US Couple Kidnaps, Tortures Teen

Well, at least they're not the kid's own parents.

Plus --SHE's a Girl Scout leader!!

"A husband and wife have been charged with torture after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, US authorities said Tuesday.

Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, were arrested late Monday, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for police in Tracy, 60 miles east of San Francisco.

They had been taken into custody for questioning earlier in the day at their home in Tracy, where the emaciated boy was allegedly held against his will. A search of the home turned up evidence implicating the couple, Robinson said.

They were charged with torture, kidnapping and child abuse, and were set to appear in court Thursday, officials said. Bail was set at $1.2 million for Michael Schumacher but his wife's bail had not been set, authorities said.

Police said they were searching for a third suspect but wouldn't give details.

The boy turned up half-naked Monday at the In-Shape Sports Club, near the couple's home. It's not clear how he ended up in Tracy; authorities said he ran away last year from a foster home in Sacramento, about 70 miles to the north.

Robinson said the boy was confused when approached by detectives Monday, unsure where he had come from and how long he had been held against his will. He was taken to a hospital.

"The wounds he had and his physical condition as well as having a chain around his leg corroborated his basic statement that he was being held against his will," Robinson said.

Chuck Ellis, a manager of the In-Shape Sports Club, said the boy came into the fitness centre Monday afternoon wearing only boxer briefs, covered with what appeared to be soot. Ellis says the teen was scared someone was going to come after him and asked to be hidden.

'He said 'Don't let them get me, don't let them get me,'" Ellis said. 'He was totally terrified.'"

----

Oh, and for all you rabid fans of random parenthood, don't miss: TEEN MOM SMOTHERS INFANT SON WITH TEDDY BEAR.

(More suitable subjects for tonglen, it would seem.)

Hillary Clinton Named To State: Quick, Cue MediaWhoreMedia to Ramp Up CDS Spin: rivalry, power, control, oh, my!

From the Sydney Morning Herald, Clinton Stars in Obama Team,

December 3, 2008

"THERE is something about Hillary Clinton. She is not very tall, she is a conservative dresser, but when she enters a room she fills the space, even when she shares it with the president-elect.

On Monday, when Barack Obama and his choice as vice-president, Joe Biden, stood before eight American flags crowned with gilded eagles and revealed the names of the six top members of his national security team, it was the petite woman in the inky navy pantsuit who was the centre of attention. [will they ever stop talking about her clothes?]

No matter that on one side stood the first African-American attorney-general of the US, Eric Holder, and the long-standing Bush Administration official Robert Gates, who has agreed to stay on to end the Iraq war he has been running for two years.

Or that on the other side she was dwarfed by Jim Jones, a former supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a physically imposing former marine who makes Mr Obama look puny. . .

Mr Obama said he preferred to have strong-minded people with strong opinions around him.

He chided the media, saying the far bigger risk in the White House was the tendency towards "group think"."

A Vote for TalkLeft Is a Vote for TalkLeft

And why not?

Racist Fundamentalists F*ck Up in Mumbai: Fail to Kill Quota; Russian Says Gunmen Likely US Special Ops-Trained

Hey.

It's ok. So they were short by 4700 sentient beings.

Everybody makes mistakes.

Plus: Russian terror expert says gunmen had US special ops training.

"The handwriting and character of the Mumbai events demonstrates that they were not ordinary terrorists," said Vladimir Klyukin, an Afghan war veteran.

"Behind this terrorist attack there are 'Green Flag' special operations forces, which were created by the Americans in Pakistan, just an year before the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and in the initial period were under full US control," stressed Klyukin, a veteran of the special "Vympel" commando group of the former Soviet KGB.

He said for such guerrilla operations at least two-three years of preparatory work with the involvement of experienced instructors is required.

Klyukin did not rule out that the Mumbai attackers could have taken part in similar attacks in other regions.

"People from the streets, without any planning and training are simply not able to hold four big complexes in a city so long," Soviet special services veteran was quoted as saying by largest Russian Interfax news agency.

He also presumed that there were at least 50 attackers given the geography and scale of the strikes.

Incest Practitioner Turns His Mind Toward the Dharma?

Doing no evil whatsoever
Practice virtue perfectly
Tame your mind completely
This is the teaching of the buddha

O-kay. The roots of the lotus are in mud. So far so good.

