[click image]Mario Vargas Llosa is showing his colors... evidently all shades of yellow.
30 May 2009
contempt of court
[click image]... in support of a breach of the 4th Amendment....
Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight, Constitution of the United States:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Does it seem to you he is upholding his oath?
oh, oh, well then, everything is fine, nothing to see here, move along
[click image of General Yo-Yo Taguba]Retired US general denies seen photos in Iraq flap
Sat May 30, 2009 11:47am EDT
(Corrects headline to show Taguba did not say was misquoted, updates with further from Salon story, paragraph 3)
WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) - A retired U.S. general has denied reports that he had seen the pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused that President Barack Obama is seeking to keep secret, Salon reported on Friday.
The British newspaper Daily Telegraph reported that retired Major General Antonio Taguba told them he had seen the images Obama said will not be released. The newspaper quoted him as saying: "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."
Taguba told the Salon.com website that while the Telegraph quoted him accurately, he was referring to pictures from Abu Ghraib that showed horrific abuse and not the 44 pictures the American Civil Liberties Union was seeking to have released.
"The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen," he told Salon.
The Obama administration at first agreed to release the 44 pictures but reversed course, arguing that they could put U.S. troops abroad at greater risk.
The administration also accused the Daily Telegraph of misquoting Taguba, with the White House going so far as to cast doubt on the accuracy of the British press in general.
Taguba, who retired in January 2007, led an investigation in 2004 into abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison which included allegations of rape and sexual abuse.
Photographs of abuse at the prison outside Baghdad were published in 2004 and caused deep resentment in the Muslim world, damaging the image of the United States as it fought against insurgents in Iraq.
Obama has set a goal of improving America's image in the Muslim world and plans to deliver a speech next week in Cairo aimed at reaching out to Muslims.
Poor guy. I hear the White House flipped out and really started drilling on the press corps, the Telegraph and, obviously, poor General Yo-Yo Taguba, one of the few decent and brave enough men to speak about this unspeakably bad stuff through this ordeal. As you may be able to glean from the articles and links I posted upon the release of the Telegraph piece, this is just crap. Hair-splitting. Creating another diversionary controversy.
It isn't just Republicans who do this shit.
Obummer is doing this shit for all he's worth.
It's as plain as the nose on your face.
Whatever pictures are being withheld, they're not of torture by cookie... okay? We all know it.
[Black Agenda Report, on the prolonged detention torture, 4 minutes]
obesity hype and twittery
[click image]Okay. I was about the size of Kirstie in the image on the left, without the custom girders, when I decided to crash diet down to skinnier than a bird. I don't think I was fat. My esophagus may have thought I was fat. I did it because the machine to combat death by sleep apnea was going to kill me before it could save me, and the only other thing I might try is to have a bunch of the tissue at the back of my throat burned off. I think she was definitely into the zone one should think of as "obese" in the image on the right, though, and I think the linked piece at the NYT is a piece of crap from start to finish.
I think everyone with body image issues, and the people who incite them, should be locked up in the Louvre for a month or two, and have their access to tv, fashion magazines and movies taken away for a minimum of a year. They should be made to learn everything about Monsanto and other megalithic ag-corporations. They should be made to take courses in food additives and laboratory food. They should have radio collars that hit them like tasers when any closer than, say, five feet from fast food.
Yes. I am stumping for Fat Nazism. Clearly, democracy in this area is not up to the task. Clearly. Attitudes about what we call fat need adjusting back to reality, but just as clearly attitudes about loving your body when you are mortally obese need to be slapped off as well. Even as I believe in the individual right to take whatever chances with one's health one feels suit, it should not be undertaken and controversialized to the point of outright psychosis either. If you don't want to be fat, lose the weight. Do it however you want, but quit whining. Quit indulging yourself, you candy-assed "American". If you don't like people making you feel guilty about it, work on your guilt issues and/or lose the weight, and shut up. Quit acting like factory hogs to slaughter and take charge of the food you consume.
I decided to drop the weight in the last week of November. I cut out everything with sugar in it. Everything with transfat in it. Everything with chemicals in it. Everything with salt in it. And all simple carbohydrates like bread and pasta, etc. I did not starve myself. I drank regular milk. I put half and half in my coffee. I ate as much fruit as I wanted, and vegetables, and meat. I never use anything but extra virgin olive oil to cook with. I lost ten pounds a month for four months, and then I started adding back in a little bread, bread WITHOUT high fructose corn syrup and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, you know, bread... sourdough with garlic cloves and/or cheese baked in... sometimes toasted, with whipped cream cheese spread on it. Now I'm losing only about two pounds a month, and that is fine by me. I will get to the lowest weight I feel is healthy and I will stay there. I will know that if I cannot stay there that there is something medically the matter and get my ass to the doctor, but I will know that because I don't give myself all these STUPID excuses to eat crap I know is bad for me.
I had a good excuse before. Healthy food is extremely hard to find here, and when you do find it, it is extremely hard to afford, and I was too whupped to deal with this ugly reality until I did something about my wretched health.
Yes, but what about people who CAN'T do something about their wretched health, 99? People who can't just run to a doctor and wail, "HELP ME! I MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD!"
Those are the people I worry about. Those are the people truly being victimized by the food poisoning and complete failure of healthcare in this country, and THAT is what this NYT piece SHOULD have been about.
WE make our world what it is. If you're capable of holding down a job, you are capable of reminding everyone around you of our shared responsibility for fixing it, and then TAKING responsibility for fixing it.
Why do you think I'm so pissed off at the president?
hopeless
[click image]I can't help but wonder, because of this, precisely what Mousavi's position is on the Israel/Palestine situation. I know that it is the ayatollahs' position that counts the most, but I revere Ahmadinejad's stolid insistence on sense, despite how it gets twisted to paint him as a harborer of "terrorists" and a supporter of "factions who mean us harm". Which is absolutely psychotic and plastered all over the entire range of Western media, but Ahmadinejad has been man enough to keep his insistence pristine anyway. Could Mousavi be capable of a similar strength in the cause of human decency?
[an hour and a half on the situation in Gaza]
We're not talking about a small matter, here....
