Jenny’s Pennies

From the BBC.

A German citizen has gone to court in an attempt to force his government to seek the extradition of 13 suspected CIA agents who allegedly kidnapped him. Khaled al-Masri says he was abducted in December 2003, flown to a US detention centre in Afghanistan and tortured. Mr Masri was released in May 2004 after his captors allegedly told him he had been mistaken for someone else.

I wish him the best of luck - it’s absolutely appalling that you could be kidnapped and tortured “by mistake” and then receive no compensation what so ever.
And towards the end of the article:

Mr Masri says his case is an example of the US policy of “extraordinary rendition” - a practice whereby the US government flies foreign terror suspects to third countries without judicial process for interrogation or detention. He says he was kidnapped in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, in 2003, flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, nicknamed the “salt pit” and tortured there. On his flight to Afghanistan, he says, he was stripped, beaten, shackled, made to wear nappies and drugged. Mr Masri says he was finally released in Albania five months later after the CIA realised they had got the wrong man. He told the BBC in February 2007 he had been “traumatised” by his experiences.

Why the hell do they put scare quotes around the word traumatised? Of course he was traumatised, he was freaking kidnapped, taken to a ghost prison and tortured. And then finally after five months of hell the Central Intelligence Agency - what kind of intelligence do they operate on?! - realized they had the wrong guy. Dear BBC “editor”, I think you would be traumatised by that too.

Ok this is a bit late, but.

As you might know, a big conference on Iraq was held in Stockholm last Thursday. Condoleezza Rice was there, and Dagens Nyheter scored an interview, which was overly polite and fawning - it ends with a question about her piano playing career.

And in there, there’s this:

/…/ Or how long does the United States plan to stay militarily in Iraq?
- Well, we are there by invitation of the Iraqis. We are there to help them defend themselves against enemies like al-Qaida, to train their forces so that they can handle their own security, which they to an increasing degree does. The United States does not want permanent bases in Iraq. But we will help the Iraqis to finish the work they have begun - to build a stable and decent society.

Yeah there are a load of stuff to bite into in that answer (about permanent bases for instance), but… The US are in Iraq by invitation of the Iraqi people to help them defend themselves against al-Qaida? Really? I thought you were there to find those WMDs? No wait, sorry, it was to remove Saddam Hussein. No wait, sorry, it was to bring peace and freedom. No wait, sorry…

And that - the statement that the US are in Iraq by invitation from the Iraqis - got no follow up question. Nothing. What kind of a journalist makes stuff like that (and more) just pass by?! (yeah, I know the answer…)

Holy shit.
So let me get this straight. In order to become president of the US, it’s really important to be a strong supporter of Israel, right? But to be endorsed by a guy who says that Hitler was fulfilling God’s will by trying to exterminate all Jews is fine and dandy?

Appearing on ABC’s “‘This Week” in late April 2008, McCain criticized Hagee’s past remarks on the Catholic Church, but said that, “I admire and appreciate his advocacy for the state of Israel, the independence of the state of Israel.”

Being pro-Israel but anti-Jewish, yeah that’s a fine example of mental gymnastics right there.

Via Shakes.
(Apparently McCain has “distanced himself” from rev. Hagee, but I kind of doubt the sincerity…)

Today’s oh-dear-God-should-I-laugh-or-cry is found at Sadly, No! by way of Fistful of Euros. It’s the halp-halp-the-scary-Muslims-are-coming-BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA-blog Gates of Vienna* who presents us with a map of what Europe will look like in 2067, unless we start deporting/converting/killing/rounding up/turning away Muslims and produce more white babies. Where is Europe headed? they ask (in trembling voices). Well, apparently towards this:

So, we’ll have the Muslim states (with funny names like Al-Lemania and Al-Italia!), the Russian federation and the Russian protectorates, a demilitarized zone and some “neutral” states, which besides seemingly ever-neutral Switzerland also includes the Czech Republic (huh?!?). Germany will for some inexplicable reason be divided along the old iron curtain borders and Yugoslavia will magically reunite. Also, Turkey seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
This map is like one of those “find five faults” picture games times a million.

