Unwanted Babies, Si! Unwanted Aliens, No!

What's wrong with supporting child wantedness?

We've asked before, and we're asking again: is a wanted child likely to wind up with injuries like these?

Do we really want to fill America with millions of unwanted children, who grow up unloved and uncared-for, providing our society with criminals and drug addicts? Don't we have enough already?

When will our fetal sentimentalists (who weep over the failure of women to bear millions of unwanted children) be contacting America's illegal deportationists, those who feel somehow personally deprived by the presence of America's millions of unwanted illegal aliens? (My guess is that the millions of unwanted embryoes get a pass because they're "innocent", while the adult aliens are ipso facto "guilty". Still, it's an interesting notion, that millions in one overpopulating category are OK, while the other millions are not. Plus, what about original sin for all?).

I surfed a a forced-maternity website today, of the shrieky creepy misogynist-authoritarian kind, where the decision to bear a child is as trivial as picking up another carton of milk. Even, so I was quite surprised to see this:

Where have all the Down’s children gone?

Well, we know where, but we don’t want to talk about it. Very well-written, and chilling op-ed in the Washington Post by a Down’s Syndrome child’s mother. And, if you follow the blog links, predictably inhuman responses from the other side. Why is it that people appoint themselves judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to other innocent people’s lives when the other people are unable to speak for themselves?

We as a society are no different from ancient Rome. Not a bit.

How nice. Apparently there just aren't enough Downs' syndrome kids anymore, not enough to satisfy these odd people--they think it's so sad there aren't more of them like in the olden days, so sad, and so they sadly wonder, "Where have all the Downs syndrome babies gone? Please, sir--we want more! More!"

Yes, Virginia, they want more. More unwanted children. More suffering. More beaten babies to grow up to be Moussaouis.

(Previously: In Nightmares Begin Responsibilities; Embryo-centrist, anti-babyist misogynists can just shut up NOW); Creating unwanted children: the real cost.

El Sueno de la Razon Produce Monstruos

The sleep of reason creates monsters -- Goya




Here is Big Dick Cheney falling asleep at yet another meeting. All things considered, I guess we're all better off when he's unconscious.

PS. Up and running again, knock on wood. Thanks to all.

Preznit Toad-Exploder Behind Blair Dumping Jack Straw?

Some say that it's Bush who dumped Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, not Tony Blair. Some say Straw was dumped because he would not bend to the marr--um, to the nuking of Iran.

Hunh? Really? Yikes. Could be.

What I'm wondering is -- what does Bubble Boy have on Tony Blair as blackmail that's so bad Blair just has to keep being Bush's arse-licker?

Color videos of Tony and Cherie ritually flaying, slaying, marinating, grilling, and voraciously devouring a whole class of cuddly kindergartners?

What, O God, what?

Since There Is No Such Thing as Global Warming, Ancient Glaciers Now Melting In Tibet Are, Like, No Problem

ICE-CAPPED ROOF OF WORLD TURNS TO DESERT


Scientists warn of ecological catastrophe across Asia as glaciers melt and continent's great rivers dry up

Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists have revealed.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences - the country's top scientific body - has announced that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade. Each year enough water permanently melts from them to fill the entire Yellow River.

They added that the vast environmental changes brought about by the process will increase droughts and sandstorms over the rest of the country, and devastate many of the world's greatest rivers, in what experts warn will be an "ecological catastrophe".

The plateau, says the academy, has a staggering 46,298 glaciers, covering almost 60,000 square miles. At an average height of 13,000 feet above sea level, they make up the largest area of ice outside the polar regions, nearly a sixth of the world's total.

The glaciers have been receding over the past four decades, as the world has gradually warmed up, but the process has now accelerated alarmingly. Average temperatures in Tibet have risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years, causing the glaciers to shrink by 7 per cent a year, which means that they will halve every 10 years.

Prof Dong Guangrong, speaking for the academy - after a study analysing data from 680 weather stations scattered across the country - said that the rising temperatures would thaw out the tundra of the plateau, turning it into desert.

He added: "The melting glaciers will ultimately trigger more droughts, expand desertification and increase sand storms." The water running off the plateau is increasing soil erosion and so allowing the deserts to spread.

