Seeing Into the Future (and a poem by James Wright)

So, below is the latest from NOAA, the outfit that Rick Santorum wants to privatize so his buddies can make money off it. Should I not post Sunday, usually a big bloggy day, this will be why. That "dangerous and life-threatening conditions" thing always attracts my attention; I recall that wording prior to Katrina and to last year's blizzard, which left us snowed-in and frozen for several days until we found a front-loader to dig us out. If it occurs, it will also be puppy's first blizzard--can we really keep her in all day? They say not to go outdoors when the white-out occurs lest one become disoriented (we're a bit disoriented anyhow in general, are we not?), but maybe we'll tie a rope to the front door or something. Trail of crumbs? And if the electricity stays on we'll be blogging and watching cricket of all things happening far far away somewhere where it's summer.

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A BLIZZARD WARNING WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 7 PM EST SUNDAY.

BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITH SNOWFALL RATES NEAR 3 INCHES PER HOUR. NORTHEAST WINDS GUSTING AS HIGH AS 60 MPH MAY PRODUCE WHITE OUT CONDITIONS WITH NEAR ZERO VISIBILITY. SNOW TOTALS OF 2 FEET ARE POSSIBLE

THIS IS A DANGEROUS AND LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. TRAVEL DURING THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM ON SUNDAY WILL BE SERIOUSLY IMPACTED BY THE COMBINATION OF STRONG WINDS POOR VISIBILITY AND SNOW COVERED ROADS.

A BLIZZARD WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS OR FREQUENT GUSTS OVER 35 MPH ARE EXPECTED WITH CONSIDERABLE FALLING AND/OR BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW. VISIBILITIES WILL BECOME POOR WITH WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AT TIMES. THOSE VENTURING OUTDOORS MAY BECOME LOST OR DISORIENTED...SO PERSONS IN THE WARNING AREA ARE ADVISED TO STAY
INDOORS.


A Winter Daybreak Above Venice

The night's drifts
Pile up below me and behind my back,
Slide down the hill, rise again, and build
Eerie little dunes on the roof of the house.
In the valley below me,
Miles between me and the town of St.-Jeannet,
The road lamps glow.
They are so cold, they might as well be dark.
Trucks and cars
Cough and drone down there between the golden
Coffins of greenhouses, the startled squawk
Of a rooster claws heavily across
A grove, and drowns.
The gumming snarl of some grouchy dog sounds,
And a man bitterly shifts his broken gears.
True night still hangs on,
Mist cluttered with a racket of its own.

Now on the mountainside,
A little way downhill among turning rucks,
A square takes form in the side of a dim wall.
I hear a bucket rattle or something, tinny,
No other stirring behind the dim face
Of the goatherd's house. I imagine
His goats are still sleeping, dreaming
Of the fresh roses
Beyond the walls of the greenhouse below them.
And of lettuce leaves opening in Tunisia.

I turn, and somehow
Impossibly hovering in the air over everything,
The Mediterranean, nearer to the moon
Than this mountain is, Shines. A voice clearly
Tells me to snap out of it. Galway
Mutters out of the house and up the stone stairs
To start the motor. The moon and the stars
Suddenly flicker out, and the whole mountain
Appears, pale as a shell.

Look, the sea has not fallen and broken
Our heads. How can I feel so warm
Here in the dead center of January? I can
Scarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this is
The only life I have. I get up from the stone.
My body mumbles something unseemly
And follows me. Now we are all sitting here strangely
On top of sunlight.


James Wright

Free Speech Equals Sedition in Bubble Boy's Brave New World

This is a sweet little story, by Matthew Rothschild, in The Progressive.

Please read it, say "Bushist fascist, Bushist fascist" aloud thirteen times really fast, notice what emotion you are feeling, and then drop us a line.

VA NURSE INVESTIGATED FOR "SEDITION" FOR CRITICIZING BUSH

Laura Berg is a clinical nurse specialist at the VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, where she has worked for 15 years. Shortly after Katrina, she wrote a letter to the editor of the weekly paper the Alibi criticizing the Bush Administration.

After the paper published the letter in its September 15-21 issue, VA administrators seized her computer, alleged that she had written the letter on that computer, and accused her of "sedition."

Here's what her letter said.

"I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government," it began. "The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes!" She mentioned that she was "a VA nurse" working with returning vets. "The public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder," she wrote, and she worried about the hundreds of thousands of additional cases that might result from Katrina and the Iraq War.

No Blood for Hubris has been writing about the problem of PTSD in returning Iraq vets, and how poorly the Bush administration has been handling this. Are we to expect a certain knocking at our door as well? How about you seditious people reading these words? Who's next?

"Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown, and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence," she wrote. "This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil. . . . We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit. Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times."

After her computer was seized, Berg wrote a memo to her bosses seeking information and an explanation.

Mel Hooker, chief of the human resources management service at the Albuquerque VA, wrote Berg back on November 9 and acknowledged that "your personal computer files did not contain the editorial letter written to the editor of the weekly Alibi."

But rather than apologize, he leveled the sedition charge: "The Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition," he said. "In your letter . . . you declared yourself "as a VA nurse" and publicly declared the Government which employs you to have 'tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence' and advocated, 'act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.'"

Berg, who is not talking to the press, is "scared for her job" and "pretty emotionally distressed," says Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico.

They sure shut her up right fast. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

"We were shocked to see the word 'sedition' used," Simonson tells The Progressive. "Sedition? That's like something out of the history books."

In a press release, Simonson also said: "Is this government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of 'sedition"?"

The ACLU of New Mexico is working in Berg's behalf. It has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to this incident. And it is asking "at the very least" that Berg "receive a pubic apology from Mr. Hooker to remedy the unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that has resulted from these intimidating tactics," according to a letter from the New Mexico ACLU to the VA's Office of Regional Counsel. . .

"While VA does not prohibit employees from exercising their freedom of speech, we do ask that such activity occurs outside government premises and not during their official tour of duty," says Bill Armstrong, a public affairs specialist for New Mexico's VA Health Care System. "When we have reason to believe that this policy is not being adhered to, we have the obligation to review an individual's computer activity."

The VA in Washington also refused to comment on the sedition charge. "We don't discuss internal personnel issues," says Phil Budahn, a VA spokesman in Washington, D.C.

Berg has an additional concern: that the VA may have got the FBI on her case.

A union employee "shared with me that Mel Hooker conveyed to him that my letter had been reported 'up through VA channels' to the FBI in Washington, and that this had been discussed and confirmed" with union officials at the national office, Berg wrote in her November 2 complaint. (The union she belongs to is the American Federation of Government Employees.)

Hooker denied that the VA had contacted the FBI. "The Agency has no knowledge of any report alleged to have been made to the FBI regarding you or your letter," he said in his November 9 memo.

Meanwhile, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, has taken up the Berg case.

