Scio, Scio

Criticize Obama! When Will All This Racism Cease?

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:44:18 -0700

In a recent article on National Review Online, Das Krauthammer strikes Obama full in the face with the flail of righteous consternation:

Obama cited Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as presidents who met with enemies. Does he know no history? Neither Roosevelt nor Truman ever met with any of the leaders of the Axis powers. Obama must be referring to the pictures he’s seen of Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, and Truman and Stalin at Potsdam. Does he not know that at that time Stalin was a wartime ally?
During the subsequent Cold War, Truman never met with Stalin. Nor Mao. Nor Kim Il Sung. Truman was no fool.
Obama cites John Kennedy meeting Nikita Khrushchev as another example of what he wants to emulate. Really? That Vienna summit of a young, inexperienced, untested American president was disastrous, emboldening Khrushchev to push Kennedy on Berlin — and then near fatally in Cuba, leading almost directly to the Cuban missile crisis. Is that the precedent Obama aspires to follow?

At issue, in my mind, is Obama's continuing illegitimate preservation from any serious form of criticism. Had Obama been John McCain, and made a similar statement of such raw, unfiltered ignorance, he would have been smothered to death in his own pasty white wrinkles by a vengeful Media full of borderline-retarded Obama cultists.

And yet, we continue to see the magical, mystical armor of uncritical acceptance surround Obama. It preserves him from anything that would call into question his ability to lead successfully. It stifles the process of evaluating the man who will lead us for four years...four potentially big years.

I've said it before, but Obama versus Putin (or even Putin's protege) is not a contest. Yet nobody is seriously evaluating how savvy this man might be! Instead, we studiously ignore his ties to racist Black Liberation theology, cracked-out 60s radicalism, and effete liberal disaffection! At the very least, these qualities should give us pause, time to think that perhaps Obama is a poor judge of character. "Poorer than George Bush?," you may be starting to smirk. Yes, infinitely.

So we'll see Hillary defeated in the first two weeks of June, Obama will continue to make his ridiculous statements, and anyone who dares to raise an objection to his sophomoric policy ideas will be branded a racist and declared beneath contempt by a media whose investment in the outcome of this race is, to put it as nicely as I can, unprofessional.

What a world - in which we strive to protect the illusion of competence surrounding a candidate obviously ill-suited for the position, to in turn suit egotistical notions about our own enlightenment.

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Iraq War Misconceptions

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:49:02 -0700

National Review Online has a tremendous piece by Frederick W. Kagan on Iraq. Specifically, the common myths associated with the war that many on the left side of the spectrum continually cite as reasons we have lost, will lose, or must withdraw from the present conflict.
Do the nattering nabobs really know the counterpoint to their arguments? I would think not. So often I see a parroted claim about the war that can be no more supported than the rantings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Conservatives who have conviction but not the knowledge to back it up must educate themselves so as to better exploit this weakness. Liberals who wish to better defend themselves may also find the article useful.

Let's just ignore for now the sobering fact that no amount of information will make any of us actually change our minds, and just enjoy the opportunity to learn.

The article's long, as something like this would have to be, but it's not overlong. Five years of the left pulling out every conceivable objection to the war have left Kagan a big job. He tackles it handily and you should read the whole thing. However, I provide a snippet to draw you in:

The War Costs Too Much
An increasingly popular talking point of the antiwar party is that the war simply costs too much and that we must end it and refocus on domestic priorities. This talking point has a number of variants:
The “$3 trillion war.” Simplistic economic analysis declares that the war has cost the taxpayers $3 trillion since its inception, implying that this is a $3 trillion dead loss to the economy — a price too high to pay.
Modern economics has long understood that the notion of a one-for-one guns-versus-butter trade-off is simply wrong. A high proportion of money spent on defense goes back into the U.S. economy in the form of salaries paid to the more than 5 million Americans employed directly or indirectly by the Defense Department, and payments to the defense industry and the long and complex supply chains from which they draw their raw materials. Military spending has traditionally been a form of economic stimulus, and wars more commonly end recessions or depressions than start them. That’s not a good reason to start a war, but neither is it a good reason to lose one. The impact of the current war on the U.S. economy, finally, is far smaller than the impact of previous major conflicts. Military spending in World War II ranged from 17.8 percent of GDP to 37.5 percent; in Korea from 5.0 percent (in 1950 — 7.4 percent in 1951) to 14.2 percent; in Vietnam from 7.4 percent to 9.4 percent. Current expenditures on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars bring total defense expenditures to something well below 5 percent of GDP. Even granting the simplistic and misleading $3 trillion figure, $3 trillion is about 5 percent of the nearly $60 trillion American GDP over the five years of the war.

