:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Sunday, 27 February 2005 ::

Heather MacDonald on Feminist Rubbish

Top stuff I reckon. Certainly puts loser feminists in their place.

Like Anne Summers, who wrote a nasty piece about the adoptee boy who grew up to be a man and has finally met his biological dad, Tony Abbott. Summers cannot bear that goog things can happen to people she hates, and that good people can happen when they are not aborted.

No link for the Summers piece - she is quite simply in my opinion a hatchet-faced bitch. And I do not use that 'b' word lightly. Look for it on the SMH site if you feel the need. Linked at left. But really. What is the point? What can Anne Summers possibly teach girlies of today? How to grow old disgracefully? Puhlease. Zif that cannot be done without any help at all.

And no, Summers has not earned any entitlement to be honoured for her pioneering of women at work blah blah. I used to think that - in my charitable moments - til I realised that Summers contribution to womanhood at work is a magazine industry filled with women. Book editing filled with women. Family law practice - wall to wall women.

Yetcht

Good work, Summers, ghettoising the girls.

There is not a female electrical engineer, tax lawyer or racecar driver who owes one scintilla of gratitude to Anne Summers and her ilk.

Not one.

If they owe any debt of gratitude at all to anybody other than themselves for their good work, it is probably to parents and friends who have treated them as competent all their lives. That is all you need, see, to succeed at anything. You need an absence of concern about your incompetence. And a focus on your competence.

Summers, like Estrich (read the article), is all about what is wrong. Still. Now. In 2005. All about gender. All about wombs. All about abortion. Now. In 2005. All about spitting hatred and catty bitchiness.

How boring.

Heather MacDonald sounds for all the world like most of my girlie buddies. That is, basically, appalled at the awfulness of old feminists.

Appalled.

That is one reaction those old-timers really have earned from the next generation of girlies.

Busy week this week. No bloggy til weekend. Easy.
:: WB 2:28 pm [link+] ::

Vale Hunter S Thompson

I always felt the best thing about HST was Ralph Steadman, who has penned a piece for the Grauniad. Prof Bunyip reckons HST was the real deal. If I have to give the man credit I can comfortably do so on the strength of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail which is my personal fave. Why "if"? Cos he was a drug addled overdrinking pain in the arse of a bloke who could not be relied on to file copy on time and thought everyone else was a suckup to the man, or some such. I mean come on, small doses and when he's sleeping, right?

Still, leaves the world of writing a better place than he found it. That ain't a bad epitaph eh? How many folks can have that said of 'em?
:: WB 2:42 pm [link+] ::

I do not know what to make of this
:: WB 6:31 pm [link+] ::

Boobcakes.

Sicilian boobcakes.

From a gorgeous Italian website. Italian linky linky at left. Check it out. Knitting and right wing rants.

So rocks.
:: WB 5:56 pm [link+] ::

Ah Riverbend, you jackass.

The elections have come and gone, and with nothing to contribute to her country except sniping from the sidelines, she has now fixated upon Iranian style Shia fanaticism and oppression of women as a way to bemoan her country.

There she is, Sunni obviously, cos otherwise why such a kneejerk reaction of Shia = Iran? And she will not arc up for an instant when some medieval bloke says she should put a blanket on her head?

She might hate the Iraq the Model boys for their politics but they are on her side when it comes to not introducing Sharia law, and not oppressing women.

But no. Not our Riverbend. She just stays silent and goes on and on about her fear.

While doing absolutely nothing about it at all.

Christ on a stick eh?

She has a blog. Good for her. Wondered if it has ever crossed her tiny Ba'athist mind to put her prejudice aside and do something positive like wear pants, wear her hair lose and get into arguments with men who would dare to treat her otherwise than as an equal.

Stupid bitch didn't bother to vote. (I do not like to use that word but it suits her I reckon.)

Now she cannot wave her finger at any medieval man who tries to oppress her, and saying "I stood in line to vote, I looked the terrorists in the eye to vote, I am certainly not afraid of some backward Arab man when it comes to fighting for my liberty."

I cannot express how much I loathe her.

I read her religiously cos her writing is tremendous and she occasionally bothers to actually describe life in Baghdad in a way you just cannot find elsewhere.

But if her country goes to hell it will be because of Arabs like her.

Lazy sniping-from-the-sidelines jackass.

UPDATE: Again the delightful Jason Van Steenwyk at CounterColumn has addressed Riverbend's posts. He is much kinder to her than I. He is much kinder all round I reckon. Check it out. His conclusion is a Duesenberg.
:: WB 5:01 pm [link+] ::

More Andrew Sullivan hysterics about Torture

Ooh, I am like a wog with a bone, eh?

Here, Sullivan believes Mamdouh Habib's every word.

Mamdouh.

A man well known in Oz as a malingering halfwit, on the disability pension because of his depression, I shit you not, who sold his coffee shop business and/or home and went overseas to a war zone in Afghanistan apparently chasing a business opportunity that would have set him up for life, something to do with the cleaning industry.

Sullivan approvingly notes an article that reveals that the presence of a woman near Mamdouh is torture of Mamdouh cos Mamdouh says so.

Milo give me strength.

There is no dealing with a hysteric like Sullivan - other than to just to keep track of his arguments and slam 'em when they are stupid.

Cleaning opportunity?

Mamdouh gonna make his fortune. Set himself and his family up for life, you know? Gonna clean Kabul. Peshawar. Maybe even Lakemba too.

Whatever.

Here is another Sullivan post approvingly noting this Associated Press article that is quite a stirling piece of confused narrative and absence of sources.

Here is my understanding having picked the piece apart:

- there was a death in custody at Abu Ghraib prison of a man named Al Jamadi on 4 November 2003

- Al Jamadi was apprehended on suspicions of involvement in the Red Cross bombing in Baghdad on 27 Oct 2003 - no date of apprehension but obviously after 27 Oct 03;

- according to "court documents and testimony" Navy SEALs are alleged to have "punched, kicked and struck al-Jamadi with their rifles before handing him over to the CIA early on Nov. 4. By 7 a.m., al-Jamadi was dead."

- the AP report is based on written statements from five of Abu Ghraib's Army guards shown by an attorney for one of the SEALs.

- early on 4 November 03 Al-Jamadi was brought to the prison with a CIA interrogator and translator. ("With" not "by"? - W

- Al Jamadi was nude from the waist down. He had a green plastic bag covering his head, and plastic cuffs on his wrists. (They were "tight" - tortcha, eh?)

- Abu Ghraib guards ended the nakidity by dressing al-Jamadi in an orange jumpsuit, and putting metal handcuffs on him. (They "slapped" them on. I suppose that is torture too.)

- Al Jamadi was was taken to a shower room, a common CIA interrogation spot and an interrogator was present with a translator.

- on the interrogator's instructions guards attached shackles to Al Jamadi's handcuffs and then to a barred window so he "could stand without pain, but if he tried to lower himself, his arms would be stretched above and behind him".

- the guards left. The interrogator and translator stayed. After half an hour the interrogator called the guards in to move Al Jamadi who was "not cooperating" and had slumped down from his standing position and was dead. The interrogator thought he was 'playing possum'.

- "Navy prosecutors in San Diego have charged nine SEALs and one sailor with abusing al-Jamadi and others. All but two lieutenants have received nonjudicial punishment; one lieutenant is scheduled for court-martial in March, the other is awaiting a hearing before the Navy's top SEAL."

- a military pathologist presumably acting for the prosecution of one or more of the 8 personnel who have already been dealt with ruled that the case is a homicide. A pathologist for one of the 2 remaining defences says death likely occurred from the slouching.

- a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights gives a quote that naturally screams that the whole shackling while standing is 'tortcha'.

- the documents got to the AP reporter from a lawyer acting for one or both of the remaining cases. "The lawyer asked not to be identified, saying he feared repercussions for his client."

