Pariahs Among Us: Sex Offender Laws in the 21st Century

Nothing I need to add really, between what I have said previously and the content, it pretty much says it all I guess.

But if the blog had a tag: How many lives can we ruin today, for no good reason, then this story would fit it to a tee.

In actual fact, - lives ruined forever - will get you a result in the search bar.

But I don't think anything is going to prepare you for that part of the article that involves Louisiana. Sick puppies is the term that first springs to mind, and I ain't talking about the offenders, I'm talking about the State.

 Pariahs among us: Sex offender laws in the 21st century

Stringent sex offender laws in the United States destroy lives and do little to mitigate repeat offences.
Charlotte Silver
14 Oct 2012

Maybe it is not so surprising that all we can think to do with a subject we are simultaneously obsessed with and repulsed by is to shout our alarm about it at every opportunity.

Sex crimes: The only kind of offence in the United States that compels all convicted perpetrators to register their name, address, date of birth, fingerprints and a photograph on a public website.

And what constitutes a sex crime? The breadth of this damning classification is alarming and includes public urination, consensual teen sex, sale of sex and exposure of genitals (including in the case of children) - as well as violent rape.

One poignant example of the irrationality and senseless devastation of overreaching sex offender laws is the story of Evan B, as told by Lara Geer Farley. When Evan was in high school he was arrested for exposing himself to a group of his female peers. A court sentenced him to four months in prison, but after he was released he was obliged to register as a sex offender. The stigma drove Evan to drop out of school, leave his home in Salina, Oklahoma and move to Tulsa, where the arduous requirements associated with his sex offender status meant that he could not maintain employment. A month before he should have turned 20, Evan shot and killed himself.

And this: A comprehensive Human Rights Watch report, published in 2007, draws attention to the common case of teenage boys aged 15, 16, 17, who have consensual sex with their teenaged girlfriends, finding themselves charged with pedophilia. They will be labelled and publicly registered as "pedophiles" for the rest of their lives.

In some states, boys as young as 10 who expose themselves to their female friends or relatives are forced to register as a "sex offender" before they understand what sex - or exposure - is.

 Outcasts

Additional laws that govern the lives of sex offenders after they are released from prison (if time is served) vary from state to state. But for all, surveillance and stringent notification guidelines are key. In addition to publicising one's status on a website, some states require registrants (the preferred moniker) to inform their neighbours, future employers, landlords, delivery men - or any other solicitor or visitor who knocks on their door - of their status as a "sex offender".

Some states require convicts to wear GPS devices, so that law enforcers can monitor their whereabouts at all time.

Louisiana requires registrants to advertise their status in large red type on their driver's licence.

Other states require periodic plethysmograph tests, in which a pressure sensitive wire is connected to the registrant's penis while being shown various sexual images. The test is designed to detect "sexual deviance".

The registrant is required to attend therapy and "behaviour modification" sessions, check in with probation officers, as well as, of course, engage the services of an attorney, none of which is cheap. Most of these costs are carried by the offender, or as is often the case, his parents.

In addition to adopting legislation that inverts the life of anyone cast as a sex offender - making him quite literally a public spectacle - hundreds of counties have established "exclusion zones". These are areas that surround various public places - parks, schools, libraries, etc - where registrants may not live, work or even walk by.

The proliferation of sex offender registration and residency restriction laws began in 1994 when the US Congress and Senate unanimously passed the Wetterling Act, which required convicted sex offenders to register their information with the state of their residence. Over the past two decades, the federal government has passed law after law that publicised the registry, tightened its stringency and perhaps most crucial, broadened its domain.

In 2006, Congress passed the Adam Walsh Act, which aimed to eliminate the inconsistencies among different states' sex offender laws. However, the ugly reality is that it expanded the "sex offences" that demanded registration and thus doomed juvenile, non-violent offenders to, potentially, a lifetime of registration. The law was easily renewed by the US House of Representatives this August - a true indicator of just how politically expedient these laws are.

Even Patty Wetterling, the woman responsible for the enactment of the Wetterling law, in 2006 lamented the direction the country had taken to handle sex offences: "People want a silver bullet that will protect their children, [but] there is no silver bullet. There is no simple cure to the very complex problem of sexual violence."

Advocates of "sex offenders" speak up

Hard evidence and reason suggest that registries and residential requirements do nothing to protect society from sexual assaults. Arguments in support of registration laws rest on a fear-based assumption that notification will protect children, but that assumption is baseless: As many as 90 per cent of sexual assault cases are conducted by family members or acquaintances. Furthermore, recidivism rates among sex offenders are under 25 per cent.

While sex offender laws provide the illusion of "security", the reality remains that rapists continue to walk free. According to statistics compiled by the US Department of Justice, 91 per cent of rapists will never be prosecuted, and only a fraction of those will be convicted or spend time in jail.

Nevertheless, these laws keep coming.

This year in Southern California, as Halloween approaches, some counties have passed ordinances banning registrants from decorating their houses with cobwebs and pumpkins, instead requiring they post a placard that notifies all passersby that there are "No candy or treats at this residence". Furthermore, registrants may have no outside lighting on October 31.

California's branch of the national coalition, Reform Sex Offender Laws, has filed a lawsuit against the ordinance on behalf of five unnamed sex offenders, as well as three of their spouses and two of their children. The suit claims the ordinance violates the plaintiffs' first amendment rights - by both forcing speech and denying their right to celebrate the holiday.

In the meantime, a San Francisco law firm has filed a case against the stringent residency restrictions placed on registrants in four counties in Southern California.

These lawsuits in California are some of the first legal challenges to the mounting set of restrictions placed on a broad class of "criminals" throughout the country.

News of lawsuits challenging punitive legislation is appearing next to headlines reporting that some states may well reject the Adam Walsh Act because they simply don't have the funds to implement its burdensome requirements (Texas estimated it would cost $38m) or are ethically opposed to legislation that would place juvenile offenders on a registry for life.

The hypocrisy of sex offender laws that allege to combat sexual crime by pouring millions into surveillance and registry programmes is reflected in the difficulty experienced by rape support centres that are struggling to merely survive.

The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence (NAESV) reported in a 2012 Rape Crisis Center Survey that 67 per cent of rape crisis centres were forced to reduce the amount of hours they spend dedicated to prevention and awareness programmes; 50 per cent of programmes have eliminated staff in the past year; and 65 per cent of programmes have a waiting list for counseling services.

Sex offender laws have enabled the creation of a being - the pariah - the very notion of which is rooted in an unenlightened (and assumed by most of us to be discarded) view of humanity. A society must surely protect its vulnerable members from violence and assault. Draconian sex offender laws do not further that aim. They have simply accorded the state the power to brand an individual as undeserving of the most basic human and civil rights.

Source:

Al Jazeera

Sex laws 
Unjust and ineffective 
America has pioneered the harsh punishment of sex offenders. Does it work?

Footnote: for what it's worth, Blogger has a complete bollocks made of the HTML on this new mandatory interface. It used to be so very simple, now it's like mad woman's shit, it's all over the place.

Americans, And They Wonder Why We Laugh At Them

It's somewhat of a pity that the header of this short clip gives the game away to a certain degree.  I had rather hoped to ask you to watch the clip prior to any disclosure as to who the fellow really was.

I can still do that I'm thinking, the fact that you know he's a Pol won't detract too much I don't suppose, and let's face it, it's not as though Paul Broun is a household name outside America, or inside for that matter I shouldn't wonder.

So with no display of the header from the original article, might I ask you to watch this one minute clip first and then go to the text and enjoy that "You cannot be serious" moment.