Sandstorms, blowing in from the degraded land, are already plaguing the country. So far this year, 13 of them have hit northern China, including Beijing. Three weeks ago one storm swept across an eighth of the vast country and even reached Korea and Japan. On the way, it dumped a mind-boggling 336,000 tons of dust on the capital, causing dangerous air pollution.

The rising temperatures are also endangering the newly built world's highest railway, which is due to go into operation this summer. They threaten to melt the permafrost under the tracks of the £1.7bn Tibetan railway, constructed to link the area with China's northwestern Qinghai province.

Perhaps worst of all, the melting threatens to disrupt water supplies over much of Asia. Many of the continent's greatest rivers - including the Yangtze, the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong and the Yellow River - rise on the plateau.

In China alone, 300 million people depend on water from the glaciers for their survival. Yet the plateau is drying up, threatening to escalate an already dire situation across the country. Already 400 cities are short of water; in 100 of them - including Beijing - the shortages are becoming critical.

Even hopes that the melting glaciers might provide a temporary respite, by increasing the amount of water flowing off the plateau - have been dashed. For most of the water is evaporating before it reaches the people that need it - again because of the rising temperatures brought by global warning.

Yao Tandong, head of the academy's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Research Institute, summed it up. "The full-scale glacier shrinkage in the plateau regions will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe," he said.

Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists have revealed.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences - the country's top scientific body - has announced that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade. Each year enough water permanently melts from them to fill the entire Yellow River.

They added that the vast environmental changes brought about by the process will increase droughts and sandstorms over the rest of the country, and devastate many of the world's greatest rivers, in what experts warn will be an "ecological catastrophe".

The plateau, says the academy, has a staggering 46,298 glaciers, covering almost 60,000 square miles. At an average height of 13,000 feet above sea level, they make up the largest area of ice outside the polar regions, nearly a sixth of the world's total.

The glaciers have been receding over the past four decades, as the world has gradually warmed up, but the process has now accelerated alarmingly. Average temperatures in Tibet have risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years, causing the glaciers to shrink by 7 per cent a year, which means that they will halve every 10 years.

"Scientists say"?

Pshaw. Clueless George don't need no stinkin' ee-leet smarty-pants scientists! There's no such thing as global warming. See that gubmint report? Can you find anything about global warming? No? See? We got wite-out, an' we got RID of it.

Full story here.

Australia's Fastest-Growing Religion? Buddhism

Via The Sydney Morning Herald:

BUDDHISM is growing as a religion of choice for Australians seeking an antidote to a greedy, violent and stressed-out world.

Dr Cristina Rocha, a post-doctoral fellow with the University of Western Sydney Centre for Cultural Research, said increasing numbers of Australians were shying away from their religion of their birth and instead adopting spiritualities of choice.

From an interview with The Buddhist Channel:

"Buddhism is attractive because it provides a powerful antidote to the stress, greed and violence of today's world," says Dr Rocha.

"Buddhism is now the fastest growing religion in Australia, growing 80 per cent between the 1996 and 2001 census. Interestingly, this surge is not only due to migration, but also to large numbers of Australian's converting to Buddhism.

"People from Western cultures are drawn to Buddhism because it is . . . not tied to a particular church or central leader, and is associated with peace, love, happiness, justice and enlightenment. Westerners find it gives them tools to cope with the day-to-day, and helps them detach from the rampant consumerism and stresses of their busy lives."

She says Western society's eagerness to embrace Buddhism stands in stark contrast to its misunderstanding, distrust and fear of a religion like Islam, which is labelled by Western media as 'violent' and linked to terrorism.

"One of the reasons for this is the fact the Dalai Lama received a Nobel peace prize in 1989 for his peaceful resistance against the Chinese invasion of Tibet," says Dr Rocha.

Dr Rocha says Western society's flirtation with Buddhism was boosted in the 1960s, thanks to increased levels of migration and exposure to other cultures, and the flower-child generation's willingness to explore things spiritual and alternative.

"Western culture's exposure to Buddhism is so much greater now. Books by the Dalai Lama are bestsellers, and people flock to see and hear him speak as he travels the world. In recent years there have been many movies like 'The Little Buddha', 'Kundun', and 'Seven Years in Tibet', and non-Hollywood films like 'The Cup' and 'Samsara'," says Dr Rocha.