What's the deal?

The military is prosecuting its folks for homicide. The only folks who think torture was used are screaming human rights doctors. The whole deal is over a year old.

Crucifiction, alright, Sullivan.

Puhlease.

The Romans were deliberate, Andrew. They did not care for interrogation. Straight to crucifixion, thankyou very much.

You are not honestly trying to convince with the argument that interrogation does not actualy matter at all, and that abuse and torture are all the US military are in it for when they get the detainees into the shower room, are you?

Maybe you are. You sure read like it.

If, as I suspect, Al Jamadi killed himself like a craazy Islamofascist by deliberately falling forward and down using his body wait to suffocate himself, then the interrogator and translator should have stopped him.

If, as Sullivan suspects, the interrogator and the translator actually pushed Al Jamadi down and forward and suffocated him or watched him pass out and fall down and forward, then that is a matter which we can agree is appalling. The former would be torture - ripping a man's arms from his sockets and preventing him breathing while he is shackled and cannot right himself. The latter would be neglect of the worst sort. Watching a man die and doing nothing. Not right at all. A stain, a Sullivan would say. On the CIA interrogator and his translator too.

But how the hell can anyone tell what happened here?

The AP report is shite. It is all over the place.

And Sullivan, with his huge reputation and resources, cannot be bothered to address the matter instead preferring just to leap to awful conclusions about his adopted home as being debased an appalling wherever its military might be.

UPDATE:

The impossibly fab Jason Van Steenwyk at CounterColumn also addresses this article.

But I am not on the same page about his riddle: see, the death was in the presence of the CIA interrogator and translator. Not the Navy SEALs. They beat Al Jamadi good after they detained him. Prolly cos he was fighting. Which might explain the low level punishment meted out. But the CIA interrogator and translator could have saved Al Jamadi's life.

This is interesting but only in the most macabre way.

Urgh.
:: WB 3:17 pm [link+] ::

Good Grief

I am channel hopping on a Sunday morning and now I am on CNN watching "International Correspondents" Howard Kurtz and some unattractive girl called Rebecca is being interviewed by that blowhardy silverhaired old guy in the chair.

They are talking about bloggers and the Eason Jordan thing (see here if you need info......zif you need info). And the silverhaired guy asked if a democracy can tolerate an unchecked bloggy force. Or something like that. The response a nonsense from the Rebecca girl about nothing.

Lord, save us, this is truly D grade teevee. Kurtz looked like a rabbit in headlights with the big stare and the gulping at one point as he went ahead and criticised Jordan.

Sheesh.
:: WB 2:46 pm [link+] ::

Are any of youse watching 'Insiders'?

Habib's solicitor, Hopper, is getting a bit grilled and he is performing poorly in my view. He is a dull speaker and surly with it. Uncomfortable teevee. Andrew Bolt was bemused at Hopper's assertions about Habib travelling overseas on a business deal to do with cleaning, at a time when he was ona disability pension for depression, having got the fare from either the sale of the family home or the sale of the Lakemba coffee shop business.

How can Habib's lawyer not be clear about facts like that?

Anyhoo, Habib only wants to talk when he can be sure it will clear him. He has been invited to talk to or make written submissions to the Senate Committee but is not certain to do so.

Why not?

Hopper also said the 60 Minutes show, on which habib refused to answer what he was up to in Afghanistan, was edited a lot and left out lots of answers to questions about where Habib was and when. Or something like that. He made the argument that media in Oz is shite - got no argument with ya there for the most part, buddy. The journos, Trioli, Marr and Bolt and the presenter Cassidy all seemed a bit taken aback by Hopper's oddness.
:: WB 2:34 pm [link+] ::

More Sullivan Hysteria About Torture

But Bybee needs to come out, at the end of his paragraph, with: "Those acts must penetrate to the core of an individual's ability to perceive the world around him, substantially interfering with his cognitive abilities, or fundamentally alter his personality."

Even Abu Ghraib doesn't make it to torture under this definition.

