Dignity is all

I love this, from the Observer's 'Said and Done' feature, especially the last two sentences:

Adriano's ex-girlfriend Joana Machado says the striker's high-profile romps with Rio porn stars Strawberry Woman and Caviar Woman are "sad". "When we were together in Milan he was a very jealous guy, very twitchy. Now we're apart, he despairs." Machado says she'll have a tattoo of his name removed from under her breast before resuming a career for Playboy Brazil. "Dignity matters to my family."

Torture made easy

Maybe it's an indictment of the state of American journalism, but it's taken Playboy to demonstrate waterboarding. Playboy's journalist bet that he could manage 15 seconds of this simulated drowning: he lasted 5-6 seconds before panicking and ending the experiment - even without the guns, shouting and intimidation that one assumes came with the 'real' experience. One Guantanamo inmate had the treatment nearly 200 times in a month. Do you think he provided detailed, accurate and honest testimony? Or might he have said anything that would end the torture for a few minutes?

Here's war-supporting 'liberal' journalist Christopher Hitchens trying it: