Friday, June 17, 2005

It’s Friday. Where are the Damn Donuts?

Right here in my stomach, that’s where they are. But fear not, I’m running on roughly four hours of sleep, so I’m just in the right frame of mind for a paranoid rant. Usually my posts are fueled by the souls of the damned but today I’m running strictly on free donuts and Diet Pepsi Lime, so if the bats start flying out, you’ll know to blame Pepsico and their sorcerous ways. Anyway, lots of shit to talk about. So let’s shit on…

Dick Durbin Hates America. All right, let’s get this shit straight, dittoheads. I know it might be hard to follow along at home, but torturing people for sport is on the right side of the line for legitimate comparisons to barbarian regimes of the past. I can imagine how you need to lie to yourself to sleep at night, so these Nazi comparisons are probably keeping you up. But just keep telling yourself that they're terrorists, even though many of the people there have no connection to terrorism, including the chicken farmer turned in by his neighbors for the bounty because of a long-running fence dispute, Jose Padilla whisked off the streets of Chicago at random because the Justice Department hadn't made any headlines in a few weeks, and who knows how many more that we haven't found out about yet. Keep saying that it's just loud music and sleep deprivation even after all the documentation of electric shocks to the balls, dog attacks, and drowning. Keep repeating absolute, unqualified LIES from daily talking points. It makes you a good person. Sure, you’re probably now totally morally bankrupt and a fulltime apologist for evil, but at least y our side is winning, right? And what did Dick say?

“When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”

OH GOD HE'S CALLING OUR BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN NAZIS

The U.S. Government is Most Likely Understating the Number of American Casualties. I was surprised (okay, not really) to learn that U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Okay yes, I realize phrases like The Bush Butcher’s Bill don’t exactly endear themselves, but just humor me. This is important stuff, kids.

Flag Burning is in the News Again. SOOOOO the wonderful flag-burning Amendment is returning. The House is voting on it again next week, and will probably pass for the seventh time, knowing those idiots. Then, of course, it goes to the Senate, where it’s died time after time. Of course, things are very different now. There are many more idiots running the show in the Senate now. According to the article, “amendment supporters say last year's election expanding the Senate Republican majority to 55 has buoyed their hopes for passage. Five freshmen senators - Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, John Thune of South Dakota and David Vitter of Louisiana - voted for the amendment as House members and plan to do so again.”

I wonder if the sponsors would feel the same way about other forms of offensive protest--carrying big pictures of aborted fetuses for example? Hey, it's not technically speech! The beautiful thing about all this is that “The Citizens Flag Alliance, an advocacy group that supports a constitutional amendment, reports a decline in flag desecration incidents, with only one this year.” So, yeah, Congress is once again spending its time on useful, wonderful causes. Even funnier is that the proper way to retire an American flag is to burn it. According to the webpage of 44th Senate District Hugh T. Farley:

NEVER...


So does this mean the amendment will require police to at least ticket everyone with a flag bumper sticker, window sticker, flag jacket, or flag-painted guitar (Toby Keith, motherbitches!). This is a stupid fucking amendment, and if it passes I hope one of the dumbass senators who voted for it gets the book thrown at him for displaying a flag incorrectly on his car. Who needs freedom, anyway?

Posted by crimnos @ 9:11 AM