This comes from the "wonderful little take-down of Jay Bybee's horrifying 2002 torture memo, essentially defining torture out of existence" which Sullivan links to.

Even Abu Ghraib doesn't make it to torture under this definition.

Even.

Puhlease.

What that whole little attempt at a take down reveals is the heart of the matter for Sullivan and folks like him.

Abu Ghraib is torture.

It just is. Full stop end of story.

Stacks on the mill, leashes on prisoners, nuding them up, letting girlies rub their tits on prisoners, letter girlies who are menstruating near prisoners.

That is torture.

Swear to God, Sullivan can write all the hysterical rubbish about torture being widespread and delighted in by Bush and everyone else in the WhiteHouse and armed forces but frankly just because Sullivan repeatedly says it is so does not make it so.

And he has got this on his site.

Moreover, whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in woman and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the creator."
- "Pastoral constitution on the church in the world of today," - Second Vatican Council, December 7, 1965. My italics.

How the Catholic theoconservatives who are so close to this administration have remained largely quiet about America's new policy of torture is simply beyond my comprehension.

Niice try Andrew.

Actually, not nice at all.

Physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit?

New policy of torture?

Could he be any more slapdash?

Sullivan thinks the Pastoral Constitution was crafted for war time.

Puhlease.

It was crafted for your life.

Do not behave badly to others...in your life.

And it never once had in mind that filthy Islamofascist poofhating, chauvinist, misogynist, racist scumbags would be trying to kills us all with their craazy ideas that their religion ought to be imposed on us or at least desperately respected by us.

Once again, for the hard of thinking, Abu Ghraib - the nuding up, the dogs, the presence of women, is not torture.

It is humiliation and sleeplessness and discomfort. But it falls well short of torture.

Torture is serious. And neither Peter Brooks, the lawyer who wrote that article or Andrew Bloody Sullivan get that.

For the two of them, torture is all about them. Not about the bastard jackasses who make heavyhanded interrogation necessary in the first place.

I mean, puhlease. A man who is so into his faith that he will freak out if a bleedy girl is nearby to him? We are dealing with craazies here.

If, as Sullivan and Brooks submit, everything is torture, then nothing is, you know?

Cos the day we start thinking the mere presence of a woman or a dog is torture for the bloke who hates women and dogs, is the day we can just give in to madness. The 'egg shell skull' rule writ large. Take your plaintiff as you find him. If he happens to be a craazy Islamofacist offended by everything then so be it. You offend him, you are a woman wielding dog wielding torturer. Ya torturer.

Sullivan is so dismissive of attempts, however successful, to really ask what the hell torture really is, preferring to see horror even when there is none.

I think that sort of approach is lazy. Venally lazy.

Here is the Currency Lad. A man who knows his Vatican II.

This torture business is serious stuff and we have to address it cos the folks we are fighting in the War on Terror, from Beslan to Bali, are quite mad. And part of their philosophy is to imagine themselves better than everyone around them who does not share their demented version of their faith. That makes them tough nuts to crack. Nuts, of course. To be cracked.

It cannot be torture simply to crack these nuts. It is torture only if cracking them is all you do. If killing them is all you do, when they are in interrogation to answer questions, for which they need to be alive. And it is torture if they are alive but unable to answer - if the interrogator has injured the detainee so badly he cannot answer even if he wanted to.

Lordy, how I loathe Sullivan's glib approach to such a serious subject.

UPDATE:
Sullivan also links this New Yorker piece about wogs getting interrogated by the countries they come from. This is a challenging for my philosophy. But frankly I do not care about these Islamofacists. They are not just criminals to be treated under usual criminal laws. They are beyond criminal.

Urgh.

Too much negativity. I need another week off the blog for work and stuff.
:: WB 2:10 pm [link+] ::

Best Pope Post

...

Man, that has made me smile. Not too much blogging likely this week cos of work stuff. In the interim hit links at left, specially the Oz and Italian stuff.
:: WB 4:36 pm [link+] ::