And as Alex Harrowell at a Fistful of Euros aptly points out: if this whole thing is about demography, do they really think that Russia doesn’t have a demographics problem?

Yeah, I need to stop laughing now, my stomach hurts.

*I ain’t linking, but click on the Sadly, No! link and continue from there.

Via incoming links in my Wordpress blog stats I find that I have been linked to on a recent post at Birth Pangs. The writer April Reign shows us a letter written by a man named Michael who has compiled a list of bloggers who has written about the “Pill Kills”-campaign. And I, through my little post here, have made that list!

We who think that the campaign is ridiculous BS are called “Culture of Death bloggers”. And this is apparently just the “short list”. Gee guys, it’s such an honor to be nominated!

I reprint Michael’s letter below - yeah, I normally don’t want to give shit as this any attention, but I’ll do it this time - with the links to all my fellow “culture of death” bloggers.* Keep up the good work people!

Dear pro-life friends,

As many of you already know, American Life League is launching a campaign to inform the public about the abortifacient nature of oral contraceptives. (If you don’t already know about it, please take a moment to check out www.ThePillKills.com . Also, be sure to join our facebook page and invite your friends! www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=34501835075 ) Some of you have blogged about it, and we’re gearing up for a full-court press on this initiative.
But we need your help!
In just 2 days, “pro-choice” bloggers have filled the blogosphere with their vitriol and Culture of Death rhetoric. In fact, one blogger went so far as to state his hatred for babies, while a comment on another blog indicated a desire to show up to a designated protest area to “mess with” us.
Just to give you a sampling of who is saying what, I am sending you a “short” list of Culture of Death bloggers talking about The Pill Kills website. I don’t recommend wasting too much time reading their nonsense, but it is worth noting their overt hostility to anything that “just might” change their worldview of “promiscuity-made-safe.”
We present information. They present virtiol. Why is that? Makes one wonder what they’re so angry about!
Your voice is louder than theirs because you have the Truth! So let’s fill the blogosphere with the Truth! Send e-mails. Tell your friends. Post The Pill Kills button on your blogs! Do whatever it takes … just don’t let them silence our voice for those who don’t have one.
As always, thanks for everything you do for the pro-life cause. Our efforts would be a lot harder without yours!
–Michael

The Graduate
Birth Pangs
Medical-news-now.com
Citizen Girl
Melanie’s blog of good stuff
Signs of the times
Paging Lucina
Ms Magazine
Feministing
I’m A Feminist
Robotic squidling
Hangofwednesday
Church gal
Debate politics
Majikthise
Ravings of a semi-sane madwoman
Jenny’s Pennies LOOK, HERE I AM!
Matthew Yglesias
Tar hearted
Dark side of the mom
Power up
Overclocked drama
ifeminists
Eccentric bitch
Broken rubbers
Childfree hardcore
CelticBear’s musings
Feminist.org
Ginandkerosene’s blog
Items of interest
Feminocracy
The W.O.M.B.
Slog - the Stranger
Dead racists society
Lab Kat
Democratic underground

PS. sorry about the scattered posting lately, still feeling a bit off. Must be all that promotion of death and mayhem.

*Hyperlinked, cause my layout got completely messed up by those long URLs.

So I read a lot of blogs from the US of A (the progressive/feminist/queer variety) and if I were to write about every wackiness I find out about through them, I wouldn’t do much else, so I do stop myself most of the time. But sometimes I run across something so mind-boggling that I just need to blog it.

It’s the “the Pill Kills Babies”-campaign, organized by the American Life League, along with Pro-Life Wisconsin and Pharmacists for Life International (that last organization should really be renamed “pharmacists that don’t do their goddamned job and should have their ass fired”). They want to ban birth control. Because it causes abortion. You see, when I take my BC pills I potentially kill a tiny baby boy or a tiny baby girl. Yes, that’s how they put it.