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Killer Troops, Imaginary Horrors, Overblown Anti-War Pisspots...

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:45:06 -0800

I defy anyone to argue with Mark Steyn. The man is simply a genius. He makes me depressed by exposing how utterly screwed up the West's collective head is. Is it any wonder that an Islamic group in Canada was trying to have him muzzled?

At some point conservatives will have to abandon the polite tolerance we've had for liberal inanities and fulfill their expectations by calling out the militia and rounding them up, Planet of the Apes style. Har Har, of course I'm joking. Or am I? I've been accused of worse while arguing about less important things.

What's at issue here is that the absurdity of this generation's anti-war stance is without bounds. Steyn drags it out into the light and clubs it like a baby seal.

UnphenomenalTimes
Fake but ... fake.
By Mark Steyn

Have you been in an airport recently, and maybe seen a gaggle of America’s heroes returning from Iraq? And you’ve probably thought, “Ah, what a marvelous sight. Remind me to straighten up the old ‘Support Our Troops’ fridge magnet, which seems to have slipped down below the reminder to reschedule my acupuncturist. Maybe I should go over and thank them for their service.”
No, no, no, under no account approach them. Instead, try to avoid making eye contact and back away slowly toward the sign for the parking garage. You’re in the presence of mentally damaged violent killers who could snap at any moment.