But can't we be skeptical? Sure we can.

Incest [predator] Josef Fritzl says he's turned to Buddhism - and wants doctors to help cure him so he can be reunited with his wife Rosemarie.

Evil Fritzl spends much of his 23 hours a day in his cell studying the peaceful Far Eastern philosophy and is considering formally changing his religion in prison.

Speaking through his lawyer Rudolf Mayer, Fritzl said that he has found a lot of comfort in reading Buddhist literature and finds the religion "fascinating".

Fritzl first discovered Buddhism on a family holiday in Thailand but has only started studying the religion in depth while behind bars.

Prosecution sources remain suspicious of his Buddhist conversion.

"It's a bit late in his life to present himself as a man of peace. If he ever gets reincarnated, what would he come back as? Even making him a worm would be an insult to worms," said one.

Fritzl's facing the rest of his life in jail after imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth as a sex slave in a home-made cell under the family home in Amstetten, Austria. She was locked up for 24 years where she gave birth to seven of his children. An eighth child was miscarried.

But the dungeon demon has astonished medics by asking them to cure him so he can start a new life with his family.

"I realise now that I am not normal, and I see that somebody who did what I did cannot be regarded as normal.

"With the help of therapists I want to know what the real reasons are for why I behaved like I did and I want to get treatment, I want to be healthy again at some point," he told his lawyer.

And the deluded demon says he hopes therapy will lead to a reunion with wife Rosemarie and their children.

"I hope one day that we will be able to live together again," he said.

Fritzl, 73, has dismissed psychological reports that his cold, emotionless upbringing turned him into an incest monster.

"I don't want to blame my mother for the way I am. There's been enough bad things said about her. I don't know what the answer is and there is no solution in simply saying she is responsible for everything," he said.

Towards the end of her life cold-hearted Fritzl kept his mother locked up.

"She was not a bad woman although she had psychological problems that led her to be aggressive right up until she died - something which got worse in old age when she suffered from dementia as well.

"I forgave her a long time ago for what she did for me because I know she had a very hard life. At the end she always wanted to dress herself in rich clothes and it was one of the saddest days of my life when I went to her funeral and saw how few people had bothered to turn up," he explained.

Fritzl has also begun studying law behind bars to help him beat the charges he faces - murder, rape, slavery, incest, imprisonment and abuse.

Now it has emerged that Fritzl has been pouring over legal books about Austrian law looking for loopholes to save his neck.

While he will admit four charges which would put him in prison for a maximum of 10 years - he rejects the two more serious allegations that could see him locked up for life.

He claims that the charges of murder and slavery have been manufactured to make sure he is never free again.

Fritzl told his lawyer Rudolf Mayer: "I am guilty, but only to the first four charges, not to slavery and not to murder. The truth is that I am not a murderer either by accident or deliberately.

"I can understand how Elisabeth feels. I know that she hates me and that she is terrified I might one day again see freedom. But the fact is that many of the things she has said are just not true."

Astonishingly he admits to threatening to kill his cellar family with gas or electric shocks - but claims he never intended to go through with it.

"It is true that when they were underground I threatened them with murder, and led them to believe they would die from electricity shock or be gassed if they tried to escape. But I am not a murderer," he told his legal team."

Hmm. Hope this guy, while he's studying Buddhism so hard, gets to the part about karma, cause & effect.

Hubris? Bush Don't Got No Steekin' Hubris!!

I'm not making this up.

I don't have to.

I never have to.

BUSH WANTS HISTORY TO SEE HIM AS LIBERATOR OF MILLIONS.

Mumbai Gunmen Skillful, Planful, Ruthless

Indian commandos battle well-trained, ruthless gunmen.

"Fighting room-by-room through two luxury hotels, over dozens of bodies and through darkened corridors slick with blood, the commandos came up against well-trained and determined gunmen.

Explosions and gunfire continued intermittently at the Taj Mahal hotel Friday afternoon, two days after a chain of militant attacks across India's financial center left [153] people dead and the city in panic. . . .

It was a game of cat and mouse through the hotels' hundreds of rooms, and in many cases the gunmen had the advantage.

"These people were very, very familiar with the hotel layouts and it appears they had carried out a survey before," the commando said.