Every American has every right to be religious. And every American has every right to make religious speech (just not in places where others are compelled to listen to it or participate in it, like public schools). And every American has the right, if they so choose, to deny reality. You can argue that aliens created human technology, Santa Claus, whatever – you have that right. . . blah blah 

Now comes the cracker and the gist of the piece.

. . . The real problem, and what frustrates me to no end, is that the Republican Party would place someone like Paul Broun, who obviously has a disdain for science and the factual reality of the world around us, to THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY! Forget the fact that he’s been married four times. Forget the fact that he’s a Conservative Evangelical. These aren’t the problem. The problem is that, based upon his fundamentalist religious convictions, he DENIES the fundamental tenets of science. Yet, despite this, the Republicans named him the CHAIR of the SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND OVERSIGHT! Go to article

Footnote: I was tempted to make the header read: Republicans And They Wonder Why We Laugh At Them but to be fair, I'm sure there are plenty of Democrats who equally fit the same bill.

The Man Who Volunteered for Auschwitz: Read of the Year

The Man Who Volunteered for Auschwitz

Why a member of the Polish underground sent himself into the infamous prison camp

David de Sola 5 Oct 2012

WARSAW -- There are very few places that can accurately be described as hell on Earth. One of these is the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, where as many as 1.5 million people died during the five years the camp was in operation.

The Polish resistance had been hearing horrific first- or second-hand accounts about the conditions inside Auschwitz. These early accounts came primarily from released prisoners, but also from casual observers like railway employees and residents of the nearby village of Oswiecim. The resistance decided they needed someone on the inside.

 It is into this environment that Witold Pilecki, a 39-year old veteran of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 who fought against the initial Nazi invasion and a member of the Polish resistance, volunteered himself in 1940. Pilecki's mission was to allow himself to be arrested and, once inside Auschwitz, to collect intelligence for the Polish resistance in the country and the government-in-exile in London, and to organize a resistance from inside the camp.

"I think he knew, he realized what he was getting himself into," said Jacek Pawlowicz, a historian at Poland's Institute of National Remembrance. "But even so, he was not prepared for the things he was actually able to witness."

During the next three years, Pilecki was involved in one of the most dangerous intelligence-gathering and resistance operations of the war. He authored three reports about life inside the camp for the Polish resistance. During his incarceration, Pilecki witnessed from the inside Auschwitz's transformation from a detention facility for political prisoners and Soviet soldiers into one of the Nazis' deadliest killing machines.

An English translation of Pilecki's third and most comprehensive report -- a primary source for this article -- was recently published as a book titled The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery . It is a fascinating first-hand account of virtually all aspects of life inside the camp. The original document is in the custody of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London.

"He was there in all of Auschwitz's worst periods, because he arrived at the moment when the camp was being created and was there until [1943]," Pawlowicz explained. "So while there he saw the camp growing, he saw [Birkenau] being built -- where the ovens were. But the ovens were not only in [Birkenau], there were gas chambers and crematoria on the territory of Auschwitz I.

" Pilecki's family was kept out of the loop regarding his activities for security reasons. His son Andrzej Pilecki recalls, "There was secrecy because of the danger, so that the children would know as little as possible. But I felt something. My father was in Warsaw. We were 100 kilometers away. We came to visit him sometimes and my father would teach us how to behave during the occupation."

Pilecki began preparations for his mission in the late summer of 1940. While staying at a safehouse, he found identity papers belonging to a man named Tomasz Serafinski, who was erroneously presumed killed in September of 1939. Because the Nazis asked for the names and addresses of inmates and their relatives as a method to keep the population under control, Pilecki wisely decided not to give his real name or those of his immediate family. Pilecki placed his photograph on Serafinski's papers and memorized his details. His plan was to be arrested and booked under the Serafinski alias.

In the early morning hours of September 19, Nazis did a roundup in Warsaw and arrested as many as 2,000 people. According to Adam Cyra and Wieslaw Wysocki's 1997 biography Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki, Pilecki was in the apartment of Eleonora Ostrowska the morning of the roundup. A caretaker and member of the resistance came in and made several suggestions to Pilecki for how to avoid being caught. According to Ostrowska, "Witold rejected those opportunities and didn't even try to hide in my flat." When a German soldier knocked on the door and asked who lived there, Pilecki walked out. As he was saying goodbye to Ostrowska, he quietly whispered to her, "Report that I have fulfilled the order."

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, who later became Foreign Minister of Poland, was arrested in the same roundup and taken to Auschwitz in the same transport as Pilecki, which left the morning of September 21 and arrived at the prison camp at 10 p.m. that same day.

"At the time we were not aware of what Auschwitz was," he wrote. "The underground movement was compelled to investigate what was happening to those people, to check the possibilities of organizing them somehow, possibly of helping them. And Witold Pilecki embarked on that tremendous task. It was his aware and voluntary decision to join another huge round up in Warsaw."

Pilecki was not happy with the behavior he saw of his fellow Poles. "What really annoyed me the most was the passivity of this group of Poles," he later wrote. "All those picked up were already showing signs of crowd psychology, the result being that our whole crowd behaved like a herd of passive sheep."

"A simple thought kept nagging me: stir up everyone and get this mass of people moving."

Pilecki was booked under the Serafinski alias, and was assigned the prisoner number 4859. Once inside, Pilecki immediately began work on organizing a network among the inmate population. In his own words, his objective was to set up a military organization on the inside to keep up morale, provide news from the outside world, distribute food and clothing to members, smuggle camp intelligence to the outside world, and to prepare detachments to take control of the camp by force if the order were given.

He called his network the Union of Military Organization, known by its Polish acronym ZOW, and would be part of the Home Army, the Polish resistance. The secrecy of the ZOW's existence was paramount. To ensure its continuity in the event of discovery by Nazi guards or informants, Pilecki created a highly compartmentalized system of five-man cells. The leader of each cell would be people of utmost confidence, committed to the Polish resistance and able to withstand possible interrogation or investigation by the German guards. Each cell leader swore an oath to Pilecki himself and only knew of the four men under his command, but not of the existence of any other cells. By doing so, Pilecki effectively minimized the risk of exposure to the entire network.

 Pawlowicz estimates that Pilecki's network included some 500 inmates at Auschwitz by March of 1942, but notes this number may have doubled by the time of Pilecki's escape the following year. In time, Pilecki was able to place informants and allies in key positions throughout the camp. In time, these would prove crucial for Pilecki and other ZOW members. more 

Witold Pilecki's Auschwitz Report, translated from Polish.
H/T Maren.

Kate McCann's Book To Be Truthful (and Scathing) Re-Up

I'm glad that is to be the case; no doubt she will be clearing up a discrepancy or two.

Perhaps she might like to start here with this little lot.

I thought I would take this opportunity to bring together on one page certain discrepancies relating to the night of May third 2007. These discrepancies, or McCann sound bites if you will, are fundamental, nay, they are the cornerstone for the McCann's claim that Madeleine was a victim of stranger abduction.

That this case has progressed to the point it has without these inconsistencies and disparities being addressed, I find not only staggering, but scandalous. That such conflicting and contradictory statements made by the parents have never been investigated by any law enforcement agency in this country, is, as I say, not only scandalous, but shameful. And please, don't give me it's jurisdiction issue.

That parents, in a case of a three year old girl seemingly disappearing off the face of the earth, can make such contradictory statements with impunity, says much for the state of this Nation, it's law enforcement, and not least it's Government.

It matters not that books are written, that documentaries are made, or whatever tripe the press wishes to print in their obsession to sanctify this loathsome pair , it matters not because it is all worthless, it is all utterly without worth until these fundamental questions are answered.

Related post Joana Morais: They think about what they can do to help themselves

The Window: Kate McCann's Red Herring

A red herring born of a red face perhaps.