-------------------------------------------------
AND DON'T DOUBT THIS FOR A MINUTE.
Not part of a minute.
don't let me keep calling it 'walmart'
That is an egregious error, and you didn't call me on it! I won't set foot in a Walmart. I had to do it for my mother one time, but I very quickly left just as soon as I fulfilled my promise to check for the ultimate cheap refrigerator... which was not there. Aside from that, I haven't been even in their parking lot since finding out that Walmart is Walmart.
I don't live in Perfect, where even their figure eights are a cut above. So I use the Walgreens pharmacy.
W-A-L-G-R-E-E-N-S. The last of the non-corporate local pharmacies closed it's doors a few months ago, and so I go to Walgreens, where their staff is the least incompetent of all the big chains around.
Do NOT keep letting me make this terrible braino! I'm defaming myself on my own blog!
it creeps me out the governator keeps talking about closing parks
[click image]Schwarzenegger plan would close 220 Calif. parks
By SAMANTHA YOUNG
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget cuts could mean the closing of up to 220 state parks, among them the home of the world's tallest tree and other attractions that draw millions of visitors. Schwarzenegger this week recommended eliminating $70 million in parks spending through June 30, 2010. An additional $143.4 million would be saved in the following fiscal year by keeping the parks closed.
"This is a worst-case scenario," said Roy Sterns, a spokesman at the state parks department. "If we can do less than this, we will try. But under the present proposal, this is it."
Among the parks that could be closed, the parks department said Thursday, are Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay, Will Rogers' Southern California ranch and Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which boasts the world's tallest tree, a giant that tops 370 feet. Even the Governor's Mansion in Sacramento is on the list.
The Legislature last year rejected the governor's proposal to close 48 state parks. But lawmakers said that with California's budget deficit now at $24.3 billion, the situation is so dire that it is likely some parks will close.
"Things that were previously dead on arrival are a lot more viable in a crisis like this," said Democrat Jared Huffman, chairman of the Assembly's parks and wildlife committee. "I think some cuts are coming to the parks, and they'll be cuts I won't like and the public won't like."
The state parks department said a $70 million cut would leave it with enough money to run just 59 of California's 279 state parks.
The state's famed park system attracts nearly 80 million visitors a year. William Randolph Hearst's Castle on the Central Coast and a dozen other so-called moneymakers would remain open, as would many Southern California beaches that attract millions of visitors year round.
But others that could close include: Fort Ross State Historic Park, the southernmost Russian settlement in North America; Bodie State Historic Park, one of the best-preserved Old West ghost towns; and Big Basin Redwoods, the oldest state park.
The proposal has angered conservationists and some Democrats in the Legislature, who say California's parks are treasured spots that help the state and local economy.
"State parks draw tourism to California," State Parks Foundation president Elizabeth Goldstein said. "This proposal makes the budget situation worse."
The foundation estimates the state gets a $2.35 return for every dollar it spends on parks.
California spends roughly $400 million a year running 279 state parks and beaches, with roughly a third of the money coming from the state general fund. The rest comes from user fees, which account for slightly more than a quarter of the revenue; bond funds; gasoline taxes; federal money; and other sources.
Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines said the state cannot afford to subsidize state parks when lawmakers are being asked to make severe cuts in even more vital areas.
"Parks are just not going to be a priority over public safety and education, as much as we hate to see them close," Villines said.
At least 2,000 park rangers, biologists, lifeguards, interpreters, architects and maintenance workers would be laid off if the proposal is adopted, said Sterns, the parks spokesman.
The layoffs would be in addition to 5,000 state positions the governor has already recommended cutting.
"When you cut that much, you have to let go highly trained teams of biologists that you can't get back in a year or two," Huffman said. "It's a myth to think you can mothball the entire system. These cuts will cripple the park system for a decade or more."
Because that's too stupid on too many fronts. He can't just abandon them. They still would need patrolling and a certain amount of upkeep. They bring in more than they cost. Homeless people can get showers at many of them. The entire countryside of California is dependent on the tourists who come to take in these parks. This is SUCH an anti-business idea, I can't believe it's his, and I don't like the alternative ideas for why this would keep coming up.
Nossirreebob. I don't like it.
Sure, he might just be using it to scare those liberal candy asses who keep sniveling about poor people and handicapped people and teachers and nurses, but, well... it creeps me out... and I just don't think there is a decent thing left in the governance of anything here anymore. Apocalyptically stupid greed has ruled our thinking for so long that we're not capable of attending to the actual anymore. We think our need for cash IS the actual. No. It sure shakes out that way when we let capitalists run things, but, no, that is NOT the actual.
i don't want to be anywhere near this test
[click image]And it tends to prove out to me why the president can come out so strongly on the NO nukes thing. To be fair, he had been interested and engaged in putting a lid on loose nukes as a senator, but to go from *'s majorly proliferative "mini-nukes" craze to no nukes, unless it's sort of like his no torture torture thing, seemed only to indicate to me that we have a whole new set of unreachably devastating weapons that won't require things as clumsy as nukes and now want to get the clumsy killers away from everyone. I know he's not an evil droid, thinking expressly in these terms. I'm sure he's against nuclear weapons use, and I'm sure he was delighted to find out that it would not only be welcome, but strategically astute, to come out and announce his drive to get nuclear weapons off the face of this earth. I'm sure he's not thinking about the hypocrisy and evil "security state" implications of it at all.
Oh, and, please, next time you hear Obama, or anyone mouthing his talking points, say that his number one duty is to keep us safe, will you please scream, "No! Your number one duty is to protect the Constitution. You putz."
Thank you.
29 May 2009
nan-ch'uan's cat
I was dreaming of fur licking all to the right and then licking all to the left, then to the right, then to the left, right, left, left, right, up, down, back, forth, one direction and then another.
So today is when I muster myself to address the koan with my favorite Zen master's teacher, Nan-Ch'uan. It goes like this:
At Nan-Ch'uan's one day the residents of the east and west halls were fighting over a cat. Seeing this, Nan-Ch'uan picked it up and said, "If you can speak effectively, I won't kill it." No one responded. Nan-Ch'uan cut the cat in two.
This is pertinent.
Later that evening, Nan-Ch'uan told his top student, Zhaozhou, about the incident. Zhouzhou merely took off his sandals, placed them on his head and walked out. Nan-Ch'uan called after him, "Had you been there, you would have saved the cat."
Creating a controversy over what is completely UNcontroversial is merely distracting from the matter at hand. At a Zen teaching center the matter at hand is enlightenment, awakening to true mind. At a U.S. Military prison it is following the Geneva Conventions. In general it is treating each other humanely... following the Golden Rule, if you will. A controversy ONLY distracts from the matter at hand. Everyone knows the matter at hand, but everyone lets controversy distract them from accord with it. It is like placing the ass at the reins of the cart and pulling it. It is like saddling yourself up and carrying your horse around. It is like using your hat for shoes or your shoes for your hat. IT IS STUPID, backasswards -- agonizingly hard work toward no effective end -- beside the point, useless and terrible things go on while you're laboring thus. Those terrible things go on completely unimpeded by you or any of the people engaged in the diversionary controversy with you. The cat gets hacked in two because you can't deal with effectiveness, won't take the spotlight off the diversionary to get at the kernel and perform. Cause and effect get away from you, victimize you, make you and/or other creatures suffer and die, because you preferred to attend to the diversionary instead of the real.
Nice goin'.
This is only one tiny sliver of the meaning of this koan, but, maybe you can agree, it's pertinent.
[I keep adding to my 'sorry' post.... Sorry.]
what the heck, we'll just call it 'change' and they'll swallow it
[click image]Too much work, anyway....
28 May 2009
sorry, running out of days
[click images]I'm sorry. Sorry to be so explicit about it, sorry to have to go into this much detail, and sorry to have to update with even more, but I just got the creepy feeling these pieces might disappear, the links go dead, and so I'm updating from my 7:15pm post with the full text of all three pieces here, formerly only linked, just in case, and then having to rant, and update again with the news of the freak of the Bush Crime Family coming out of the woodwork, probably due to this... so, I am sorry. Okay? But it just gets too awful, and you HAVE to get a handle on this, filthy as it is.
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Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'
Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.
By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank
Last Updated: 8:21AM BST 28 May 2009 | Telegraph, UK
At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.
Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.
“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.
“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”
In April, Mr Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.
Earlier this month, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”
It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.
Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”
The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been “identified, and appropriate actions” taken.
Maj Gen Taguba’s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found “credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.”
Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”
The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.
Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.
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Pentagon denies report Iraq prison photos show rape
Thu May 28, 2009 12:58pm EDT
(Updates with denial; previous LONDON)
WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday denied a British newspaper report that photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse, whose release U.S. President Barack Obama wants to block, include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Daily Telegraph newspaper had shown "an inability to get the facts right".
"That news organization has completely mischaracterized the images," Whitman told reporters. "None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article."
Thursday's Telegraph quoted retired U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted a 2004 investigation into abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, as saying the pictures showed "torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."
The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Others were said to depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
In an interview with the New Yorker magazine published in 2007, Taguba was quoted as saying that he saw a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee.
Photographs of abuse at the jail outside Baghdad that were published in 2004 damaged the image of the United States as it fought an escalating war against insurgents in Iraq that caused deep resentment throughout the Muslim world.
Whitman said he did not know if the Telegraph had quoted Taguba accurately. But he said he was not aware that any such photographs had been uncovered as part of the investigation into Abu Ghraib or abuses at other prisons.
OBAMA BLOCKING PICTURES' RELEASE
He said the Telegraph also wrongly reported earlier this month that some of the images whose release Obama is trying to block had previously been aired on Australian television.
"I would caution you whenever you see a subsequent story on photos in this particular publication," he told reporters. "They now have, at least on two occasions, demonstrated an inability to get the facts right."
Taguba, who retired in January 2007, included allegations of rape and sexual abuse in his report.
Earlier this month, the Obama administration reversed course and decided it would fight the release of the photographs, which the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking to obtain through legal action.
In April, the administration said it would comply with a court order to release the pictures. But Obama changed course after military commanders warned of a backlash in Iraq and Afghanistan that could add to the danger facing U.S. troops.
Taguba was quoted in the Telegraph as saying he supported Obama's decision not to release the pictures.
"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one," he said. "The sequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan."
He added: "The mere depiction of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it." (Reporting by Andrew Gray in Washington and Luke Baker in London; Editing by David Storey)
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What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown: Sexual Torture
by DAVID ROSEN
15 May 2009"Removal of clothing was authorized by the Secretary of Defense [Rumsfeld] for use at GTMO [Guantánamo] on December 2, 2002," acknowledges the recently released U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee report on the use of harsh interrogation techniques. It also reports that the use of prolonged nudity proved so effective that, in January 2003, it was approved for use in Afghanistan and, in the fall of 2003, was adopted for use in Iraq."Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody"
The Senate report came out shortly after a secret International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report on CIA torture techniques used as part of its detention program was leaked by Mark Danner of the "New York Review of Books." These reports provoked a storm of media attention, much of it focused on the use of waterboarding (or what the ICRC more aptly calls "suffocation by water") and, in particular, its use on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times and Abu Zubaydah 83 times.
The media paid less attention to the host of what the ICRC calls the other "methods of ill-treatment." The Senate report identifies these techniques as: use of military dogs, stress positions and physical training, sleep adjustment/sleep management, sensory deprivation and removal of clothing. The ICRC identifies them as: prolonged stress standing, beating by use of a collar, beating and kicking, confinement in a box, sleep deprivation and use of load music, exposure to cold temperature/cold water, prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles, threats, forced shaving, deprivation/restricted provision of solid food and prolonged nudity.
These reports, together with the recent release of Bush-administration "torture memos," helped focus national attention on a shameful, if not illegal, aspect of mad king George’s War on Terror. However, these reports are "official" documents based on revelations of a very limited number of sources. The information gathered, while invaluable, is limited by these sources.
The limited sources limit the public’s knowledge of the full scope of the torture committed by American intelligence agents, military officers and private contractors. Focusing on the issue of sexual torture, which includes prolonged nudity, reveals what has been made public but also what has yet to become publicly acknowledged.
