I love this lady who makes an archbishop crap himself:

But do not ask the unthinking Tory groupies to actually address the beam in their own eye. Raped kids seem to be okay to these losers because they can always point to other equally as mad religions that the dark and swarthy adhere to. (Go on search the Bloggingtories website for child raping catholics.)

Thanks pharyngula (see side bar for link)

UPDATE

For the real skinny on the hypocrisy of those who tell you how to live your life. The pontificator of all things moral and catholic doesn’t even think that buggering kids is worth an explanation from a moral point of view. It seems that the main catholic objection to family planning is that it robs their clergy of future victims. But just in case it disappears here’s the text:

I can launch comments from left field, too, harebell. This has nothing to do with the topic. I did not comment on the issue because I didn’t feel like it, just like you didn’t comment on any number of topics because you didn’t feel like it. It doesn’t make you any less caring an individual, it doesn’t make me any less caring an individual.

This came just after the apologist for her church told us the benefits of communion, it’d be funny if it was not so sad and so serious for those abused. Suzie you constantly put the catholic church and what you think are children front and centre except when the interests of your church counter that of born kids then it’s, “move along nothing to see here.” Your church can do no wrong even when it clearly has. Your delusion has blinded you to reality. That is the real danger behind religion!

No idea for the rationale behind this piece except for an exercise in sucking up.

The “journo” states:

“In condemning with the same brush highly professional Canadian soldiers, and to complain that they were complicit in breaches of the law of armed conflict and knowingly buried his reports, it is Mr. Colvin who has some explaining left to do.”

If you mean the 3 Generals then say so. Don’t try and conflate the issue by using a generic term to include all possible soldiers. Because if I remember correctly Colvin said:

Second, I was very proud to have served in Afghanistan alongside the courageous and professional men and women of the Canadian Forces, including Canada’s military police. The focus of our attention, in my view, should not be on those who obeyed their chain of command, which soldiers are obliged to do. Instead, any responsibility for Canada’s practices toward detainees lies, in my view, with the senior military officers, senior civilian officials and the lawyers who developed the legal framework, designed the policies and practices and then ordered that they be implemented.

Seeking to obscure the point and being inaccurate is not a journalistic virtue.

Blatchford then goes on to highlight terms in a memo like, “not that bad,” or “not the worst in Afghanistan,” and to say that the worst the report could be said about them was they were”unsavoury” or “unsatisfactory.” Strange because I just read a heavily redacted memo on Dawg’s blog that also included:

Of the [redacted] detainees we interviewed, [redacted] said [redacted] had been whipped with cables, shocked with electricity and/or otherwise “hurt”….detainees still had [redacted] on [redacted] body; [redacted] seemed traumatized.

Individual sat with his toes curled under his feet. When he straightened his toe, it could be seen that the nails of the big toe and the one next to it, were a red-orange on the top of the nail, although the new growth underneath appeared fine. When we asked him about his treatment [redacted] rather than Kabul, he became quiet. He said that [redacted] he had been “hurt” and “had problems.” However, he is “happy now.” He did not elaborate on what happened [redacted]. [Redacted] seemed very eager to please, very deferential, and expressed gratitude for our visit. General impression was that he was somewhat traumatized.

When we asked him about his treatment [redacted] he said he had “a very bad time. They hit us with cables and wires.” He said they also shocked him with electricity. He showed us a number of scars on his legs, which he said were caused by the beating. He said he was hit for [redacted] days….

He and others told [redacted] that three fellow detainees had had their fingers “cut and burned with a lighter”….When we asked about his own treatment [redacted] he said that he was hit on his feet with a cable or a “big wire” and forced to stand for two days, but “that’s all.” He showed us a mark on the back of his ankle, which he said was from the cable. [Note: There was a dark red mark on the back of his ankle.]

Go and click to an actual copy of a Colvin memo if you don’t believe me. So our intrepid journo managed to see all the other more benign words and completely miss the bits about beatings and electrocutions? Some investigative talent you have there.

Then she claims that he couldn’t know anything like the military, because he didn’t spend time alongside the troops for more than half a day as she calculated it. Well for a guy who volunteered to cover for a predecessor who was blown up along with 3 soldiers, he showed a crap load of intestinal fortitude to me. The fact that his predecessor was blown up indicates that Colvin was prepared to be put in harms way. But here again she conflates the risks to the soldiers on the front line with that of the Generals. It would be my guess that Colvin was in far more danger where he was than any of the three Generals, so equating their position with the troops and decrying Colvin for not being there is another piece of shoddy story telling.

