Tech Kids Not So Bad After All

I've heard time and again this year how our students are the rowdiest in the Big XII and no one likes coming here. One of the articles I read was posted on the A&M paper. Seems, they should take a look inward, Horeshit, now thats uncalled for.

Pesky little Prisoners

I have heard any of a number of angles on this, most of them piss me off. We signed on the the Geneva Conventions for a reason. Little legal "bypasses" are bullshit. I think most people understand that the Conventions exist and have some understanding of what is in it but let's take a look at what it actually says regarding prisoners:

A prisoner of war awaiting trial must not be confined unless members of the detaining country’s own armed forces would also be confined in the same circumstances. (Convention III, Art. 103)
Any time spent in confinement waiting for trial will count towards time served. (Convention III, Art. 103)
The protecting powers must be immediately notified once a prisoner is sentenced. (Convention III, Art. 105)
All prisoners must have the right of appeal or petition and be informed of these rights and of any time limits on them. (Convention III, Art. 106)
Imprisonment in premises without daylight is forbidden. (Convention III, Art. 87)

I think by looking at this most can see where we have gone wrong. So now let's look at the arguments for the use of torture.

1) Insurgents are not fighting for a country (or at least not one that signed on to the Conventions) and therefore should not be afforded the protections given.

Hmm, technically true, however to assume this would also assume that this war is the last war in which we will be involved. By torturing these people we are telling future enemies "We think it's cool if we don't like you." Insurgents are not agents of any recognized government and they have proven time and again that they disregard any "rules of war." Many falsely believe that the Conventions offer the insurgents protection regardless of a national leadership, this is not true. As a matter of fact that would go against the conventions because in order to be covered by these laws one must be of an enemy army (national), carrying a weapon in the open and wearing the opposing states uniform, obviously insurgents don't fit in any of these in most cases. Clearly there are loopholes the problem is that it is not feasable to play both hands in war public opinion matters most in the long run.

2) This one is less about law and more about ideology. That you can expedite the attainment of "actionable intelligence." So, they mean to tell us that a guy that has been sitting in Cuba for 4 years can tell me anything about al-qaeda that I can go out and actually use right now??? Also, torutre is not exactly a great method of obtaining anything for a few reasons. One is that most guys in the field don't have a fucking clue what the plans of their superiors are. In the case of insurgents I imagine it is dually so because alot of them just go out blindly to kill Americans sans leadership, it's also not a conventional army they have to constantly change locations and tactics. A few hours is more than enough for whatever one of them knows to become unuseable. Second on the chance that a guy is high enough up to know anything worth extracting he is that high for a reason, we as Americans like to think we would be the only ones with any kind of integrity in this type of situation, bullshit, if you believe in something strong enough no amount of pain will break you. (These type of people have been around since the dawn of time, we call them martyrs.) On the flip side of that if you beat the crap out of a lower level guy that doesn't know anything he will come up with the most elaborate load of shit you have ever heard to avoid having his ribs beat in.

In short, I hate torture, thanks...

On Willie Pete

A post was made on a friends blog concerning an Italian video decrying the U.S. use of White Phosphorus munitions. They seemed to be most upset at the thought, right or wrong, that it was used against civilians. I don't know if it was I can only trust my better judgement. I think media hysteria plays into this very well. The media is always upset when they feel they are not allowed to cover everything. I personally couldn't care less what the media thinks. I don't want the blinders put on, but I think there are some things that simply don't belong on television. They also called it a chemical weapon, which I suppose is technically true but then you could say anything above small arms are "chemical weapons" as they turn what the hit into plasma spawl. I came across this article today which although it's from the horses mouth it backs up pretty much what I've had to say about WP.

Newest Address

This one is pretty good and I wonder how true it might be if he didn't have people writing his speeches for him.

BITE MY NUTS

And other useful hints for your eating pleasure. So roll up those sleeves, go vote and then get your ass in the kitchen and make some Grapenuts cookies.

This is kind of a fun place you can hear the original War of the Worlds.

A reminder of why to always remain defilade when clearing a room!!!

Make an Ass Out of Me

St. John Vianney, a farm hand who in his youth taught other children their prayers and catechism. Ordained in 1815, though it took several years study as he had little education, was not a very good student, and his Latin was terrible. Assigned for a while to Ecully. In 1818 he was assigned to the parish of Ars, a tiny village near Lyons, which suffered from very lax attendance; he began visiting his parishioners, especially the sick and poor. Spent days in prayer, doing penance for his parishioners. Gifted with discernment of spirits, prophecy, hidden knowledge, and working miracles. Tormented by evil spirits, especially when he tried to get his 2-3 hours of sleep each night. Crowds came to hear him preach, and to make their reconciliation because of his reputation with penitents; by 1855 there were 20,000 pilgrims a year to Ars. Spent 40 years as the parish priest.

A professor once remarked (about St. John), "This fellow is a complete ass. What can he possibly accomplish?" Father Vianney replied, "If Samson armed only with the jawbone of an ass, could kill one thousand Philistines, imagine what God can do with the complete ass!"

Very interesting...

We will probably never know for sure. In fact I am almost positive we won't but if you need some more proof of fallacy in the ministration. I found this link on Moby's site.

Fun Fact for the Day

So in the late 800's early 900's the Vikings found Iceland and named it such so that no one would be interested in going there. This was because it was a rich agricultural area and they wanted to horde it. Many years later a man by the name of Eric the Red was exiled from Iceland for murder and other mischief. He found Greenland which had been rumored about from various fishermen. He named the area such because it sucked and he wanted to encourage others to come live there and help out the economy. So now you know why Iceland is green and Greenland is ice.