And do you remember this little bit of damage limitation after the cornerstone of the abduction, the window, now given the status of red herring, by someone sounding increasingly more desperate by the day.

[Kate McCann] The window: I described to the police officers exactly what I found that night, as it was and is highly relevant and I knew that every little detail could be helpful in finding my daughter which is our only aim. The window which is a ground floor window was completely open and is large enough for a person to easily climb through it. Whether it had been opened for this purpose remains unknown.It could of course have been opened by the perpetrator when inside the apartment as a potential escape route or left open as a 'red herring' more Complete article now below: Let's Not Concern Ourselves.



Damage Limitation

Kate McCann's attempt at damage limitation after a few previously known and unknown facts became available to a wider audience after the Lisbon hearing.
eta: If this statement is anything to go by, the book is going to be a doozy.

We are currently in Lisbon for the trial to determine whether the injunction against Mr Amaral's book and DVD should remain in place. This trial is about whether the book is a true reflection of the official judicial process in to Madeleine's disappearance and whether its contents damage the ongoing search for Madeleine, her siblings and our reputations.

Mr Amaral's book and DVD contains some information from the PJ files but there is a lot in the files which is not in Mr Amaral's book. Hence it is highly selective and therefore biased. Mr Amaral's book contains his opinions rather than fact. His opinions differ from the findings in the PJ file. The conclusions of the latter are: 1.there is no evidence that Madeleine is dead and 2. there is no evidence that Gerry or I are involved in Madeleine's disappearance. This is very different to the theories and conclusions of Mr Amaral. It is logical and common sense that spreading these theories as Mr Amaral did (and continues todo) damages the search to find our little girl. If the general public (and the Portuguese people in particular) are bombarded day in and day out with such theories, this will eventually 'colour' their understanding and judgement -lies and inaccuracies become fact. If people subsequently believe that Madeleineis dead and that we are involved in her disappearance then they will not look for Madeleine, will not consider any suspicions about others which they may have and will not come forward with information. We consider this highly detrimental to the search for Madeleine.

There are few points which have been raised in the last few days which I would like to address specifically:

Abduction theory:For us, there is only the abduction theory possible because we were not involved in Madeleine's disappearance and we know Madeleine did not wander off by herself. It is obvious and right that the police should consider other theories initially.

The window: I described to the police officers exactly what I found that night, as it was and is highly relevant and I knew that every little detail could be helpful in finding my daughter which is our only aim. The window which is a ground floor window was completely open and is large enough for a person to easily climb through it. Whether it had been opened for this purpose remains unknown. It could of course have been opened by the perpetrator when inside the apartment as a potential escape route or left open as a 'red herring'

The dogs: We realise that the behaviour of the dogs was the turning point in the investigation for the PJ. The use of dogs has proved to be problematic and unreliable in previous cases

(please refer to the Jersey ‘Haut de La Garenne' case and other research published about their use and reliability). It is vital to note that alerts by such dogs are classified as intelligence rather than evidence, as police officers familiar with their use will verify. These alerts must be supported by forensics in order to be used as evidence. The results of the forensic examinations did not identify any blood or Madeleine's DNA. To suggestor use the dogs´ reactions as evidence is simply wrong and abusive.

The proposed reconstruction: The suggestion of a reconstruction of our movements and other key witnesses at the crime scene and/or surrounding area in the early days following Madeleine's abduction was declined by the PJ as 'not usual' for Portugal. When the PJ finally requested a reconstruction to take place in 2008, Gerry and I were still arguidos and as such would have attended for a reconstruction. Some key witnesses (including some of our friends)declined to attend the planned reconstruction as they were not convinced of the aims and usefulness of it. In particular, as the reconstruction was not to be shown to the media (and hence the general public), they did not feel it would help to find Madeleine. Had the intention been to show it to the general public, it may have 'jogged' memories and encouraged people to come forward with information. It should be added that other key witnesses were not invited to attend.

Our team is confident that the injunction will remain in place because none of the witnesses thus far have been able to prove in court that Mr. Amaral's right to express his opinion is superior to the rights of our family to peace, respect and protection of reputation, and above all, the right to continue the search for our daughter Madeleine effectively and without hindrance. As has been made clear this week, Mr Amaral's ‘thesis' is not supported by any evidence. The search for Madeleine must go on until we find her and bring her abductor(s) to justice.

Kate McCann

Damage Limitation




Let's Not Concern Ourselves, They're Only Details

Just what does it take to get arrested by the Leicester police?

The corner stone of this nonsensical abduction story offered by the McCanns has always centred around the window and the "jemmied shutters."

I have written about the shear impossibility of such a scenario here, and Dr Martin Roberts addresses the same likelihood and can be found at this link.

Below in black and white and on video tape are the accounts of McCann family members and friends, etched in stone as it were, and there is only one indisputable source for these accounts, Kate and Gerry McCann.

But firstly, prior to reading these accounts, we have to take a good look at the latest incredible words of Kate McCann.

This single paragraph is but one of many taken from the McCanns feeble effort to limit the fallout from what came to light in Lisbon. This latest blog entry written by Kate McCann? after their failed and misguided attempt to silence Goncalo Amaral and as such silence the truth.

The window: I described to the police officers exactly what I found that night, as it was and is highly relevant and I knew that every little detail could be helpful in finding my daughter which is our only aim. The window which is a ground floor window was completely open and is large enough for a person to easily climb through it. Whether it had been opened for this purpose remains unknown. It could of course have been opened by the perpetrator when inside the apartment as a potential escape route or left open as a 'red herring'

In the immortal words of John McEnroe, you cannot be serious, you really really cannot be serious.

Apart from a few lines by way of introduction, I have just posted the relevant parts of various articles.*

~

Agony as 3-yr-old vanishes from holiday flat

A HUGE hunt was going on last night for three-year-old Maddy McCann, feared snatched from her holiday flat.

Maddy is believed to have been taken as she slept in the complex on Portugal's Algarve as her doctor parents ate at a bar 120ft away. Her scent was picked up by a police sniffer dog. But it petered out after 400 yards.

Yesterday, 24 hours after the young child vanished in quiet Praia da Luz, anguished parents Gerry and Kate, both 38, of Rothley, Leics, begged for her return.

A friend said: "Kate rang us totally hysterical, saying Maddy was abducted. They're devastated."

The appalling news that three-year-old Maddy McCann was feared kidnapped from her holiday flat came in a distraught phone call early yesterday from her dad.

Heart specialist Gerry McCann rang his sister Trish in Scotland after Maddy vanished from her cot placed between two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.

Trish revealed yesterday: "He was breaking his heart, saying 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted'."

Trish said: "When Kate checked, she came out screaming. Maddy had gone. The door was open and the window in the bedroom and shutters were jemmied open. Nothing had been touched and no valuables taken.

"They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door with her."

Close family friend Gill Renwick, of Liverpool, who also spoke to GP Kate yesterday, said: "Poor Kate and Gerry don't know where to turn.

"Madeleine has obviously been taken. She couldn't have gone out on her own and the shutters were forced."

"The window shutters, which had been closed since we arrived on Saturday, were open along with the window. They can be opened from the outside.

"The window opens on to a car park. The door to the room was shut. It looks as if someone has come through the window and possibly left through the door."

~ ~ ~

Close family friend Jon Corner, of Liverpool, told how tearful Kate sobbed down the phone early yesterday: "Someone has taken my little girl."

Jon, godparent to the McCanns' twins, said: "She was in an absolutely hysterical state - very, very distressed. She blurted out Madeleine had been abducted.

"Kate said the shutters of the room were smashed. Madeleine was missing It looks as though someone had gone straight past the twins to get to her. Kate was incredibly upset. I've spoken to her since, and she's still completely devastated.
"She's also very upset that the police don't seem to be doing more to find Madeleine. She thinks there's too little happening."