"I am writing to express my deep concern regarding news reports that Ms. Laura Berg . . . was investigated for sedition after writing a letter that was critical of the current Administration," Senator Bingaman wrote to R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, on February 7. "In a democracy, expressing disagreement with the government's actions does not amount to sedition or insurrection--it is, and must remain, protected speech."

Watch out, people--FREEDOM'S ON THE MARCH. Out the door, over the cliff. Thanks to our Fearless Leader, Bubble Boy, Preznit Toad-Exploder. Link here. Hat tip to Maccabee at Kos.

VA
Bush
free speech

Preznit Toad-Exploder Spreads His Culture of Sadism

It was supposed to be democracy that Bubble Boy was spreading across the world, but instead he's spreading sadism, encouraging vengeance and violence.

Bush takes a wimpy stance on actual freedom of speech, denouncing the publication of insensitive cartoons of Mohammed, while his Gitmo minions are always at the ready to urinate on the Koran, whilst pretending that they aren't.

Now, under the pretext of saving life, they've extended their policy of sadism and torture at Gitmo, deliberately inflicting pain and diarrhea on hunger strikers there, strapping them to chairs and leaving them there in their own feces, worse than lab rats and lab monkeys.

Only 8 percent of Gitmo inmates, recall, have ties to Al Qaeda. Only 45 percent had committed any act hostile to the US. The rest were caught up in the sweep of vengeance. Now, Bush can't let them go and he can't let them die: so he's making their lives a miserable hell in order to shore up his fragile ego.

Quoth the unlinkable-to NY Times:

In recent weeks, the officials said, guards have begun strapping recalcitrant detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward. Detainees who refuse to eat have also been placed in isolation for extended periods in what the officials said was an effort to keep them from being encouraged by other hunger strikers.

In addition to spreading sadism, the US has gotten pretty good at spreading suicidality, making detainees lives not worth living: leaving them to freeze half to death, isolating them, feeding them them in ways that intentionally cause pain (uh, this would constitute torture).

Again:

Mr. Wilner, who was among the first lawyers to accept clients at Guantanamo and represented them in a case in 2004 before the Supreme Court, said a Kuwaiti detainee, Fawzi al-Odah, told him last week that around Dec. 20, guards began taking away items like shoes, towels and blankets from the hunger strikers.
Mr. Odah also said that lozenges that had been distributed to soothe the hunger strikers' throats had disappeared and that the liquid formula they were given was mixed with other ingredients to cause diarrhea, Mr. Wilner said. . . .

Mr. Odah said he heard "screams of pain" from a hunger striker in the next cell as a thick tube was inserted into his nose. . .
Another lawyer, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, said one of his three Bahraini clients, Jum'ah al-Dossari, told him about 10 days ago that more than half of a group of 34 long-term hunger strikers had abandoned their protest after being strapped in restraint chairs and having their feeding tubes inserted and removed so violently that some bled or fainted.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen. Your tax dollars at work.



Torture
Bush
force-feeding
Gitmo
Guantanamo

"Everyone is Afraid to Criticize Islam"

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician forced to go into hiding after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, responds to the Danish cartoon scandal, arguing that if Europe doesn't stand up to extremists, a culture of self-censorship of criticism of Islam that pervades in Holland will spread in Europe. Auf Wiedersehen, free speech.

SPIEGEL: Hirsi Ali, you have called the Prophet Muhammad a tyrant and a pervert. Theo van Gogh, the director of your film "Submission," which is critical of Islam, was murdered by Islamists. You yourself are under police protection. Can you understand how the Danish cartoonists feel at this point?

Hirsi Ali: They probably feel numb. On the one hand, a voice in their heads is encouraging them not to sell out their freedom of speech. At the same time, they're experiencing the shocking sensation of what it's like to lose your own personal freedom. One mustn't forget that they're part of the postwar generation, and that all they've experienced is peace and prosperity. And now they suddenly have to fight for their own human rights once again.

SPIEGEL: Why have the protests escalated to such an extent?

Hirsi Ali: There is no freedom of speech in those Arab countries where the demonstrations and public outrage are being staged. The reason many people flee to Europe from these places is precisely because they have criticized religion, the political establishment and society. Totalitarian Islamic regimes are in a deep crisis. Globalization means that they're exposed to considerable change, and they also fear the reformist forces developing among émigrés in the West. They'll use threatening gestures against the West, and the success they achieve with their threats, to intimidate these people.

SPIEGEL: Was apologizing for the cartoons the wrong thing to do?

Hirsi Ali: Once again, the West pursued the principle of turning first one cheek, then the other. In fact, it's already a tradition. In 1980, privately owned British broadcaster ITV aired a documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery. The government in Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology. We saw the same kowtowing response in 1987 when (Dutch comedian) Rudi Carrell derided (Iranian revolutionary leader) Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit (that was aired on German television). In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the Prophet Mohammed, titled "Aisha," was cancelled before it ever opened in Rotterdam. Then there was the van Gogh murder and now the cartoons. We are constantly apologizing, and we don't notice how much abuse we're taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn't give an inch.

SPIEGEL: What should the appropriate European response look like?

Hirsi Ali: There should be solidarity. The cartoons should be displayed everywhere. After all, the Arabs can't boycott goods from every country. They're far too dependent on imports. And Scandinavian companies should be compensated for their losses. Freedom of speech should at least be worth that much to us.

SPIEGEL: But Muslims, like any religious community, should also be able to protect themselves against slander and insult.

Hirsi Ali: That's exactly the reflex I was just talking about: offering the other cheek. Not a day passes, in Europe and elsewhere, when radical imams aren't preaching hatred in their mosques. They call Jews and Christians inferior, and we say they're just exercising their freedom of speech. When will the Europeans realize that the Islamists don't allow their critics the same right? After the West prostrates itself, they'll be more than happy to say that Allah has made the infidels spineless.

SPIEGEL: What will be the upshot of the storm of protests against the cartoons?

Hirsi Ali: We could see the same thing happening that has happened in the Netherlands, where writers, journalists and artists have felt intimidated ever since the van Gogh murder. Everyone is afraid to criticize Islam. Significantly, "Submission" still isn't being shown in theaters.

SPIEGEL: Many have criticized the film as being too radical and too offensive.

Hirsi Ali: The criticism of van Gogh was legitimate. But when someone has to die for his world view, what he may have done wrong is no longer the issue. That's when we have to stand up for our basic rights. Otherwise we are just reinforcing the killer and conceding that there was a good reason to kill this person.

SPIEGEL: You too have been accused for your dogged criticism of Islam.

Hirsi Ali: Oddly enough, my critics never specify how far I can go. How can you address problems if you're not even allowed to clearly define them? Like the fact that Muslim women at home are kept locked up, are raped and are married off against their will -- and that in a country in which our far too passive intellectuals are so proud of their freedom! . . .

