“Honestly, I think a firing squad would be more merciful than injection. I highly suspect the inmate suffers greatly when the last two drugs are injected, but the first drug keeps him from being able to show it.”

I believe I agree. If the state is going to execute somebody, it owes them a quick and – if possible – painless death.

Not that I’m in favor of capital punishment given the current judicial situation in the US. It’s just that if it’s gooing to happen, I think the state ought to do it right.

My first total FAIL was the Bible in the KJV. Absolutely unreadable for me.

Eventually I learned of modern English translations and – for better or worse – I was able to understand what was happening.

(needless to say, I’ve never been able to read Shakespeare either, so I was most pleasantly surprised when I first saw some his works migrated to video)

“Indefinite Detention is torture. Release Manning NOW, and if the government has evidence put him on trial. But if the evidence is crimes committed by the US government MAnning is a hero.”

You have this one wrong. What the Obama boys were doing while they held Manning at the Marine prison was torture. I doubt if he is currently being mistreated nearly as badly at the place to which he got relocated.

But the Nobel-Winning Constitutional Scholar was perfectly ok with the first prison routine.

*******

Last week, Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of giving classified materials to Wikileaks, spent his 23rd birthday in the brig of the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. He has been convicted of no crime, but endures the kind of highly restrictive detention that’s usually reserved for the most dangerous criminals in America’s supermax prisons. He is kept isolated in his cell 23 hours a day, where he is cut off from most human contact, denied reading materials and personal items, prevented by the guards from exercising and regularly awakened from his sleep. He has been at Quantico for five months, following two months of detention in Kuwait.

*******

As the US torturers know very well, that drill will eventually destroy a human. And IMO that was their goal – to break him in mind and body to the point he’d be a pliable tool to testify to anything they wanted regarding The wikileaks founder – the Swedish guy whose name eludes me.

Only a vast amount of bad publicity caused Barry O to ‘blink’ and order Manning’s transfer.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/149317/bradley_manning_suffering_extreme_isolation_prison_torture_by_our_goverment_–_courageous_whistleblower_’physically_deteriorating’/

There appears to be two sorts of ‘terrorists’: bad ones and good ones. Earlier I mocked Rush ‘druggie’ Limpaugh’s reflexive endorsement of the good Muslim-whacking organization ran by Joseph Kony.

There’s another surprising outfit which has his back.

http://www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/msg03974.html

A 2008 article quotes Ugandan Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu as saying the same thing: talking with the good Catholic Kony is the way to resolve the issue.

You know, given Barry O’s willingness to ‘compromise’ on everything else, here’s a scenario. We send in the troops and get established with our bases. Then, just like with Afghanistan and the Taliban, we discover the need to sit down and extract promises from Kony (or whoever survives him in his organization) that he’ll be a good guy from here on out. No More Evildoing!

The Vatican would be really happy too: their Muslim-whacking guy is sort of reformed, and God’s will continues to be done, albeit on a lower key.

It would be asking just too much for them to excommunicate the fellow right now – you gotta do something really awful like speak for abortion or against the authority of the Papacy for THAT to happen.

Full quote from Obama in 2003:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.” (applause) “I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

Obama speaking to the Illinois AFL-CIO, June 30, 2003.

*************

After those minor hurdles of 1) taking the White House and 2) taking the Senate and 3) taking back the House were attained, Barry O suddenly discovered that he didn’t like Single Payer after all. (or probably more likely, the wealthy characters who put him in the White House told him to cool it)

So he made very sure it didn’t happen.

“Somewhere in ths tortured sentence I deduce that you are unaware that the US is not signatory to the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court. You do understand that, right?

Right, why’d I ask.”

From the fact you’re asking this causes me to deduce you’re unaware torture is a US crime. Don’t need the furriners any way, shape, or form.

Sure! Don’t hesitate to rub it in!

But in the event something like that actually happens, do you promise to return and agree I’m some kind of psychic?

:)

“You’ve got to be kidding. al-Qaeda exists irrespective of the life or death of Osama bin Laden, obviously. Are you trying to piss people off with a breathtakingly ignorant read of foreign affairs?”

So one wonders why the big O even killed Osama? Or why they ceaselessly bray about killing the unending series of #2 or #3 leaders in his organization.

Still, you caused me to have a “light bulb” sort of idea: this new war in wherever-it-is promises to be an unending one too. Kill that top guy Kony, and all his VPs remain. And than all their buddies. Can’t stop the hunt for the newest evildoers until the job is done! And a string of US bases are sitting across the continent of Africa.

“First, remember that these people acted under the assurance of their DOJ that it was permitted. Makes prosecution difficult. Second re your claim that Obama has reneged on damned near every one of his campaign promises, here’s a list of 149 of them kept. Like you fucking care.”

Back when I was in college I caught my history teacher after class and challenged him about the behaviour of the Germans during the Holocaust. “How could this happen”, I asked. Two things I didn’t understand at the time were 1) the nature of a police state where speaking out would have fatal consequences and 2) that the concentration camps were run by carefully selected ‘perverts’. Every society has these perverts, and only when they’re given power do they become dangerous. Bush had thousands of honest and honorable DOJ people, so to make his torture schemes work he had to single out the perverts – people willing to disregard both US and international law and all levels of decency. Once located, they willingly wrote up the “interpretations” him and his other cohorts desired.

The obvious solution would be to put the whole bunch of them on trial. Bush/Cheney, the pervert lawyers, and the actual torturers too. Perhaps some reduced sentences would be in order for the foot-soldier torturers. Not that this worked too well for the German concentration camp workers, but Tea Bagger jurors just might buy it.

But Barry O hasn’t tried ANYBODY!