You hadn’t heard that? Well, it’s in the New York Times: “a series of articles” — that’s right, a whole series — “about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.” It’s an epidemic, folks. As the Times put it: “Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: ‘Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.’ Pierre, S.D.: ‘Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.’ Colorado Springs: ‘Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.’”
Obviously, as America’s “newspaper of record,” the Times would resent any suggestion that it’s anti-military. I’m sure if you were one of these crazed military stalker whackjobs following the reporters home you’d find their cars sporting the patriotic bumper sticker “We Support Our Troops, Even After They’ve Been Convicted.” As usual, the Times stories are written in the fey more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone that’s a shoo-in come Pulitzer time: “Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.”
“Patchwork picture,” “quiet phenomenon”… Yes, yes, but exactly how quiet is the phenomenon? How patchy is the picture?” The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan either “committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one.” The “committed a killing” formulation includes car accidents.
Thus, with declining deaths in theater, the media narrative evolves. Old story: “America’s soldiers are being cut down by violent irrational insurgents we can never hope to understand.” New story: “Americans are being cut down by violent irrational soldiers we can never hope to understand.” In the quagmire of these veterans’ minds, every leafy Connecticut subdivision is Fallujah and every Dunkin’ Donuts clerk an Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with an annoyingly perky manner.
It was the work of minutes for the Powerline website’s John Hinderaker to discover that the “quiet phenomenon” is entirely unphenomenal: It didn’t seem to occur to the Times to check whether the murder rate among recent veterans is higher than that of the general population of young men. It’s not. Au contraire, the columnist Ralph Peters calculated that Iraq and Afghanistan vets are about a fifth as likely to murder you as the average 18-34 year-old American male. Better yet, the blogger Iowahawk meticulously drew his own “patchwork picture” of another “quiet phenomenon”: the Denver newspaper columnist arrested for stalking, the Cincinnati TV reporter facing child-molestation charges, the Philadelphia anchorwoman who went on a violent drunken rampage. As Iowahawk’s one-man investigative unit wondered: “Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence that America’s newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters?”
Why would the Times run such a series? My columnar confrere Clifford May connected it to a notorious anniversary: Seventy-five years ago, in February 1933, the Oxford Union passed a famous resolution, by an overwhelming margin, that “this House would under no circumstances fight for its King and country.” The Union was the world’s most famous debating society, in a great university of the dominant global power; its presidents have gone on to serve as Prime Ministers at home and overseas, from Gladstone in the 19th century all the way to Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s.
So the debate and its resolution sent a message to Britain’s enemies: As Churchill saw it, the vote was a “disgusting symptom” of the enervation of the ruling elites. Clifford May sees that same syndrome today around the western world, but, in fact, it’s worse than that.
The Oxford debate took place a decade and a half after the worst carnage in human history. The First World War cost the lives of some 20 million people. Do you remember back in 2004 when Ted Koppel devoted one episode of Nightline to reading out the names of everyone killed in combat in Iraq? If he’d attempted a similar task with the British Empire’s war dead in 1919, the half-hour episode of Nightline would have had to be extended to ten months — or longer if Ted took bathroom breaks, or indeed pauses for breath. The war reached into the smallest English hamlet and culled a generation of young men. It swept through the glittering palaces, too: The brother of Queen Elizabeth (the mother of the present queen) was killed on the western front in 1915. It would be a statistical improbability to have been at that Oxford Union debate and have come from a home in which on some mantle or bureau there was not a photograph of a son or uncle or fiancé forever young.It would be as if millions upon millions had been slaughtered in the first Gulf war, and 15 years later Harvard or Yale were debating whether we should do it all over again.
In other words, we don’t have their excuse. Our war has one of the lowest fatality rates of any war ever, and, when they get so low that even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid temporarily give up the quagmire bleating, the Times invents bogus stories to suggest that the few veterans lucky enough to make it out of Iraq alive are ticking timebombs ready to explode across every Main Street in the land.
A few days before the Times series began, The National Journal published the latest debunking of a notorious survey: in 2006, the medical journal The Lancet reported that the Iraq war had killed over 650,000 civilians, over 90 percent victims of the US military. That’s 500 civilians a day. Which is quite a smell test. The figure was over ten times the estimates even of hardcore antiwar left-wing groups. Who are these 500 daily victims? Why aren’t there mass riots by Iraqi civilians protesting the daily bloodbath?
Because it’s fake. It didn’t happen.
Yet it’s indestructible. I picked up a local paper in New Hampshire the other day, and a lady psychotherapist was twittering about our “mentally wounded” troops returning home after killing gazillions and bazillions of Iraqi civilians. In 1933, the debaters at Oxford were horrified by the real cost of war. In 2008, the editors of the Times, our college professors and Hollywood celebrities, are horrified by a fiction. Faced with an historically low cost of war, they retreat into fantasy. Who’s really suffering from mental trauma? Who needs the psychotherapy here?

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Republican Debates

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:08:53 -0800

Firstly, let me say that I loathe commercials. They have cut off some of the answers to the most provocative questions. I mean, how hard would it be to devote a commercial free block of time so that I can see all these answers without making an internet search?

Now let me give you my running commentary on the candidates.

Thompson: Thompson is my man, and he's on point tonight. But he's not on fire. He's saying the right things so far. I want him to win, but don't think it's likely.

Paul: Ron Paul is sounding good on issues of the federal government poking its nose into things. His lackeys, who no doubt made the road trip from their college in a van whilst braiding their dreadlocks and smoking their doobies, keep on booing anyone who mentions radical Islam. I hate Ron Paul.

Tancredo: He's having a good time. Get 'em Tancredo. He's not going to make it much longer though.

Hunter: Duncan Hunter is also doing well, but to be fair he has not said as much. I don't think he's going to make it out of Iowa. He's got Chuck Yeager on his side though. He handled the inevitable "homosexual in the army" question well.

Huckabee: I like him more and more. More and more. He's keeping a cool head despite being attacked over his record, but I hear he has a temper. I'd like a man with a temper in office. He's my current favorite for VP.

Romney: It's bad between him and Rudy. They've calmed down from their opening spat this evening, but I think it damaged them both. Romney needs to score some decisive points tonight, in my estimation. He has yet to do so. Waffled on gay question. But man, I think he could handle the financial stuff.

McCain: John McCain hasn't slipped up at all tonight. He's on message, he's consistent, and his record is unchallenged. But I can't help feeling like his opponents take his eventual defeat for granted, and see no benefit to scoring points off the old man. He's a hero, and he is standing up to Ron Paul and his idiot supporters, but perhaps his time has passed.

