April 14, 2008 archive

This Is Not Torture

There are some pretty graphic descriptions in here.  I put them in to show just what resulted from the discussions and decisions of top administration officials, and how it is a big fucking deal.

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Besides the fact that the media here in the United States doesn’t seem to think it is important that Bush, Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet (not to mention Gonzales, Yoo, most likely Miers and others) spent way too much time discussing, debating, justifying and approving how much torture is too much torture, it is pretty damn important.

It also matters that it is not being confronted forcefully and with more than just mere “strongly worded letters” amongst this shockingly blanket burying this atrocity that the world now knows runs straight to mister Bush himself.  No matter how many times the euphemistic “enhanced interrogation techniques” is used by the same people who applaud a fictional “badass” like Jack Bauer for doing “whatever it takes” to stop that ticking time bomb from going off.

EENR for Progress: Americans are Dying

For the sixth year in a row, the percentage of uninsured Americans is on the rise. Just in 2006, 2.2 million Americans joined the ranks of the uninsured. Back in 2002, The Institute of Medicine released its second installment of a six part report on what happens to thousands of Americans who lack health care coverage in America. The result was shocking, 18,000 Americans die every year because they lack health care coverage.  

Beating Cell Phones into Bananas

“What are you writing about, Honey?”

“I’m writing about what separates man from beast.”

“Really? Well… I’m going out to feed our live horses while you beat that dead one.”

She has a point.

Just as I once learned that I was not, in fact, the inventor of the ham and cheese sandwich, I find once again that I am late to the party. The search for profound and essential differences between man and beast is not new.

Should that stop me from flailing about? Should that stop me from flopping around in the mud, gasping for air like a dying guppy? Where some see a dead horse, I see a piƱata.

If you want, grab a stick, step around the dead horse, and we’ll see if we can’t whack a little candy loose.

 

Kangaroo Courts of All Sorts!

I knew it, I just knew it.  When you have a really good day and create some of that White Magic in the world, Satan’s minions seek you out.  Being pretty sure I would owe tribute to the fuehrer this year I put it off the extraction of funds from my account to the account of Satan’s minions.   The sum came to more than I have and it contained yet another evil twist to boot.

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Stills and Young, Nash, and Crosby



Something’s Happening Here

I have met the enemy, and he is us

The pictures that zozie linked to in the diary “Photos from Iraq” brought back memories of Desert Storm. One memory, in particular, still haunts me. I’d like to share it with you…

I served on the ground there, flown in with one of the first units to deploy to Saudi Arabia. When we got off the plane, we didn’t know what to expect. We thought we would be shot at immediately. We soon discovered that our worst enemies were going to be the insane heat, dehydration, and boredom.

When the ground war finally began, my unit was in a task force that breached through a belt of landmines. The day was black as night, thick with smoke from burning oil rigs.

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