This is absolutely some of the sickest shit I have ever seen. A New Zealander, he’s only 16 in this video, maybe 18 now.

..ooh…

Right here, thump-n-whip style. And, please, no feeding the kangaroos.

1.) Judge, we would initially remind The Court of The United Nations Convention Against Torture, of which we are a signatory:

Article 1

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Our Great Nation signed UNCAT on April 18, 1988 and ratified it on October 21, 1994.

2.) We now call our first witness: Allen S. Keller, M.D., director of the Bellevue Hospital Center/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture.

“To think that abusive methods, including the enhanced interrogation techniques are harmless psychological ploys is contradictory to well established medical knowledge and clinical experience. These methods are intended to break the prisoners down, to terrify them and cause harm to their psyche, and in so doing result in lasting harmful health consequences. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD.”

“Water-boarding or mock drowning, where a prisoner is bound to an inclined board and water is poured over their face, inducing a terrifying fear of drowning clearly can result in immediate and long-term health consequences. As the prisoner gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive, with all of the physiologic and psychological responses expected, including an intense stress response, manifested by tachycardia, rapid heart beat and gasping for breath. There is a real risk of death from actually drowning or suffering a heart attack or damage to the lungs from inhalation of water. Long term effects include panic attacks, depression and PTSD. I remind you of the patient I described earlier who would panic and gasp for breath whenever it rained even years after his abuse.”

3.) We would also kindly remind The Court, your Honor, that waterboarding was applied to detainees during that period of time in which the defendant served as the Director of the National Security Agency in the Bush Administration. To wit:

On page 37 of the OLC memo, in a passage discussing the differences between SERE techniques and the torture used with detainees, the memo explains: The CIA used the waterboard “at least 83 times during August 2002″ in the interrogation of Zubaydah. IG Report at 90, and 183 times during March 2003 in the interrogation of KSM, see id. at 91.

4.) Without further delay, the Website now calls the defendant to the stand.

Dr. Rice, did you authorize the use of waterboarding upon prisoners?

The prosecution rests. Now someone get a broom, the place is sick with jumping rats.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ9ieVLaLo8]

9 Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture

Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to some questions:

4. If lawyers will be prosecuted for giving legal advice to an administration that you consider immoral and illegal, do you concede that this might inhibit lawyers in the future from giving unpopular but sincerely argued advice to the government in any sensitive area? They will, after all, know that if the next administration disapproves of their work, they will be vilified by the media and prosecuted by the government.

Signed treaties are the law of the land, and for opinions so shockingly wayward of well-established American law, as the Geneva Conventions have been since the first one in 1864, the lawyers should be canned, shamed and stripped of their Bar standings. It’s the guys who hired and listened to these obliging incompetents who get prosecuted. The President, for starters.

5. Presumably you would acknowledge that the release of the classified reports on the handling of high-level, post-Sept. 11 terror suspects would inflame passions in many parts of the Muslim world. If innocents were murdered because nonviolent cartoons of Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, presumably far more innocents will be tortured and murdered with the release of these reports and photos. Do you accept any moral responsibility for any ensuing violence against American and other civilians?

What? Dennis, you’re the kind of idiot that would have held the Rodney King trial and verdicts in hermitic secrecy. When wrong is exposed and the world erupts, everybody learns that the consequences are dire–as they should be. Good citizens want to know how their decisions affect their communities, the society, the world. We’re not the Roman Empire, reaching for the Gods’ embrace while standing on the backs of twitchy slaves.

6. Many members of the intelligence community now feel betrayed and believe that the intelligence community will be weakened in their ability to fight the most vicious organized groups in the world. As reported in the Washington Post, former intelligence officer “(Mark) Lowenthal said that fear has paralyzed agents on the ground. Apparently, many of those in the know are certain that life-saving information was gleaned from high level terror suspects who were waterboarded. As Mike Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden, said, ”We were very certain that the interrogation procedures procured information that was worth having.” If, then, the intelligence community has been adversely affected, do you believe it can still do the work necessary to protect tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people from death and maiming?

Bullshit. Much of the intelligence community feels exactly the opposite way–Obama was received in Langley with a standing ovation, and exhorted them to ‘uphold our values.’ An FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah, Ali Soufan, personally recounted how torture failed in the interrogations. Nobody’s surprised by the revelation: all-out warfare has been going on for millenia, and torture doesn’t work.

It’s a narcissist’s tool: tell me what’s really going on, I know what’s really going on–there, see? I knew it. Reminiscent of your half-baked assertions I’m icing here, Dennis.