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the most sharp- tongued critics of political Islam - - and a target of radical fanatics. Her provocative film "Submission" led to the assassination of director Theo van Gogh in November 2004. The attackers left a death threat against Hirsi Ali stuck to his corpse with a knife. After a brief period in hiding, the 36- year- old member of Dutch parliament from the neo- liberal VVD party has returned to parliament and is continuing her fight against Islamism. She recently published a book, "I Accuse," and is working on a sequel to "Submission." Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia where she experienced the oppression of Muslim women first hand. When her father attempted to force her into an arranged marriage, she fled to Holland in 1992. Later, she renounced the Muslim religion.




Full article here.

Dirty Words from Rove and Mehlman

"Racist" is a dirty word. Even racist right-wingers don't want to be caught being racist, and don't want to be labeled "racist."

How come "sexist" is NOT a dirty word?

How come balding unmarried guy Ken Mehlman gets to make a sexist attack on Senator Hillary Clinton -- all for being "too angry" -- ooh we know how it is when them broads get angry -- and nobody finds it sexist and offensive.

I mean, I do. Anyone else?



How about bald, fat, girlie-man Karl Rove's sexist frame of Valerie Plame? Seeking to dismiss the professional importance of Joseph Wilson's to Niger because -- the little woman sent him?

Sexist? Ya think?

How about bald, fat sexist Cheney's office trying to denigrate Plame's professional status by saying she's not actually a NOC but just some little paper-pushing CIA secretary? How sexist is that?

How about bald, double-chinned Rove's sexist framing of the Administration's deliberate leak of a covert CIA identity--that it was just little girlie gossip? So therefore it doesn't count? Responsible people, like Woodward, therefore, never took it seriously: girl talk.

Just some thoughts, and I'm sure the truthiness of it will all come out in the wash.

Don't worry your pretty little heads about it.



(all sexist comments made here for informational purposes only)

Rove
Mehlman
Valerie Plame
Joseph Wilson

IRAQOMO

The Beach Boys' cheery Caribbean-vacation song "Kokomo" becomes "Iraqomo" - - thanks to the Freeway Blogger. Later postings refer to it as "Iraq--The Musical." Both are exquisite.

We Can't Care for the Children We Already Have (Andrea Yates Edition)

The American Taliban forced-maternity crowd just doesn't seem to get the difference between picking up an extra carton of milk at the store and having an extra baby. Or two. Or five.

Extra cartons of milk clog up the refrigerator and maybe go off; actual unwanted babies actually suffer.

One of the sadder recent stories of motherhood gone awry is that of Andrea Yates, over-burdened by yearly pregnancies, and one-after-another births, until she became deeply depressed. She tried to kill herself several times, and endured several psychiatric hospitalizations. Eventually, she became floridly psychotic and subject to command hallucinations: she drowned own her children, one by one.

Today, Ms. Yates, now divorced by Rusty, her husband, was released from jail and moved to a mental institution.

It's easier to demonize Andrea rather than connect her actions to her domestic situation, with her abusive misogynist husband and her misogynist preacher egging her on to have more and more and more children, helping her to become more and more isolated, and filling her mind with deeper and deeper notions of her own worthlessness.

On a brighter note, an interesting take on the Andrea Yates story here, at the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus, "A Biblical Feminist Looks at the Andrea Yates Tragedy," an analysis with which we wholeheartedly agree.

Before marrying Russell Yates, Andrea Kennedy was a successful young woman working as a post-operative nurse. She enjoyed regular swimming and jogging and was apparently from a Catholic family. Their courtship included praying and reading the Bible together--so far so good.

But somewhere in that Bible study, or in the conservative Christian culture that surrounded them, they got the idea that when they married, they would not use birth control. They would lovingly accept as many children as God sent them. This ideal is still being taught by the Roman Catholic Church and by many small independent fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches. The use of contraceptives is considered a sin. There are no allowances for difficult circumstances such as postpartum depression, bipolar disorder, poverty, or rape. By giving family planning the powerful label of sin, these churches entrap women like Andrea Yates, who had five children and one miscarriage during her eight years of marriage.

We in EEWC need to reach as many women as possible with the good news that controlling their fertility is within God's will. Otherwise, more children will face abuse and even death at the hands of overwhelmed parents or caregivers. At a conference in 1986, EWC approved a resolution that stated, "Because we believe that every human being is made in God's image, we deplore violence against women and children and the misuse of power within the family." We need to find more ways to carry out our mission to curb domestic violence.

The world needs more voices like theirs, to empower women like Andrea Yates -- and to protect children.

Bubble Boy's SOTU Zombie Jamboree -- Health Benefits for the UnDead!

You got that right. Bubble Boy's solved the American health care crisis. Now we're having health benefits for the UnDead. Only.

It's the SOTU Zombie Jamboree, with the latest notion from the Bushist Fascist Confederacy of UnDead Dunces shrieking toward the State of the Union-issue-hungry media whore media with that very special sound of rabbits screaming.

Get this -- according to our fanatical up-is-down-ist Preznit Fearless Leader Bubble Boy Toad Exploder, and his Bushist fascist ilk, the whole problem with Americans' health care is that --- THEY ALREADY HAVE TOO GOL-DURN MUCH OF IT!!

One kids you not.

Sure, it was bad enough when the Bushist fascists got rid of global warming by just whiteing it out with -- white-out. Or when they got rid of government racial problems by -- snipping them out of reports. Or when they got rid of pesky anti-torturists and pesky anti-breaking-the-law lawyers in the Justice Department by -- just getting rid of them.

The up-is-down-ists feel they're on a roll.

So, now that they've pissed away the Clinton-Gore surplus, started a war and lost a war and started a civil war, squandered trillions of dollars in the process, failed to find Bin Laden (who?), seeded the federal government with greedy, useless incompetents, screwed up the economy so that millions of formerly middle class Americans no longer have pensions, they're ready for their next move: reduce health care benefits for every American.

Single payer government system? Why? Can't I be just as greedy and selfish as I want? Isn't that really the American way?

Employer-funded system? Nah.

Well, see, if Americans depend upon their employers for health care, it makes it harder for them to be more mobile. The UnDead want freer labor.

Yeah, we don't have enough freedom now to be bounced from job to job. We don't have enough freedom now for a hard bout with cancer completely to bankrupt ourselves and our families. Yeah, we don't have enough freedom now to go without the medications we need because of the squalor we live in and the three jobs that we need to sorta pay the rent and the crap food that we buy because it's right in front of our noses. We don't have enough freedom now to go bankrupt paying for education loans so we can get an education so we don't have to have a crap job but then we don't have a crap job but we have a crap life, because we can't afford to be educated people because why should the government support anything except Star Wars and Halliburton?

Why shouldn't the poor and the middle class have crappier health care than the greedy UnDead? They're poor! They're middle class! Why should the UnDead pay for them?

You know, it's a real baad thing to pull the plug on a brain-dead lady, but quite a fine, freedomy thing to withhold health care benefits for people who can walk and talk and work three jobs at crap wages.

Look at the twins. They don't have jobs, and they have health care.

Poor people are poor because they're lazy, don't you get it?

Bow, kneel now to the divine UnDead. Bow before Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Frist, and the rest of Grover Norquist's whacked-out Bubble Boy bubble-bath bathtub government drowners.