Failure to publicly acknowledge the full scope of sexual torture, along with all the other "harsh" interrogation techniques, creates a sanitized, "official," history. Americans will never know what torture was committed in their name, nor be able to hold accountable those who ordered and executed these actions unless they go beyond "official" sources.
* * *
The ICRC conducted interviews with fourteen "enemy combatants" from eight countries. The detainees were arrested over a nearly three-year period, from March 2002 through May 2005. Eleven of the detainees were subject to prolonged nudity "during detention and interrogation, ranging from several weeks continuously up to several months intermittently."
The ICRC recounts what it calls the "alleged" experiences of seven detaineesm subject to prolonged nudity:
• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – kept naked for one month in Afghanistan.
• Abu Zubaydah– kept naked for two-and-a-half weeks in Afghanistan after recovering at a Pakistan hospital; he reports subsequently being repeatedly provided with clothing and then stripped naked for weeks at a time.
• Walid Bin Attash – kept naked two weeks in Afghanistan and again for a month in a second but unknown detention facility.
• Encep Nuraman (aka Hambali) – kept naked for four or five days in Thailand and a week in Afghanistan, followed by intermittent periods of being clothed and naked.
• Majid Khan – kept naked for three days in Afghanistan and seven days in his third place of detention.
• Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep – kept naked three to four days in Thailand and nine days in Afghanistan.
• Unnamed detainee – kept naked for two to three months in Afghanistan and then faced intermittent periods of being clothed and naked.
The sources of these reports were interviews with the detainees.
The Senate report provides a far different assessment on what it calls "removal of clothing." It makes clear that the use of prolonged nudity found strong support within the CIA and military as an interrogation technique. It reports that nudity was imported into Iraq, especially Abu Ghraib prison, from Afghanistan and GTMO.
It states that this technique served a number of critical interrogation purposes, including to "humiliate detainees," to "renew 'capture shock’ of detainees" and as an incentive for good behavior. It use was extensive, as indicated by two of the many officers interviewed. COL Jerry Philabaum, the Commander of the 320th MP, reports seeing "between 12-15 detainees naked in their own individual cells." CPT Donald Reese, the Commander of the 372nd MP Company, acknowledged that prolonged nudity was "known to everyone" and it was "common practice to walk the tier and see detainees with clothing and bedding." Other officers made similar statements.
Like the ICRC report, the Senate report draws extensively on interviews, but these interviews are with Army officers from the Military Police and intelligence. In addition, the Senate report draws on a number of publicly released military report, most notably by Major General George Fay, known as the Fay Report. One of its quotes is remarkably candid, perhaps more revealing than originally intended: detention created an "environment that would appear to condone depravity and degradation rather than humane treatment of detainees." The report also makes a single passing reference to Major General Antonio Taguba’s report on Abu Ghraib.
* * *
The first "enemy combatants" arrive at Guantánamo on January 11, 2002, nearly a year before Rumsfeld officially authorized the use of sexual torture. According to a CBS timeline, a "U.S. Air Force plane from Afghanistan touches down at Guantanamo carrying 20 prisoners, marking the start of the detention operation." [CBS News Gitmo Timeline, August 24, 2004] In the Senate report, SMU [Special Mission Unit] TF [Task Force] Commander [name blacked out] states that when he "took command [of Guantánamo] he 'discovered that some of the detainees were not allowed clothes’ as an interrogation technique [blacked out] said he terminated the practice in December 2003 or January 2004."
The disclosures about prolonged nudity received little public discussion. Compared to the many far worse techniques employed, most notably "suffocation by water," head beating, kicking, stress positions, uses of dogs and sleep deprivation, sexual torture seems rather modest. But its purpose was, along with the other techniques, clear. As the ICRC notes, it "was clearly designed to undermine human dignity and create a sense of futility … resulting in exhaustion, depersonalization and dehumanization."
However, drawing upon other sources paints a different picture, one far less sanitized and much more sadistic. What is not known is whether these additional techniques were approved by U.S. military and civilian leaders or were the improvised actions of frontline officers and contractors? A few examples illustrate these techniques.
The best single source on the use of sexual torture at Abu Ghraib remains the Taguba report. In the report’s executive summary, the following "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" are identified as having been used at the prison:
* forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
* videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
* forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
* forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
* forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
* arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
* positioning a naked detainee on a MRE [meals ready to eat] Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
* placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture;
* sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
Why did this part of the Taguba report not appear in the Senate report? Its absence speaks to the way official reports are sanitized and an "inside the Beltway" history is written. [see "Sexual Terrorism: The Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror," CounterPunch, May 13, 2008]
The U.S. and international press revealed disturbing episodes of sexual terror used by American forces. For example, The Associated Press reported that a former inmate, Dhia al-Shweiri, was ordered by American soldiers to strip naked, bend over and place his hands on a wall; while not sodomized, he says he was humiliated: "We are men. It’s OK if they beat me," al Shweiri said. "Beatings don’t hurt us; it’s just a blow. But no one would want their manhood to be shattered."
Scotland’s "Sunday Herald" reported that a former Iraqi prisoner claimed that there is a photo of a civilian translator raping a male juvenile prisoner; he stated, "They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming, … and the female soldier was taking pictures."
London’s "Independent" reported on the experience of Hayder Sabbar Abd, immortalized as the man in the hood in infamous Abu Ghraib photo of Lynndie England. Abd alleges that he was ordered to masturbate as Ms. England "put her hands on her breasts," which he couldn’t; and to simulate fellatio with another prisoner, which he appears to have done.
The "Sydney Morning Herald" noted: "Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account."
* * *
Sexual torture served two purposes on those subjected to such abuse: to physically harm and to emotionally scar. It was intended to break male inmates. It sought to inflict both pain and shame, to make the recipient suffer and loathe himself. Sexual torture attempted to break the victim both physically and spiritually, to leave scars on (and inside) the body and in the psyche.
With Obama’s election, the U.S. military has probably ceased employing "harsh interrogation techniques." Unfortunately, given Obama’s pragmatism, the Congress’ complicity, the military’s bureaucratic zealotry and the CIA’s (and private contractors’) immorality, one can only wonder what would happen if another September 11th occurred.
The full scope of "harsh interrogation techniques" used during the War on Terror is unknown. Nor is it fully known who within the Bush administration approved the use of such technique, not who within the U.S. military and intelligence community (along with private contractors) used such techniques. Answers to these questions should be the first task of any "official" investigation of the War on Terror. And those undertaking the investigation should use a far wider assortment of sources than those deemed "official." Only then will the American people understand what was done in their name and, hopefully, how to stop it from happening again.
David Rosen is the author of "Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming" and can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.
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You know for sure if this much detail, not much, has finally hit the mainstream press and gotten a Pentagon denial, that it was even worse than this, way worse. I have been waiting for this since Hersh first let it slip at that ACLU event that I watched with my own eyes and heard with my own ears, and it has finally hit the MSM. Obama's little lie to go back on the court-ordered photo release has been exposed... beside the bald fact that he defied a court order to begin with, which doesn't seem to get talked about much.
I tell you, Obama is making a big mistake by not releasing everything, letting the entire world know in complete detail, and prosecuting everyone involved in ALL the war crimes of the past administration... even the ones who have not stopped the brutality despite his loophole-riddled order. Untold American lives are at stake and we will be subjected to torture wherever anyone who hates us can grab us if he does not get it all out in the open and ALL of the guilty prosecuted.
WE are the only ones who don't know about this.
He isn't fooling anyone out there.
He'd be SAVING our lives if he did it.
The part that horrifies me almost even more than this "controversy" over what is utterly UNcontroversial is that he has to know this... making me wonder if he, or whoever is calling his shots, wants this. Everywhere you turn there are signals for you to be terrified to leave home. In fact, terrified on our own streets. He's not just jeopardizing all our military POWs for decades, maybe hundreds of years, but civilians too. THAT is never discussed. That never gets talked about AT ALL.
You should start talking about it.
This means you.
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Yeah, yeah, "war is hell", always has been, get over it.... And, the old *, his little old cowpoke self, came out of hiding tonight to tell us so, joining Fudd on the stump for the efficacy of torture. It's true. This stuff has been going on all over the world since humans began. It is hugely symbolic of DOMINANCE... "full-spectrum dominance". It is brutal and feral and THE way to ruin your enemy's life, preferred largely over killing him. But it stopped with George Washington, and we sealed it with Nuremberg and the Geneva Conventions, which by our ratification became part of our Constitution. We prosecute for this or we are not America anymore, and people everywhere stop thinking our lives are worth more than dirt. They can't all be "terrorists".
WE'RE THE TERRORISTS.
Isn't this perfectly crystal clear to you yet?
Can you tell I'm pissed off?
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There’s too much work and I’m spent
There’s too much pressure and I'm bent
I got no time to move ahead
Have you heard one thing that I’ve said
And all these little things in life, they all create this haze
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days
And I can’t last here for so long
I feel this current it’s so strong
It gets me further down the line
It gets me closer to the light
And all these little things in life, they all create this haze
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days
All these little things in life, they all create this haze
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days
Well all these little things in life, they all create this haze
And now I’m running out of time; I can’t see through this haze
My friend tell me why it has to be this way
There’s too many things to get done, and I’m running out of days
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Refer back to the tip of the iceberg....
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Vets aren't happy about it either....
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Naomi Wolf weighs in....
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Scott Horton weighs in....
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Quoth Senator Lindsey Graham in 2004: The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.
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Don't forget the "prolonged detention" torture....
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And, everybody's making such a hairy deal out of Betraeus stating the obvious, just as though that would even start to cover it. DUH. Do you think saying it has any impact? No. Indicting and prosecuting perpetrators has impact. Ceasing to brutalize men and women who have been convicted of nothing has impact. Ceasing to kill innocent people has impact. Observing the Geneva Conventions, all of them, has impact. So, even though he gets another star for publicly stating the obvious, on Warmonger TV, no less, no, this isn't good enough by a couple light years.
not good enough
[click image]Government halts forest road-building for 1 year
By MATTHEW DALY – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is calling for a one-year moratorium on road-building and development on about 50 million acres of remote national forests.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a directive Thursday reinstating for one year most of a Clinton-era ban against new road construction and development in national forests. The 2001 rule banned road building and logging in more than 58 million acres of remote national forests, mostly in the West.
Conflicting court decisions issued since then have left the rule's legal status in doubt.
Vilsack said his interim directive will provide clarity that should help protect national forests until the Obama administration develops a long-term roadless policy. The directive gives Vilsack sole decision-making authority over all proposed forest management or road construction projects in designated roadless areas in all states except Idaho.
Idaho was one of two states that developed its own roadless rule under a Bush administration policy giving states more control over whether and how to block road-building in remote forests. More than 9 million acres of roadless national forests in Idaho will remain under state control, Vilsack said.
Colorado was the only other state to write its own roadless plan. The state has been working with the Forest Service to clarify language and hoped to complete work in the next few months on a plan to protect more than 4 million acres of roadless national forests. But Vilsack's directive overturns the state's efforts, officials said.
Confusion over the roadless rule extended beyond Colorado and Idaho.
In alternately upholding and overturning portions of the 2001 Clinton rule, federal courts "have created confusion and made it difficult for the U.S. Forest Service to do its job," Vilsack said in a statement. The new directive will ensure that the administration can consider activities in the affected areas while long-term roadless policy is developed and court cases move forward, Vilsack said.
The directive's most immediate effect is to halt plans for road construction in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. About 35 miles of roads are proposed as part of several timber sales pending in the Tongass, the nation's largest federal forest.
Obama's proposed "time out" is "needed and welcome," said Trip Van Noppen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice. "Roadless areas are important as the last remaining pristine areas in America, and they are a great bulwark in how we will protect our environment in an era of climate change."
