one of THE most disturbing things i have EVER seen

this is NSFW



(ht: boing boing)

wow

frozen cops vs clowns in a hospital shoot out. this really IS amazing



(shout out boing boing)

two VERY different takes on being an american

shepard smith, a true american and liz cheney i don't know what the hell is true about her

this is america, WE DO NOT FUCKING TORTURE
(man, big big big ol' shout out to shep for that one)

Shepard Smith Tells Fox Host: We Are America! We Do Not Fucking Torture!
I hope you will all join me in giving Fox News host Shepard Smith a virtual standing ovation for his emphatic, no-holds-barred stance against torture. We've been sent two YouTube videos of Smith. One on his own show, Studio B, where he much less excitedly told his guests, “We are America. We don't torture. And the moment that is not the case, I want off the train.” On The Strategy Room, an online show, Smith pounded on the table and said vehemently, “We are America! I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! We do not fucking torture!” With video..............


Daddy's little girl: Liz Cheney tells Norah O'Donnell that 'we did not torture'
Liz Cheney, former Deputy Assistant to Condoleezza Rice joined MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell this afternoon to defend her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and the Bush administration's use of waterboarding detainees in US custody.

O'Donnell tires of the spin that the end somehow justifies the means about as quickly as you can imagine, so around 3 minutes in to the interview the exchange turns in to about as close to a cat fight as you can get on daytime television news.

"It's what our own people go through in SERE training," Cheney says. Apparently she skipped the portion of the OLC memos that explains that the techniques used on US detainees was specifically designed to go above and beyond what our troops go through in SERE training. "Naturally, I'm pretty sure that our soldiers undergo SERE training to learn what it's like to be tortured, if not withstand it. I mean, if we've reached the point where it's okay to not be outraged when our own soldiers are waterboarded, someone should say so. But either waterboarding is a tolerable technique for military interrogations in every case or it is torture and thus the provenance of sadistic regimes," Cheney quips.

"Liz, the CIA, on its own after 2005, stopped waterboarding on its own," O'Donnel retorts. "The U.S. prosecuted people for waterboarding after World War II. So to suggest there's a consensus out there that waterboarding is not torture is not in fact accurate," she states vehemently..............

this is far too good and important

so i'm posting it on this blog as well as the reformed pirate

our buds, our dear friends do just as we do

TORTURE

(as i've said a ton of times before, i sometimes wish there WAS a hell so these people could burn in it for eternity)

ABC News Exclusive: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh

Police in Uniform Join In as Victim Is Whipped, Beaten, Electrocuted, Run Over by SUV

By VIC WALTER, REHAB EL-BURI, ANGELA HILL and BRIAN ROSS
A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.

A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim's arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man's wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.

In a statement to ABC News, the UAE Ministry of the Interior said it had reviewed the tape and acknowledged the involvement of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed.

"The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior," the Interior Ministry's statement declared.

The Minister of the Interior is also one of Sheikh Issa's brother.

The government statement said its review found "all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department.".......

aye, but don't be fooled

we don't have to go all the way to iraq to torture 'the gays'. if some could have their way HERE, we'd be doing it as well.. how 'these people' (the homophobes in this case), can even say these things much less think them is beyond me. well as i always say, METHINKS THOU DOTH PROTEST WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY TOO MUCH (meaning either what the hell are they afraid of or what the hell are THEY HIDING?)

Gun-related murders? Blame it on the gays

Bill Berkowitz: Gun-related murders? Blame it on the gays

by Bill Berkowitz,
Religion Dispatches

There's a link between the epidemic of gun-related murders in the U.S. and the campaign for same-sex marriage, says Morality in Media's Robert Peters.

Three days before the 1994 mid-term elections, Newt Gingrich decided the time was right to link the case of Susan Smith -- the South Carolina woman who had been accused of murdering her two sons -- to the upcoming election. As reported by journalist Norman Solomon, then Congressman Gingrich, responding to an Associated Press reporter who asked him to assess the campaign, stated: "Slightly more moving our way. I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things." Gingrich concluded, "The only way you get change is to vote Republican. That's the message for the last three days.".......