Mark Warner management denied there were signs of forced entry at the flat claiming instead that roller shutters had been slid up and the bedroom window opened.

~ ~ ~

Jon Corner, a close friend of Mrs McCann and godparent of the twins, said Kate telephoned him in the middle of the night distraught.

He said: "She just blurted out that Madeleine had been abducted. She told me, 'They have broken the shutter on the window and taken my little girl.'

"They had left the apartment locked while they were having their meal, but when they went back the last time they saw the damage."

After speaking to her a second time, he repeated his earlier account, but this time in stronger language

He told how tearful Kate sobbed down the phone early yesterday: "Someone has taken my little girl."

He continued: "She was in an absolutely hysterical state - very, very distressed. She blurted out Madeleine had been abducted.

"Kate said the shutters of the room were smashed. Madeleine was missing It looks as though someone had gone straight past the twins to get to her. Kate was incredibly upset. I've spoken to her since, and she's still completely devastated.

"She's also very upset that the police don't seem to be doing more to find Madeleine. She thinks there's too little happening." (Get it in early.)

~ ~ ~

Brian Healy Grandfather.

"Gerry told me when they went back the shutters to the room were broken, they were jemmied up and she was gone," said Mr Healy. "She'd been taken from the chalet. The door was open."

I reiterate, Just what does it take to get arrested by the Leicester police?

Madeleine McCann was a three year old girl and a Leicestershire resident.

JUST WHAT DOES IT TAKE?

Let's Not Concern Ourselves

~ ~ ~

Lastly, the curtains.



Your Witness Stu

Just a little reminder.

4003 to 4004 Email from Stuart Prior to the PJ (in English)
15-Processos Vol XV Page 4003 to 4004

4003

Fax

Date: 18th January 2008

From: Stuart Prior

To: Ricardo Paiva

Subject: BC4 Memo, Gail Cooper doc. Gail Cooper statement, Iris Morgan doc, report Morgan doc, Rex Morgan doc.

Ricardo,

All the docs attached in this and the next two emails as discussed earlier today.

We are still working on one or two aspects and I will get back to you over this and for any further direction from yourselves over facial recognition.

As we have discussed I have given Gerry a brief update just saying that the other descriptions are different to the artists impressions completed by Gail and identified by Jane. That the witnesses appeared genuine which indicates a number of charity collectors in the area prior to Madeleine being taken. I informed him everything has been forwarded to yourselves.

We have not spoken with Jane at all and will not share our e fits with anybody except yourselves unless you request this from us. It appears there were at least three charity collectors if not more in the area in the weeks prior to Madeleine being taken.

I am told that the artist impression by Gail Cooper is likely to hit the media over the weekend and I will update you on the effects of this next week, although we are not involved in this in any way at all.

Hope all is well.

Spk soon.

Stu

~ ~ ~

Your witness.

At around 10pm, the interviewee went to check on the children. She went into the apartment by the side door, which was closed. She noticed that the door to her children's bedroom was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains open, while she was certain of having closed them all as she always did.
Kate McCann, in a statement to the Policia Judiciária, may 4th, 2007

~

At 10pm, Kate went to check on the children. She went into the apartment, using her key and saw that the bedroom door was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains open. The doors were locked except the one at the back as already noted above.
Gerry McCann, in a statement to the Policia Judiciária, may 4th, 2007

~

It wasn’t until Kate walked into the villa at 10 and felt a sickening breeze—the front window had been jimmied open—that she realized something terrible had happened. “The scene was stark,” Gerry tells me. On one bed the twins lay sleeping. In the next lay only the plush cat toy Madeleine was never without. That was when Kate came out screaming, “Madeleine has gone!”
Vanity Fair January 10, 2008

~

K: I did my check about 10.00 ‘clock and went in through the sliding patio doors and I just stood, actually and I thought, oh, all quiet, and to be honest, I might have been tempted to turn round then, but I just noticed that the door, the bedroom door where the three children were sleeping, was open much further than we’d left it. I went to close it to about here and then as I got to here, it suddenly slammed and then as I opened it, it was then that I just thought, I’ll just look at the children and I could see S and A in the cot and then I was looking at M’s bed which was here and it was dark and I was looking and I was thinking, is that M or is that the bedding. and I couldn’t quite make her out. It sounds really stupid now, but at the time, I was thinking I didn’t want to put the light on cos I didn’t wanna wake them and literally, as I went back in, the curtains of the bedroom which were drawn,… were closed, … whoosh … It was like a gust of wind, kinda, just blew them open and cuddle cat was still there and her pink blanket was still there and then I knew straight away that she had, er, been taken, you know.
Kate McCann in C4 Cutting Edge documentary - Madeleine was here, april 2008

~

Kate: Yeah, so I thought well I'll just close it over again, and as I went to close it over it slammed shut and I thought and it was like sort of you know a draught had caused it to shut so I turned behind me and I thought are the patio doors open and they were closed and I thought well that's strange so then I opened the door thinking I'll open it ajar a bit again and that was when I kind of looked into the room and when I just looked and it was quite dark and I was just looking and looking at Madeleine's bed and I was thinking is that her that I was looking for why isn't Madeleine there? And then in the end I walked over and thought oh, she's not in bed and then I thought maybe she's wandered through to our bed and that's why the door's open so I went through to our bedroom and she wasn't there and then I kind of see then I'm starting to panic a bit and I ran back into their room and literally as I went back into their room the curtains that were drawn over just "foooosh" flew open and that's when I saw that the shutter was right up and the window was pushed right open. And that was when I just knew that erm someone had taken her. So I, I mean I ran to the window and I didn't know what I thought was going to see but I ran to the window and then I quickly hmm quickly looked through the wardrobes I had I suppose this temporary thought she was cowering in a wardrobe or something anyway she wasn't there and I just ran out and soon as...
Kate McCann on the Oprah show, may 2009. Your Witness Stu

~

A couple of clips and a link relative to this nonsense.

Trish Cameron: They last checked at half past nine; they were all sound asleep, sleeping; windows shut; shutters shut. Kate went back at ten o'clock to check; the front door was lying open; the window had been tampered with; the shutters had been jammied open... or whatever you call it, and Madeleine was missing.

McCann Files: 'Frantic search for toddler' Video BBC




Straight from the off we get a lesson in McCann style child care, better to leave the kids on their own rather than with a baby sitter they don't know. But it's not Phil McCann's spin that really concerns us here, it's other stuff, stuff like:

Gerry and Kate are in a clear line of sight of their kids.

No they weren't. and

It is obvious that someone with malicious intent went through that window and took Madeleine from the safety and security of her family.

No they didn't, nobody went through the window and took Madeleine 'from the safety and security of her family'

A little later:

Ian Woods: And it must be very frustrating for them to just be sitting, waiting for news. Is there... is there a temptation for them to... to get out and... and try and search themselves,

Philomena McCann: Yeah, well, I mean, for Gerry and Kate, they want to get out there. They want to search everything; they want to leave nothing unturned but,....... source McCann Files - 'It Is Abhorrent To Suggest Bad Parenting'

And we all know about getting out there.

Footnote: It's not an impossible scenario to imagine, although a lot less likely, (and even less likely knowing the parents) although a lot less likely because of the age of the child involved, but I have taken other people's kids on on foreign holidays. And anybody who has ever had kids of their own will know why, Daaaad, Muuum, I'm bored.

But had for instance the McCanns taken one of our Matty's sprogs, or our Stu's kids abroad, and one of them was "abducted." I can't help but ask myself, would 'because Gerry McCann says the kid was abducted' be good enough for any of these parents and upholders of the law?

Answers on a postcard please.