"Celebrities like Richard Gere and the Beastie Boys have used their status to bring attention to the plight of Tibet and its struggle against China; and actress Uma Thurman's father, Robert, who is now a professor at Columbia University, was the first Western Tibetan Buddhist monk and an interpreter for the Dalai Lama. . . .
Western followers regard meditation as the main practice of Buddhism," she says.

"Westerners see meditation as something you can do alone, any time, anywhere; as if there's no need for a temple, or a priest or monk. This enables an individual to embark on [his or her] own spiritual quest for enlightenment."

Rep. Kennedy Latest Ambien Zombie

Rep. Patrick Kennedy is checking into the Mayo Clinic to the usual howls from the media whore media, but they and he instead should be checking into the well-known side effects of sleep aid Ambien. Kennedy took Ambien at bedtime, prior to getting into his car, driving down to town, having an accident, and later telling cops at the scene that he was "late for a vote." None of these actions can Kennedy recall.

Via KATU:

Reports of bizarre Ambien side effects begin to surface

MINNEAPOLIS - Some people taking a popular sleep aid are reporting they are waking up to a nightmare of weight gain or other bizarre activities.

Multiple cases of 'sleep-eating' have been reported by people taking the prescription sleep aid Ambien, which is made by Sanofi-Aventis.

Ambien users say they have no recollection of getting up and eating while using the drug, but wake to find empty food containers and other evidence of late-night snacking.

One woman claims she gained over 100 pounds from eating while using the drug, but initially could not figure out why she was gaining the weight.

She says she found crumbs in her bed and other evidence of late-night bingeing in her kitchen. Initially, she blamed her children, who replied that she was eating the food. She says she thought they were lying.

Doctors investigating incidents of sleep-eating say that victims would sometimes eat odd or even unsafe items, such as butter-covered cigarettes and raw meat.

They also said there were reports of people injuring themselves with knives and other kitchen appliances as they tried to prepare food while asleep.

Ambien's maker issued a statement saying the side effect is known but is rare, and that "when taken as prescribed, Ambien is a safe and effective treatment for insomnia."

They say the side effect is disclosed in the product's labeling material.

There have also been complaints that people were getting up and driving while using Ambien, and then having no recollection of their actions.

Incident reports showed that people driving while using Ambien were sometimes driving down the wrong side of the road or exhibiting bizarre behavior.

Another Ambien user said he took off his shirt and threatened other passengers during an airline flight. He says he woke up in a jail cell without a clue as to why he was there.

Ambien is the most popular prescription sleep aid in the United States, with over $2 billion in sales. They say that while some parts of the brain sleep, other parts are active. They say Ambien may be affecting brain activity while sleeping, leading to the unusual behaviors.

This morning's websearch finally has turned up the Ambien connection in the media whore media, to wit, in WaPo, here. One supposes one must retract one's earlier snark?
Patrick Kennedy
Ambien

CIA Chief Suddenly Resigns

So charming, urbane CIA Chief Porter Goss, aka "The Terminator," himself has now been, well, terminated. Porter Goss must be in big, big, big trouble. The question is: what kind?

I'm thinking hooker scandal, or Watergate hooker scandal, or Watergate gay hooker scandal, plus lotsa inconvenient pix, that sorta thing. Oh, and I'm LOVING the media whore media sucking up the Bushista spin that oh yeah we've been workin' on this Goss resignation thing fer months now cuz I'm the decider, and yeah it's all some kind of time-delayed pissing contest between Goss and Negroponte. Nothing to see here move along always attracts my attention. How about you?

Porter Goss
CIA

Speaking Truthiness to Power: Stephen Colbert Nails Bush at White House Correspondents' Dinner

Stephen Colbert rules.
His wicked, wicked, wickedly truthy appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner had me screaming for mercy, and had his Washington audience gasping at this take-no-prisoners demonstration of the magnitude of Stephen's much-ballyhooed huevos. Not to be missed.

Video here via Crooks and Liars. Complete video at YouTube here. Article at E&P here.
[Update: Peter Daou here on MSM attempt to ignore Colbert into non-existence, creating their own unreality. NY Times coverage by Bumiller failed even to mention the name of Colbert, featured speaker of the night. How's that for the erstwhile paper of record?]

White House Correspondents Association Dinner
Stephen Colbert
The Colbert Report

And Now for Something Completely Different

"Try to understand how we perceive good and bad things in life according to our own delusions, our confused thoughts and conflicting emotions. We must try to understand that samsara is by nature impermanent, that things change constantly, that there are no solid entities to cling to. If we begin to look at the world in this way, then we can begin to generate inconceivable compassion toward all beings, with the thought of freeing them from suffering and confusion and fostering their happiness and peace of mind." --Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

Torture torture torture, war war, lies, incompetence, ill will, all causing suffering, I'm just not up to writing about it or even linking to it at the moment. I've been feeling revulsion. Since "revulsion is the foot of meditation" (as is said), I thought to exclude what is downright repulsive and concentrate on other things.

To wit, Matthieu Ricard's "Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill," from Wisdom Books at Amazon. Matthieu holds a doctorate in cellular genetics, and has been a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for thirty-some years. He is a major participant in the research collaboration between cognitive scientists and Buddhist practitioners, spearheaded by the Dalai Lama and the Mind and Life Institute. He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East.

Another work deserving, well, attention, is Alan Wallace's "The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind." Wallace has many practice in attention-enhancing meditation and has been an active participant in the much-publicized dialogues between contemporary Buddhist practitioners and neuroscientists.

As I write this, I can hear in the background our cocker spaniel puppy howling at the top of her lungs. An aria from Lohengrin is playing, a soprano aria -- and Chloe apparently thinks this sound means that something/someone is being horribly tortured.

Which makes our sweet little black and white doggie rank way higher up on the humane chain than the empathetically-challenged Rummy and Cheney and Preznit Toad Exploder. So it goes.

meditation
Matthieu Ricard
B. Allan Wallace
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Neil Young: Living With War

Now playing online here.

It's time our artists got on board, and with this album, Neil Young is on board. Big-time. So go f*ck yourself, Deadeye Dick Cheney; down with you, down with Bubble Boy, down with Rummy the Torture Queen, all the rest who are responsible for morally and fiscally bankrupting this country. Down, down, down.

Crappy "Christian" Chooses Wrong Over Right

So-called "Christians" Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Tolerance

ATLANTA — Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant. Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation.

Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.

With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all.

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the movement as the civil rights struggle of the 21st century. "Christians," he said, "are going to have to take a stand for the right to be Christian."

[Hey, Ruthie, hey Ricky, get this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Ring a bell, Ruthie? If not, why not?]

In that spirit, the Christian Legal Society, an association of judges and lawyers, has formed a national group to challenge tolerance policies in federal court. Several nonprofit law firms — backed by major ministries such as Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ — already take on such cases for free. . .

Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists. He predicts the government will one day revoke the tax-exempt status of churches that preach homosexuality is sinful or that refuse to hire gays and lesbians.

"Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse."

I personally worry so very much about marginalized racists. And marginalized homophobes.

I'm worried they aren't marginalized nearly enough.

More here.

Ruth Malhotra
Rick Scarborough
Christian Legal Society

American Hero Chooses Right Over Wrong

To left, American hero and CIA analyst Mary McCarthy, fired by the Bush government for helping to reveal their heinous inhumane practices -- to wit, the CIA secret prisons where torture's just another word for nothin' [moral] left to lose.

Nice that someone in the American government can tell right from wrong these days, is it not?

Bush
torture
CIA
Glenn Greenwald's take here.
Larry Johnson's take at truthout here.

Cheney Naps, Bush Fiddles, Rome Burns

My favorite part of this is that Cheney's office is giving out that he WASN'T napping, but was "reviewing notes". With his piggie little evil eyes wide shut. Oh dearie me.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fitzmas

Deck the halls with boughs of -- indictments? Fa la la la la. La la, la, la.

More here.

This, from Faux News, is quite a nifty barrel of Fitzmas cheer, too:

President Bush’s job approval rating slipped this week and stands at a new low of 33 percent approve,

down from 36 percent two weeks ago and 39 percent in mid-March.

A year ago this time, 47 percent approved and two years ago 50 percent approved (April 2004).

Time wounds all heels? (ho ho ho)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No Blood for Hubris mini-mental health interlude:

"President Bush met with the president of China at the White House. The arrival ceremony was interrupted by a protester who started yelling, 'Stop the persecution, stop the torture!'

President Bush had to ask, 'Hey, lady. Which one of us are you talking to?'"

--Jay Leno

"President Bush creating thousands of new jobs. The bad news, they're all in the White House.