............Nearly 15 years later, Robert Peters, the head of an outfit called Morality in Media, has put his own personal stamp on Gingrich's theme, only instead of blaming the Democrats for society's woes, he's blaming the gays. In a Morality in Media press release dated April 9, Peters commented on two articles that appeared of the front page of The New York Times five days earlier: One was on the Iowa Supreme Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage, and the other was about the gunman who had killed 13 people in Binghamton, New York................

i pray this isn't true

yet i know it most likely is true. fat lot of good WE did in iraq, ey?

Report: Iraq militia kill gays with anal glue torture
RAW STORY

...............From the translated Al Arabiya article:

A prominent Iraqi human rights activist says that Iraqi militia have deployed a painful form of torture against homosexuals by closing their anuses using "Iranian gum.” … Yanar Mohammad told Alarabiya.net that, “Iraqi militias have deployed an unprecedented form of torture against homosexuals by using a very strong glue that will close their anus.”

According to her, the new substance 'is known as the American hum, which is an Iranian-manufactured glue that if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile cellphones in Iraq.'..............

this article just hopped right up and called my name

it struck me. i hope it strikes YOU in the very same way

there is something missing. it's just a lil' somethin' somethin' but it's missing all right.

what's missing you ax? i'll tell you

W O M E N

oh sure there's an obligatory woman bartender and a mention of bras hanging from the ceiling (are you getting what i'm trying to say???????????)

anyway, in this day and age, from a 'good' newspaper no less, no mention of women. i guess women don't have unemployment problems or go out for a drink to relax.

silly me! (oh and the article APPEARS to be written by a woman as well. making it WORSE)

Happy Hour and a Harley Help Weather Recession
Leesburg Tavern Regulars Look Out for One Another

By Tara Bahrampour

Washington Post Staff Writer

One in a series about how the recession is touching lives.

It's the end of the workday, and the Leesburg courthouse is bathed in yellow sunlight. The guys who ride Harleys are drinking beers in a bar whose motto, in neon, reads: "Better off here than across the street."

They believe this. Better off here than in the courthouse, and better off here than in the darker places a man can get caught when times are tough..............

wow people are both stupid

AND pieces of shites

stupid if they 'believe' this BABY is preaching
and
pieces of shites for USING this baby in the way they're using him (or her, i can't tell)

i am saddened and sickened AND frightened




(ht: boing boing)

one word

jaydiohead

i like what john at

americablog posted about miss california

(i'm not even going to get into what i personally think of the continued practice of putting women on display and treating them like objects beauty pageants)


Miss California, the latest anti-gay "victim"
by John Aravosis
Miss California is now hitting the TV circuit, trying to blame "the gays" for her loss at the all-important Miss USA competition. You see, she was one of the top five finalists, and she was asked a question about gay marriage. She said she's against it. She ended up not wining. And now, she's all over TV whining about how her bigotry cost her the crown.

Okay, first off, it's a stupid beauty pageant. Nobody cares.

Second, clearly no one lectured Miss Bull Connor about the importance of losing gracefully. Whining on national TV, on show after show, about how your crown was stolen, is real poor form.

And finally, she may be the only one who thinks she was destined to win. Here's Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times:[W]e saw headlines on Monday such as, "Miss California Sparks Furor With Gay Marriage Comments on Miss USA Telecast," and, "Miss California Sparks Outrage over Gay Marriage Remarks."

Really? We're getting worked up over this? Because that hot blond woman in the white bikini didn't issue an articulate, passionate defense of gay marriage? (Not that hot blond girls in white bikinis aren't issuing passionate statements on all the major issues of the day even as we speak.)...........

and while we're at it, you really DO have to jump on over here.

you'll find NINE (count 'em, NINE) very short videos of the 'PERFECT' moments from this year's miss usa tits and ass showing beauty pageant (from the daily beast)

i'm getting the vapors

some women are turned on by looks. some by money, some by who knows what.

i'm turned on by bill moyers and david simon (together no less)

it was a very sad day indeed when the wire wrapped.
(although i hear tell they are going to work on another show about new orleans. i will keep my fingers and everything else crossed - that it's true)

Bill Moyers Talks Drugs, Crime, Journalism and Democracy with Creator of 'The Wire'
By Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal.