Mark Williams-Thomas

Mark Williams-Thomas 

Mark Williams-Thomas, a former policeman and managing director of WT Associates, a PR company specialized in child protection, media handling and advice for high profile cases, urged Portuguese police to ditch the case against the McCann – a case that he classified as “ludicrous” – and follow another lead that he thinks could take PJ to the real kidnapper.

The managing director of PR company WT Associates, who is usually introduced to Sky News viewers only as a “child protection expert” or “crime expert”, criticised Polícia Judiciária for not paying attention to “such a strong line of inquiry”. The PR expert referred that, even if “over 90% of murders are domestic-related”, he can’t “accept that Gerry and Kate as parents of the child could have been involved in her murder.”.................

...............The fact that one of the officers accused in Chief-Inspector Gonçalo Amaral casts “huge doubt” to the managing director of WT Associates, who believes that Mr. Amaral should be ousted from the investigation of Madeleine’s case: “”Even if we work on the basis that he is innocent, given this allegation against him, he shouldn’t have anything to do with the Madeleine investigation”, the PR expert told to Sky News.

Questioned yesterday, September 14, about his business relationship, as a expert also in media handling and advice for high profile cases, Mr. Mark Williams-Thomas initially confirmed that his company had a contract to provide services to the McCann. Asked to confirm some details of that business relationship, he changed his initial answer and denied any relationship, admitting only that he has “been in contact with the press officers for the family.” more

More Williams-Thomas drivel at Anorak

The Antikythera Mechanism The 2,000 Year Old Astral Computer

Now I know that on occasion I may wax rapturous about certain things, but I like to think that it is not without reason. Typically was a recent post on the modern wonder, 3D printers, 3D Printers Simply Amazing and believe me, they simply are.

But that which has brought about the latest bit of praise, for all of  its incredible complexity, its staggering sophistication and its mathematical genius, isn't a product of our modern scientific world, it is the two thousand year old product of ancient Greece.

This is not the first time I have watched this BBC4 production, and I find it no less amazing the second time around, staggering in fact. And no more staggering than that which is revealed at the thirty eight minute mark, it is, for want of a better expression, a fuck off moment, a moment where you say, fuck off, I'm not having that, not two thousand years ago I'm not.

Enjoy.

What is the Antikythera Mechanism?

The antikythera mechanism is currently housed in the Greek National Archaeological Museum in Athens and is thought to be one of the most complicated antiques in existence. At the beginning of the 20th century, divers off the island of Antikythera came across this clocklike mechanism, which is thought to be at least 2,000 years old, in the wreckage of a cargo ship. The device was very thin and made of bronze. It was mounted in a wooden frame and had more than 2,000 characters inscribed all over it. Though nearly 95 percent of these have been deciphered by experts, there as not been a publication of the full text of the inscription.

These are big images should you wish a better view.

Today it is believed that this instrument was a kind of mechanical analog computer used to calculate the movements of stars and planets in astronomy. It has been estimated that the antikythera mechanism was built around 87 B.C and was lost in 76 B.C. No one has any idea about why or how it came to be on that ill-fated cargo ship. The ship was Roman though the antikythera mechanism was developed in Greece. One theory suggests that the reason it came to be on the Roman ship could be because the instrument was among the spoils of war garnered by then Roman emperor Julius Caesar. X-rays of the device have indicated that there are at least 30 different gears present in it. British historian Derek Price has done extensive research on what the antikythera mechanism may have been used for. It was not until 1959 that Price put forth the theory that the device was used in astronomy to make calculations and predictions. In 1974, Price presented a model of how the antikythera mechanism might have functioned. When past or future dates were entered into the device it calculated the astronomical information related to the Sun, Moon, and other planets. Some of these findings have been confirmed by more recent researches undertaken by scholars and scientists. However, the full extent of the instrument’s functions still remains unknown. Price had also suggested that the antikythera mechanism might have been on public display in a museum or a public hall. Some others have also come up with their variants of the ancient computer, based on Price’s model. Australians Allan Bromley and Frank Percival devised one such model as did Michael Wright, curator of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum, London.

A joint project is also underway to further study this astounding example of the advancements of technology in ancient times. Known as the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, it is a collaboration between Cardiff University, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, X-Tek Systems, UK, and Hewlett-Packard, USA. This project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and supported by the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece. Since the study started more progress has been made. More than 80 fragments of the mechanism have now been discovered. An official announcement on the results obtained so far is expected to be made at a conference to be held in Athens in December 2006. antikythera-mechanism.com/

Tip of the hat to jonewscientist for the upload.

How it works.

H/T Maren.

Kurt Eichenwald’s "500 Days" And the 9/11 Neocon Disaster

I can't even begin to parse this twenty minute Democracy Now interview with author Kurt Eichenwald, I would be typing forever. Suffice to say, it's just one jaw dropping revelation after the other.

As I said in a tweet yesterday: Essential viewing, a must watch.

Enough said, drive on!

"500 Days": Author Kurt Eichenwald’s New Account of How Bush Admin Ignored Warnings Before 9/11

Newly disclosed documents provide further evidence the administration of George W. Bush ignored repeated warnings about Osama bin Laden’s plans to attack the United States. In "500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars,” author and journalist Kurt Eichenwald fleshes out how the Bush administration dismissed a number of warnings of an al-Qaeda attack against the United States beginning in the spring of 2001, instead focusing on alleged threats from Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Transcript

This from No More Mister Nice Blog:

Why did the administration do nothing? It sure looks as if it's because a key faction in the administration had a theory and didn't want anyone confused by the facts:

An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.

And we know, of course, these folks didn't change their minds even after it was clear that Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11. They still thought Saddam was the main threat. They just couldn't let that idea go. more

Which God Is That Mitt, The One From The Planet Kolob?

I had already dismissed this speech of Romney's with the disdain it deserved, when I tweeted: I've never read so much shite in all my life. What an arsehole. But something reared its head recently that causes me to post the thing, if only for posterity.

And it is worth preserving, because I think you would have to go a long long way to find a more insidious bit of hucksterism than this display by Romney.

Mitt Romney's Virginia speech heavy on religion

By Ginger Gibson
9/8/12

Mitt Romney wants to be clear: He’s not taking “God” off the nation’s money or out of his party’s platform.

In a not-so-veiled attack on President Barack Obama, Romney on Saturday delivered a speech thick with religious overtones and heavy on promises to increase military spending.

While Romney never argued that Obama was trying to remove God from the nation’s currency, he argued that the election is the only way to ensure the words remain.

The Republican presidential nominee recited the Pledge of Allegiance and said he would not remove God from the nation’s conversation.

“The pledge says ‘under God.’ I will not take God out of the name of our platform. I will not take God off our coins and I will not take God out of my heart,” Romney said to loud cheers. “We’re a nation that’s bestowed by God.”

Republicans have heavily criticized Democrats after the word “God” was left out of the party platform and then returned during this week’s national convention. Obama has never proposed taking “God” off the nation’s currency.

Adding to the event’s religious theme, controversial television minister Pat Robertson was seated on stage directly behind Romney.

Returning to the campaign trail on Friday after spending several days hunkered down in Vermont doing debate preparations, Romney delivered a new stump speech that departed from his usual economy-heavy addresses.

Most of the speech was framed around the Pledge of Allegiance, which he juxtaposed against his own campaign promises and attacks against President Barack Obama.

“For me, the Pledge of Allegiance and placing our hand over our heart reminds us of the blood that was shed by our sons and daughters fighting for our liberty and sharing liberty with people around the word,” Romney said. “The promises that were made in that pledge are promises I plan on keeping if I’m president and I’ve kept them so far in my life.”

He then took several of the lines and used them as a jumping off point to explain his positions.