They don't even know if they're dead or alive, and they sure don't care if you and yours are.


Back to back, ghoul, belly to belly

Well, I don't give a damn 'cause I'm stone dead already, yeah

Back to back, mon, belly to belly

It's a zombie jamboree

Foil Bush's Radical Court-Packing Scheme: Oppose Rightwing Activist Judge Alito

It's time for blogtopian action on Alito, a radical activist judge who is wrong on the balance of powers and wrong on privacy.

No time like the present for a zippy filibuster as a show of Democratic party strength and unity.

Don't take no for an answer. Don't let your voices remain unheard. Contact your own Senators directly, and these. Scroll down for a list of emails and telephone numbers.

No more crocodile tears for the Mrs. Court-packing Right-Wing Activist Judge, eh?


[Here's something to keep your spirits up - - "The Breathtaking Magnitude of George Bush's Foreign Policy Incompetence.]

2005 Koufax Awards - - At Wampum

Wampum is kindly hosting the 2005 Koufax Awards for the best of the lefty blogs, here.

Visit their site, take the opportunity to cruise around blogtopia and find and celebrate lefty blogs of wildness and wonder, of feckfulness, snark and pulchritude. OK not pulchritude. No Blood for Hubris has had the happiness to be nominated as Best New Blog - - among a multitude of way more worthy blogs, including some of our all-time favorites (including but not limited to Dadahead, The Heretik, Agitprop, My Left Wing, Neil Shakespeare) as well as new-time favorites I'm working my way through (including but not limited to I Blame the Patriarchy, By Neddie Jingo!, Dharma Bums, and Olduvai George) and all of these can be found here, and should be found for the sake of the journey, not the destination.

Other categories are coming to the fore each day, many others, such as Most Deserving of Wider Recognition (for which we likewise have had the happiness to receive a nomination), and Best State, Local Blogs -- all categories present and to come deserve your time and consideration; please lend it to them if you have the opportunity.

Quoth Wampum:

Now that I've had my daily dose of Abramoff-Indian Trust Fund obsessing, I'll get back to work compiling the next posts. I started Best Post and Most Humorous Post this morning, and will hopefully have one, if not both, up later tonight.

I did a quick estimation yesterday, and it looks as though we had somewhere around 10,000 individual nominations this year (about 1000 nominators, with an average of 10 nominations each.) That's about twice what we had last year. I was wondering why I felt like I was going blind these past few days

I'm passing the hat yet again, to cover the increasing costs of these awards. In addition to regular contributions, if you happen to know anyone who would like to purchase an ad on our sidebar, a la our wonderful Texas Senate candidate, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, please let us know. Over the next few weeks, a large percentage of the eyeballs which frequent the Lefty blogosphere will land on Wampum at one point or another, so it's a pretty good advertising investment , at a fraction of what the Big Dogs charge.

Please lend Wampum -- and the Koufax Awards -- and the lefty blogosphere -- blogtopia? -- bloglantis? -- your support. And your presence.

PS.

Let me reference here the mysterium tremendum of blogtopia (Skippy coined it). Two clicks of separation away from No Blood for Hubris, via wood s lot, I just now wandered upon a fine post about (see blogger's about me section) Cesar Vallejo, of all wondrous poets, to wit:

Five talking points about Cesar Vallejo.

1) There's the inexplicable mystery of how and why he realized that he could be Cesar Vallejo. That is, speak with such an unmistakably individual voice. What gave him that courage? (Normally I hate to apply the word courage to writing in a particular style; it seems fake and inappropriate to say that it is courageous for me to write in a particular way. For Vallejo, though, this is entirely approrpriate.)

2) He had a complete poetic language, ranging from the colloquial to the erudite, the Quechua-inflected Spanish that he grew up speaking to the avant-garde cosmopolitan discourse of Europe.

3) He had a unique way of bridging the individual and the collective voice. "Yo no siento este dolor como Cesar Vallejo." Yet it took "Cesar Vallejo" to articulate this insight.

4) He passed through the historical avant-gardes and forged a style of political poetry totally inflected by the freedom given to him by this avant-garde. He never practiced a sort of "generic" avant-garde style. . .

5) His appeal is immediate and direct. You know that it's great before you even understand what it's all about. Further study only deepens our appreciation.

Pretty soon I'll be blathering on about Indra's Net. So.

Perhaps there is hope for us all, after all?

Some Chicks Should Not Work Outside the Home, Some Should Pipe Down: Kathy Should Do Both

Why does this person, chubby buxom blonde Bushist blowhard panty-twistee "columnist " blog-slagger Kathleen Parker, have a job?

Why does anyone pay her to write columns, or even grocery lists? Why does she have health benefits? Dental benefits? A possible pension plan? A place to live? Why?

Why did anyone teach her to read in the first place? Why, O God, why?

Working people are in crisis in America. Thirty thousands are being laid off at Ford today, human sacrifices who are paying the price for the stupidity and poor judgment of Ford executives, who are not being laid off, not losing their pensions, not losing their health and dental benefits.

Workers at so-called "Friendly's" restaurants are losing the best part of their health benefits as of today. They'll wind up in the free-care pool at your local hospital, where we, not Friendly's, will be paying their bill.

So, there's some all-American competition out there for real jobs with real benefits.

Why is chubby buxom blonde Bushist blowhard and panty-twistee, so-called "columnist" Kathleen Parker, then, not unemployed?

Today, she wrote an article in which she ridiculed George Galloway's intellect and political acumen by pointing out that George Galloway had once appeared on all fours on a funny British television show.

A stunning blow. A hit, a palpable hit! Ha ha!

(So far, Kathy's still collecting her paycheck. Hunh? Meanwhile, we are still wondering why Preznit Toad-Exploder's little theatrical skit where he, on all fours, was looking for those pesky missing Weapons of Mass Destruction under sofas and chairs but that skittishness failed to disqualify his intellect (sic) and credibility(sic) in the mind of buxom Kathy -- but never mind.)

Recently, she suggested that sexual harassment exists only in imaginations of silly smelling-salt-dependent Victorianesque feminist females who fail to understand the proud, "spicy," and "salty" tradition in which military males must be not reprimanded but commended for loudly pointing out in the military workplace how battleships with big long phallic guns make guys so hot and so hard. (Hmm?)

Well, smack Kathy upside the head with Clarence Thomas' pubic-haired Coke can, because Kathy thinks sexual harrassment doesn't really even exist.

Quoth currently-employed Kathy:

This is not necessarily good news if you're in the business of victim advocacy - and it is a business, perhaps soon to become a career choice if Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) has her way. Slaughter is the sponsor of a 95-page bill that would create a Pentagon Office of Victim Advocacy (OVA). We may never win the war on terror, but we'll by golly win the war on hurt feelings.

Sexual harassment is all about hurt feelings, hurt feelings are pussy, pussy is female, female is weak, weak is worthless. Get it?

