The places in this video were shot about five or six miles west of where we live. Mt Tremper was a quiet little creekside community on the way to the village of Phoenicia. It’s almost completely gone. The damage in this region is considerable. Villages have been devastated. (You’ll have to cope with the music. They mean well.)

We don’t have rivers here. They’re creeks. The creek you see raging is the Esopus. This picture was taken between Mt Tremper and Phoenicia on a sunny day in early fall. This is how it usually looks here.

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Our guest interlocutors are Chuck Todd and Rick Perry, conversing in November 2010.

TODD: What is your timeline for making a decision about whether or not to run for President in 2012?

PERRY: I wouldn’t have written that book if I was going to run for the Presidency of the United States. Obviously, you haven’t read it all.

I’m not interested in being the President of the United States. I’ve said that for the last two years, and still I’m consistent, I’m consistent in my position.

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While America’s Top War Criminal makes the rounds this week before departing for a Secure, Undisclosed Location in Hell, WaPo’s Jonathan Bernstein ponders why he’s not festering in a Supermax somewhere, enjoying his very own live performance of Oz:

Would it have been worse had the government attempted to prosecute, only to fail to get guilty verdicts? This points to the complexity of the issue from the perspective of the incoming Obama administration in 2009.

Or you could just enforce the damn law.

Assuming one wants to prevent torture from returning, would prosecution have been the best step? Perhaps. Perhaps, however, it would have made things worse. Even successful prosecution, unfortunately, could create a backlash.

Or you could just enforce the damn law.

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A pick-up truck carrying a load of marijuana in large bags overturned in San Jose early Wednesday morning, but passers-by and other drivers helpfully cleared the roadway of all weed before police could even arrive on the scene.

[SF Chronicle: Crash witnesses make off with spilled marijuana]

Our guest columnist is the governor of the great state of Texas, writing in 2001. See if you can find all the red flags!

The fruits of NAFTA have just begun to ripen. At the same time, we must not allow the roots of the tree to become poisoned. The NAFTA agreement not only signaled a new era of economic possibility, but a new era of bi-national cooperation. That is why it is wrong, and inherently detrimental to our relationship with Mexico for the U.S. Congress to pursue a protectionist policy that forbids Mexican trucks from U.S. roadways. It is bad public policy, and it violates the terms of the NAFTA agreement we agreed to. Mexican trucks that meet our safety standards should be given the same access to U.S. roads as our Canadian neighbors to the north…

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“Actor and ‘Lawman’ Steven Seagal is being sued for conducting a raid on an Arizona man’s home alongside deputies of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, which allegedly resulted in the accidental death of the man’s puppy… The raid was taped for an episode of Seagal’s A&E reality show, Steven Seagal: Lawman.” [TPM]