“One nation, indivisible,” he repeated.” I will not divide this nation. I will not apologize for America abroad and I will not apologize for Americans here at home.”

Next, he focused on the line, “with liberty and justice for all.”

“I will not forget that for us to have liberty here, for us to be able to protect ourselves from the most evil around the world, for us to share liberty with our friends around the world, we must have a military second to none, so strong no one would ever think of testing it,” he said.

The crowd of nearly 3,000 cheered when Romney pledged not to cut military spending — the Hampton Roads area of Virginia has a large presence of active duty military members and military contractors.

Romney has come under criticism from Democrats for not mentioning the troops or Afghanistan in his nomination acceptance speech at last week’s Republican National Convention.

While he continued to not offer specifics on what he would do about the situation in Afghanistan, he mentioned the troops in his remarks here.

“Our troops have been stretched to the breaking point in the conflicts they’ve been enduring, and our hearts go to those that are in far-off places today particularly those in Afghanistan who are in harm’s way. We love them, we respect them, we honor their sacrifice,” he said.

He also pledged to expand the number of ships and aircraft being purchased and the size of the active duty enlistment. He also criticized Obama for the sequestration saga.

“It’s unthinkable to Virginia, to our employment needs, but it’s also unthinkable to the ability and the commitment of America to maintain our liberty, with liberty for all,” Romney said. “If I’m president of the United States we’ll get rid of those sequestration cuts and rebuild America’s military might.”

He continued expanding on the “justice for all” line, adding his own deficit and economic pledges.

“With justice for all,” he repeated “I don’t think it’s just for the next generation for us to pass on massive debts that we have amassed and pass on a $16 trillion in debt.”

Obama’s campaign responded to Romney’s remarks by tying him to Iowa Rep. Steve King, who he stumped with on Friday, and Robertson.

“It’s disappointing to see Mitt Romney try to throw a Hail Mary by launching extreme and untrue attacks against the President and associating with some of the most strident and divisive voices in the Republican Party, including Rep. Steve King and Pat Robertson,” Obama spokesman Lis Smith said. “This isn’t a recipe for making America stronger, it’s a recipe for division and taking us backward.” Politico

Try and spot the not tooo subliminal message ladies.

Anna Ardin Witness For The Prosecution

Leaving all that surrounds the case of Julian Assange out of things, and all other factors apart, can I but ask this one question?

In a judicial system that was just and open to public scrutiny, what prosecutor in the world would even think about trying bring a prosecution where the main witness and accuser had written a brief dissertation on the subject, of all things, Revenge.

I think you might join me in saying, not one. Because let's face it, the existence of such a document is; what can I liken it to? A torpedo, yes a torpedo, a torpedo for the defence, a torpedo, armed, primed and fuse and course set.

A torpedo, whose very existence would mean only one thing, the sinking of the prosecutions case the minute the witness took the stand. I have this vision if you will, of a periscope, a back to front cap and the cry of 'Los!'

As I say, this scenario would only play out in a judicial system that was just and open to public scrutiny. But could this be said of Sweden, where any trial of Julian Assange would be subject to the following conditions.

.If there is a charge and a trial, it will be held in secret.

.He will not be judged by an ’independent and impartial tribunal’, a fundamental requirement under the European Convention of Human Rights (article 6.1). Three out of the four judges are lay judges, who have been appointed by political parties and have no formal legal training. Fair Trial for Julian Assange?

I don't make mention of pre-trial conditions, they can be accessed at the link above, but for me, the words secret and trial, or justice for that matter, don't belong in the same sentence.

That which is posted below, contains, apart from Anna Ardin's seven salient pieces of advice on the subject of revenge, the bare minimum of the original post. And for no other reason that I don't care much for the writers style, nor what he has to say for that matter. But then, that's not the essence of the post, it's what is going on inside Ardin's head that is germane.

Anna Ardin's new revenge school!

Learn how to get revenge on a really creative way. Courses for all the girls who are not content with throwing vases or having uninhibited sex with his intended victim's friends and acquaintances.

Here we learn that in a subtle way, to destroy the victim's life. Anna was previously on his blog going through the first steps of a creatively cruel revenge. Here is the continuation course for all the girls who see PMS as a natural condition of life.

Terror Feminist prosecutor Marianne Ny will jump in as our expert in extreme retaliation cases that require a little extra terror feminism.


Repeat revenge with Anna!

For all students who forgot Anna's former vengeance lessons are now able to refresh your memory a bit. Here is Anna through everything required for that suffering will be a maximum painfully of his intended victim.

Stage 1
Consider very carefully if you really must take revenge. It's almost always better to forgive than to avenge

Stage 2
Think about why you want revenge. You do not need to just be clear about who to take revenge on, but also why. Revenge is never directed against only one person, but also meet a certain action.

Step 3
The principle of proportionality. Remember that revenge will not only match the deed in size but also in nature. A good revenge is linked to what has been done against you. For example if you want revenge on someone who cheated or who dumped you, so the penalty should have something with dating / sex / fidelity to do.

Step 4
Make a brainstorm about appropriate measures for the category of revenge you're after. To continue the example above, you can paja your victim's current relationship, fix so that his new partner is unfaithful or ensure that he gets a madman after him. Use your imagination!

Step 5
Think of how you can systematically take revenge. Perhaps a series of letters and photos, the new to believe that you have seen more than just a big lie on a single occasion?

Step 6
Rank your systematic revenge schemes from low to high in terms of likely successful implementation, the required input from you, and degree of satisfaction if you succeed. The ideal, of course, revenge is as high as possible in these columns, but can often be an increased effort by labor and capital provide safer output for the other two, really important parameters.

Step 7
Screed to work. And remember what your goals are while you are operating, ensure that your victim will suffer in the same way as he made ​​you suffer. Under Mattan, translated.

Fred Again: Soap Opera Over Kabul

And at his humorous best.

What do you expect when you put combative, not too bright, half-educated, unsophisticated lower-middle-class guys into an illiterate thirteenth-century culture with a history of detesting invaders? I know, I know: you figured it would spark a love-in, koom-bah-yah, Oprah as featured speaker.

I once succinctly asked the question, 'How on earth do you conquer a bunch of fucking rocks?'

Fred gives us the answer.

In Afghanistan there are no targets of high value to destroy, no clear lines of supply to be cut, no cities whose capture means you win, and no concentrations of enemy to be easily killed. World War Two ended a long time ago.

Soap Opera Over Kabul

Not the Roman Legions
By Fred Reed
September 04, 2012

Oh lordy, lordy, how I love the Afghan war: It just goes on and on, without end. By comparison death and taxes seem long shots.

In the latest episode of this long-running sitcom, the Afghan army is killing GIs. Yes. Blowing them away right and left. In Washington, the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel is in shock and maybe awe. It has stopped training Afghan troops because it is scared of them. It has ordered our soldiers to stay armed to protect themselves against our devoted allies, to whom we are bringing democracy, because they want to kill us.

How can this be, you ask? The brass are puzzled too. The reason can’t be that Afghans don’t like night raids, torture, GIs going house to house and shooting women and kids, drone strikes blowing up weddings, and other routine mechanisms of democratization. Instead, it must be…Taliban infiltrators. Yes. This being decided, all is now well. Just as the military calls routine atrocities “isolated incidents,” it attributes Afghani hostility to Taliban infiltrators. Problem solved. In the modern marketing military, you don’t need a solution, just a saleable explanation.

OK. In the Guardian, I learn that actual Pentagonal military psycho-wonks have done a study on what Afghans and gringos think of each other. (report) Saith the Guardian:

"One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving, profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group [the US soldiers] generally view the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals. Such is the state of progress in the current partnering programme. Over a decade of fighting shoulder-to-shoulder had created mutual loathing that was impossible to camouflage.”