Goddamn, I do hate Dennis Prager (1-3)
Goddamn, I do hate Dennis Prager (7-9)

He’s a jerk. And who the hell could ever like somebody who routinely looks deep, deep inside himself and beholds something so brilliant and righteous, he just has to cry? A distasteful melange of big mouth, dog-instinct and oily self-righteousness, he’s one of those guys that immediately inspires fist-clenching. But since we’re not actually murderers, Radio Socrates goes right on uber-ooze-philosophizing over everything. Especially things he doesn’t remotely understand.

9 Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture

Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to some questions:

Just like the difficult but reasonable questions you took the time to answer about torture just before you pissed on America’s good name and the Geneva Conventions? I don’t recall your answers. And does this mean that once we blow your childish tantrum–disguised as ’9 Questions’–out of the water, you’ll admit you’re wrong and apologize for the evil that you’ve been cheerleading? Because I seriously doubt you’re that intelligent or honest, Dennis.

C’mon, man, just look at your pretense here: …those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to some questions…

You mean to say there’s no justification for opposing torture if the answers don’t make you happy? You want to know us before you can admit that torture is wrong? Geez, Dennis, you’re a strange one. Torture was evil before I was born, it doesn’t matter what I think right now. But if you have to know:

1. Given how much you rightly hate torture, why did you oppose the removal of Saddam Hussein, whose prisons engaged in far more hideous tortures, on thousands of times more people, than America did — all of whom, moreover, were individuals and families who either did nothing or simply opposed tyranny? One assumes, furthermore, that all those Iraqi innocents Saddam had put into shredding machines or whose tongues were cut out and other hideous tortures would have begged to be waterboarded.

It wasn’t worth a single American life. Evil is everywhere, but we’re not the self-righteous garbagemen of the world. If Americans are about to die, I’ll consider putting other American lives on the line. If you want to volunteer yourself or your family to assassinate dictators, be my guest.

2. Are all forms of painful pressure equally morally objectionable? In other words, are you willing to acknowledge that there are gradations of torture as, for example, there are gradations of burns, with a third-degree burn considerably more injurious and painful than a first-degree burn? Or is all painful treatment to be considered torture? Just as you, correctly, ask proponents of waterboarding where they draw their line, you, too, must explain where you draw your line.

We ‘drew’ the line a long, long time ago, and you guys are the dumb savages who erased it. Go look for yourself–read the U.S. Army Field Manuals and the Conventions of Geneva. I’m against waterboarding because it’s torture.

3. Is any maltreatment of anyone at any time — even a high-level terrorist with knowledge that would likely save innocents’ lives — wrong? If there is no question about the identity of a terror suspect, and he can provide information on al-Qaida — for the sake of clarity, let us imagine that Osama Bin Laden himself were captured — could America do any form of enhanced interrogation involving pain and/or deprivation to him that you would consider moral and therefore support?

I’d want to kill the fucking guy with my own hands, but then I’m a flawed human being. I’d let the professional interrogators have a crack at him. Those guys have been learning, developing and plying effective methods of extracting information for decades, if not centuries. Dennis, you do remember World War II, right? That was a fight for the future of everything, and we still managed to win without rotely torturing prisoners for intelligence gathering. And for refreshers, the relative threats of evil? September the Eleventh: 3,000 killed, Al Qaeda: 5,000 killed, Axis powers: 400,000 Americans and 20,000,000 soldiers and 25,000,000 civilians killed.

(more later, unless I find something better to do. like barking at moths.)

Goddamn, I do hate Dennis Prager (4-6)
Goddamn, I do hate Dennis Prager (7-9)

Unintentionally hilarious. The guy spent 5 minutes trying to link ‘when pigs fly’ and ‘swine flu’ but couldn’t. So he just wrote the hook down in the corner. So much for drawing these things.

There’s no reason to flip out, at least not yet. It’s obviously been running around in Mexico for a while.

New York Congressman Wants Border Closed To Contain Swine Flu

Washington, DC (AHN) – A congressional Democrat serving on the House Homeland Security Committee is calling for the “immediate and complete” closing of the Mexican border with the United States until the swine flu is contained.

“The public needs to be aware of the serious threat of swine flu, and we need to close our borders to Mexico immediately and completely until this is resolved,” Rep. Eric Massa, D-NY, said in a press release.

I can’t believe a Democrat beat the wingnuts there, nice going.