As you know, staff members have been leaving the White House in droves. Today, press secretary Scott McClellan stepped down. He said he wanted to spend more time lying to his family."

--Jay Leno

Nepali Maoists Are Useless and Bloodthirsty, and Therefore Can Go Jump in the Bagmati

I love Counterpunch, usually, but this is a really stupid article about Nepal. Just because I think the current King is a heinous murderer (which I do, along with his evil son Paras) doesn't mean I think he should be replaced by another group of heinous murderers. Just wanted to get that straight, eh?

No US Support for Democracy in Nepal: We'd Rather Just Start Random Wars Elsewhere

Random so-called pro-democracy wars, that is. The Bushist fascists don't seem to be down with democracy right here in the US of A, now, do they?

SHOOT TO KILL ORDERS IN KATHMANDU: Human Rights Monitors Forbidden to Observe: Bush Dithers/Does Nothing to Support Nepali Democracy

KATHMANDU, 20 April (IRIN) -

At least three protestors were killed and at least 50 injured at the hands of the security forces on Thursday afternoon during demonstrations in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, according to the Himalayan Human Rights (HimRights), a local rights group.

In total, 14 demonstrators have been killed and over 3,500 injured since the nationwide strike and pro-democracy rallies against Nepal's absolute ruler King Gyanendra began 15 days ago, another local rights group, Insec, said.

The protests, led by the seven main opposition parties, have gathered pace since 5 April, with almost 2.5 million Nepalis coming out to demonstrate. . .

To foil the largest rally to date planned in the capital, the royal government imposed an 18-hour curfew. But, defying government orders, nearly 100,000 demonstrators took to the streets with anti-king banners.

Even the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OCHCR) in Nepal was denied curfew passes - thus preventing monitors from observing what was happening.

"The authorities told us that we can have limited movement between our residences and office, and insisted that this can only take place under police arrest," said Kieran Dwyer, spokesperson for OCHCR-Nepal, adding that their office was not allowed to deploy its human rights monitors in the capital during the curfew.

So far, only five local human rights activists were able to reach the main demonstration sites in the capital by taking huge risks as none of them were issued with curfew passes.

"The security forces threatened to shoot us if we didn't leave at once," said activist Sukaram Maharjan from HimRights, shocked by the direct threat from a group of armed police.

Meanwhile, no journalists were given curfew passes, but many continued to go out at great personal risk after the authorities were ordered to shoot on sight anyone who defied the government's curfew orders.

As an added consequence of the curfew, even those needing emergency medical assistance were not allowed to leave their homes. "The policeman told me to wait for another day to take my daughter to hospital," said a local resident, whose 7-year-old daughter was seriously ill. Desperate to take his daughter to hospital, he had called the government's emergency line to plead for help, but his call was in vain.

Ah, well. Bush in Washington, Gyandendra in Nepal-- power is all, is it not? Sometimes seven year olds must be sacrificed, must they not? Rummy and Cheney agree, do they not?

Nepal
democracy

Regional Diplomats Predict Democracy Protests Will Topple Crappy Nepali King

From the Calcutta Telegraph:

Anti-monarchy protesters kept up the pressure in the Nepali capital today despite bad weather as diplomats said the movement against King Gyanendra appeared to be reaching a climax. . . .

At least [seven] people have been killed and hundreds wounded in police action against protesters during the campaign, which has brought the impoverished nation to a standstill. Food and fuel in the capital is running short and anger against Gyanendra is mounting.

Diplomats said time appeared to be running out for the monarch. "We could see him toppled if he doesn’t do something in the next few weeks or days,” said one. “I am very afraid we are moving into a revolutionary situation."

One flashpoint could come on Thursday when the parties have called for mass rallies, and have vowed to bring out hundreds of thousands of people on the street. The king held talks with the US, Chinese and Indian ambassadors on Sunday, and indicated he could meet some of the protesters' demands. Diplomats said they knew of no specifics.

"He has to hand over power to the political parties," the diplomat said. "And if he does not, it’s not looking good."

Although the powerful army remains loyal to the king, protests are spreading from the street to the civil service. Home ministry officials held a demonstration at their offices today and about a dozen were arrested, witnesses said.

The president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Haruhiko Kuroda, urged the international community to remain engaged with Nepal and said it would be premature for donors to consider any suspension of aid to the impoverished kingdom.