Editor's Note: The following is the transcript from Bill Moyers' recent interview with newspaper beat reporter turned television writer and producer David Simon. You can watch the interview here.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.

"When television history is written," one critic says, "Little else will rival 'The Wire.'"And when historians come to tell the story of America in our time, I'll wager they will not be able to ignore this remarkable and compelling portrayal of life in our cities.

Take a look at this scene:

[...]

DETECTIVE JIMMY MCNULTY: Let me understand you, every Friday night you and your boys will shoot crap right? And every Friday night your pal Snot Boogie he'd wait 'till there was cash on the ground and then he'd grab the money and run away? You let him do that?

WITNESS: If we'd catch him we'd beat his ass but ain't nobody let it go past that.

DETECTIVE JIMMY MCNULTY: I gotta ask you, if every time Snot Boogie would grab the money and run away why'd you even let him in the game?

WITNESS: What?

DETECTIVE JIMMY MCNULTY: Snot Boogie always stole the money, why'd you let him play?

WITNESS: Got to. This America, man.

[...]

BILL MOYERS: For five seasons on HBO, this critically acclaimed series held up a mirror to the other America — the America we couldn't see anywhere else on television. It reveals a lot about what's happened to us in recent years, and it comes from a surprising source — a newspaper beat reporter turned television writer and producer.

David Simon and his creative team, including Ed Burns, a cop turned teacher, used the City of Baltimore and the drug wars there as a metaphor for America's urban underbelly........

over the years, i've written about how i feel

about torture. how i feel we (america and it's people) we shamed soiled ourselves by allowing it to happen. how we stomped upon our constitution and the geneva convention. how we almost overnight turned into 'those people', the brutal savages that is.

i can only hang my head (further) if we don't now DO something about this shite. something more than talk that is

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Inquiry Into Their Past Use
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — The program began with Central Intelligence Agency leaders in the grip of an alluring idea: They could get tough in terrorist interrogations without risking legal trouble by adopting a set of methods used on Americans during military training. How could that be torture?

In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned.

This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate.

Senate report: Bush admin. solicited torture ‘wish list,’ ordered ‘communist’ tactics

By Stephen Webster and Diane Sweet
A report by the Senate Armed Services Committee released Tuesday night says that torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib prison and approved by officials in the George W. Bush administration were applied only after soliciting a “wish list” from interrogators.

President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. This act, the committee found, cleared the way for a new interrogation program to be developed in-part based on “Chinese communist” tactics used against Americans during the Korean War, mainly to elicit false confessions for propaganda purposes.

The committee’s report was made available in Dec. 2008, but was delayed by the Pentagon’s declassification program. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) concluded that the findings were enough to warrant serious consideration by the Department of Justice..........

wow, the us supremes FINALLY

strapped some on and made a rather GOOD decision. if there is probable cause AND a warrant, i'm all for searches. if there is not, then keep your hands to YOURSELF


Supreme Court Limits Warrantless Car Searches

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writer
The Supreme Court yesterday sharply limited the power of police to search a suspect's car after making an arrest, acknowledging that the decision changes a rule that law enforcement has relied on for nearly 30 years. In a decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, an unusual five-member majority said police may search a vehicle without a warrant only when the suspect could reach for a weapon or try to destroy evidence, or when it is "reasonable to believe" there is evidence in the car supporting the crime at hand......

if this isn't cause for a supreme court review

i sure as shite don't know WHAT the f**k is. i distinctly remember SOMEWHERE - there's supposed to be a separation of church and state. or did i drop one too many hits of acid back in the day (that's humor by the way. the ACID part that is)

for today's GIANT WTF award, i present the us supreme court

(for the record, i have NO problems the man was found guilty. i DO have a problem if his sentencing was based on WORDS FROM THE BIBLE. A BOOK BY MAN FOR MAN)

Supreme Court declines review of case where jurors consulted Bible

By Raw Story
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a case which rendered the death penalty after jurors reportedly consulted the Bible.