Right after vineyards, roads are the most damaging to watersheds of anything we do. Logging is exponentially less harmful than conversion to agriculture, especially viniculture, and there are logging roads and there are logging roads, with the very least harmful being the most expensive and so rarely picked by timber companies, but we already have so many millions of miles of abandoned and crumbling roads that might rather be repaired, we can goddam do without another new road in our National Forests, anywhere in our timberlands, for the rest of time. If this bozo wants to promote putting them to bed properly before opening new ones, well, I'm open to that, but a one-year halt is just shit. Especially now. It doesn't pay to log when NOBODY is building. Big timber won't be the least upset about this PR gesture.
mir-hossein mousavi is looking like the iranian obama
[click image]--------------------------------
BUT HE IS ABSOLUTELY NOT!
--------------------------------
... largely due to the popularity of his wife and the hope for liberality on women's issues, but the youth are going in for him in a big way and it's looking as though the rallies are huge. I'm trying to find the source page for a slew of other rally images with supporters covering themselves in green by every means conceivable. I'm told that green is the sacred color of Islam, but the choice of green was made to vaguely allude to all things green, all things positive, in the minds of voters. He's using Rumi quotes too.
While my buddy Ahmadinejad has been the expected winner for quite a while, polls seem to indicate Mousavi now has a four point lead.
Jaded old realists don't think Ahmadinejad can be counted out.
I, of course, am torn... because, despite his fundamentalism, I really do see a deeper decency in Ahmadinejad than most world leaders, but firing Mrs. Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard from her post as chancellor of Al-Zahra University and generally leaving women's issues on the back burner while a huge section of Iran's distaff is avidly in favor of western fashion and many things women's lib, is a definite failing for which he may pay dearly on 12 June.
'Mrs Mousavi': artist who could be Iran's first lady
By Hiedeh Farmani
TEHRAN (AFP) — Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of moderate presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, is breaking the mould in Iranian politics by campaigning openly alongside her husband for next month's election.
If Mousavi, a former prime minister, is elected president in the June 12 vote, the Islamic republic may get its first "first lady" in decades who would have a strong public profile like her peers around the world, observers say.
Despite playing a key role in the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah, Iranian women have had but a token presence in politics under the three-decade rule of conservative clerics, with just a handful of parliament seats and two cabinet posts.
Many Iranians have no clues what their presidents' wives look like, as heads of government, even the reformist Mohammad Khatami, mostly kept their spouses out of the spotlight and shied away from appearing with them at political events or on foreign trips.
But with a prolific academic and artistic background, Rahnavard is to many a household name in her own right, especially those who studied at Tehran's all-women Al-Zahra university, where she was chancellor for eight years.
Since her husband announced his bid for the presidency, she has appeared at most of his campaign rallies and has given numerous speeches, notably criticising Iran's treatment of women, especially under hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"It is very ordinary, natural, sensible and religiously-accepted" for a president's wife to have an active and visible role alongside her husband, she said in an interview with popular youth weekly Chelcheragh this month.
An admirer of her namesake, the Prophet Mohammed's daughter Fatemeh Zahra, Rahnavard has for years been an advocate of equal rights for women and called for their economic empowerment and a change to Iran's laws deemed as discriminatory to women.
The 64-year-old grandmother, whose husband served as Iran's last premier before the post was abolished in 1989, has said that mothering three daughters has made her more sensitive and concerned about women's issues.
Despite appearing in public in the traditional black chador favoured by conservative women, she sports flowery headscarves and bright coats underneath, and says she did not wear the Islamic veil until her early 20s.
The sculptor and painter says she enjoys rap music and her favourite accessory is a bohemian handbag adorned with Iranian tribal motifs.
Rahnavard has slammed Iran's tough police crackdown on "un-Islamic" attire over the past three years as "the ugliest and dirtiest patronising treatment of women".
At a pro-Mousavi rally in Tehran on Saturday, she urged young supporters to vote for a new government that will "not have political and student prisoners" and one that will fulfil the wish of "removing discrimination against women."
In 2005, shortly after Ahmadinejad's election, she invited Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi to speak at Al-Zahra university -- a move which did not go down well with hardliners who condemn Ebadi over her criticism of human rights in Iran.
Rahnavard was replaced as university chancellor less than a year later.
She met Mousavi at one of her exhibitions in 1969. The two shared a love of the arts and a common cause of overthrowing the shah.
In 1976, as the former regime stepped up its pressure on political dissent, Rahnavard left Iran for the United States with her two children and returned shortly before Islamic revolutionaries seized power in 1979.
She holds a PhD in political science and served as an advisor to Khatami, who was president from 1997 to 2005. She has also been a Koran researcher and authored several books on art and politics.
A picture of Rahnavard and Mousavi leaving a rally holding hands has been circulating in cyber space, sparking positive comments on many blogs -- although conservatives frown upon public displays of affection even between married couples in Iran.
It doesn't help me that in all the pictures I've seen of her she looks positively dour... but, hey, campaigning is a drag... especially when the clerics all look down their noses at you.
I would be excited about this possibility of reform that seems to have a chance of winning this election, loving the images of the avid mobs supporting him, but, well, been there, done that, burned the Obama t-shirt....
-------------------------------------------------
Homie-banoo sends me this dull and not very illuminating color chart with Iranian symbolism from Xerox... who, I guess, want to know this stuff for advertising and logo choices....
-------------------------------------------------
While, clearly, Pedestrian is irked about having to vote for him, for similar reasons, but not identical, as I had about irkedly voting for Obama. I'm not sure, but it seems Mousavi is really the only reform challenger with a chance and Iran is faced with their own version of the Obama vs. McCain deal.
crap, can't obummer do anything right?
[click image]Second Amendment: Sotomayor was also a member of the panel that issued a per curiam opinion in another controversial case that may be headed for the Court next year. In Maloney v. Cuomo, 554 F.3d 56 (2009), the panel considered (as relevant here) a claim by a New York attorney that a state law prohibiting possession of a chuka stick (also known as nunchaku, a device used in martial arts consisting of two sticks joined by a rope or chain) violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms. The district court rejected the claim on the ground that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. On appeal, the panel affirmed. Relying on the Supreme Court’s 1886 decision in Presser v. Illinois, it explained that it was “settled law . . . that the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose” on the individual’s right to bear arms. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the court continued, “does not invalidate this longstanding principle.” And while acknowledging the possibility that “Heller might be read to question the continuing validity of this principle,” the panel deemed itself bound to follow Presser because it “directly controls, leaving to the Supreme Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.” Maloney’s lawyers intend to file a petition for certiorari in late June.