"I don’t think we can decide lightly on this very serious issue," Kuroda said in Manila, while acknowledging that the instability had made the ADB’s work in Nepal more difficult. "We have to be very careful because people are suffering."

More here.

Push Continues for Democracy in Nepal; Troops Open Fire, One Killed; Food in Short Supply in Remote Himalayan Capital

[FIRST PERSON-UPDATE 4.18]

"The political situation is getting worse, just inhumane violence. I was in the midst of one the worse clashes. It was very painful to be there. I am ok but tired and with burning eyes. I had been inhaling
tire fire and brick dust for almost 10 days. I have been in the clash sites almost right after I returned from NY. I was supposed to attend a meeting in Malaysia but I cannot leave the country in this state. I have not been able to do any other work than be in the clash sites to lessen the violence.

At this point I am raising money too for health care of those who had been injured. We gave 3 days of our salary from our organizations both Beyond Beijing Committee and HImRights along with matching fund. Once we sent it in the media others are doing the same. But there are just too many injured, disappeared, and arrested."
From the Times of India:

KATHMANDU: Fears that a desperate monarch unable to contain the democratic upsurge may reimpose emergency loomed over Nepal on Monday even as Gyanendra called in ex-prime ministers for a palace meeting to create a veneer of negotiations with political leaders. Most of these leaders had helped the monarch’s father, Mahendra, and brother, Birendra, run their autocratic rule from 1961 to 1990.

Outside the sequestered royal grounds, war raged on the streets. Soldiers fired on protesters at Nijgarh in the Nepalese lowlands, killing one and wounding four others. Police fired bullets, teargas shells and baton-charged demonstrators at least at six places in the Kathmandu valley. . . .Alarmed by growing shortages, the government moved to offer armed escorts to truckers willing to bring goods in to Kathmandu and announced a 3,500-rupee incentive to truckers breaking the virtual blockade.

Full story here. More via Reuters, here.
Via NY Times here.

"Heckuva Job" Rummy: Bad at Defense, Good At Torture

Like most classic conservatives, I've always been a great fan of personal responsibility. I wonder, once this total shitstorm breaks over him, will Rummy feel that way, too?


RUMSFELD MAY BE CRIMINALLY LIABLE FOR TORTURE:
Lt. General Randall Schmidt Implicates Defense Secretary Himself

From Human Rights Watch, here:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for the torture of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 and early 2003, Human Rights Watch said today. . . A December 20, 2005 Army Inspector General’s report, obtained by Salon.com this week, contains a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt that implicates Secretary Rumsfeld in the abuse of detainee Mohammad al-Qahtani. Based on an investigation that he carried out in early 2005, which included two interviews with Rumsfeld, Gen. Schmidt describes the defense secretary as being "personally involved" in al-Qahtani’s interrogation.

Human Rights Watch urges the United States to name a special prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Rumsfeld and others in the al-Qahtani case.

"The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it’s whether he should be indicted,"said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director at Human Rights Watch. . .
Human Rights Watch has obtained an unredacted copy of al-Qahtani’s interrogation log, and believes that the techniques used during al-Qahtani’s interrogation were so abusive that they amounted to torture. . . ."A six-week regime of sleep deprivation, forced exercises, stress positions, white noise, and sexual humiliation amounts to acts that were specifically intended to cause severe physical pain and suffering and severe mental pain and suffering," said Mariner. "That’s the legal definition of torture."

In 2005, the Judge Advocates General of the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps told the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services that the techniques used on al-Qahtani violated the U.S. Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, and would have been illegal if perpetrated by another country on captured U.S. personnel. The U.S. State Department also regularly condemns as torture the same techniques in its annual Country Report on Human Rights, citing their use in countries such as North Korea and Iran. . . .

Rumsfeld could be liable under the doctrine of "command responsibility" – the legal principle that holds a superior responsible for crimes committed by his subordinates when he knew or should have known that they were being committed, but fails to take reasonable measures to stop them.

I think Rummy should be "personally involved" by himself receiving the treatment he ordered to be meted out to others. Sure, it's a little eye-for-eye, but Rummy's an eye-for-eye kinda guy, ain't he?

More at Salon, here.

Rumsfeld
torture
Salon.com
Human Rights Watch

Crappy King Cracks Down On Nepali People

Charming Gyanendra was long known as the "Black Prince." Once a timely royal massacre eliminated all the relatives standing between him and the throne of Nepal, the world's only Hindu kingdom, Gyanendra turned Nepal's democratic constitutional monarchy into a backward autocracy, starring himself as autocrat-in-chief.

