports about threatening new al-Qaeda activities in Pakistan and the disclosure by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) of a secret court ruling earlier this year that complicated the wiretapping of purely foreign communications that happen to pass through communications nodes on U.S. soil.

The bill would give the National Security Agency the right to collect such communications in the future without a warrant. But it goes further than that: It also would allow the monitoring, under certain conditions, of electronic communications between people on U.S. soil, including U.S. citizens, and people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States," without a court's order or oversight.

The NSA will be in charge of oversight, via "a system of internal bureaucratic controls." Details of those controls are none of our business.

U.S. NUKE SECURITY CHIEF OUSTED

Linton Brooks was administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. He was kicked to the curb on Thursday because of a "serious security breach" at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. CNN reports:

Brooks issued a statement to NNSA employees saying he will tender his resignation to President Bush "shortly" and depart within two to three weeks.

"One reason for forming NNSA was to prevent such management problems from occurring," Brooks said. "We have not yet done so in over five years. For much of that time I was in charge of NNSA. Therefore, the secretary believes new leadership is needed." ...

On October 17 police in Los Alamos, New Mexico, found materials from the top-secret nuclear facility while searching a home during a drug raid. An Office of Inspector General report on the incident said police found a computer flash drive that "contained apparent images of classified documents from the laboratory. Also found were several hundred pages of what appeared to be laboratory documents with classified markings."

The home belonged to a former employee of the laboratory.

The "solution" to flash drive misuse at Los Alamos? Glue shut the USB ports. Yes, really. No wonder this guy is out.