"You're not entitled to a pain-free execution"

Apparently, Ohio's Assistant Attorney General Thomas Madden has no concern about whether his state's method of murdering its prisoners is tantamount to torture.  Madden is clearly no better than those he despises.

McGuire "made sounds"?  You're not supposed to make conscious sounds if you're allegedly unconscious.  McGuire was almost certainly awake and aware for all 25 minutes of torture he endured.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=262933145

Noam Chomsky on Ariel Sharon's death

With his typically brilliant wit, Chomsky sums up Sharon's existence in one sentence.

“[T]here is a convention that you’re not supposed to speak ill of the recently dead, which unfortunately imposes a kind of vow of silence because there’s nothing else to say–there’s nothing good to say,” Chomsky said.

The worst thing about censorship is **********

The UK government is trying to institute a "policy" of blocking internet content that would make the Chinese dictatorship proud.  As with "filtering software" of the 1990s, the UK government's censorship is not about blocking "obscenity", it is about blocking content that differs from the governing party's religious and political views.  Allowing sites that promote hate while censoring sites that promote human rights is not the act of a free and democratic state, it is the act of a group of thugs.

Priorities, priorities

Indian politicians have been putting all their efforts into writing and enforcing blasphemy laws, to prevent criticism of religion.

Preventing the rape of women?  They think it's a minor issue.

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/woman-gang-raped-on-christmas-eve-in-india-reports-1.447318

Woman gang-raped on Christmas Eve in India: reports

The reports of the latest assault came two days before India was due to mark the first anniversary of the death of a student who was gangraped on a bus in an attack that shocked the nation.

The woman who was assaulted on Christmas Eve told police she was abducted by three men while sightseeing with friends in Karaikal, a port city in Puducherry, the Times of India newspaper and TV networks reported.

One of the men raped her at a secluded spot before freeing her, the Times said.

She called for help but then another group of seven men attacked her as she was being escorted to a safe place, the paper said.

Alan Turing has been pardoned...sixty one years too late

Crack the Enigma code and enable the allies to defeat the Nazis?  Nope, not good enough.

Inventing modern computing?  Nope, not that either.

The only gross indecency was the false conviction and hypocrisy by his own government.

And as for "suicide", even that is debatable and questionable.  I won't be surprised if it's someday revealed that he was murdered.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/alan-turing-granted-royal-pardon-for-gay-sex-conviction-1.2474916

Alan Turing granted royal pardon for gay sex conviction

Mathematician Alan Turing, who helped Britain win the Second World War by cracking Nazi Germany's "unbreakable" Enigma code, was granted a rare royal pardon on Tuesday for a criminal conviction for homosexuality that led to his suicide.

Edward Snowdon: “I already won."

Every time this man talks, he impresses me all the more.

“For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission’s already accomplished,” Edward Snowdon said. “I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself."

“If I defected at all,” Snowden says, “I defected from the government to the public.” 

Mikhail Kalashnikov, dead at 94

Regardless of what you think of the man and the weapon he created, he is a significant figure of the past one hundred years. His weapon may have become the tool of communist expansion and terrorism, but he is no worse than (read: is equally as awful as) any American, British, Belgian, German, Israeli, French or other gun designer.

http://www.mail.com/int/news/europe/2536074-rifle-designer-mikhail-kalashnikov-dead-94.html

"Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer," said Kalashnikov. "I always wanted to construct agricultural machinery." 

Male privilege sucks: Maasai women who refuse FGM are refused marriage

In a disgusting display of arrogance, males in the Maasai tribe in Tanzania are refusing to marry women who have refused to subject themselves to the horrors of Female Genital Mutilation.

No, FGM is not "clean".  The mutilation is actually less hygenic than women's natural genitalia.

No, it is not a "minor issue".  The violent cutting of highly sensitive skin leaves women with a lifetime of pain and discomfort, and most of the time it is done to girls too young to consent.

No, it is not "cultural" or "religious", it is an act of violence.  The fiction of religion does not trump the reality of nature.

No, male genital mutilation is not comparable.  The only way it could be compared is if the head of the penis were cut off with an axe, leaving only the shaft.  And even then, it's still not an apt comparison.