He tossed out democratically-elected Prime Ministers as if they were rubbish, and seized total power. He still has it. So far.

But the people of Nepal are fighting back. Lawyers have protested for the restoration of democracy, and have been beaten and jailed for their trouble.

Journalists have protested, and have been beaten and jailed for their trouble.

Full story here, via CBS, with troubling video footage available on the right side of the screen (a commercial precedes it). Worth a look.

Via United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal, more on arrests and beatings of professionals and demonstrators, as well as deportation of sympathetic foreigners like Dr. Brian Cobb, who treated wounded demonstrators and Nepali police alike.

Nepal
democracy
Nepal protests

Torture Pix by US Surface in Afghan Bazaar; Evidence Too Gruesome to Show

This week, an NBC News producer, using a hidden camera, visited [a] bazaar [outside the US base at Bagram, Afghanistan] and bought a half dozen of the memory drives the size of a thumb known as flash drives. On them, NBC News found highly sensitive military information, some which NBC will not reveal.

"This isn't just a loss of sensitive information," says Lt. Col. Rick Francona (ret.), an NBC News military analyst. "This is putting U.S. troops at risk. This is a violation of operational security."

Some of the data would be valuable to the enemy, including:
Names and personal information for dozens of DOD interrogators;
Documents on an "interrogation support cell" and interrogation methods;
IDs and photos of U.S. troops.

With information like this, "You could cripple our U.S. intelligence collection capability in Afghanistan," says Francona.

Among the photos of Americans are pictures of individuals who appear to have been tortured and killed, most too graphic to show.

NBC News does not know who caused their injuries. The Pentagon would not comment on the photos.

When will it end?

Full NBC story here.

Rumsfeld
torture
Afghanistan
Bush

Chickens Come Home to Roost for Chickenhawks Rummy, Cheney

So Big Dick Cheney, in a bulletproof vest, gets roundly booed by the people in Washington, DC, in an incident so humiliating the Bush-administration teat-sucking New York Times declined to mention it at all in its story. Then there's that ongoing Fitzgerald kerfuffle that's raising Big Dick's blood pressure.

Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, former Director of Operations at the Pentagon's military joint staff broke his silence in this Time story, "Why Iraq Was a Mistake."

Today, there's another career military man speaking his mind about Bloody Rummy.

Oh, say can you say--"full-scale frontal assault"?

RUMSFELD REBUKED BY RETIRED GENERALS
Ex-Iraq Commander Calls for Resignation

The retired commander of key forces in Iraq called yesterday for Donald H. Rumsfeld to step down, joining several other former top military commanders who have harshly criticized the defense secretary's authoritarian style for making the military's job more difficult.

"I think we need a fresh start" at the top of the Pentagon, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, said in an interview. "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork."

Batiste noted that many of his peers feel the same way. "It speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defense," he said earlier yesterday on CNN.

Batiste's comments resonate especially within the Army: It is widely known there that he was offered a promotion to three-star rank to return to Iraq and be the No. 2 U.S. military officer there but he declined because he no longer wished to serve under Rumsfeld. Also, before going to Iraq, he worked at the highest level of the Pentagon, serving as the senior military assistant to Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense.

Batiste said he believes that the administration's handling of the Iraq war has violated fundamental military principles, such as unity of command and unity of effort. In other interviews, Batiste has said he thinks the violation of another military principle -- ensuring there are enough forces -- helped create the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal by putting too much responsibility on incompetent officers and undertrained troops.

His comments follow similar recent high-profile attacks on Rumsfeld by three other retired flag officers, amid indications that many of their peers feel the same way.

"We won't get fooled again," retired Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, who held the key post of director of operations on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 to 2002, wrote in an essay in Time magazine this week. Listing a series of mistakes such as "McNamara-like micromanagement," a reference to the Vietnam War-era secretary of defense, Newbold called for "replacing Rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach."

"Fool me once--I won't get fooled again?"
Full WaPo story here.

Rumsfeld
Cheney
Iraq War
Time

Bubble Boy Chuckles? You Bet! Traitorgate's Apparently Just as Funny as Not Finding Those Pesky WMDs

Via Rawstory:

Bush spoke today at the The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, at The Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C.