Giuliani: Rudy Giuliani has had to fend off attacks all night, and it's showing. He's making some mistakes, but I don't think he's being hurt too badly. I felt bad for him with the Bible question. As a Catholic, it's hard to explain to people the nuances of biblical understanding. In Giuliani's case, obviously he's not too devoted a Catholic...this question probably highlighted the divide he has to cross to reach values voters. His biggest hurdle is that he keeps mentioning New York over and over again. Not my pick for anything, but he'll be in it for a while.

Anyone else watch the debate?

Update: It would appear that a number of questioners, including the gay general and Mom of Two Concerned About Lead, were plants. I'm not sure if this is a bunch of caterwauling or what. Obviously, though, if a candidate can't handle the opposition then he doesn't deserve the nomination.

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The Death of A Political Issue...How Keen!

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:51:25 -0800

Rich Lowry over on National Review Online has a nice little piece about the new developments with stem cells and how the "religious fanatics" have been vindicated for their ethics. A morsel:

Democrats loved this narrative: theology versus science, with its echo of the Inquisition repressing Galileo. It drove the charge that the Bush administration was waging “a war on science.” As if placing ethical bounds on science is a denial of the scientific method and the value of research itself. By this logic, speed limits are “anti-driving,” guardrails are “anti-highway,” and meat inspections “anti-food.”

I love those guys. I'll tell you something, this whole mess with stem cells got way out of hand. I'm glad the president handled it the way he did. It forced scientists to think some more about the role of ethics in science, and it forced the lazy buggers to figure out a way to get more adaptable cells without violating those ethics.
And the ones who decried the action of putting the brakes on such research?

Their muted reaction to the latest development suggests that for some of them what was so exciting about stem-cell research wasn’t the far-off potential therapeutic applications, but the chance to portray pro-lifers as standing in the way of life-enhancing scientific discoveries.

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Liberals Are Rational and Compassionate.

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:30:22 -0800

Scio's Comments in red.

Bush Death Watch: Countdown!

