Flibbertigibbet Saturday

What a week. Between the steady Chinese torture trickle of reports obtained by the ACLU and the information released by Human Rights Watch on the torture-killings in Afghanistan, it's been hard to keep a good thought.

And I'm burnt from a night of schmoozing over microbrews at the meetup after the "Funeral March For Social Security" yesterday. More about that later, but I did get a chance to talk to Howard's brother, Jim Dean, and a couple bloggers: Chris Bowers of MyDD, and Spindentist (Steve) from the The All Spin Zone, who has a report. What a hotbed of political activism Philly is turning out to be! People of all races, ages and from all walks of life were there, and it was a great antidote to the gloom I've been sinking into of late.

So nothing too heavy today. The New York Observer has a fascinating article on the recent penchant of the Dating Class for breaking into one another's e-mail accounts to snoop:

"On a slow night, Anne, a 23-year-old assistant at an art consultancy, will get drunk at home with her friends and, instead of watching a movie or gossiping about men, they'll break into one of their old boyfriends' e-mail accounts. 'My friends and I have a few glasses of wine, and it's like, 'Let's go read [his] e-mail!' Anne said, making an inbox sound like a pirated cable box free of charge, only slightly criminal and endlessly engaging. The girls guffaw at his misspellings and giggle about his dating mishaps. They are as careful as cat burglars and never get caught. According to Anne, 'It's fun! It's so entertaining.'"

Go read the whole thing. It's like Sex in the City with punctuation.