None Dare Call It Torture. Not Quite "None," But Close

However, turns out that NOT prosecuting torture is a violation of international law. Oopsie.

The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration.

President Barack Obama’s release on Thursday of four Bush administration memos sanctioning torture has been widely praised. However, word that government will go so far as to offer a fully-paid legal defense for agents who applied torture techniques to terror war prisoners has triggered loud criticism.

“Like all other contracting states to the UN convention against torture, the US has committed to conduct criminal investigations of torture and to bring all persons to court against whom there is sound evidence,” Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, told Austrian weekly paper Der Standard.

“They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear,” Nowak told the paper. “The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility.”

“In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak [...] said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Note to teabaggers: pay your taxes like a man

This is why:

Desperate veterans turn to suicide.

You break it, you buy it.

Several branches of the military are reporting significant spikes in the number of suicides committed by both active-duty troops and veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts are calling the number of military-related suicides sweeping the country an "epidemic."

Survivors of veterans who committed suicide are starting to file lawsuits, accusing the VA of medical malpractice. The agency also has come under attack by lawmakers and veterans' groups charging that it failed to treat injured veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The agency also has been accused of manipulating suicide statistics to downplay the problem and systematically misdiagnosing returning combat soldiers who suffer mental illness because their resources are tapped.

I wrote long ago about the cons deliberately mis-diagnosing PTSD in an attempt to deny services. Click on PTSD; I can't elaborate because I'm off to a seminar. On treating PTSD, as it happens. More later.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

You Can Never Be Too Rich, Too Thin or Too Traumatized. or, PAY YOUR [expletive deleted/warningintentional use of sexist frame] TAXES LIKE A MAN

Teabagging. [coughchoke spit].

So the cons are trying to tough that one out? Bwahahah. Now teabagging is their BRAND.

And they're too pussy to pay their taxes.

Oy.

So, some otherwise perfectly nice people for whom I was set to volunteer my valuable time and really very high end clinical skills [it's not me, it's my training] to treat Vets with PTSD.

Some otherwise perfectly nice people started saying some critical things about Obama [which I am perfectly capable of doing myself, mind you] and I reminded them that in addition to being a card-carrying buddhist [well, actually I didn't remind them of that] I am a card-carrying bleeding heart liberal [and why else would I be offering to work for NOTHING].

And one of them said it was fine as long as I wasn't a socialist.


No, really.


I kid you not.

I thinktheir idea of being a socialist means being someone who's for universal health care, btw.

So -- what am I, boys and girls? Socialist?

How about "commie
pinko"?

Dept. of "As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap," or: Build Roads While Wearing Sad Faces of Regret re: the Decay of Our Puny Social Infrastructure

Hey. Turns out the Dems don't give a crap about the sick, poor, the insane, the elderly, the young, the vulnerable either. And here I was just blaming the Republicans. But there's enough blame to go around, really. Because, you know, these are hard times. Somebody has to suffer. If they're already suffering, what's the bad thing about piling on a little more, eh?

States Slashing Social Programs for the Vulnerable.

No reason to slash progams for the invulnerable, is there?

Saudis, Si! Cuba, No!

It's obvious that it's OK to trade with the Saudis, who treat their women like dirt, and it's OK to sell off our country to the genocidal Red Chinese, but Cuba?

Pfft.

Why would we trade with them? Why would we visit them? They've got a health care system that actually works! Can't expose our population to that, can we?

In the meantime, we're still dependent on and trading with a country that thinks marrying off 8-year-old girls is swell. Saudi Arabia. Marrying off an 8-year old girl to her Daddy's 47-year-old male "close friend."

"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks last January quoted in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."

Saudi, si! Porque no?

More Evidence We've Still Not Reached Peak Stupid

So getting elected President of the United States isn't enough of a big deal to qualify Barack Obama for an honorary degree?

Well, no. No, it's not. Not to ASU. To Notre Dame, it is. But not to Arizona State University. Nah.

One takes this special opportunity to seize teh day, and email the unfortunately-presciently-named yet karmically-correct President Michael M. "Eat" Crow of Arizona State University, here, and let him know if you concur: granting an honorary degree to the actual already-well-degreed President Obama is just too much, too soon.