She should be drilled on this mercilessly in her confirmation hearings, and I fear we can only rely on the Republicans to do that.
iraqi teen refugee solves bernoulli numbers sequence formula
[click image]It was that depleted uranium exposure that did it....
UPDATE: Man, there are a lot of people googling this. I am as stoked about it as you are, and I am also heartbroken about all the other potentially great mathematicians and musicians and scientists and statesmen and mothers and fathers and doctors and farmers we have killed, are killing and will be poisoned by that DU for the rest of time because of us. It gives me some hope that kids as smart as this might one day figure out how to neutralize that radiation, how to clean it up and contain it.
27 May 2009
wipe out
Yesterday I bought two yards of compost in really big and cripplingly heavy bags. I took them off the stack and put them in the cart and then put them in the trunk of my car. Then I went for groceries. Today I wrestled the compost out of my trunk and to the places where I could open the bags and bail it onto my garden in manageable scoops. I dug out an old bed, lined it with plastic and filled in with new soil and compost and a hydrangea start I managed not to kill from my mother's garden. I weeded. I poked around for my little transcendental strawberries. I foiled the slugs. I have spent too much time wrasslin' with way too much weight for me and grubbling around in extremely taxing positions, both in the garden and that fucking not-a-tub, without reopening my slashed finger, and bleeding all over, but so whupped I slipped major, major, majorly as I was getting out of that fucking not-a-tub.
Were it not for the handles bolted to the wall I could very well have killed myself. I'm always telling you how unlovely this bathing in my not-a-bathtub is, but never has it been unlovelier than tonight. Since I was holding on to one of those handles, I only slammed my right knee very hard on the cabinet. I did not smack my head full force on anything, but, whoa, I sure would have, but for that handle.
I don't care what it does to my reputation as a night owl. I'm going to bed.
So, well, call me if we nuke anybody, okay?
And if you don't find me some help with this bathtub thing, it honestly could be lethal.
i'm gardening
[click image]I'm a grubby and sweaty wreck.
6:26pm... maybe a big fat ibuprofen... and some berry essence sparkling water... with a cigarette... before I attempt the bathing ordeal ahead of me....
26 May 2009
i don't know why i'm always rooting for warren buffett
[click image]Doesn't make a lick of sense, but, well, there you have it.
ramble on
[click image]Army chief says US ready to be in Iraq 10 years
By TOM CURLEY, Associated Press Writer – Tue May 26, 7:56 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday.
Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said the world remains dangerous and unpredictable, and the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars. "Global trends are pushing in the wrong direction," Casey said. "They fundamentally will change how the Army works."
He spoke at an invitation-only briefing to a dozen journalists and policy analysts from Washington-based think-tanks. He said his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.
Casey's calculations about force levels are related to his attempt to ease the brutal deployment calendar that he said would "bring the Army to its knees."
Casey would not specify how many combat units would be split between Iraq and Afghanistan. He said U.S. ground commander Gen. Ray Odierno is leading a study to determine how far U.S. forces could be cut back in Iraq and still be effective. Casey said his comments about the long war in Iraq were not meant to conflict with administration policies.
President Barack Obama plans to bring U.S. combat forces home from Iraq in 2010, and the United States and Iraq have agreed that all American forces would leave by 2012. Although several senior U.S. officials have suggested Iraq could request an extension, the legal agreement the two countries signed last year would have to be amended for any significant U.S. presence to remain.
As recently as February, Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated the U.S. commitment to the agreement worked out with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"Under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011," Gates said during an address at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. "We will complete this transition to Iraqi responsibility, and we will bring our troops home with the honor that they have earned."
The United States currently has about 139,000 troops in Iraq and 52,000 in Afghanistan.
Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war as quickly as possible and refocusing U.S. resources on what he called the more important fight in Afghanistan.
That will not mean a major influx of U.S. fighting forces on the model of the Iraq "surge," however. Obama has agreed to send about 21,000 combat forces and trainers to Afghanistan this year. Combined with additional forces approved before former President George W. Bush left office, the United States is expected to have about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year. That's about double the total at the end of 2008, but Obama's top military and civilian advisers have indicated the number is unlikely to grow much beyond that.
Casey said several times that he wasn't the person making policy, but the military was preparing to have a fighting force deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come. Casey said his planning envisions 10 combat brigades plus command and support forces committed to the two wars.
When asked whether the Army had any measurement for knowing how big it should be, Casey responded, "How about the reality scenario?"
This scenario, he said, must take into account that "we're going to have 10 Army and Marine units deployed for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Casey stressed that the United States must be ready to take on sustained fights in the Middle East while meeting other commitments.
Casey reiterated statements made by civilian and military leaders that the situation in Afghanistan would get worse before it gets better. "There's going to be a big fight in the South," he said.
Casey added that training of local police and military in Afghanistan was at least a couple years behind the pace in Iraq, and it would be months before the U.S. deployed enough trainers. There's a steeper curve before training could be effective in Afghanistan, requiring three to five years before Afghanis could reach the "tipping point" of control.
He also said the U.S. had to be careful about what assets get deployed to Afghanistan. "Anything you put in there would be in there for a decade," he said.
As Army chief of staff, Casey is primarily responsible for assembling the manpower and determining assignments. He insisted the Army's 1.1-million size was sufficient even to handle the extended Mideast conflicts.
"We ought to build a pretty effective Army with 1.1 million strength," Casey said. He also noted that the Army's budget had grown to $220 billion from $68 billion before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
He said the Army is two-thirds of the way through a complete overhaul from the Cold War-era force built around tanks and artillery to today's terrorist-driven realities. The Army has become more versatile and quicker by switching from division-led units to brigade-level command.
Casey said the Army has moved from 15-month battlefield deployments to 12 months. His goal is to move rotations by 2011 to one year in the battlefield and two years out for regular Army troops, and one year in the battlefield and three years out for reserves. He called the current one-year-in-one-year-out cycle "unsustainable."