As for those miracles wrought by Barry O, you’re right. I don’t f****** care. The man is willing to deliver the frothy trivia, but things like a decent national health care system he deliberately destroyed in the cradle.

He’s a hopeless hack who is (IMO) going to have a terrible time getting relected. I voted for the worthless *** in 2008, and personally brought along two dozen more votes for him. Most of those people were Republicans! So far as I know, not a single one of us will be making the same mistake again. President Bachman? I doubt if the Power Elites would allow it, but if they can live with her, so can I. Sure we’ll go to hell in a handbasket, but only a little faster than we are now.

My take on 2012: the elites will reelect Obama if humanly possible – perhaps to the extent of turning on the Diebold machines for him. If for some reason that isn’t practical, I fully expect President Romney to be annointed as the next Potus.

On a lighter note, has anybody spoken of the Good Side of the Lord’s Liberation Army?

Turns out the answer is a resounding YES!

I now cut/paste from the link:

Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. … So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and — (interruption) no, I’m not kidding. Jacob Tapper just reported it. …

Lord’s Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people.” Now, again Lord’s Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out. The objectives of the Lord’s Resistance Army, what they’re trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following: “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology.” Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.

http://tinyurl.com/5uap665

Yes, Rush ‘druggie’ Limpaugh’s first thoughts on the subject were that people who were whacking Muslims and other evildoers and doing so in the name of Jesus had to be All Right Guys.

How did that old song Old Tin Soldier go? “Do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end.”

Or just wrapping whatever awful thing you wanna do in the US flag works pretty well too….

According to he Great O his very self, this particular African monster has been operating for over two decades. And news accounts I’ve read say the request for aid arrived in November of last year. Nobody has been all that concerned nor in any kind of hurry, so a person has got to wonder what it was that built a fire under the Powers That Be.

In this case motives most certainly do matter. Suppose for a moment that Obama & Company aren’t simon pure about this. That 1) they want another war going to defuse cuts to the military budget and 2) they really do want those African military bases.

I propose that too-quick a success would be every bit as bad for Obama as it would have been for Bush when he had Osama cornered in Afghanistan. How could the Texas Torturer have gotten his war with Iraq if the architect of the 9/11 murders was stretched out on a board full of lots of bloody holes? No, it was necessary for Osama to escape, and that’s exactly what the bushies engineered.

Now back to Africa. Lots and lots of US military infrastructure to be built, lots of extra troops and equipment need to be brought in. All this will take quite a bit of time. In the meantime, the suffering Africans are at least as bad off as they are now, and perhaps worse. Add the “accidents” when our Hellfire missiles start falling on ‘suspicious’ targets full of women and chilfren – like in Afghanistan. Yes, things might very well get worse.

Well sir, I suppose we can agree the African SOB is better off dead. And I suppose we’ll disagree about whether or not selective enforcement of international law is a good idea.

All sorts of horrible “exceptions” to lawful behavior can be justified if one tries hard enough.

Not so – I’m perfectly capable of saying “kiss my ass” if it needs saying.

And I do intend to remain polite – so long as this blog stays on my bookmarks list.

What I’ll do here if events merit it is what I did at my former “favorite” political site: Talking Points Memo. When THAT site owner endorsed Obama’s Executive Murder Power, I simply removed that one from the bookmarks list.

That a president who hasn’t prosecuted a single one of Bush’s torturers; who hasn’t prosecuted a single bankster; and who has reneged on damned near every one of his campaign promises is suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to Do The Right Thing is mighty suspicious to me. In the absence of mighty strong evidence to the contrary, I’m going to say it’s just another instance of him being a very pliable puppet for somebody or other.

Africa is a big place, and I’m surely not informed about the goings-on over there, but I have heard that something the US of A is mighty short of on the Dark Continent are military bases.

http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/7709/2011-10-14.html

http://blackagendareport.com/content/africom-and-icc-enforcing-international-justice-africa

Obama, like Bush before him, is all right with dictators and monsters when their activities coincide with US interests.

With all due respect to the site owner, I’d suggest he consider “reconsidering” his position on Obama’s latest gambit.

Finally, my first post which isn’t a ‘reply’. :)

Poul Anderson was a prolific writer, and my all-time favorite.

Novels I really liked included the following:

Star Prince Charlie (1975) with Gordon R. Dickson
Time Patrol – entire series.
Brain Wave
There Will Be Time
The Boat of a Million Years
Operation Luna (ok, this one was a silly romp, but I still loved it)
Three Hearts and Three Lions
A Midsummer Tempest

The last one is in some ways a sequel to Three Hearts, and includes an Old Phoenix interlude.

I do believe Casey has some summer reading now.

:D

Eric Frank Russel – His short stories were usually really good.

I’ve two of his novels on my shelves – one of which is the complete & uncut version of “Wasp”.

All of Jack Vance’s output is readable, and quite a lot of it is remarkable. What I consider to be his best is the Lyonesse trilogy, but “Blue World” isn’t bad either.

Brin’s Uplift series is indeed remarkable. IMO on the ‘imagination’ level it ranks with Asimov’s Foundation series.

Speaking of Asimov, for me his very best work was “The Gods Themselves.”

The only way to find out is for Casey to read it! Starting with the first Hugo winner and working her way down that list to the present day isn’t a bad way to get a sampling of the materials available.

Dear Lord, but I’d forgotten Charles Harness.

He’s not for everybody, but those who like his stuff will like it a lot.

A rather short novel he wrote near the end of his long life was “Cybele, With Bluebonnets”. Some people – myself included – call it magical. (opinions will definitely vary)

Theodore Sturgeon’s “Godbody” has a similar mystical vein. This is one of the few in my collection I’ve never reread because it was engraved in my memory on the first pass. Filthy porno or tender & inspiring love – it’s not exactly an easy call!