A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
or am i wrong?

Almost always.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ironweed
Almost always.

GGG finally says sometihng funny. I'm happy.... all my constructive criticism finally rewarded.

now, only a scant few minutes later Icantread shows up with his personal misfiring synapsed brain.

My work is never done.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Cletus Miller
See:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01122007...eoff_earle.htm

While I think that BB was being, at best, profoundly odd in making such a big issue of it with Condi, I don't see how one jumps to the conclusion that a never-married, childless woman of a certain age is "apparently" a lesbian. I've known several women of approximately Sec. Rice's age who fit the same never-married, no children category who I am certain are not lesbians. Does a parallel presumption apply to men, Hank?

Some of us are simply unlovable, by men or women.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Is that why clinton ignored Afghanistan? didn't have kids at risk so he couldn't commit other's kids? Or is it a completely Bullshit question to play to the cameras? That is, was it just BS that the WH is countering with its own BS?

It's stupid posturing on both sides. On the other hand, consider:

If the Constitution required at least 30% of the children of all members of the legislative and executive branches to serve in any overseas armed conflict, how many wars would we fight?

Yes, I know it's pie-eyed idealism. Shut up and take the pretty flower. Peace, Man.

[nononono]

Originally posted by taxwonk
It's stupid posturing on both sides. On the other hand, consider:

If the Constitution required at least 30% of the children of all members of the legislative and executive branches to serve in any overseas armed conflict, how many wars would we fight?

Yes, I know it's pie-eyed idealism. Shut up and take the pretty flower. Peace, Man.

But just think of the flip-side consequences: maybe the legislature would become populated largely by people whose children have no better option than to go into the military. Imagine the demographic shift!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by nononono
But just think of the flip-side consequences: maybe the legislature would become populated largely by people whose children have no better option than to go into the military. Imagine the demographic shift!

no. it would all be hermits. we can barely take one J. Souter. can you imagine a Congress full of them?

[Cletus Miller]

Originally posted by nononono
But just think of the flip-side consequences: maybe the legislature would become populated largely by people whose children have no better option than to go into the military. Imagine the demographic shift!

Or by childless men and women.

Curse you, hank.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Some of us are simply unlovable, by men or women.

So, you think Condi is romantically disenfranchised?

I peg her more as intolerant of people generally and someone who wouldn't really put up with a spousal equivalent very well. Kinda like Oprah, but more so.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
oh. that was tongue in check based upon how Foxnews.com was spinning it.

Ah. You should keep your tongue in check more often.


(ba-dum-bum)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by taxwonk
It's stupid posturing on both sides. On the other hand, consider:

If the Constitution required at least 30% of the children of all members of the legislative and executive branches to serve in any overseas armed conflict, how many wars would we fight?

Yes, I know it's pie-eyed idealism. Shut up and take the pretty flower. Peace, Man.

I imagine that the stock photos of candidates with their adoring children would become a thing of the past. ("Dad, I don't wanna get drafted!!!!")

[Adder]

Don't worry kids, Gitmo is fun!

The Gitmo High Life
By ROBERT L. POLLOCK
January 12, 2007; Page A12

For sheer irony it's hard to beat this week's spectacle of Cindy Sheehan protesting the U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay -- from inside the prison that is Cuba itself. It's not uncommon for asylum-seeking Cubans to brave minefields and shark-infested waters to enter the U.S. naval base, which five years ago this week also became home to many top figures from al Qaeda and the Taliban.

That anniversary has brought forth predictable demands that Guantanamo be closed from the self-styled human rights activists at Amnesty International and other groups. But the world needs a place to hold al Qaeda terrorists, who continue to strike in Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan -- even if they have failed to hit the United States since 2001. And after visiting Guantanamo just before Christmas, it was easy to understand why Belgian Police official Alain Grignard (who came last year with a delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) was moved to declare it "a model prison, where people are better treated than in Belgian prisons."

This is no less true of Camp Five, Gitmo's maximum security facility that houses its most dangerous detainees. Modern and clean, it looks just like a U.S. jail. Meals (I ate the same lunch the detainees did that day) are high in caloric content, if not exactly gourmet. The average detainee has gained 18 pounds. And in the interrogation room it's the Americans who may have to suffer long hours in straight-back chairs, while the detainees -- I kid you not -- get a La-Z-Boy. I was shown a Syrian under interrogation via closed circuit television. His questioners were two pleasant-looking young women. He was smiling.

