Torture

George "mpos" Stephanopolis interviewed National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on ABC's this week. Skipping over the important details (Hadley's admission that Bush is planning to cut and run from Iraq), George also very gently probed Hadley about whether Bush would accept the McCain anti-torture amendment. Hadley bobbed and weaved, and went on his way, but Stephanopolis came back to the subject in the "round table" discussion.

Gee, opined the mpos, if they won't compromise on this that must mean the military really thinks they need it. What a crock of shit! The military neither needs nor wants it. The guy who wants it is the smirking sadist who went from blowing up frogs as a kid to branding pledges with a red hot coat hanger as a young man. The guy who wants it is the one who could never cover his glee at putting to death prison inmates and was amused by the prospect that some of them had had very feeble legal defenses. The guy who wants it is that lying, smirking, bully who would rather American soldiers were, as he put it
sacrificing on the battlefield than, you know, endless hours of testimony on congressional hill
He also the same guy who has consistently cut benefits for wounded soldiers and and the survivors of our soldiers killed.

Am I shrill yet?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec...
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st...
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more