Smack her again with that Coke can, and maybe chubby buxom blonde blowhard Kathy'll get it--she'd better get it, 'cause if she keeps spinning out these stinker columns, she's gonna be losing that job.

Maybe Kathy needs a Coke can ornamented with a whole forest of pubic hairs--how many will suffice to finally attract a Bushist blowhard's attention?

Hey, Clarence? Can you help this girl out?






Kathleen Parker

America's Unwanted Children: Overturn Roe v. Wade, and Let's Have Some More!

On the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it's time to ask hard questions of our fetal sentimentalists, the extra-high-decibel shriekers who cloak punitive authoritarianism under "life-ist" (sic) spin:

are children who actually are wanted, loved, expected, planned for, and prepared for, treated like this?

Uh--no.

Starved Children Imprisoned By Bio Mom for Five Years

RENO, Nev. 1/22/06 -- Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong says he's amazed by the survival of two emaciated children who say they were locked in an apartment bathroom and starved for the past five years.

When the siblings were found Thursday, the 16-year-old girl weighed about 40 pounds, and her 11-year-old brother weighed about 30 pounds. The pair were in stable condition Sunday at a hospital, while their grandmother, mother and the mother's boyfriend were in jail.

"The little girl appeared to be a Holocaust victim," Furlong told The Associated Press. "There's no meat or muscle whatsoever. We're talking absolute starvation. It was the same thing for the little boy."

Deputies were led to the home after someone reported seeing an 8-year-old girl pushing a shopping cart full of food within a block of the sheriff's office. It turned out to be the 16-year-old girl, who told deputies she was running away because she had been locked in a bathroom . . ."Right now, there doesn't seem to be anything that conflicts with anything the girl has said," Furlong said, adding the bathroom door appeared damaged as if someone had broken out. . .

Their grandmother, Esther Rios, 56; mother, Regina Rios, 33; and the mother's boyfriend, Tomas Granados, 33, were jailed on suspicion of child abuse or neglect and false imprisonment in lieu of $100,000 bail. . . Furlong said it's one of the worst cases he's seen in nearly 30 years of law enforcement.

"I don't know how the girl or her brother survived," he said.

Maybe it would be nice if America -- and particularly America's forced-maternity hysteric fringe -- made it a priority to take care of all its current post-born children, for a change.



child abuse
blogging for choice
unwantedness

First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You. It's Hard Work. Still.

This is a picture of Specialist Doug Barber. He acquired PTSD as a result of his participation in the Iraq War.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is an eminently treatable psychiatric condition, one requiring individual therapy once or twice a week until symptoms--hyperarousal (anxiety, panic, hypervigilance, outbursts of rage, irritability, insomnia, etc.); numbing/avoidance; intrusive thoughts (flashbacks, nightmares)--subside. Individualized medication regimes can also be helpful.

Preznit Toad-Exploder's VA knew full well what was wrong with Doug Barber, yet denied him benefits and proper treatment for two years.

In response to this soldier's request for emergency crisis treatment, according to Jay Shaft, the VA gave him a counseling appointment every three months and threw meds at him without proper supervision and follow-up.

On January 18, 2006, Specialist Doug Barber, who had PTSD, an eminently treatable psychiatric condition, committed suicide.

We've previously mentioned the Bush regime's vicious cheapskate policy on PTSD here, here, and here.


Asserting that people with PTSD don't have PTSD, reclassifying diagnoses, stringing patients along on meds only, or groups, or whatever they can get away with--that's how Bubble Boy's VA balances their budgets.

Deny people with PTSD treatment for long enough, they just kill themselves. Saves a bundle, eh?


Sort of like waiting for someone to bleed to death so as not to pay for a surgeon.










Iraq War
Bush
PTSD
VA
Iraq vets

Jeez, Louise! NSA Sez--Our Lips 'R' Sealed

Re: Letter received here yesterday marked "Department of Defense."

My heart skips a beat!! At last! Rummy's telling me he's sorry, so sorry for everything he's done wrong? And he's checking himself into Gitmo for complete re-education on torture and sadism and national defense?

Nuh-uh. It's about my asking for a copy of records NSA maintains on me, you know NSA, that agency Bubble Boy, Preznit Toad-Exploder, unconstitutionally tasked to spy on American citizens without permission from the FISA court?

Oops. In my haste I misread that name, and just noticed now that my correspondent is in fact Louis F. Giles, Director of Policy, not Louise, he who wrote the following on 12 January 2006, and which was received here one week later, from Louis not Louise.

[But I like how the title turned out, so, like, what-everrr. Sorta like thinking the war in Iraq is the logical extension of the war in Afghanistan, is it not?]

Dear No Blood for Hubris:

This responds to your 19 December request [I clicked onto a link someone had posted as a comment on AmericaBlog, I think] which was received in this office on 19 December 2005, for a copy of all records this Agency [capitalized!] maintains on you. Your request has been processed under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] and Privacy Act [PA}.

Personnel management files are maintained on NSA/CSS affiliates. Therefore, a search of our most comprehensive filing system which include applicant, personnel, security, medical, and training was conducted. Our records reflect that you have never been affiliated with this Agency; thus, no records were located. In addition, there are no fees associated with the processing of your case since your request meets the requirements of the PA for which there are no fees.

The fact that we were unable to locate records responsive to your request may be considered by you as an adverse determination, [hmm?] and you are hereby advised of this Agency's appeal procedures. Any person denied access to information may file an appeal to the NSA/CSS FOIA/PA Appeal Authority [lots of capitals] {DC34}, National Security Agency, 9800 Savage Road STE 6248, Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6248. To aid in processing the appeal, it should reference the inability of the Agency to locate records on you and should contain, in sufficient detail and particularity, the grounds upon which you believe this Agency maintains records on you. The NSA/CSS Appeal Authority will endeavor to respond to the appeal within 20 working days after receipt, absent unusual circumstances.

Sincerely,

Louis F. Giles
Director of Policy

So--what's a blogger to do? Send Louis/Louise a link to Your Tax Dollars Fund NSA to Spy on Quaker Peaceniks? Don't they have one already?

And what's all this coy stuff about only having "records" on people who used to work for them? Oh. Wait. Maybe Osama Bin Laden did used to work for them. Back in the olden days, when he was America's Freedom Fighter Against the Godless Communist Soviets?

Records, schmecords. What do they call information they keep on Quaker Peaceniks, if not records?

Perhaps it's time to FOIA the FBI, too.

What think ye, O citzens of Blogistan?




.

Bubble Boy and His Very Own $25K Luncheon Buddy

Oh my. Who's this? Is it JimmyJeff GuckertGannon?

No? Is it someone else who came to dinner?

Not dinner? Lunch? I mean, someone else who came for lunch? Lunches? Lotsa lunches?

Why, it's Mr. Jackie "TaintBoy" Abramoff! Wow-ee! Don't we just LOVE Blogtopia*?

OK, then. So there.