It's official: Less than one year until history slaps Dubya to the curb. Can you feel the tingle?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, November 16, 2007
It's just that kind of feeling, that sense of hesitant, embryonic optimism, the sense that says, oh my God, we as a culture and a smash-mouthed, war-hammered society really are fast approaching something possibly, potentially, heart-achingly new and different and — because it cannot get any worse — just a little bit better.
Here is my suggestion: Mark your calendars, set your watch, program a celebratory ringtone well in advance, because the countdown has officially begun.
It is now less than one calendar year until the next presidential election. It is less than one year until the country finally takes a deep breath and flexes its atrophied muscles and opens its bloody, Cheney-punched (so that's what we're talking about?) mouth and lets it be known to the world, to the universe, to its own numb and dejected soul just exactly how unwell it has felt, how much pain has raked its heart (slightly overblown, I think), lo, these past seven (eight, by then) years, by ushering in an entirely new political era, as we all exhale a massive sigh of long overdue relief that — praise Jesus, Allah, Buddha and the devil all at once — the long national nightmare of George W. Bush is finally over (One man responsible for all the nation's ills...check).
It is now safe to imagine. It is now becoming increasingly easy to actually dare to think that, in less than one year's time, Dubya will begin packing his bags, jamming into his Spongebob duffel (cheap) his map of the world coloring book (tired), English-to-English translation dictionaries (so 1999), mangled pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution (trite), Bibleman action figure set and a "Mission Accomplished!" sweatshirt, and heading off to face his destiny as one of the bleakest, most morally repellent chapters (from a radical Muslim perspective, perhaps) in all of American history.
You think maybe it's too soon? Too early to let the tingle of positivism and hope take hold? Far from it. After all, the signs of decay and utter GOP desperation keep pouring in. For example, it has now been officially recorded in history what everyone already knows: Bush is nearly exactly as unpopular as Richard Nixon was at his lowest point, and no president in history has had as long a streak at the bottom of the job-approval rankings as Dubya (polls are nearly as reliable as a liberal's commitment to strict constructivism). Heckuva job, Bushie!
What's more, the glorious collapse of the evangelical Christian right marches on apace, as Pat Robertson, now a dejected, lonely widower after the death of secret boy-toy husband Jerry Falwell (see what I mean by compassionate? Where's the respect for an opponent that is necessary to political discourse in this country?), has officially endorsed pro-choice, pro-gay, thrice-married, massively unbalanced moral pit bull Rudy Giuliani for president, which is a bit like a militant vegan endorsing Hot Dog on a Stick for the title of Lord of the Food Court (have to say that I think Pat did make a mistake on this one. Better to endorse your values and then admit you have to compromise rather than compromise from the get go...plausible deniability?). Desperate times indeed.
But wait, it gets better. While it's easy to focus on Shrub and Cheney and to gleefully, achingly imagine their dreary march out of office on that happy day (stop it! grossly overwrought.), it is also vital and heartwarming to note that this time next year will also mark the demise of an entire army of toxic leaders, federal department heads, gay-bashing (ah ha.) appointees and misogynist directors of every stripe and scandal and spittle, a simply huge array of right-wing Bushies who are still entrenched in all manner of powerful federal bureaus and organizations and policy-making bodies.
It's true. Despite how a huge hunk of hideous GOP policymakers lost their seats (not quite 1994) during the last congressional election, plenty more appointees are still around to poison the well. From Kevin Martin, the lackey who oversees the FCC, to noxious Idahoan and rabid anti-environmentalist (so this is a hate crime too I guess) Dick Kempthorne of the Department of the Interior, to anti-choice Republican Mormon knucklehead charity scammer and Department of Health and Human Services overseer Mike Leavitt, and on and on — in a year, all on their way out.
Oh, and one more deserves special attention. Because one year from now will also be the glorious political end of one Dr. David W. Hager, the rabid evangelical Christian gynecologist (I know, so wrong) who currently advises the FDA on women's health issues and who was largely responsible for delaying the approval of Plan B (yay), opposed RU-486 (good), is in fact against all contraception (me too), stem-cell research (probably only embryonic, jerk. You know, the kind that doesn't work? Adult stem cell research is fine, and has shown results.), premarital sex (bad for you, really it is.), and (quite naturally) women's choice (Like the choice to sleep around and deal with the "natural" consequences), and whose own ex-wife claims he anally raped her, over and over again, in her sleep (the obvious question is, if she was asleep at the time how does she know it wasn't just hemorrhoids?.
Intelligent women nationwide still shudder that this man is allowed anywhere near a living vagina, much less permitted to touch and probe and offer advice. But there is one noteworthy aspect to Hager; he is the perfect incarnation of the Christian right's view of women (sure, just like Hillary Clinton is the right's view of the Antichrist...not so) as subordinate, lesser-intelligent sluts who cannot control their own bodies and therefore need men (husbands), God (yes), and the government (not if you're a conservative...then you want the government to protect the right to worship and nothing else) to do it for them. Hager is a deep shame to the male gender, and his return to the private practice of ruining the sex lives of unfortunate women in Kentucky cannot come soon enough.
But why write this column now, so far in advance of Bush's limp-tailed departure? Simple enough: Because it will take a full year to get ready.
It will take every month and every week and every single day from the moment you read this until November 2008 to compile, to gather, to list all the names and all the horrors and all the deeply entrenched policies that are still clawing at the face of America (evocative.) as a result of Bush's reign (Oh, yeah, I forgot he was an Imperial President), to fully get your mind around just how deep is the disease and how widely it has spread, so we may begin to excise the policies one by one like the malignant tumors they so very much are.
What, too strong? Not even close. Go read up on Hager, and get back to me.
Ah, but perhaps you are one of the jaded ones, the non-believers, that certain type of political bitterball who says, oh please, what does it matter, they're all criminals and cretins and powermongers anyway, no matter which party or president they work for? Get rid of BushCo and a new slew of cronies and cretins take their place, and who can tell the difference? (What if you're one of the political bitterballs who don't live in San Francisco?)
To which I say, well, yes. But also, no. Sure, the system is corrupt and lopsided and full of backstabbing and backslapping and backroom deal-making. So what? Has been since the first cavemen voted to see who gets to run the mammoth hunt (at least he's right about this).
Truth is, it's just far too easy to let the ennui wash over and not give a damn, to lump all politics into a phlegmball of nasty negativity and be done with it, thus entirely disregarding the efficacious issues, the things that truly effect change and affect lives and improve or degrade the health of the planet. Outrage fatigue is simply unacceptable. Intellectual apathy is the refuge of the lazy and the spiritually malnourished. Do not let it happen to you (by all means, please let it happen to this man's readers.).
Now is the time. The coming year will slide by rather quickly and the feeling of urgent change and upheaval will only build and it doesn't really matter if it's Hillary or Obama or Edwards leading the shift (it does, but do we expect him to make sense at this point?), because no matter who gets the nod, they will require — from me, from you, from anyone who professes to care — a roiling tidal wave of progressive momentum behind them to help them cleanse and haul away the overwhelming mountain of moral fecal matter (let's not talk about morals, San Francisco.) Bush has left behind.
Mark your calendar. Set your ringtone. Take a deep breath, feel the wave build, and then dive the hell in. Right now, it's the only option that really matters.
Golly day. I can not fathom how much these people hate George Bush. One of the great things about the Republic is that if you don't like who is in power you just have to wait them out. These people act like Bush has voted himself Dictator for Life. For six years it's been nothing but criticism, insults and gloomy forecasts for his place in history. Truth be told, he hasn't done that bad a job. Look at men like Buchanan and Pierce, who were unable or unwilling to do anything to avert the coming Civil War. Bush can't be faulted for doing something in the face of the first great conflict of our century: that of radical Islam. Better to try, make mistakes rather than sit back and do nothing, and be remembered for that.
It will be nice to finally stop hearing about how awful President Bush is, though. Of course, I expect them to miss nary a beat and move on to blaming all the next administrations problems on the previous. Kind of like Republicans do with Clinton.