Torture. It's a Tough Job, But Somebody Has To Do It.

The US has to torture. The CIA has to torture. Preferably torturing by trained medical professionals, eh?

Because -- we can torture if we say it isn't what it obviously is.

Sort of like "a rose by any other name would ---" except backwards.

Anyhow, no wonder humans who did stuff like this -- you know, torturing -- might not want word to get out about it. Oh but wait. It's out. Well never mind. We'll get out of it somehow. Heck, we only torture because we must. We was only following orderss.

Here's some fun facts about the CIA's notion of patriotism in action:

Raise your hand if you think doing unto others the following things puts you in the category of "good person" (sic):

*Suffocation by water poured over a cloth placed over the nose and mouth...
* Prolonged stress standing position, naked, held with the arms extended and chained above the head...
* Beatings by use of a collar held around the detainees' neck and used to forcefully bang the head and body against the wall...
* Beating and kicking, including slapping, punching, kicking to the body and face...
* Confinement in a box to severely restrict movement...
* Prolonged nudity...this enforced nudity lasted for periods ranging from several weeks to several months...
* Sleep deprivation...through use of forced stress positions (standing or sitting), cold water and use of repetitive loud noises or music...
* Exposure to cold temperature...especially via cold cells and interrogation rooms, and...use of cold water poured over the body or...held around the body by means of a plastic sheet to create an immersion bath with just the head out of water.
* Prolonged shackling of hands and/or feet...
* Threats of ill-treatment, to the detainee and/or his family...
* Forced shaving of the head and beard...
* Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food from 3 days to 1 month after arrest...

The ICRC report further clarifies the report's frequent use of the term 'ill-treatment':

The general term "ill-treatment" has been used throughout the following section, however, it should in no way be understood as minimising the severity of the conditions and treatment to which the detainees were subjected. Indeed, as outlined in Section 4 below, and as concluded by this report, the ICRC clearly considers that the allegations of the fourteen include descriptions of treatment and interrogation techniques -- singly or in combination -- that amounted to torture/and or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

"Furthermore, nine of the fourteen detainees reported that they had been subjected to threats of ill-treatment that included waterboarding, electric shocks, infection with HIV, sodomy, arrest and rape of family, torture, being brought close to death, and interrogation sessions where "no rules applied."


How do torturers sleep at night?

Answer: not well.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Military Blows Up Live Pigs. Makes Them Dead.

I wonder what percentage of the military, so heavily Talibangelical, considers itself to be strongly pro-life (sic). Like ex-Preznit Toad Exploder.

More here.

Love Hurts

I'm not making this up.

Why it is ok that vaginal sex hurts. Ok, well, he's making it up.

Demo using tomato. No, its an apple. Dutch guy explains it all. Really. Well, or not really. Yes, not really.

And arguably the worst part is -- that one really cannot tell bushistfascist unseen-inherently-satirical-reality from regular reality-type satire anymore. Oh my. The thin thin thin thin thinnest line. (Refers readers to stories on adopting snowflake "babies" frozen feti and christian domestic discipline and talibangelical christian daddies' inappropriate balls, and and and . . .)

Before We Get All Weepy About Frozen Feti, Might We Attend to the Fate of the Post-Born, Esp. Those With Sadistic Mommies &/or Daddies &/or BFs?

Yes, Virginia, one of the reasons our society is so well-defended against bringing abusive parenting into consciousness is because it's just so vile that we really don't want to hear about it. Count me in that category.

On the other hand, if we push it out of consciousness, we'll never reach the point where, as a society, we've really had enough.

Here's an angry Daddy whose anger was known to the authorities and to his neighbors.

Carolyn and Raymond Bader, who used to live across from the home where the children were found, said they often heard the father screaming and yelling at the children.

The Baders said they called the sheriff's department and Child Protective Services several times with concerns about the family.

"We did all we could to help these kids," Raymond Bader said tonight. "We tried to protect these kids. We did what we could."

Carolyn Bader said a friend had called her with the news of the deaths.