STUDENT: First let me say thank you very much for being here. And thank you for taking questions. I know we appreciate that. My name is Ben Deering. I'm a second-year Masters student studying international energy policy.

PRESIDENT BUSH: International -- ?

STUDENT: Energy policy.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Oh, good!

STUDENT: Sorry. (Laughter.) My question, sir, is -- well, as Anthony alluded to earlier, and as you're aware, we have many students at SAIS who are currently working for or considering working for the State Department, the various intelligence agencies, and such.

And, how do you respond to the recent report by Prosecutor Fitzgerald that there is, in his words, "evidence of a concerted effort by the White House to punish Joseph Wilson," who himself has a distinguished record of government service?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. No. I -- this is -- there's an ongoing legal proceeding which precludes me from talking a lot about the case. There's also an ongoing investigation that's a serious investigation. I will say this, that after we liberated Iraq, there was questions in people's minds about, you know -- about the basis on which I made the statements, in other words, going into Iraq. And so I decided to declassify the NIE for a reason. I wanted to see people -- people to see what some of those statements were based on. That's what I wanted to see. I wanted people to see the truth. And I thought it made sense for people to see the truth, and that's why I declassified the document.

...And I felt I could do so without jeopardizing, you know, ongoing intelligence matters, and so I did. And as far as the rest of the case goes, you're just going to have let Mr. Fitzgerald complete his case, and I hope you understand that. It's a serious legal matter that we've got to be careful in making public statements about it. (Chuckles.)

Chuckles? Chuckles? Chuckles?? Bet Bubble Boy's Daddy don't think this stuff is funny anymore.

Bubble Boy may find it less funny as time goes by.

From Jason Leopold at Truthout:

In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger [which is untrue] to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media. . .

The revelation puts a new wrinkle into Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's two-year-old criminal probe into the leak and suggests for the first time that President Bush knew from early on that the vice president and senior officials on his staff were involved in a coordinated effort to attack Wilson's credibility by leaking his wife's classified CIA status.

Now that President Bush's knowledge of the Plame Wilson affair has been exposed, there are thorny questions about whether the president has broken the law - specifically, whether he obstructed justice when he was interviewed about his knowledge of the Plame Wilson leak and the campaign to discredit her husband.

Care to place bets, anyone?

But, wait, there's more!!

According to four attorneys who last week read a transcript of President Bush's interview with investigators, Bush did not disclose to the special counsel that he was aware of any campaign to discredit Wilson. Bush also said he did not know who, if anyone, in the White House had retaliated against the former ambassador by leaking his wife's undercover identity to reporters.

Lucky that Bubble Boy thought to get himself all lawyered up way back when, eh?

Bush
Libby
Plame
Fitzgerald

Nepal, Zone of Peace, Take 3

A Nepali journalist protects an injured Nepali policeman from an angry crowd during continuing pro-democracy protests.

From United We Blog! For a Democratic Nepal:

In the evening, the news of half an hour blackout and torch rally was circulated. The local guys chanted slogans for a while. A while ago, police entered our area and fired rubber bullets, but no one was injured. At Ghattekulo, Mr. Jiwan Bhattarai, a shopkeeper, was injured in the morning. Few protesters were arrested. An army man's (who denied shelter to the protestors) house was damaged.

Today evening at 8 p.m., I saw the biggest torch rally in long time. So many people were gathered at Ghattekulo chowk. Blackout was observed successfully. In the dead night, the crescent moon gave ample light to the impromptu protest program. Protesters with torches in their hands rallied towards Dillibazar. One could hardly identify another, but they all were gathered for [one] cause, i.e., restoration of democracy.

Jai Nepal!

Master Thangka Painter Glen Eddy Dies

Glen Eddy, reknowned Thangka painter, passed away on April 5, 2006 in Cordoba, Argentina.

Mr. Eddy was among the first Westerners fully trained in traditional Tibetan thangka painting using handmade mineral paints and other methods. For over thirty years, his deity drawings have been widely published. In recent years, he experimented with watercolor and mixed media producing exquisite non-traditional works of Tibetan deities from the lineage of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, including Tara, Gomadevi, and Mandarava. At the time of his death, he was working on a manual on Tibetan art, "The Treasury of Luminous Manifestations."

Poetrymind has more here.

Photo: Ellen Pearlman