Charity starts with selfishness

The rich repeatedly claim that "We give a lot to charity!" but you never hear who exactly is getting the money or for what purpose.  So somebody decided to take a close look.

Do the rich give to food banks?  To help the underprivileged go to college?  Help the homeless?

Oh, puh-leeze, don't be so naïve.

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/14/the_wealthy_give_to_charity_elite_schools_and_operas_partner/

Rich people’s idea of charity: Giving to elite schools and operas 

The dealer has changed the packaging of his addictive drug

Changing the packaging doesn't change the fact that the drug is addictive, or that the dealer is trying to keep the profits coming in.

Arizona prisons are turning into death camps

Arizona prisons are turning into death camps, and like death camps elsewhere, many of the public think those inside "deserve it" and have no empathy for them.

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/14/arizona_horror_show_after_illegal_mistreatment_inmates_in_grave_danger/

Arizona prison horror: “Critically ill” inmates told to “pray” for healing

A new report alleges illegal and deadly mistreatment of Arizona inmates whose medical care the state contracted out to the country’s largest private prison health care provider.

Mother Jones: Richard Cohen's 10 Worst Moments, Counted Down

You have to wonder where someone's head is - down the rabbit hole perhaps (or somewhere else dark, wet and dirty) - to think such things.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/11/richard-cohen-just-the-worst

No matter which one you read first, the others are worse.

Never "thank" an ex-soldier for his military service

"Thanking" ex-soldiers is not about showing gratitiude, it's about smug self-satisfaction and flag waving by those "thanking" them. If people really cared about them, they would be offering condolences for their lost innocence and their dead friends.

In May 2013, a series of pictures hit the news showing the faces of British soldiers - before they ever seeing combat, during, and after. You can see the lost hope, joy and innocence in their faces and especially their eyes.

http://12160.info/forum/topics/mesmerizing-photographs-of-soldiers-faces-before-and-after-a-war

Sacrifice to the fallacy that war can end

The enscription on the gravestone of 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young, who died on August 16, 1917, reads thus:

"Sacrifice to the fallacy that war can end."


The corpse worship that goes on every November 11th is not a call to end war, it is a call for blind support of war. And those who call for it the most are often the profiteers of war. In England, BAE (the biggest supplier of military equipment in the country) is the principal "sponsor" of the British Legion.

Hey, Japan: There's a reason that Germany has gotten past Nazism.

There's a reason that Germany has gotten past its dark era of Nazism.  The country came clean and purged itself, prosecuting criminals and making reparations.  It's easier to be forgiven when you're willing to admit fault and mistakes.

That's why Japan has never been truly forgiven for its past, the history of Japan's imperialism in the first half of the 20th century.  Japan has refused to come clean, refused to admit its mistakes.  Since World War II, Japan has had repeated incidents of historical revisionism in school textbooks, denials of atrocities (re: the Rape of Nanking), and worst of all, the organized and planned mass rape of women from across Asia, the misnomer of "comfort women".

The inevitable has happened three times

Members of the Greek fascist party "Golden Dawn" incited and advocated anti-immigration violence, what is known as "stochastic terrorism".

One of the "lone wolf" fanboys of the far-right party murdered a Greek celebrity who spoke out against hate speech.

And now, the "Golden Dawn" party is under investigation, including members of its party in the Greek parliament.

Lousy-ana school districts

Louisiana?  Lousy-ana is more like it, especially it's "education" system.  Did anyone really believe that "private schools" which inflict ignorant, dogmatic religion upon children would lead to better education?

The "textbooks" those places used weren't your typical creationist drivel.  They were the books which described slavery as "triangular trade", and eradicated any mention of Thomas Jefferson who advocated the separation of cult and state.

The cause of poor journalism

A humour site posted a good joke about bad journalism:

Gene for poor science journalism discovered

If only it were true.  The actual causes of bad journalism are much harder to combat.

The first cause is the corporate-owned media.

Annoyances #1: Psycho-phants

When a person writes something and posts it publicly (a blog, a news item, whatever), if there is a way to give feedback to the writer, then inevitably someone will disagree.  Aside from "water is wet", there will always be someone who disagrees.

That's not a problem.  What is a problem are people who allow comments but then don't want to hear them.  They made it possible for people to disagree, then got upset because someone did disagree.