WORLD FOREX: Mexican Peso Dn Sharply On Swine Flu Concerns

TORONTO (Dow Jones)–The Mexican peso and other Latin American currencies sold off sharply Monday as worries about the rapidly spreading outbreak of swine flu overshadowed other concerns.

“I don’t think it’s the only thing in the market, but…as more cases show up, I think it’s making people a little more concerned,” said Meg Browne, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York. “It’s certainly generating nervousness,” she said.

The euro and other risk-sensitive major currencies, such as the Canadian and Australian dollars, followed their Latin American counterparts lower during the sesssion as North American equities slumped into negative territory.

Ridiculous. Unfair, really, Mexico isn’t about to disappear.

Two L.A. County deaths possibly related to swine flu, coroner says [Updated]
9:09 AM | April 28, 2009

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office is investigating two recent deaths that officials say could be related to the recent global swine flu outbreak. However, no tests have come back positive for the swine flu, and medical examiners have not officially determined what caused the deaths.

[Updated at 2:08 p.m.]: The L.A. coroner’s office said this afternoon that further testing indicated neither of two flu-related deaths being investigated in Los Angeles County appeared to be linked to the swine flu.

No surprise.

Students use “Dracula Sneeze” to fend off swine flu

To keep the swine flu from spreading, California public school students are being told to practice what they have dubbed the “Dracula Sneeze.”

California Schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell said that last week teachers reminded students that if they have to sneeze, to put their mouths into the crook of one of their elbows.

“The students started calling that the Dracula Sneeze, and we picked up on that,” O’Connell said on Monday.

You’re just trying to make me laugh. Congratulations.

Why not, when it’s so golden, harmless and warm in all of its exploding, fusion-y goodness?

This head smacker comes by way of the hard-working people at Think Progress who caught an Op-ed by some fussy camels at the Orange County Register on the subject of Global Warming.

Editorial: CO2 limits are unneeded, unjust
–California first state to order refiners to reduce carbon output to fight a nonexistent problem.
–An Orange County Register editorial

The California Air Resources Board, seeking to reshape life in California by dictating to private enterprise, has adopted the nation’s first regulations to force fuel manufacturers to reduce their carbon footprints.

This is government by administrative decree from unelected ARB board members, administrators and staff, who concocted a fanciful “solution” to so-called global warming, an increasingly disputed phenomenon that hasn’t occurred for at least a decade.

What? The North Pole was almost uncovered of ice last year, the glaciers are almost gone from Glacier Park, Montana, but it’s not happening? Where do these people live–Disneyland?

Nevertheless, by a 9-1 vote the ARB deemed it urgent enough to demand a 10-percent reduction in carbon dioxide that fuel producers release into the atmosphere on the theory – also unproven – that CO2 increases temperatures. Reality inconveniently contradicts the theory. CO2 has risen over the past decade, but global temperatures have declined, precisely the opposite of what the theory contends.

A better explanation for the contrived urgency is that bureaucrats need to impose their Draconian rules before people realize they are unneeded.

There’s no evidence man-made CO2, even if it increases temperatures, is harmful. Indeed, some argue that warmer climes would benefit mankind by increasing crop productivity and reducing deaths from severe cold. None of that matters when government is intent on forcing change.

Great googly fucking moogly, whoever wrote this is an utter imbecile. He thinks that global warming is nothing more than turning up the thermostat in your apartment.

The world is an unbelievably complex system, and the role of heat in it is not remotely definitively understood. We do know it’s a driver of air currents, like the Jet Stream, and ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream, that play huge roles in determining weather patterns. These weather patterns determine what your particular seasonal temperature norms are, where and how much rainfall comes down, daily wind and humidity averages–you name it.

If you throw enough heat into the system, it gets thrown into chaos and lord knows how it will reset. Deserts could become jungles, snowy mountains turn to arid rock–no one knows what the end product will be. We know that this is possible because the Earth is billions of years old and has hosted all sorts of radically different weather patterns in the past.

We also know that millions, if not billions, of people will have to resettle in new places. Since we’re already pretty well located around and adapted to the best places on Earth now, as the global weather re-establishes itself, we’ll have to again identify and resettle the new spots. And everybody will have to bail out of the current coastal areas because that will all be under water. I think we can all agree that this would be the freaking mother of all disasters.

Utopian tinkering beyond the influence of voters arrogantly presumes ivory-tower bureaucrats know better.

He can’t even manage to get the cliche right? ‘Ivory tower’ people are academics, like scientists, who–yes, exactly–are the ones who know a hell of a lot better than this sad newspaper.