The so-called science that “supports” their BS can be debunked by picking up a high school biology textbook. What do they think? That a fertilized but not yet implanted egg is a teeny weeny miniature person that, when looked at in a microscope, will smile at you and wave?

At least this campaign makes it painfully clear that the so called pro-life movement isn’t about saving the precious baaaaybeeez at all, it’s about controlling women’s sexuality, and subsequently our lives. The protest the pill-day is June 7th. The reason for this is (from the Pill Kills website. Won’t link, Google is your friend):

June 7 marks the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut. This was the first of many decisions that led to the culture of death we live in today.

On that day in 1965, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Griswold v. Connecticut case, it set a legal precedent for claiming that the Constitution grants women the right to privacy in matters of sexual practice.

Oh the horror! The right to privacy for women in matters of sexual practice, we certainly can’t have that! I file this under reason 17,314 (or possibly 17,315, I lost count) why I’m happy to live in Sweden. I stand firmly behind my American sisters in their fight against this, and I’m sure some pretty awesome counter-activism will be done on June 7th.

Via; more here.

(If you don’t get the headline reference, you lose, but thanks for playing)

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Member of parliament Fredrick Federly (Centerpartiet, the Centre Party) wants to arrange a PR party for Israel. For those of you who are not familiar with this particular …person (I was on the verge of writing something less polite there, but his own words and actions are all that is needed to figure out what kind he is): he donated money - a whopping 30 dollars - to the Israeli military during the conflict with Lebanon in 2005 and … ok, enough examples: he’s a neoliberal nut job.

Federley will invite foreign minister Carl Bildt to this “fancy party” (his own words), but doesn’t think Bildt will show up as he has “wrong opinions” about the Israel-Palestine conflict (that is, he doesn’t think that it is fine and dandy to kill innocent Palestinian children and that apartheid is a great idea). Federley’s dream guest, however, is Carolina Gynning, who won the Big Brother reality show in 2004 and is mostly known from the tabloids for her breast implants. Federley says:
- We need celebrities to elevate the discussion and change the way young people view Israel.

*blink* - ok, he really did say that. *blink again*

Fredrick, I know partying with celebrities and using reality show winners to elevate the political discussion is a lot of hard work, but I have a suggestion for you. Because you know as a politician that it’s important to listen to all sides of the story and to be willing to learn new things. So I suggest you read this book. It’s very readable, although the contents might disturb you a little. I am willing to lend you my copy.

Via Alliansfritt Sverige

A 23 year old man hung himself in a bathroom in the jail in Mariestad. When the personnel found the man, they left him hanging there, locked the door and then called an ambulance. The paramedics managed to restore cardiac activity, but the man died two days later in a hospital. During the nine minutes that it took for the ambulance to arrive, the jail personnel did nothing, they merely let the man hang.

What the hell were they thinking? That he would escape? That someone else would try to save him (and that would be a bad thing)? That it wasn’t their job to do anything about it? That he obviously wanted to kill himself, so they did him a service by leaving him there? That only trained medical personnel would be able to take him down? The incompetence and negligence is so frightening.

This is only the latest of a series of examples of how bad our correctional treatment system is working. Only in the last few days, it was exposed that in 2005, a seriously ill man with pneumonia were left to slowly die in a jail cell in Nyköping. The guards thought that the man had drug abstinence so they did nothing about it, although several doctors say that his symptoms were nothing like those typically associated with abstinence. They guards documented the man’s condition in a protocol, but they didn’t care enough to call a doctor and explain the symptoms, or to take him to a hospital.

Both these men could be alive today had the personnel done their job properly. And the main responsibility lies with the director-general of the Swedish Prisons and Probations Administration, Lars Nylén. Some of his staff is clearly untrained on what to do in an emergency; the policies and protocols on how to handle suicide attempts, ill detainees and other such situation are clearly lacking or not communicated down to the personnel; and some personnel seems to have a frightening disregard for human life, which means they are unfit for their job. Or maybe they though that this was a proper punishment for the jailed person, in which case they are also unfit for their job.