The gunmen used their knowledge to move skillfully from place to place, thwarting efforts to pin them down. To further confuse the commandos, they switched off lights and plunged the rooms into darkness. . . .

The gunmen showed "no remorse to anybody, whoever came in front of them they fired," said the commando.

They were armed with assault rifles and hand grenades and knew how to use them.

'It's obvious they were trained somewhere ... not everyone can handle the AK series of weapons or throw grenades like that,' the commando said."

Scale, sophistication suggest outside help

"Television footage showed the assailants carrying automatic rifles and backpacks filled with ammunition and grenades. Analysts said the fact that the gunmen quickly fanned across the city and were able to hold off Indian security forces over three days suggested that they had received training at organized camps.

"What is striking about this is a fair amount of planning had to go into this type of attack," said Roger W. Cressey, a former White House counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "This is not a seat-of-the-pants operation. This group had to receive some training or support from professionals in the terrorism business." "

Lashkar-e-Tayiba connection.

Suspect confirms LeT link.

Siege continues at the Taj.

Photo coverage via Boston.com.

Lashkar-e-Tayiba

Happy Thanksgivingday Post

One will be heavily involved in cookery and eatery all day today, as the No Blood for Hubris household gathers together for a festive Tibetan buddhist version Thanksgivingday feast. Mr. NBFH and oneself start dicing salt pork at dawn, no we don't I'm lying. Maybe around nine. Making NE style stuffing. This is complex and takes hours.. (Throw the salt pork into a big pot. Chop mounds of onions and celery and garlic. Wait around till the salt pork gets crispy. Watch cricket in the meantime. Remove salt pork pieces from big pot. Throw onions and celery and garlic into pot. Saute same. Throw in some Bell's Seasoning. Must be Bell's. . . . well, you get the idea . . . )

Life goes on in this vein for hours, with a serene wish that all things being cooked are ready more or less together which they never are, and that the gravy is purty smooth, which is mostly is. A good time is had by all, with thankfulness to toward all circumstances which have auspiciously arisen so that this occasion could occur.

So I wanted to put up something re: T-day, for the day. One was tempted by William Burroughs'Thanksgiving prayer, by Lord Amherst's biological warfare blankets (did that last year), and "Thanksgiving & Socialism: What Really Happened at Plymouth.".

One's slightly better self won out. This Thanksgiving song by Don Henley, attached to endless pictures of Don Henley, embodies hope, if not change, awareness of impermanence, and some other relevant Thanksgiving-y stuff.

Don Henley - My Thanksgiving (Photos and Videos Slide) - video powered by Metacafe

Be well, those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, and be well, those who do not.

Let's Be Thankful We're Not Forgetting Why It's Important Not to Treat Other Sentient Beings Like Pieces Of Sh*t

Mumbai. 121 dead 328 injured as of :2:33 ESTsting. WaPo update here.

One case of incest. Well, two really. With nine kids to show for it.

Boy held captive by father for half of life.

Austrian Incest Dad.

Foster parents in 'house of torture" get one year in jail each.


Stepfather convicted in Poutre case: child beaten with basebal bat, thrown down stairs.






Note: I had just finished writing this post when I went to check out what Jesus' General is up to. Seems like MJS of JG is riffing on similar themes: Sharing the Good News of Utter Despisement.

Bubble Boy: Pissed As A Newt on Pisco Sours in Gay Peru

Yup, it's official: Preznit Toad-Exploder's fallen off the wagon.

Libby Spencer's got it.

FYI: AP story asserts that that which Dirty Bush is drinking might be uh 'alcohol-free' Pisco?

[coughchokecough]

Yuh, they make a lot of that in Lima. Trust me.

My Tax Dollars At Work Torturing Sentient Beings at Gitmo. Swell.

A story that turns one's stomach. And if it doesn't, there's something really wrong with one's stomach.

Trapped at Gitmo.

The only people . . ."he sees [are] the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting -- brief, truncated cries. We could not understand what he was saying."

This She Calls Being Pro-Life?

Ha.

Al-Zawahiri Calls Obama a House Nigger

He tries to pass it off as "house negro," but of course that's not the actual term, is it?

Makes one want to call him a pig.

But one won't do that.

One will instead quote Nargarjuna's wish for the King:

Some beings go from dark to dark.
Some from dark to light.
And some from light to dark.
May you go from light to light.