But an attempted slap down wouldn’t be complete until the liberal arts trained journo tries to back it up with a bit of science and messes up gloriously:

From the start, Canadian soldiers were using gunshot residue tests (this was mentioned by the former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier in his testimony to the committee this week, but the significance of the remark went unnoticed) to sift the wheat from the chaff.

They detained only those who tested positive for GSR (meaning they had recently either fired a weapon or been right beside someone who had), were found with guns or bomb-making parts or near IED strikes or were otherwise highly suspicious, such as well-dressed men carrying large amounts of Pakistani cash.

Mr. Colvin’s claim that innocent farmers were being cruelly dispatched to torture suggests he paid scarce attention to the “Taliban by night” phenomenon, whereby the man who farms by day becomes, under cover of darkness, a low-level fighter in the insurgency.

They used sciency stuff to prove that the folk they captured were fifth column terrorists. Gunshot residue tests do indeed tell you who has fired a gun recently and if used along with other forensic methods can combine with absolute certainty. Unfortunately, and you knew this was coming, they can produce false positives and result in erroneous arrests if used on their own;

In contrast, another traditional test for finding gunshot residue, the modified Griess test, often fails because it lacks such specificity. Its analysis is based on the detection of Nitrogen-based compounds called nitrites, which are gunpowder byproducts. But these compounds are also found elsewhere, leading to possible ambiguity in testing.

“Many chemical cleaners — anything that can be used to take off motor oil or freight dust — will test positive for gunshot residue using the Griess test,” Burleson said.

That would make the reading a false positive, which opens the door in court cases for reasonable doubt and possibly incarcerating an innocent person.

Motor oil and freight dust cleaners… mmm now why would any Afghani farmer have that on his hands. Also another common use for nitrites is as a pesticide (and a food preservative) and nitrates is fertiliser, nitrates reduce down to nitrites. Well knock me down with a feather, a farmer with motor oil/ freight dust cleaners and fertiliser on his person… terrrrrrist.

Poor effort, very poor.

The unbelievable arrogance shown by MacKay, one of our so called top ministers, in this clip linked to in this post  at Mike Watkins is staggering.

I hope our security services are investigating this disgraceful behaviour. Laws only appear to apply to others in this cabal of power grabbing incompetents.

So MacKay, “did you lose them or provide them?”

Your career is at an end either way and you could be facing a stretch inside to boot.

I was watching CPAC today and wow I had flashbacks to Yes Minister.

“Can you guarantee prior to the to the 2007 update that no Canadian transfer prisoner was tortured?” Asks Dewar.

Cue evasion, answering a different question, chairperson interruptions etc. Wow Colvin was right, the testimony of the generals and Mulrooney just add weight to how correct our man in Washington was. He reported torture and folk tried to run/hide until they eventually reformed the process in May 2007.

Mulrooney meet Sir Humpy

The final report is out.

The catholic church in Ireland was the recipient of organised help in covering up its horrific actions towards small children in its care. The organised help came from the hierarchy of the church in Rome (including the office that the present pope held last) as well as at the diocese level.

The catholic church is a corrupt organisation and its “movers and shakers” are more loyal to the church than they are to the standards and laws of the countries of which they are citizens. Unfortunately so were some who were in a position of power within the state protective organs and their “faith” led them to turn a blind eye to child rape.

Three Dublin archbishops – John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) – did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish, the commission found.

Senior police officers “clearly regarded priests as being outside their remit,” handing “complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them.”

A good thing that might come out of this horrible episode is that the hold of the church in Ireland might be broken. This could result in the influence of the last dictatorship in the heart of Europe being thrown out by one of its most faithful flocks. The child abusers will still hold sway in other parts of the world, but hopefully Ireland is the start of a truly momentous shift in thinking.

The title is deliberately confrontational because so many folk target the admitted absurdities of islam and the other world religions but conveniently forget about the Western tradition.