No Blood for Hubris will be doing light-blogging for a while, due to combination of blogging-related tendinitis and puppy-related puppitude. Tomorrow, we will publish a charming letter No Blood for Hubris just received to day from one Ms. Louise Giles of the National Security Agency, Central Security Service. In short, they want me to furnish them with "the grounds upon which you believe this Agency maintains records on you."

Umm. Gee. I dunno. Because I'm an American citizen? Because I consort with Buddhists and Quakers and Greenpeace, oh my? Because I call Bubble Boy "Preznit Toad-Exploder"? Because I blog on human rights? Because I think the country is being run by a merry band of sadists, a whole cabal of same, in fact?

You choose, Louise. You choose.



.

Human Rights Watch: Bush Torture Policy "Deliberate"

Human Rights Watch World Report 2006
U.S. Policy of Abuse Undermines Rights Worldwide

New evidence demonstrated in 2005 that torture and mistreatment have been a deliberate part of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism strategy, undermining the global defense of human rights, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2006





The evidence showed that abusive interrogation cannot be reduced to the misdeeds of a few low-ranking soldiers, but was a conscious policy choice by senior U.S. government officials. The policy has hampered Washington’s ability to cajole or pressure other states into respecting international law . . . .

"Fighting terrorism is central to the human rights cause," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "But using illegal tactics against alleged terrorists is both wrong and counterproductive."

Roth said the illegal tactics were fueling terrorist recruitment, discouraging public assistance of counterterrorism efforts and creating a pool of unprosecutable detainees.

U.S. partners such as Britain and Canada compounded the lack of human rights leadership by trying to undermine critical international protections. Britain sought to send suspects to governments likely to torture them based on meaningless assurances of good treatment. Canada sought to dilute a new treaty outlawing enforced disappearances. The European Union continued to subordinate human rights in its relationships with others deemed useful in fighting terrorism, such as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.

Many countries -- Uzbekistan, Russia and China among them -- used the "war on terrorism" to attack their political opponents, branding them as "Islamic terrorists.
. . . Roth writes that it became clear in 2005 that U.S. mistreatment of detainees could not be reduced to a failure of training, discipline or oversight, or reduced to "a few bad apples," but reflected a deliberate policy choice embraced by the top leadership.

Evidence of that deliberate policy included the threat by President George W. Bush to veto a bill opposing "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," Roth writes, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s attempt to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from the law. In addition, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed that the United States can mistreat detainees so long as they are non-Americans held abroad, while CIA Director Porter Goss asserted that "waterboarding," a torture method dating back to the Spanish Inquisition, was simply a “professional interrogation technique.”

"Responsibility for the use of torture and mistreatment can no longer credibly be passed off to misadventures by low-ranking soldiers on the nightshift," said Roth. "The Bush administration must appoint a special prosecutor to examine these abuses, and Congress should set up an independent, bipartisan panel to investigate."

I'm sure Bubble Boy and his merry band of sadists will get right on that, will they not?

Gore: Bush "Repeatedly, Persistently" Broke the Law

Here, the AP story on the Martin Luther King Day speech by Al Gore, calling for a special prosecutor to investigate illegal spying on American citizens.

Complete text of Gore's speech, here; Quicktime video highlights available as well, both via Raw Story.

Gore called Bush's illegal surveillance program

"a threat to the very structure of our government." Gore charged that the program has ignored the checks and balances of the courts and Congress.

Gore said that Bush's actions — which the president has defended as indispensable in the war against terrorism — represented a "direct assault" on the special federal court that considers, and decides whether to authorize, administration requests to eavesdrop on Americans.

Gore said the concerns are especially important on King's birthday because the slain civil rights leader was among thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government. . .

Gore said that there is still much to learn about the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program: "What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently," he maintained. . .

Gore was repeatedly interrupted by applause Monday as he spoke to the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and the Liberty Coalition, two organizations that expressed concern with the legality of the surveillance program.

Gore, also a former member of the Senate from Tennessee, proposed that a special counsel be appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to investigate whether there have been violations of the law.

Referring to reports that private telecommunications companies have provided the Bush administration with access to private information on Americans, Gore said any company that did so should immediately end its complicity in the program.

"IF THE PRESIDENT HAS THE INHERENT AUTHORITY TO EAVESDROP, IMPRISON CITIZENS ON HIS OWN DECLARATION, KIDNAP AND TORTURE, THEN WHAT CAN'T HE DO? . . . A PRESIDENT WHO BREAKS THE LAW IS A THREAT TO THE VERY STRUCTURE OF OUR GOVERNMENT."



Hallelujah!




Gore
Bush
illegal spying

Neuroplasticity, Meditation, and Improving Smarts (Hey, Boy George, You Listening?)

Here, some interesting folks at The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, a non-profit which "works to integrate contemplative awareness and contemporary life, to help create a more just, compassionate, and reflective society." Here, an article on how to meditate; more here.

Here, a link to a Time article on the benefits of meditation: "How to Get Smarter, One Breath at a Time--Scientists Find That Meditation Not Only Reduces Stress, But Also Reshapes the Brain."

At 4:30, when most of Wall Street is winding down, Walter Zimmermann begins a high-stakes, high-wire act conducted live before a paying audience. About 200 institutional investors . . . shell out up to $3,000 a month to catch his daily webcast on the volatile energy markets, a performance that can move hundreds of millions of dollars. . . Zimmermann, 54, watched most of his peers in energy futures burn out long ago. He attributes his brain's enduring sharpness not to an intravenous espresso drip but to 40 minutes of meditation each morning and evening. The practice, he says, helps him maintain the clarity he needs for quick, insightful analysis—even approaching happy hour. "Meditation," he says, "is my secret weapon."

Everyone around the water cooler knows that meditation reduces stress. But with the aid of advanced brainscanning technology, researchers are beginning to show that meditation directly affects the function and structure of the brain, changing it in ways that appear to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory.

One recent study found evidence that the daily practice of meditation thickened the parts of the brain's cerebral cortex responsible for decision making, attention and memory. Sara Lazar, a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, presented preliminary results . . .that showed that the gray matter of 20 men and women who meditated for just 40 minutes a day was thicker than that of people who did not. Unlike in previous studies focusing on Buddhist monks, the subjects were Boston-area workers practicing a Western-style of meditation called mindfulness or insight meditation. "We showed for the first time that you don't have to do it all day for similar results," says Lazar. What's more, her research suggests that meditation may slow the natural thinning of that section of the cortex that occurs with age. . .

Richard Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin . . . has collaborated with the Dalai Lama to study the brains of Tibetan monks, whom he calls "the Olympic athletes of meditation." Using caps with electrical sensors placed on the monks' heads, Davidson has picked up unusually powerful gamma waves that are better synchronized in the Tibetans than they are in novice meditators. Studies have linked this gamma-wave synchrony to increased awareness. . . Bruce O'Hara, associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky . . . had college students either meditate, sleep or watch TV . . . . Those who had been taught to meditate performed 10% better—-"a huge jump, statistically speaking," says O'Hara. . . . Not surprisingly, given those results, a growing number of corporations—-including Deutsche Bank, Google and Hughes Aircraft—-offer meditation classes to their workers. . . .Another benefit for employers: meditation seems to help regulate emotions, which in turn helps people get along.