News Flash: No Blood for Hubris Undergoes a Sudden, Unwitting Sex Change!!!

No, really.

Lookee here.


Www.genderAnalyzer.com, a site which analyzes the gender of blogwriters, scrutinized this here very blog.

And what were the results?

Results

We think http://nobloodforhubris.blogspot.com is written by a man (74%).

Wow. One finds that oneself is a man. Actually.

(Not that there's anything wrong with that. Per se.)

One does of course wonder what criteria Gender Analyzer used to analyze one's gender, does one not?

w00t!?

Miscellany

Anglachel on the stupidity that is Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

Dirty Bush Stuffs Gov't With Dirty Bushists to Continue Failed Bushist Fascist Policies -- Because Bubble Boy Is Still the Deciderer!

Options for shutting down Gitmo.

Iraq Stands Proud and Tall For Fraud

Get Your Church Out of My State

Oh good.

We so like it when civil rights are determined by majority rule, a majority propagandized and hyped by churches pushing specific behavioral agendas.

What's next?

Mosaic Law?

Slavery -- on an up-or-down vote?

Hey, the sky's the limit if you can organize bigots to vote the way your church wants, eh? (Me, I'm pushing the legislative agenda of Buddhists Against Roach Motels).

Mormon interference in Proposition 8 and Catholic interference in the Presidential election do not constitute an exercise in freedom of speech. It is meddling in politics.

If churches want to do politics, fine, but if they do, they must be stripped of their precious tax exemptions.

Which makes the whole thing more about karma, cause and effect, does it not?

No More Mangers: Talibangelicals Celebrate Torture Death of Christ By Selling Christmas-Spirit-y Electric Burning Crosses

You just can't make this shit up.


Hat tip to Balloon Juice.

Closing Gitmo: Inadmissable Evidence, Inconvenient Torturees

Good article from the BBC on issues facing Obama re: closing Gitmo.

"Legal problems

The legal problems involved in trying terrorist suspects have not yet been resolved. Some say that the prisoners should simply be brought before normal US courts. It is thought there are about 50 or so prisoners who might face trial, out of the 255 or so in the camp.

A new system would also come under the close scrutiny of the US courts and a case against it would probably go right up to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality

The problem is that evidence against them might have obtained either through coercion, or even torture, or from foreign agencies which have used similar methods.

Some of this evidence might be admitted in a trial before a military tribunal. So might hearsay evidence, in which someone relates what he or she was told, if the military judge decides that it would have "probative value to a reasonable person".

But neither would be acceptable under the normal rules of US courts.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for example, charged at Guantanamo with responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, was subject to waterboarding. It is true that he has expressed a wish to die but a civilian court in the US might not admit evidence against him gathered at Guantanamo Bay. Then what happens? It is hard to see him simply being released.

There is also the problem of whether the source of some evidence should be withheld from the prisoner."

And what are they going to do with all the prisoners they've driven mad?

See Torturing Democracy.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Yes.

That is the correct answer.

Bob Somerby Gets It

Three prostrations with folded hands to Bob Somerby. No, really, for Somerby takes media whore media whore misogynists to task at the Daily Howler:

"OLBERMANN: Wow. I mean, to what degree is that the other prominent Republican governors who got some passing mention during this campaign, with an eye towards 2012—Jindal, Pawlenty, Crist? Is there any sense that any of them are forming a power base behind Palin? Or are they intending to, you know, cut her up like a Roman dictator and smuggle her out under their robes?

CARLSON: Ha, ha. Well, they only say that quietly, Keith."

Sorry, but that’s very strange. A few months ago, Olbermann apologized for picturing Hillary Clinton getting beaten up by a bunch of goons behind locked doors. This week, he was picturing Sarah Palin getting cut up into pieces.

Within moments, he mockingly compared her to Lindsay Lohan—then, to Dizzy Dean.

It’s always surprising to see the way such fellows discuss the women they hate. They seem to find it hard to do so without picturing violence or turning to overt, gender-based derision. In our view, Palin is a remarkably underwhelming figure, in ways which are quite easy to define. You don’t have to compare her to Lohan, or picture her being killed—unless your skills are remarkably weak, or you simply enjoy hating women. But MSNBC has trafficked, for many years, in weird, remarkable woman-loathing. And when it comes to their new uber-star, it seems he’s gotta have it.