Media: SvD, HD, Sydsvenskan, SR Ekot
Fellow bloggers: Jinge

As an illustration to the previous post, go read this great interview in Dagens Arbete from last year, with Sverigedemokraterna’s spokesperson for labour market policy, Per Björklund. It’s illustrates perfectly how undeveloped SD’s politics are.
The first question, to their spokesperson for labour market policy, is: Can you summarize SD’s politics on labour market issues?. The answer: Nah, I don’t know..
Surprisingly, he can’t explain their primary political goal, to “restore a common national identity”, either. A snippet (my translation):

Define what it is to be “Swedish”.
No, I don’t want to do that.
Why not?
I don’t think I know enough to do that.
Your entire program is full of expressions about “the Swedish” and being Swedish. You’re a member of the party executive, and you don’t know enough to answer what that means?
Why don’t you say what you think, and I will tell you if I agree.
Ok… A person who lives in Sweden and/or feels Swedish him/herself is Swedish.
Right. No, I don’t want to enter that discussion, you have to take it with someone at the party’s press service, Mattias, for instance.
Your program says that “The primary goal of the politics of Sverigedemokraterna is to restore a common national identity”. What should that common identity be?
I don’t want to talk about that.
The primary goal. You need to be able to discuss the primary goal of your party’s politics.
The primary goal.
The most important, the overall goal.
Yes, I know what primary means. No I won’t enter that. I don’t want to discuss the program on immigration policy.
Why not?
I haven’t participated in writing the program. I’m the spokesperson for labour market policy.
Immigration is your most important political issue. You have been active in SD since 2002. You have a lot of functions and are in the party executive. And you can’t talk about the primary goal of your own party’s politics.
No.

I laugh because it’s so unbelievably stupid, but I also cry because some people think that this country would be a better place if run by people like this. Read the whole interview!

Edit: I had mistakenly written that the interview was in Arbetaren, which is wrong, it should be Dagens Arbete. I have corrected that now, and realize that it is time to go to bed…

Apparently nipple piercings are the latest weapon al-Qaida. So thinks the American Transportation Security Administration (TSA) anyway.

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

“Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her,” said Hamlin’s attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. Allred is a well-known Los Angeles lawyer who often represents high-profile claims.

Applying pliers to the torso of a mannequin that had a peach-colored bra with the rings on it, Hamlin showed reporters at the news conference how she took off the second ring.

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

It’s clear that the male TSA agents, on a stupid power trip, used Hamlin for their own entertainment: A chance to ogle her breasts and snicker at her pain and humiliation. You know, setting off the metal detector should be the cause of a more thorough inspection. As in 1) a hand-held detector (that wand thing they run over your body), 2) a same-sex pat down and finally 3) same sex visual inspection. Once it was clear that the “threat” in this case was nipple piercings, the TSA agents should have apologized for the inconvenience and wished Hamlin a safe journey.

This story begs a lot of questions:
Why did they all have to be there to observe the piercing removal - to defend each other if she were to use her pierced nipple super powers and blow up the airport? Why did they only force her to remove her nipple piercings and not the belly-button ring? Is it a more dangerous threat to air travel safety to have metal in one part of your body than in another? If the nipple piercings were so dangerous, then why was Hamlin allowed to keep the jewelry and carry it on board the plane?

The TSA has said that the agents followed the policy (yeah, right), but that the policy regarding body piercings will now change.

You know, when this type of stuff happens, many people say that the victim should just suck it up and deal. That she or he is making too big a deal out of it. That it probably wasn’t too bad. That we need to accept things like this in order to be Safe^TM. I’ve traveled quite a bit, and have experienced power abuse and violations, although nothing as bad as what Hamlin went through, from security personnel and border agents. Most of the time, we just bow our heads and hold back our anger, relieved to be let into the country or onto the plane. Kudos to Hamlin for standing up for her rights and speaking out!

More about the story from Cara here and here, and at Shakesville here.