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More From The Religion of Peace

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:34:28 -0800

Saudi punishes gang rape victim with 200 lashes

Nov 15 10:51 AM US/Eastern

156 Comments

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A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.
But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.
A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.
Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community.
But the woman's lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.
In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.
The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.
Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.
He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.
Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and "contradicts King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system."
King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

Now I know what you liberal jackinapes will say: Oooh, aren't these our allies the Saudis? Ooooh! Well, here's news for you folks. After we stop the ones with guns we need to move on to the ones with whips.
I get into so many arguments about the superiority of Western civilization when compared to this crap. People actually try to argue that we are not superior to these animals when it comes to our laws, treatment of women and tolerance of other religions.

Give me a break.

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Cowardice

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:15:20 -0700

Cowardice is:

cow·ard·ice (kou'ər-dĭs) Pronunciation Key
n. Ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain.

[Middle English cowardise, from Old French couardise, alteration of couardie, from couard, coward; see coward.]

Cowardice is:

cow·ard·ice [kou-er-dis] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

lack of courage to face danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.

[Origin: 1250–1300; ME cowardise < OF co(u)ardise, equiv. to co(u)art cowardly (see coward) + -ise -ice]

—Synonyms pusillanimity, timidity.

—Antonyms bravery.

Cowardice is:

To Scio, Scio, cowardice is inaction where action is necessary.

Europe. The U.S. Congress. Mayhap even the President now, though if we're talking about the war he's the only one who seems to grasp that problems like this don't resolve themselves through diplomacy alone.

What is your definition of cowardice? I might include in mine anyone who doesn't fight against a culture that allows honor killing, terrorist attacks and the oppression of women. I might include anyone who is so apathetic that they support an end to hostilities against people who have vowed to exterminate our way of life.

I might also include people who believe that our enemies could win if all things were equal...people who devalue our Western traditions of human rights and the delineation of Church and State, of progress and the building up of the person. They rail against our vices and failings, using them to argue that we do not have cultural superiority over the barbarous practices of our enemy. These civilizational suicides fail to recognize the subtle and insidious nature of their choices. Victory against radical Islam is within us, but men fail to see it. It won't be the effort of a season's worth of television. It will take years and years of hard work and harder sacrifice. But the alternative is abandonment of reason, intellect and ability to preserve our way of life. Death, in other words.

So it behooves us to recognize cowardice, and shame it.