"Helps people get along," eh? How about meditation lessons for Bubble Boy, Rummy, and, most especially, Cheney?

Might be their only hope.




meditation
Dalai Lama
stress reduction
neuroplasticity

Another Stupid NY Times Article Supposedly About Feminism.

Here goes. Ok, so here not goes, since the link doesn't work because the NYT--wants to sell another one of yesterday's papers? Has no taste for the internets? Never mind. It was a crappy article in any case. Here's why.


Imagine writing about Betty Friedan's most well-known book and making a mistake about its title. Imagine making another mistake about a basic concept from her most well-known book. Imagine writing about "The Feminist Mystique" and thinking you're making any sense at all.

Somebody finally edited up Patti Cohen's bizarre creation, and had the mistakes she made in my home-delivered paper copy fixed by the time I went to the New York Times online this afternoon, but, oy--what's wrong at the Gray Lady? Now that we've heard of poor John Tierney weeping at there being just too damn many college-educated women, & now that we've read that rich, well-educated young women have more than enough damn money to be able to choose to whether to stay home or to go to work, one must ask--so, hey, which New York Times shill's putting down feminism now?

That would be Patti. Contrary to current revisionist historians such as Patti, ye olde-time women's libbers were perfectly well versed in, and supportive of--choices. Choices for men, and choices for women.

What part of that is so hard to follow?

Patti states, "But reality, of course, is messy and confusing. It's not clear what should give when women are still responsible for a disproportionate share of the housework . . .'

Uh, hello, DUUHH. What, are you kidding me? How stupid can one get?

That's the part that's hard to follow?

The part that suggests a 50/50 gender balance in jobs at the New York Times, all across the board? And elsewhere? A 50/50 balance in housework, and suchlike?

Is that what sticks in their gender-bent corporate craw? Yo.

With apologies to the Everly Brothers: Wake up, little Patti. Wake up.




New York Times
feminism
Tierney

Can You Cry Alito More Crocodile Tears on Cue, Honey?

It's sad, so sad. It's a sad, sad situation. All those mostly white guys sometimes mostly asking her white guy husband real questions, as if he had to actually answer them or something, instead of being rubber-stamped and anointed in the traditional way of our Godly Preznit Toad-Exploder. Looks like Alito's little woman's just not man enough to be a Supreme Court spouse.





(Check out Grace's blog comparing snivelling Alito to Jackie Kennedy.)

Alito
crocodile tears
vile Rovian spin

Reichwingers Howl, Boosting Condom Sales

Here, a story of one more American religious group vehemently trying to cram its religious beliefs down throats of innocent others who are not even semi-aspiring members of said group.

Condom key chains in US spark religious furor
A Connecticut abortion rights group has angered some conservative Christian groups by selling condom key chains that include an image of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel with God handing Adam a condom.

"It's an example of depraved morals and contempt for the sensibility of Catholics everywhere," said C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.

No Blood for Hubris, of course, considers the war in Iraq an example of depraved morals and contempt for the sensibility of Buddhists everywhere.

NBFH considers the insane, un-American, anti-human policies of the current Bushist Fascist regime to be an example of depraved morals and contempt for the sensibility of intelligent persons everywhere.

NBFH considers the whining of the anti-condom crowd to be beneath contempt everywhere. Cry about it, CJ.

The $3 key chains sold by Planned Parenthood of Connecticut on its Web site come in 28 designs including an image of a U.S. flag with the stars replaced with the words "Wear with Pride" and a Statue of Liberty holding a condom instead of a torch.

Another reads" "Condoms are cheaper than diapers" over a cartoon of a screaming baby.

I liked that one in particular.

Judy Tabar, Planned Parenthood of Connecticut's president and chief executive, said growing controversy over the key chains sparked a surge in Internet traffic to its Web site this week.

She said 100,000 visitors swamped the site on Thursday, causing it to shut down temporarily, after Internet columnist Matt Drudge posted a statement by a conservative Christian group condemning the key chains as "blasphemous."

Yuh? Well, boo frickin' HOO, Taliban Xtians.

The key chains had been on sale for a year, but had attracted controversy only this week.

"The media attention led to an avalanche of orders so much so that it caused our Web site to shut down. We have expanded our capacity and it is up again today," she said.

The politically sensitive issues of unwanted pregnancy and abortion are among the hottest topics in Washington this week during Senate confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Kristian Mineau, president of the conservative Massachusetts Family Institute, called the Sistine Chapel key chain image "a very crude and crass maneuver."

"This does nothing to deal with the horrific promiscuity rate we have among teenagers," he said. "We believe the real approach particularly to the young people that this is targeted at is abstinence before marriage."

Hey, Kristin, you want to teach that to your kids, go ahead. Just don't force your personal religious beliefs down the throats of everybody else in the country. And I won't be posting the Four Noble Truths in your town square anytime soon.

Taber said the variety of designs was aimed at appealing to a wide range of personalities. "Condoms are the best protection against unintended pregnancy and infection, so it's really important to get the message out there," she said.

No, no, no, we'd much rather increase the number of unwanted pregnancies and thus the number of unwanted children in the United States. We just don't have enough child abuse already, and we don't have enough criminals, either.

So, you're telling me--your Reichwing God wants more?

Mayor Bloomberg Orders Inquiry in Death of Abused Girl.

[Seven-year old] Nixzmary Brown . . . was beaten to death by her stepfather for eating a container of yogurt . . . Nixzmary died after months of being systematically tortured and denied food, prosecutors said. She weighed not quite 36 pounds. Her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, has been charged with murder, and her mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, with manslaughter. Both were also charged with endangering the welfare of a child.

child abuse
unwanted children
family planning
Catholic Action League

Brit General: US Army Racist, Slow, Wrong

From the Sydney Morning Herald

US Army its own worst enemy

A senior British Army officer has written a scathing critique of the US Army and its performance in Iraq, accusing it of cultural ignorance, moralistic self-righteousness, unproductive micromanagement and unwarranted optimism. . .


In an article published this week in the army magazine Military Review, Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who was deputy commander of a program to train the Iraqi military, said American officers in Iraq displayed such "cultural insensitivity" that it "arguably amounted to institutional racism" and may have spurred the growth of the insurgency.

The US Army has been slow to adapt its tactics, he argues, and its approach during the early stages of the occupation "exacerbated the task it now faces by alienating significant sections of the population" . . .

"[The US Army] seemed weighed down by bureaucracy, a stiflingly hierarchical outlook, a predisposition to offensive operations, and a sense that duty required all issues to be confronted head-on."

Those traits reflect the army's traditional focus on conventional wars and are seen by some experts as less appropriate for counterinsurgency, which they say needs patience, cultural understanding and a willingness to use innovative, counterintuitive approaches.