I'm not under the impression that these sessions are always fun and games. But detainees in Defense Department custody are treated according to the restrictive rules of the Army Field Manual, which bans all forms of coercive interrogation. I double checked with the camp's lead interrogator: other government agencies -- read CIA and FBI -- have to follow those rules too. Not only does that mean no "torture" is going on. Your average good-cop bad-cop routine isn't allowed. Cooperative detainees get rewards like movies. "Harry Potter" is one of their favorites.

When it comes to medical care, almost no expense is spared -- as I discovered after spotting an overweight man lounging in the rec yard of Camp Five. "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?" I inquired (he was some distance away). "No, that's Paracha," came the somewhat exasperated reply.

Saifullah Paracha is a Pakistani businessman and media owner who claims two meetings with Osama bin Laden were purely for journalistic interest. He is believed to be an important figure in the case against Majid Khan, one of the 14 "high value" detainees recently transferred to Gitmo from CIA custody. Last year Mr. Paracha's son Uzair was sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. prison for aiding an al Qaeda operative in a plot to bomb U.S. targets.

Maybe terrorism is stressful work. But whatever the reason, the elder Paracha also suffers from heart disease. So late last year -- at an expense of some $400,000 -- the U.S. government flew down doctors and equipment to perform cardiac catheterization. Mr. Paracha's response was to refuse treatment and file a petition in U.S. federal court for transfer to a hospital in the U.S. or Pakistan. At least his lawyers were frank about their cynical motives: "His death in U.S. captivity would be a blow to American prestige."

The medical care at Guantanamo seems state of the art. All detainees over 50 are offered colonoscopies; at least 16 have been performed. Gitmo's psychiatrist told me that fewer that 1% of detainees suffer from mood disorders, a rate lower than that of the general population. That would appear to undercut claims that indefinite detention is itself a form of "mental torture."

Guantanamo detainees don't lack for legal representation. A list of lead counsel released this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act request reads like a who's who of America's most prestigious law firms: Shearman and Sterling; Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr; Covington & Burling; Hunton & Williams; Sullivan & Cromwell; Debevoise & Plimpton; Cleary Gottlieb; and Blank Rome are among the marquee names.

A senior U.S. official I spoke to speculates that this information might cause something of scandal, since so much of the pro bono work being done to tilt the playing field in favor of al Qaeda appears to be subsidized by legal fees from the Fortune 500. "Corporate CEOs seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists" who deliberately target the U.S. economy, he opined.

None of the above is meant to suggest Guantanamo is a fun place. What terrorist detention facility would be? (Base commander Adm. Harry Harris rejects the term "prison," by the way: "We are not about punishment; we are about keeping enemy combatants off the battlefield.") But the picture of Guantanamo usually painted by the press and human-rights activists is a terribly distorted one. Americans should rest assured that the men held there are probably getting better treatment than they deserve.

Mr. Pollock is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

Unless of course, you work for an evil, terrorist-lovin' law firm:

Unveiled Threats
A Bush appointee's crude gambit on detainees' legal rights

Friday, January 12, 2007; A18



MOST AMERICANS understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking," he said.

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, "I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. "It's not clear, is it?" he said. "Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

It might be only laughable that Mr. Stimson, during the interview, called Guantanamo "certainly, probably, the most transparent and open location in the world."

But it's offensive -- shocking, to use his word -- that Mr. Stimson, a lawyer, would argue that law firms are doing anything other than upholding the highest ethical traditions of the bar by taking on the most unpopular of defendants. It's shocking that he would seemingly encourage the firms' corporate clients to pressure them to drop this work. And it's shocking -- though perhaps not surprising -- that this is the person the administration has chosen to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Is the Dems behavior not treated the same, because it's a given their spending behavior is utterly disgusting?

BTW, based on what I read in the NYT and WSJ today, Slave is right that the Dem leadership stood in the way of reform and that the majority of votes against the reform measure were Dems. Bad Dems.

eta: Reid backtracked and supported reform today. Yay!

eata: Now the question is: Will Slave praise Reid and the Dems for getting on the reform bandwagon, or will he complain that they did it unwillingly?

[Spanky]

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky

You really think nothing has changed over the last four years?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

eata: Now the question is: Will Slave praise Reid and the Dems for getting on the reform bandwagon, or will he complain that they did it unwillingly?

Did they block it pre-takeover or post? My guess is pre, which means business as usual in the land of the hyps.