"I couldn't believe he'd actually done it. Do I think he was capable of it? Sure," she said, referring to the father. "It just shocks me. I'm totally shocked. What could five children do that was so bad? I can't imagine what would go through someone's head to make them do something like this."

Dale Lund, another neighbor in the mobile-home park, said the boy who was killed played at times with his grandson and the two shared the same school-bus stop. The boys attended elementary school together, Lund said.

The slain children played in their own yard most of the time, he said.

"They pretty much kept to themselves over there," Lund said of the family.

Lund's wife, Sheree Lund, said, "We're tore up. We're just tore up. Why the kids, you know?"

Lund said the father was considered by neighbors to be "plenty mean" and he "kept a real tight rein on the kids."

"Plenty mean"? He killed his five children. Yuh, that counts as domestic violence, does it not?

But really, some people are waaay more moved by the fate of feti and the fate of frozen feti than with protecting actual children. Whyever would that be?

Department of Cutting Social Services & Encouraging Random Parenthood

Abusive mother of the month.

Mass. mother charged with stabbing 2-year-old girl

Friday, April 3, 2009; 11:02 AM

GARDNER, Mass. -- A woman who believes she was being stalked by a cult has been charged with stabbing her 2-year-old daughter 100 times with scissors . . .
Johnson, 38, also used an electrical cord from a dryer to try and strangle the toddler, police said, but the security guard and two residents separated mother and child just before police arrived.

"I heard a woman screaming very loudly that she was going to 'Kill, kill, I have to kill you, Die, die, die,'" said resident Real Belliveau, 65, who lives just down the hall from the laundry room. . . he thought the child was already dead because she was limp, covered in blood and had the cord wrapped around her neck.

The girl was taken to a hospital suffering from as many as 100 wounds to her head, neck and torso, but many of them were superficial, police Chief Neil Erickson said. The child, who is now in the custody of state child welfare authorities, was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.

[and then she'll come and see someone like . . . well, NBFH. Who has heard this story before, thank you very much.]

The state Department of Children and Families made a check on the girl at her home in Turners Falls, about 35 miles west of Gardner, the day before the attack, . . . the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and WBZ-TV reported. Department spokeswoman Alison Goodwin refused to confirm the report Thursday and said only the department is now investigating.

[DCF checked on her the day before. DCF workers have twice as many cases as are recommended. Do you think that workers carrying a recommended caseload might have done a better job?]


. . .Johnson has a history of depression and had not been taking her medication . . .[Oh. Well, that wouldn't have had anything to do with unaffordable health care, would it? Or being unable to afford her meds and treatment? How about health insuance not paying for coordination of care?] Binder said, adding she does not remember the attack in the laundry room.

"She seems to be very paranoid," he said.

Johnson was held without bail on a number of charges including attempted murder and ordered to undergo a competency evaluation at her arraignment Thursday in Gardner District Court. A dangerousness hearing was scheduled for April 17.

Oh, and this is child abuse month, isn't it?

Hey, Kidz! What Day Is It? In China? Why, It's Anti-Dalai Lama Day!!

China Observes Anti-Dalai Lama Day!!

But how does that exactly work?

It works like this:

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness! [NOT]

May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! [NOT]

May all beings rest in the great evenness of mind
free from passion, aggression, and prejudice! [NOT]

That being the case -- isn't EVERY day in China Anti-Dalai Lama Day????

Well, If You Can Ban a Peacemaker from a Conference on Peace, Why Not Bring A Rape-Victim-Blamer to Rape Victim Fundraiser?

I'm sure Bill O'Reilly will be happy to tell them it's all their fault. They should just have been wearing burqas the little sluts.

Of course, if the group has no funds, isn't it their own damn fault?

From NewsHounds:

Bill O’Reilly, however, has shown his total disregard for rape victims in the following statement made on his radio show: “Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She's walking by herself on the West Side Highway . . .

Walking by herself? In a mini-skirt? Without an escort? Without a burqa?

What would the Saudis think?

[hat tip to Jesus' General.]