“In the appeal, Khristian Oliver’s defense said jurors reviewed a biblical passage stating that a murderer who used an iron object to kill ’shall surely be put to death.’ Jurors were deciding whether to sentence Oliver to death for shooting and bludgeoning his victim with the barrel of a gun,” reported the Associated Press.

“The court previously has said jurors should base their verdicts only on evidence presented in the courtroom,” the service noted..............

i liked him a great deal

in spite of never having read empire of the sun (or even seeing the movie for that matter).



Cult author JG Ballard dies at 78

The author JG Ballard, famed for novels such as Crash and Empire of the Sun, has died aged 78 after a long illness.

His agent Margaret Hanbury said the author had been ill "for several years" and had died on Sunday morning.

Despite being referred to as a science fiction writer, Jim Ballard said his books were instead "picturing the psychology of the future".

His most acclaimed novel was Empire of the Sun, based on his childhood in a Japanese prison camp in China.............

ooh and here's a bunch of ballard links from boing boing

this is A SCREAM

(ht: neatorama)

yup, her death was justified all right

IN THE EYES OF THE DEVIL that is

i hope these people are prosecuted for MURDER to the full extend of the law

Crucified nun dies in 'exorcism'
A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent, Romanian police have said.

Members of the convent in north-east Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual.

Cornici was found dead on the cross on Wednesday after fellow nuns called an ambulance, according to police.

A priest and four nuns were charged with imprisonment leading to death.............

Father Daniel says the nun's death was justified

his name is: john dowdy

from kotaku

Councilman Resigns After Spruiking Racist Flash Game

Georgia City Councilman John Dowdy thought it would be a good idea to send an email round the office recommending a racist flash game. John Dowdy is no longer a Georgia City Councilman.

The game in question is "Border Patrol" (sample its tastefulness above), a 2006 release that sees you trying to stop Mexicans from crossing the US border. The game tasks you with stopping three kinds of Mexican immigrants: Mexican Nationalists, Drug Dealers & "Breeders". Classy....................

kettle kettle kettle!!!

instead of worrying about marrying EX supermodels (or whatever the hell she was), ex supermodels who claimed they NEVER wanted to marry, but change their mind when they find out they can marry the leader of a country (famous for cheese and wine and rudeness) why the fuck don't you worry about your OWN damn bid-nez?

what a smug self-centered asshole
Sarkozy under fire over 'criticism' of world leaders

PARIS (AFP) — Despite staunch denials, French President Nicolas Sarkozy came under attack Friday for allegedly saying US leader Barack Obama was not "up to standard" and Spain's premier not very bright.

"Dim, callow, irrelevant -- Sarko's verdict on fellow leaders" said Britain's The Guardian, while The Times called him a "bitchy little princess" and Spain's ABC said he "confirmed his superiority complex has no limits."

The media buzz was sparked by a French press report that Sarkozy let rip at fellow world leaders during a lunch on Wednesday with parliament members to discuss the global financial crisis.

The right-wing president, who has a reputation for blunt talking, reportedly suggested that the new US president was seriously lacking in hands-on experience of government and not yet up to speed.

"Obama has a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic," Sarkozy was quoted as saying by a parliamentarian in the left-wing Liberation daily. "But he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry.

"And he is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency," he reportedly said.

On Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, he was quoted as saying over dessert: "Perhaps he's not very clever but I know people who were very clever and who didn't make the second round of the presidential election."......

granted, this isn't unbiased reporting

BUT IT'S TRUE REPORTING

the two dudes (in my opinion) couldn't be LESS informed (i'm being kind in choosing my words here by the way. one dude obviously doesn't know what fascism is and the OTHER dude is foaming at the mouth)