But then, [t]here’s Archie Bunker—sorry, Josh Marshall—letting us know, just yesterday, who the latest “dingbat” is. Without even bothering to report what this new “dingbat” actually said!

But so it goes as progressive intellectual standards spiral steadily downward. Olbermann’s performance on Wednesday’s show was an unfortunate case in point. He performed in ways which used to define the woeful standards of pseudo-con talk. . . .

What can you say about a guy who can’t lay out Palin’s obvious weaknesses without resorting to gender-based trashing? But most strikingly, Olbermann’s instinct for violent imagery doesn’t seem to want to quit. This is bad for progressive interests, and it’s bad for young men and young women. We’d have to say it’s just plain bad for the world in which we all live.

Can someone explain why “progressive” leaders can’t seem to quit this kind of talk?

Anglachel's Journal: Women They Love To Hate.

Perhaps more to the point, why don't we have more men like Bob Somerby unflinchingly calling out the misogyny of people like Olbermann?

Hmm. I don't know why we don't.

Why don't we?

Election Euphoria Over, Back to Samsara As Usual

Lee couple arrested on charges of child abuse after boy's ear partially detached.



[Mom and] Teen [BF] Charged As Adult In 2-Year-Old's Beating

New details are coming out about the mother and teenager arrested in a horrific case of alleged child abuse in Pahrump that left a 2 - year - old boy in critical condition.
28 - year - old Michaele Griffin is facing felony child abuse charges.
Her 16 - year - old boyfriend, Danny Linville, was booked on attempted murder. Linville is being charged as an adult.

Daycare Provider Charged With Child Abuse

A day care provider in Rugby is accused of striking, kicking or throwing six children in her care.

Afghan Schoolgirl Attacked With Acid for Daring to Attend School Will Return to Classes

KABUL (Reuters) - A victim of an acid attack on schoolgirls in Afghanistan said Saturday she was determined to stay in school and finish her education even if that meant risking death.

The girl, who gave her name as just Shamsia, was the most seriously injured of a group of girls attacked outside their school by unidentified men in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday.

"I'll continue my schooling even if they try to kill me. I won't stop going to school," Shamsia said from her bed at Afghanistan's main military hospital in Kabul.

A Shout-Out "w00t!" to Americans United for the Separation of Church & State

One is seriously considering metaphorically renditioning Talibangelical pin-up gov and cheeky, winky ex-Trophy VEEP Sarah Palin forcibly metaphorically to induct her into Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a fine bunch of separationists who organized a fab blogger meet-up in DC recently, at which many fab bloggers actually met up (including the divine Flying Corrente Brothers VastLeft and Lambert, BlueGal, Dr. Zaius, PZ of Pharyngula, tristero, Ed of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, the divine Jesus' General, et al.) to frolick and to gambol, to say the least. It was inspiring.

Many many thanks to Beth Corbin and AU.

Bush Admin to Obama: Shutting Down Gitmo "Won't Be Easy"

Not as easy as leading the US into moral and fiscal bankrupcty, anyhow.

Bushist Fascist Operative Compares Palin-McCain Infighting to "Middle School Girls' Clique"

Bet them operatives don't recognize that as a sexist frame, either, do they?

Not that one minds. "Circular firing squad" works, too.

"Sarah Palin is sorting through her luggage working out what clothes belong to her and what do not, her spokesman said yesterday. [hey shouldn't that be "spokeswoman"? Or "spokesmodel"?]

Meg Stapleton added that the Alaskan governor was coming under unfair attack from a 'firing squad' of anonymous John McCain staffers in a frenzy of finger-pointing.

'It’s a circling firing squad,' said Ms Stapleton.

In a string of damaging briefings, it was claimed that Mrs Palin had spent 'tens of thousands' more on her clothes than budgeted for, that she once met McCain aides dressed in nothing but a towel and that she did not know Africa was a continent.

She was also unable to name the nations in the vitally important North American Free Trade Agreement. There are only three - her own, its northern neighbour Canada and its southern neighbour Mexico. "

Hat-tip to reader AT.

News Flash: God To Show Palin "The Way"

Hmm.
Didn't He do that last Tuesday?