Who would have thought it?

Anybody with the slighytest acquaintance with reality. Tell you what, brothels and cisterns, I could have written every word of it, and I’ve never been to Afghanistan. It’s Viet Nam all over again. Which means that it’s all over, again. GIs and Afghans hate each other.

What do you expect when you put combative, not too bright, half-educated, unsophisticated lower-middle-class guys into an illiterate thirteenth-century culture with a history of detesting invaders? I know, I know: you figured it would spark a love-in, koom-bah-yah, Oprah as featured speaker.

This comedy occurs because the military inhabits a parallel reality. In its experience, you tell a thing to happen, and it does. If the base commander decides that all dumpsters should be painted Day-Glo chartreuse, he issues orders, paint crews go out, and three days later the dumpsters glow sort of greenly. The military also believes that things work. Put 6000 sailors and a hundred airplanes on an aircraft carrier, obviously an unworkable idea—and it works. It works because everyone wants it to work and does what he is told.

Afghanistan isn’t an aircraft carrier. It has a different shape, it isn’t as flat, and it is full of Afghans. These are important distinctions.

Further, the military thinks that policy determines existence. American policy is that Afghanistan is an allied country like Germany, which it isn’t, that Karzai is chief of state like Angela Merkel, which he isn’t, that the Afghan population are our allies, which they are not, and that if you train Afghans who hate us to say Ooo-rah!, they will want to kill other Afghans that we don’t like—which, obviously they don’t.

Add to the military’s eternal misunderstanding of the enemy’s motivation a matching underestimation of his capacity to fight, plus hypertrophied self-confidence, and you get an over-armed, under-brained, excessively ooo-rahed pack of losers. Don’t think so? How is it that a trillion-dollar military with fighter-bombers, helicopters, armor, electronics, drones, and such can’t beat pissed-off goat-herders with rifles? What do you think would happen if GIs had to fight on equal terms—sandals and a smoke pole, no PX?

Please don’t send me growly mail about Our Boys and their courage, training, sacrifice, honor, and the rest of that string of beads. For one thing, there is no honor in going to someone else’s country and butchering people you don’t know because some political general, which is to say some general, told you to; A hit man for the Mafia is exactly as honorable. For another thing, an army’s job is not to be brave, selfless, yada yada, but to win wars. Look at the record:

Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos: Dead losses. Underestimated the Vietnamese, the AK, the RPG, the IED. By policy the Pentagon said the war was about communism, while the Viets thought it was about getting invaders out of their country, which they did. The GIs hated the Viets as they always hate their allies. The Pentagon left with its tail between legs.

Beirut, 1983: Dead loss, 241 Marines killed versus one Arab. Underestimated the enemy and the truck bomb, had amateurish security, and misunderstood local motivations. Left with tail between legs.

Mogadishu, 1993: Dead loss. Underestimated the enemy, the AK, the RPG. Left dead GIs being dragged through the streets. Tail between legs.

Gulf I: Victory. Enemy tried to fight Pentagon’s kind of war with fifth-rate forces. Tail high.

Iraq: Dead loss. Did not get the oil, permanent bases, or docile puppet government. Clueless about politics, urban war. Underestimated the enemy, the IED, the AK, the RPG. Left, tail high, fooling few.

Afghanistan: Dead loss, as yet unadmitted.. Underestimated enemy, IED, AK, RPG. Clueless about politics. Tail in default position.

Several things explain this Gilbert-and-Sullivan performance. Since 1945 the Pentagon has never fought a war it had to win. Nor will it. The possession of nuclear weapons by the First World ensures that no seriously dangerous country will attack any other seriously dangerous country. This leaves the Pentagon and its suppliers free to buy phenomenally expensive weapons of no purpose. The B1, B2, and Airborne Laser come to mind and, now that pilotless airplanes are coming into their own, the US spends hugely on the piloted F35, for which there is no enemy.

But what the military seems particularly not to grasp is that the nature of war has changed. The day of massed armor roaring across deserts under gorgeous sunsets, of fighter aircraft duking it out gloriously at Midway, of huge formations of Marines storming ashore, is over. In Afghanistan there are no targets of high value to destroy, no clear lines of supply to be cut, no cities whose capture means you win, and no concentrations of enemy to be easily killed. World War Two ended a long time ago.

This should be obvious, but militaries don’t do obvious. They run on the hormonal aggression built into men—males, grrr, bow-wow, woof—which is why all of history roils with pointless wars and slaughtered innocents. Herd combat is as biologically determined as a teen-age boy’s newfound interest in girls. Oh good.

Coming soon on these same channels: Days of Yemen, a heartwarming series about a handsome young GI’s illicit love affair with his aging Ma Deuce. Brought to you by the New! New! Tide, with three special antioxidants that work together to remove all trace of rationality.

Fred's Biography: As He Tells It. - Fred, a keyboard mercenary with a disorganized past, has worked on staff for Army Times, The Washingtonian, Soldier of For tune, Federal Computer Week, and The Washington Times. fredoneverything.net

Update: Afghan army arrests 'hundreds' over insider attacks

Two Short Films: Nation of Exiles - Cables from Kabul

I watched these two short films yesterday, I thought I might share them with you.

Nation of Exiles

A short documentary examining the civil unrest in Iran following Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June 2009, and the role of social media in the Green Movement. Featuring Columbia Professor of Iranian History Hamid Dabashi and Poynter Institute’s Ellyn Angelotti.

A characteristic of a strong and legitimate government – Islamic or not – is that it is capable of respecting all opinions, whether they support it or oppose it. This is necessary for any political system, in order to embrace all social classes and encourage them to participate in the affairs of their nation, and not dismiss and repulse them and, therefore, increase their numbers (the opponents) every day. I am afraid that because the regime is considered a religious government, such acts of its officials will lead to the loss of people’s faith in their religion, and will hurt Islam.

The present circumstances and problems that have been created after the elections have astounded the people and made them pessimistic (about their government). They expect the officials, based on their moral and religious teachings, to be neutral and demonstrate their honesty by protecting people’s rights, particularly about such an important issue (the elections). It is expected of the government to find an acceptable and reasonable response to people’s demands, and by using the right approach eliminate people’s pessimism and doubts.

Nation of Exiles from Percival Mosaedi on Vimeo.

Cables from Kabul

Watch a first-hand account of the widespread corruption; get an inside look at the drug trade, rampant child sex abuse, and ever-present Taliban control. All these elements make Afghanistan one of the most frightening and unstable places on earth.

We touch down in Kabul and are treated to Taliban hospitality on the first night: a suicide bomb at a neighboring hotel interrupts a pleasant night’s sleep.

After kicking around pieces of the suicide bomber with local kids, we meet General Farooq Assas, head of the Afghan National Police Force, the kids who are being trained to police the country. At the end of the day, we drink moonshine with an ex-Mujahideen who has a thing for young boys. And they said Kabul would be heavy.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/cables-from-kabul/

Sweden - Assange: Saying It Like It Is: Naomi Wolf

I think of all the articles that have been written about the skulduggery (or the apparent lack of ) that surrounds the Assange case, there isn't one better in telling us that something is rotten in the state of Denmark Sweden, than this article by feminist Naomi Wolf.

I don't think there is much I need to add, other than perhaps, to mention the startling difference between the style, and let that include honesty, between the style of Wolf's reporting and that of your typical hack whose drivel reflects only that of the editor's/owner's party line.

Oh! and I think I shall decorate the post with a few journo related graphics that have featured in posts past.