Technorati Tags: c

Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace-Prize Winner, Banned from South African Conference on Peace: Guess We've Still Not Reached Peak Stupid

Nobel Peace Prize winner banned from a peace conference?

Yep.

Nope, I'm not making this up. I don't have to. I never have to.

Dalai Lama Banned from South African Peace Conference

"Nobel [peace prize] winners Desmond Tutu and FW de Clerk to boycott anti-racism conference in World Cup run-up after Chinese pressure forces ban on Tibetan spiritual leader


Two of South Africa's Nobel peace prize winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk, have pulled out of a Johannesburg conference to fight racism after what they branded as Pretoria's "disgraceful" decision to ban the Dalai Lama from attending following Chinese pressure.

The Nobel peace prize committee also said it would boycott this Friday's conference, which is dedicated to tackling racism ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

The row threatens to draw in Nelson Mandela, who, with his fellow South African laureates, invited the Tibetan spiritual leader, and further embarrasses South Africa, which has been accused of squandering its moral authority since ending apartheid by blocking UN security council moves to pressure rogue governments in Burma and Zimbabwe.

Tutu, who won the prize for his resistance to white rule, told Johannesburg's Sunday Independent newspaper he will not attend the conference to discuss how to use the World Cup preparations to combat racism and xenophobia if the Tibetan spiritual leader is not present. . . "

[hat-tip to billy-bob neck]

china loses face, dalai lama, south afric peace conference

Pope re Suffering: Drop Dead

Ok, so condom use prevents the transmission of AIDS, thus preventing the suffering to follow.

Moral of the story: don't use condoms. Because really, we just don't give a shit about your suffering.

Compassion, Compassion, Compassion, But Really, People -- First Things First

One is, like, TO-tally into the whole rilly rilly widespread compassion kinda thing. Rilly. One means -- one is actually buddhist. See sidebar. Does one not specifically advocate generating limitless compassion, inconceivable compassion [!] toward all sentient beings, even including Dick Cheney? Answer: why, one does!

That being said, there is a continuum of being, with Dick Cheney way to the right [the less-sentient side] of well, you know, amoebas and little motile sperm. Which are way more sentient than he. Imho. [Oh alright, one is exaggerating for effect. But Cheney IS morally deformed.]

That being said, one thinks that it is not ok for there to be a sperm-rights movement, nor an embryo liberation front, as still-employed [why? why?] bushist fascist blowhard Kathleen Parker apparently would like. Unhappiness over the horrid possibility of certain death for widdle fwozen embryos with their big round sad eyes, the passionate attachment that drove Octo-Mom to save her own brood of widdle fwozen ones from melting leave me, well --cold.

Obama, she says . . . "missed an opportunity to prove that he is pro-science but also sensitive to the concerns of taxpayers who don't want to pay for research that requires embryo destruction."

Well, as long as she's not an anti-vivisectionist, hunh?

One feels she is crazy. Not unlike one's feelings about having more compassion for the pre-born than for the post-born. One does not think that is actual compassion, one thinks that is just really stupid. In other terms, it is a view born of [heh] passion, aggression, and ignorance.

But one gets it. Bushist fascism means not caring about torture, poverty, child abuse, war, actual post-born people, the suffering of sentient beings.

Morality just means never having to say "DEFROST."

Hey. I Got a Good One. In Austria, What's the Sentence for Incest? One year. Hah.

Which is why Austrian Father of the Year Josef Fritzl plead guilty to incest and rape, don'tcha think?

But wait, there's more . . .
(warning: this story is not heart-safe:)

But the prosecutor at the packed court in St Poelten dismissed Fritzl's pleadings, saying the "real truth" was that Fritzl drugged his daughter, dragged her into the cellar and was in "complete control" of her for the next 24 years. . . .

The court was told that Fritzl imprisoned Elisabeth in a tiny pre-prepared cellar, measuring just 18 sq m (200sq ft) in August 1984, then kept her tied "on a leash" for 24 hours a day.

He eventually untied her nine months later, but only to make it easier to rape her on a daily basis. In total, he is thought to have raped Elisabeth more than 3,000 times.