I keep remembering that Obama campaign worker who referred to me as one of her "less progressive" friends. Yep! Guilty as charged. With progress like this, who needs progressives?
today's green news report ends with a hoot
[click image]You can find it at the image link or regularly updated in the player at the bottom of my sidebar.
it might be beautiful
[click image]... except Karzai and Zardari are puppets.
No. Really. Talk about a can of richly-deserved whoop-ass being turned loose on NATO....
i smell a rat
[click image]I think the fact that Iran and Venezuela set up their own bank last month is the reason this crap is being put about now. And even if it isn't, WHO in their right mind could blame them?
i was sure someone would have nuked them by now
[click image]I was just griping somewhere about people treating other humans as though they were cartoons or characters in novels, and I am beginning to think that might be optimal in the case of North Korea, even if I can't quite get there yet myself. What possible good can come of this action? What in the hell are they trying to accomplish? Do they want the world to feed them lest they nuke us? Is that it?
Wait a minute. Just as I'm thinking this, it occurs to me, HOW do we know any of this happened at all? The news? Al Jazeera has a guy reporting from the DMZ. What is that going to tell him? Bubkes. Maybe they just want us to think the North Koreans are this psychotic. I still don't believe they tested their first nuke, so why am I letting myself believe they tested a second and are shooting off missiles to keep us from verifying it? Maybe they're shooting off missiles to keep us from planting enough radiation.
How can you tell nowadays?
You, fucking, outright CAN'T.
does this mean we can legalize slavery in california?
[click image, now that I've finally fixed the link. Sorry.]I'm sorry, but I cannot have faith in whatever arguments were put before them. It seems they were doing their "conservative" reading thing again, but forgetting the Federal Law that overrides State Law in certain areas... civil rights being one of them. Maybe I don't have enough faith in my own take on it... and that is that a civil union is, or can be, perfectly workable enough for every right that has been denied gay couples, and even if the State doesn't call it "marriage", it functions as such and doesn't prohibit you calling it whatever you damn well please. Anyway, I'm bugged about this. It feels completely like the court caving in to right wing crazies.
It's a STUPID non-issue issue to begin with and takes up way too much of everyone's brains.
Few seem to realize the positive effects of ripping this and other wedges from the clutches of politicians and Bible thumpers alike, which makes me want to tear out my hair.
25 May 2009
maybe the image should have been a lightbulb
[click image]My hair actually looks almost exactly like this just now. I'd succumbed to the urge to lop a bunch more of it off. It had grown very long again behind my back, while I was ignoring it utterly except for when tripping over the pounds of it that hit the floor. When I lost forty pounds, I decided to do something about my hair at last. First I had about five inches cut off in a very chic long million length cut. Then I had had another three cut off in an equally chic way. And just the other day I had yet another three cut off, to leave it just long enough to pull into a ponytail with but an inch or two to spare. It was a shitty cut, because the chic place was closed when I wanted it off, and so it is good to just pull it into that ponytail until next month or so when it can be made chic again. Doesn't matter. I'd sprayed it up and blown it to see if I couldn't make something wild and wooly enough for me out of it, but there's still too much hair for that, and so it just went back into the ponytail until further notice.
A few minutes ago I took it out of the band holding it into the ponytail all these days so I could brush it thoroughly before showering. My hair is sticking up almost exactly like this right this very now. The outright amazing part is that hardly any hair broke off when I brushed it. Usually handfuls of it need pulling from my brush when I'm done. Scaring the pee out of me every time, making me run to a mirror to check how close to bald I must be every time, but mysteriously finding I still have hair on my head every time. It did finally occur to me that the problem wasn't with the growing of the hair -- it grows outrageously fast -- and it can't be that it's falling out so much as it is just breaking off. Otherwise, for sure I'd have been all scalp and no locks long since.
My hair had been up in that ponytail for four days, and just four or five short strands came off on the brush and one or two hit the floor. This has not been the case for almost 20 years. I may finally have cut off all the hair that has been breaking off and tripping me for so long due to my severe lack of vitamin D. I might now be down to the hair that's grown since my vitamin D level has finally gone back up into the healthy zone.
My teeth have stopped breaking and I can no longer move them with a little finger pressure. My skin looks way better. My hair may finally have stopped threatening the integrity of all vacuum cleaners. Damn. This might turn out okay.
Oh!
Yes, I do look goofy as hell, but I don't care. I feel SO much better.
-----------------------------------
7pm Update: Well, there was still too much hair in the comb after shampooing... so... it's better anyway.
My shower seemed to decide the left index finger I cut so badly last night to start bleeding like mad again, and so I had to spend a lot of time rinsing it again with hydrogen peroxide and wrapping that back up in a wad of antibiotic ointment and gauze so I could go out into the world without bleeding all over everything... but the tip of that finger is now asleep.
Heavy sigh.
I forgot to freak about Goldie, and she started right up -- AND HELD HER IDLE JUST FINE -- not even rattling too terrifyingly this trip. Thank the buddhas of the ten directions. Thank you very much indeed.
Notwithstanding Wal
Like a vaguely hip paragon of virtue healthy old baggy maniac.
[That was a braino. Dammit! I won't set foot in a Walmart, let alone spend money in one. But I keep getting Walgreens mixed up in my mouth with Walmart. I use the new Walgreens because they have the very least inefficient bozos behind the pharmacy counter. It is a plague of the north coast that even heavily staffed pharmacies are nothing but abortive attempts, misfiled prescriptions and malfunctioning computers. I've tried every single one up here, and the one independent one that wasn't any better but wasn't corporate went out of business. So. Walgreens. Sheesh.]
100% correct
[click image]Piece of cake, and no good reason the Governator won't just cave in and do it now. We have been suffering from this poison for long enough. For decades now they have been raising funds through fees because they are terrified of raising taxes, and, of course, by lowering services, cheaping out on whatever they can, while fully endorsing soaring profit margins for the corporate big boys. It's this simple. Problem solved.
It has not only been the Republicans doing this. It's been everyone in State and Local governments, from any party.
Just raise State income tax. End of problem. Pft. Like that!
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