Sweden’s Other Rape Suspects
By Naomi Wolf
Aug. 31, 2012


NEW YORK – It is difficult for me, as an advocate against rape and other forms of violence against women, to fathom the laziness and willful ignorance that characterize so much of the media coverage of the sexual-assault allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. To report that we are simply witnessing Swedish justice at work, one must be committed to doing no research – not even the bare minimum of picking up a phone. In fact, we are witnessing a bizarre aberration in the context of Sweden’s treatment of sex crime – a case that exposes the grim reality of indifference, or worse, that victims there and elsewhere face.

If I were raped in Uppsala, where Assange is alleged to have committed his crime, I could not expect top prosecutors to lobby governments to arrest my assailant. On the contrary, “ordinary” Swedish rapists and abusers of women should assume that the police might not respond when called. When I tried the rape-crisis hotline at the government-run Crisis Center for Women in Stockholm, no one even picked up – and there was no answering machine.

According to rape-crisis advocates in Sweden, one-third of Swedish women have been sexually assaulted by the time they leave their teens. Indeed, according to a study published in 2003, and other later studies through 2009, Sweden has the highest sexual-assault rate in Europe, and among the lowest conviction rates.

When I reached the Stockholm branch of Terrafem, a support organization for rape survivors, a volunteer told me that in her many years of experience, Sweden’s police, prosecutors, and magistrates had never mobilized in pursuit of any alleged perpetrator in ways remotely similar to their pursuit of Assange. The far more common scenario – in fact, the only reliable scenario – was that even cases accompanied by a significant amount of evidence were seldom prosecuted.

This, she explained, was because most rapes in Uppsala, Stockholm, and other cities occur when young women meet young men online and go to an apartment, where, as in the allegations in the Assange case, what began as consensual sex turns nonconsensual. But she said that this is exactly the scenario that Swedish police typically refuse to prosecute. Just as everywhere else, Sweden’s male-dominated police, she explained, do not tend to see these victims as “innocent,” and thus do not bother building a case for arrest.

She is right: According to a report by Amnesty International, as of 2008, the number of reported rapes in Sweden had quadrupled in 20 years, but only 20% of cases were ever prosecuted. And, while the prosecution rate constituted a minimal improvement on previous years, when less than 15% of cases ended up in court, the conviction rate for reported rapes “is markedly lower today than it was in 1965.” As a result, “in practice, many perpetrators enjoy impunity.”

Until 2006, women in Uppsala faced a remarkable hurdle in seeking justice: the city’s chief of police, Göran Lindberg, was himself a serial rapist, convicted in July 2010 of more than a dozen charges, including “serious sexual offenses.” One victim testified that she was told her rapist was the police chief, and that she would be framed if she told anyone about his assaults. Lindberg also served as the Police Academy’s spokesman against sexual violence. The Uppsala police force that is now investigating Assange either failed to or refused to investigate effectively the sadistic rapist with whom they worked every day.

In other words, the purported magical Swedish kingdom of female sexual equality, empowerment, and robust institutional support for rape victims – a land, conjured by Swedish prosecutors, that holds much of the global media in thrall – simply does not exist.

(I think you need to be of a certain age to appreciate this one.)

In the Assange case, the Swedish police supported the accusers in legally unprecedented ways – for example, by allowing them to tell their stories together and by allowing testimony from a boyfriend.But other alleged victims of gender-based abuse, sometimes in life-threatening circumstances, typically receive very different treatment.In particular, according to WAVE, a pan-European consortium of service providers for rape and sexual-abuse survivors, when migrants, who comprise 13.8% of Sweden’s population, report rape and abuse, they face high systemic hurdles in even telling their stories to police – including longstanding linguistic barriers in communicating with them at all.

Likewise, Swedish intake centers for victims of male violence are woefully underfunded – like all support services for rape and abuse victims across Europe and North America – leaving many women who face threats to their safety and that of their children waiting for unavailable places in shelters. When I emailed the Rape Crisis support institute in Uppsala, listed by the global rape-crisis organization RAINN, I received an automatic reply saying that the facility was temporarily closed.

So, for most raped Swedish women, the shelters are full, the hotlines inactive, and the police selectively look the other way – that is, unless they are busy chasing down a globally famous suspect.

We have been here before. Last year, when my left-wing colleagues were virtually unanimous in believing the New York Police Department’s narrative of a certain victim and a guilty-before-due-process rapist, I made the same call – to the local rape-crisis center. There, Harriet Lesser, who works every day with victims whose alleged attacker is not the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, confirmed that the official support shown for the victim – in advance of any investigation – was indeed unprecedented.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that Assange, much less Dominique Strauss-Kahn, committed no crime against women. Rather, Assange’s case, as was true with Strauss-Kahn’s, is being handled so differently from how the authorities handle all other rape cases that a corrupted standard of justice clearly is being applied. These aberrations add insult to the injury of women, undefended and without justice, who have been raped in the “normal” course of events – by violent nobodies. project-syndicate.org

US is the Worst Police State in the World – By the Numbers

US is the Worst Police State in the World – By the Numbers
by Glen Ford
August 31, 2012

There’s no getting around the fact that the United States is the Mother of All Police States. China can’t compete in the incarceration business. With four times the U.S. population, it imprisons only 70 percent as many people – about the same number as the non-white prison population of the U.S. Even worse, 80,000 U.S. inmates undergo the torture of solitary confinement on any given day.

When U.S. corporate media operatives use the term “police state,” they invariably mean some other country. Even the so-called “liberal” media, from Democracy Now! to the MSNBC menagerie, cannot bring themselves to say “police state” and the “United States” without putting the qualifying words “like” or “becoming” in the middle. The U.S. is behaving “like” a police state, they say, or the U.S. is in danger of “becoming” a police state. But it is never a police state. Since these privileged speakers and writers are not themselves in prison – because what they write and say represents no actual danger to the state – they conclude that a U.S. police state does not, at this time, exist.

Considering the sheer size and social penetration of its police and imprisonment apparatus, the United States is not only a police state, but the biggest police state in the world, by far: the police state against whose dimensions all other police systems on Earth must be measured.

By now, even the most insulated, xenophobic resident of the Nebraska farm belt knows that the U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world. He might not know that 25 percent of prison inmates in the world are locked up in the U.S., or that African Americans comprise one out of every eight of the planet’s prisoners. But, that Nebraska farmer is probably aware that America is number one in the prisons business. He probably approves. God bless the police state.

For the American media, including lots of media that claim to be of the Left, it is axiomatic that China is a police state. And maybe, by some standards, it is. But, according to United Nations figures, China is 87th in the world in the proportion of its people who are imprisoned. China is a billion people bigger than the United States – more than four times the population – yet U.S. prisons house in excess of 600,000 more people than China does. The Chinese prison population is just 70 percent of the American Gulag. That’s quite interesting because, non-whites make up about 70 percent of U.S. prisons. That means, the Black, brown, yellow and red populations of U.S. prisons number roughly the same as all of China’s incarcerated persons. Let me emphasize that: The American People of Color Gulag is as large as the entire prison population of China, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people.

However, police states must be measured by conditions behind the bars, as well as raw numbers of inmates. And, by that standard, the American Gulag is even more monstrous.

Civilized people now recognize that solitary confinement is a form of torture. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, reports that solitary confinement beyond 15 days at a stretch crosses the line of torture, yet, as Al Jazeera recently reported, it is typical for hundred of thousands of U.S. prisoners to spend 30 or 60 days in solitary at a stretch. Twenty thousand are held in perpetual isolation in so-called supermax prisons – that is, they exist in a perpetual state of torture. Studies now show that, all told, 80,000 U.S. prisoners are locked up in solitary on any given day. That’s as many tortured people as the entire prison system of Germany, or of England, Scotland and Wales, combined.

If that is not a police state, then no such thing exists on planet Earth. Common Dreams