Elisabeth, aged just 18 when her ordeal began, gave birth to the first of their children entirely alone, with just a self-help pregnancy book, a pair of scissors and some nappies to help her cope. Fritzl did not bother to visit her or bring supplies for the baby for 10 days after the birth.

The most disturbing part, from my point of view is this:

The details of what has been described by one state official as 'the worst criminal trial in Austria's history' are so horrific that the court is sitting for limited hours each day to avoid traumatising the jury, who are being offered counseling.

Guess I Picked the Wrong Day to Quit Thinkin' We'd Already Hit "Peak Stupid"

Yeah, I think all that "reward good behavior" stuff is um like to-tally wrongheaded.

When you find people who really suck at their jobs, the proper response is to Throw More Of Taxpayers' Money At Them!! Because -- if at first you don't succeed, try to try not succeeding AGAIN!

Because otherwise, these ruinously incompetent greedy swine would turn out to be seen as LOSERS. And then they'd default on their MORTGAGES and lose their HOUSES. And then the loudmouth wankers on MSNBC would BLAME THEM. Like LIMBAUGH.

FOR BEING STUPID.

I on the other hand feel no need to wait for MSNBC. I can blame them for being STUPID right now.

Which I, you know, just did.

; )

Torture Is As Torture Does

Voices From the Black Sites.


Hat-tip to Anonymous Source.

Georgia Grants Yoo-man Rights to Frozen Feti -- Will Creamsicles Be Next?

No, I'm not making this up. I don't have to. I never have to.


Hat-tip to bbn.

Shut UP Maureen

More crap about presidential spousal wardrobe.

Sexist. Stupid. Talibangelical. Second in a series of sexist stupid Talibangelical stories in the New York Times.

And the writers are, apparently, getting paid for this tripe?

Levi Needs a Lawyer

Hey. So they broke up.

No surprise there.

Bristol has split with boyfriend Levi Johnston and according to Levi's sister, Mercede, Bristol refuses to let him see their son Tripp.

But in most states, biodads get to visit their kids if they want to. Does he want to? Does she want him not to? Even the Governor, Levi's not-quite-ex-mother-in-law can't do that, can she?

Some say, especially the family values family kinda Bushist fascist Republicans say, that every baby needs a mommy and a daddy. Well, why didn't they just get married in the first place? Why didn't they go ahead with a covenant marriage, already? Then, they couldn't split!! Which would like fix everything! Sheesh!

Step-Dad Who Incested 9-year-old Girl NOT Excommunicated by Catholic Church

Well, why would raping and knocking up one's 9-year-old stepkid be some big deal, anyhow?

Failing to force one's 9-year-old raped child to give birth?

That'll throw ya outa the church.


------
Prior coverage here.

Our Friends the Saudis Punish 75-year-old Lady With Forty Lashes for "Mingling"

"Mingling"? Yeah, I hate it when them broads mingle. So uppity. So annoying.

Ok, so it's a day after the UN Day of Women. Enough already. Don't get your panties in a twist. Sure, we're gonna keep on trading with the Saudis. Look how much all this trade has helped their human rights situation so far! Wowee! Note the abaya in picture, left. Ring a bell, does it?

It's not like it's Cuba. Heck, we sure don't wanna trade with them Cubans. Saudi? Si! Cuba? No!

It's not like its apartheid or something, is it?

Trading for profit with a vile oppressor of the basic rights of half the Saudi population? I mean, why not? We trade with China, don't we?




Saudi Arabia sexism theocracy women's rights Islamist wahabi torture

Catholic Church Wants Forced Maternity for 9 -Year-Old Rape Victim

Isn't that so very compassionate?

Suffer the little children to -- oh, you know, suffer!

A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped.

Not to mention protecting a rapist's right to breed.

Oh, and on that happy note, happy International Women's Day. Which, although I belong to multiple US liberal groups, somehow had escaped my notice. Checking Kos, I don't see it in the top 10. And as of this writing 3:50, I don't see any article about it -- at all. I don't see anything at Americablog -- though I do see mention of what clothes John thinks the First Lady OUGHT to be wearing. And not wearing.


rape government-forced maternity Roman Catholic Church