In counterinsurgency campaigns, Brigadier Aylwin-Foster says, "the quick solution is often the wrong one".

He argues that intense conformism and overly centralised decision-making slowed the army's operations in Iraq, giving the enemy time to respond.

The army's can-do spirit also encouraged a "damaging optimism" that interfered with realistic assessments. . ."

Hmm--damaging optimism, quick & wrong, racist, impatient--sounds suspiciously like our Fearless Leader, Bubble Boy, Preznit Toad-Exploder, does it not?

Your Tax Dollars Fund NSA to Spy on Quaker Peaceniks

Here, via Raw Story:

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY MOUNTED MASSIVE SPY OP ON BALTIMORE PEACE GROUP

by Kevin Zeese

The National Security Agency has been spying on a Baltimore anti-war group, according to documents released during litigation, going so far as to document the inflating of protesters' balloons, and intended to deploy units trained to detect weapons of mass destruction, RAW STORY has learned.

According to the documents, the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a Quaker-linked peace group, has been monitored by the NSA working with the Baltimore Intelligence Unit of the Baltimore City Police Department. . .

Links to NSA documents follow at RawStory. No time to post more now, just wanted to present this outrageous misuse of government funds and resources.

Deliberating Inflicting Pain: Force-Feeding at Gitmo

Details about the kind of force-feeding currently being used by the United States at the prison camp rightwingers call "Club Gitmo" are coming out in articles such as this one, from IrelandClick:

January 11 marks the fourth anniversary of detainees being held in the US Military Detention Centre in Guantanamo Bay. . .The UN special rapporteur on torture [Manfred Nowak] has revealed that there are allegations that Guantanamo hunger strikers are being force-fed in a cruel manner. . . Denied access to a judicial process and forced to live in what human rights groups have described as 'dog kennels' that offer little protection from the elements, prisoners, some believed to be as young as 13, have in the words of Amnesty International been involved in a "travesty of justice".

. . .New Lodge man Sam Millar, the former republican prisoner, . . . said watching the scenes from the horror camp were extremely distressing.

"When I look at what is going on in Guantanamo Bay and compare it with what happened to us, the parallels are frightening. . . I think there should be absolute outrage at what's going on, but for some reason it just doesn't seem to be a big issue. The way it is portrayed as well, they make you become immune to it. . . The telephone transcripts that have been released of the prisoners on the phone would break your heart. I am afraid this will alienate ordinary Americans from the rest of the world because of what their government is doing," he said.

In recent weeks . . .chilling new reports have emerged that forced with a growing hunger strike campaign by the detainees, the military has instigated a new regime of force feeding. . . [T]he grim reality of force feeding was described in detail by Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly . . .

"They press their knuckles into your jaws and press in hard. The way they finally did force feed me was getting forceps and running them up and down my gums," he said.

"I opened my mouth, but I was able to resist after that," said the Sinn Féin man in the interview.

"Then they tried – there's a part of your nose, like a membrane and it's very tender – and they started on that. It's hard to describe the pain. It's like someone pushing a knitting needle into the side of your eye. As soon as I opened my mouth they put in this wooden bit with a hole in the middle for the tube. They rammed it between my teeth and then tied it with cord around my head.

"Then they got paraffin and forced it down the tube. The danger is that every time it happens you think you're going to die. The only things that move are your eyes.

"They get a funnel and put the stuff down."

Affidavits from the prisoners in Guantanamo describe how the torture victims vomited up "substantial amounts of blood" while being fed through their nose. The US Military has denied that torture takes place in Guantanamo Bay and says there was not truth in the allegations.

However, by admitting to force feeding prisoners for republicans like Gerry Kelly, these words will have a hollow ring to them.

Here, via RawStory, The Observer covers admissions by the chief American physician at Club Gitmo.

New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive.

They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp's chief doctor, seen by The Observer. . . It is painful, Edmonson admits. Although 'non-narcotic pain relievers such as ibuprofen are usually sufficient, sometimes stronger drugs,' including opiates such as morphine, have had to be administered.

Thick, 4.8mm diameter tubes tried previously to allow quicker feeding, so permitting guards to keep prisoners in their cells for more hours each day, have been abandoned, the affidavit says. The new 3mm tubes are 'soft and flexible'.

The London solicitors Allen and Overy, who represent some of the hunger strikers, have lodged a court action to be heard next week in California, where Edmondson is registered to practise. They are asking for an order that the state medical ethics board investigate him for 'unprofessional conduct' for agreeing to the force-feeding.

Edmonson's affidavit, in response to a lawsuit on behalf of detainees on hunger strike since last August, was obtained last week by The Observer, as a Guantánamo spokesman confirmed that the number of hunger strikers has almost doubled since Christmas, to 81 of the 550 detainees. Many have been held since the camp opened four years ago this month, although they not been charged with any crime, nor been allowed to see any evidence justifying their detention.

This and other Guantánamo lawsuits now face extinction. Last week, President Bush signed into law a measure removing detainees' right to file habeas corpus petitions in the US federal courts. On Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to make this retroactive, so nullifying about 220 cases in which prisoners have contested the basis of their detention and the legality of pending trials by military commission.

Although some prisoners have had to be tied down while being force-fed, 'only one patient' has had to be immobilised with a six-point restraint, and 'only one' passed out.' In less than 10 cases have trained medical personnel had to use four-point restraint in order to achieve insertion.' Edmondson claims the actual feeding is voluntary. During Ramadan, tube-feeding takes place before dawn.

Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which US doctors are legally bound to observe through their membership of the American Medical Association, states that doctors must not undertake force-feeding under any circumstances. Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at Queen Elizabeth's hospital in Birmingham, is co-ordinating opposition to the Guantánamo doctors' actions from the international medical community. 'If I were to do what Edmondson describes in his statement, I would be referred to the General Medical Council and charged with assault,' he said.

The essence of this article appears at Islam On-line.
here.

The chief doctor in the US notorious Guantanamo detention camp has testified that detainees on hunger strike were tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages, reported The Observer on Sunday, January 8.

In a court affidavit, Captain John S Edmondson, commander of Guantanamo's hospital, said the procedure, now standard practice at Guantanamo, causes the strikers to suffer bleeding and nausea.

"Experience teaches us" that such symptoms must be expected "whenever nasogastric tubes are used," he added. . .

"A Guantanamo spokesman confirmed that the number of hunger strikers has almost doubled since Christmas, to 81 of the 550 detainees.

Many have been held since the camp opened four years ago this month, although they have not been charged with any crime, nor been allowed to see any evidence justifying their detention.

Tell me again how much success Karen Hughes' trip to the Muslim world must have had in repairing the image of the United States. Or, do you suppose Muslims just might be "actions speak louder than words" kinda folks?





Torture
Bush
force-feeding
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Guantanamo

The War on Christmas

(Found this via Hlinko at Kos and loved it--many thanks to Tawnya Dudash, Annabel Dudash, and Russell Baldon, photo by Geoff Douglass. Let's get them elves in the slammer where they belong!)