Coward:

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Clinton on Pardons

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:37:40 -0700

First, I want to make some general comments about pardons and commutations of sentences. Article II of the Constitution gives the president broad and unreviewable power to grant "Reprieves and Pardons" for all offenses against the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that the pardon power is granted "[t]o the [president] . . ., and it is granted without limit" (United States v. Klein). Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that "[a] pardon . . . is . . . the determination of the ultimate authority that the public welfare will be better served by [the pardon] . . ." (Biddle v. Perovich). A president may conclude a pardon or commutation is warranted for several reasons: the desire to restore full citizenship rights, including voting, to people who have served their sentences and lived within the law since; a belief that a sentence was excessive or unjust; personal circumstances that warrant compassion; or other unique circumstances.

The exercise of executive clemency is inherently controversial. The reason the framers of our Constitution vested this broad power in the Executive Branch was to assure that the president would have the freedom to do what he deemed to be the right thing, regardless of how unpopular a decision might be. Some of the uses of the power have been extremely controversial, such as President Washington's pardons of leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding's commutation of the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon's commutation of the sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford's pardon of former President Nixon, President Carter's pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-contra defendants, including former Defense Secretary Weinberger, which assured the end of that investigation.

Read the full article here. Clinton has made an excellent point that pardons are inherently controversial...there is usually an entire segment of society who will view them as a betrayal of justice. They may be so, but they are also a matter of established Constitutional law.

Pardons are made in the moment, but it is only with the passage of time that we can sort out which pardons are cronyism and which are necessary cronyism (and which are genuinely motivated by compassion and clemency).

So let's keep it in perspective. Clinton's controversial pardons didn't cripple the Justice System, and the only time people talk about them is when they want Bush to pardon Scooter Libby. Now that's out of the way, and we can move on.

But I still have a feeling that people will seize on this the way they seize on everything Bush does. My advice to the President: You've got a barely Democratic Congress and 1.5 years left in office...go hog wild.

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Sighs of Relief, Hosannas Abound as President Bush Reduces Libby Sentence

nobody@vox.com(Scio, Scio) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:03:50 -0700

The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today rejected Lewis Libby's request to remain free on bail while pursuing his appeals for the serious convictions of perjury and obstruction of justice. As a result, Mr. Libby will be required to turn himself over to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his prison sentence.

I have said throughout this process that it would not be appropriate to comment or intervene in this case until Mr. Libby's appeals have been exhausted. But with the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision.

From the very beginning of the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, I made it clear to the White House staff and anyone serving in my administration that I expected full cooperation with the Justice Department. Dozens of White House staff and administration officials dutifully cooperated.

After the investigation was under way, the Justice Department appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald as a Special Counsel in charge of the case. Mr. Fitzgerald is a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged.

This case has generated significant commentary and debate. Critics of the investigation have argued that a special counsel should not have been appointed, nor should the investigation have been pursued after the Justice Department learned who leaked Ms. Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak. Furthermore, the critics point out that neither Mr. Libby nor anyone else has been charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act, which were the original subjects of the investigation. Finally, critics say the punishment does not fit the crime: Mr. Libby was a first-time offender with years of exceptional public service and was handed a harsh sentence based in part on allegations never presented to the jury.

Others point out that a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. They say that had Mr. Libby only told the truth, he would have never been indicted in the first place.

Both critics and defenders of this investigation have made important points. I have made my own evaluation. In preparing for the decision I am announcing today, I have carefully weighed these arguments and the circumstances surrounding this case.

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby. The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant, and private citizen will be long-lasting.

The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power.

I think this is entirely fair. Libby perjured himself and was given 30 months in prison in addition to fines and probation. Apparently one can receive up to three years in prison for the offense. But as I understand it, this case wasn't really about Scooter Libby and how he messed up on the stand. Whoever was angry about the Plame Affair couldn't get anything else to stick.
The President has acted in accord with the Constitution of the United States and with a sense of fairness. Libby isn't getting off the hook by any means, though some might still howl for his blood. But I have to ask who would hire him in Washington, and I have to wonder who would want to broadcast the fact that they hired a perjured former official from the most polarizing Presidency in recent history.
Let's hope he has invested well, for the sake of his children.

It's all so tiresome, really. Petty bickering about this issue will continue until January 2009.

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