ALL religions are inherently abusive, from honour killings to caste atrocities, to child rape and abuse, to fostering fear of the other and war; they all claim that only they are truly good and blessed and everyone who disagrees with them is a barbarian, heretic, evil etc.

When nobody questions the faerie tales the hideous events uncovered in Ireland happen because there are no grounds to question god’s representatives on earth.

What was the involvement of the church in Canada in this affair or the affairs that have been exposed here? Will our government show the leadership that the Irish government showed recently and see if the tentacles reach us?

Ole Jim D defines the GLAM in glam rock.

It was much more than big hair.

Slade in their post skin years

Sweet with what passed as risque in the 70s

The godfather of Glam

Keepers of the torch.

I understand the emotion Cynic is expressing here.

He is frustrated at the so called “Troop loving” Tories using the good name of our armed forces to slander a good man and to refuse to actually get to the facts about who in our government thought it would be okay to hush up a policy lapse that allowed our military forces in Afghanistan to hand over detainees to be tortured.

I am frustrated that the Conservative Party of Canada also thinks so little of our international reputation and our armed forces that it is willing to put our nation’s lives at risk by being a bunch of cowardly curs that it cannot hold an inquiry into determining how we can prevent such a mistake from happening in the future.

I’ve worked for government and oversights occur. They are generally not intentional. But when a cock up happens it needs to recognised and rectified. If someone was deliberately negligent then they need to be dealt with as the law demands. If it was a genuine oversight then we need to learn from it, not sweep it under the carpet.

The point where I would take issue with CC is in his advocation of collective punishment to those identified in this paragraph (my emphasis):

Because the Stephen Harper Party of Canada has no interest in an investigation. Or a public inquiry. And in refusing to figure who is responsible, Canada’s Conservatives have implicitly condemned everyone in uniform to being a war criminal.

I know that anybody with a commission below a Major and any Soldier below a Senior Warrant Officer is highly unlikely to be involved in policy decisions or even have knowledge of how their Allies operate. This means that all of those folk in uniform that are outwith the exception above cannot be held responsible for the policies of those within them. CC continues:

Is that fair? Probably not. But there are lots of occasions where guilt has to be a collective thing. If you can’t punish the actual lawbreaker, sadly, everyone’s going to pay the price

You even recognised that collective punishment is wrong.

It fucking is! End of chat.

If you cannot identify who is culpable then you cannot punish. “Innocent until proven guilty” is the way of all decent and honest folk. It’s what separates the Western Common Law from arbitrary retribution.

Our people deserve the same standards as Omar Khadr and his inmates at Guantanamo (even though the US won’t give them that). Habeus Corpus is not an empty promise and everyone in our society (or subject to it) is entitled to it. Your are not guilty of anything until you have been shown to have been guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Finally:

Either the rot in Canada’s military is located and removed, or it’s all rot. There is no door number three.

This sounds too much like “you are either with us or against us.” Hardly anything is that simple and this topic is no where near being close to being include in that “anything.”

CC you are so wrong on this one.

I have just read “The men who stare at goats” by Jon Ronson.

I really do not know what I think anymore. It was an absolutely mind boggling read and as Ronson created his world it became more apparent that it was anything but a comedy.

The book introduces the reader to some seriously screwed up personalities with some seriously messed up ideas. The scary thing is that all these folk have or had real power and that the whacked out ideas from the 60s, 70s and 80s are being resurrected in the present.

Mr Ronson I have no idea whether this is all for real but even a bit of it is true it is frightening. These people have access to nuclear weapons.

In the book the wife of a murdered scientist asks the folk who killed him about the scientific method and they mumble their apologies. The science experiment excuse was just a cover for their killing the guy but that illustrates a very simple lesson I took from this book. This is what happens when dreaming and wishful thinking is elevated to the same status as something that exists in reality. The only thing we have stopping us from being overwhelmed by waves of bullshit is science and rational investigation. That is why the religious and the quacks are seeking to undermine its value by discrediting it through equating it with pseudoscience and id-creationism.

It is a gripping read, it took me 5 hours, and it is incredible to think that these characters existed-exist, but look at the anti-vaxers and new-agers, why not?

The French striker Henri controlled a ball with his hand and crossed to a team mate who put it in the net. France win, Ireland lose and the pouting begins.

The ref can only call what he sees, he didn’t see it so he didn’t call it. It’s the same in every footy match the world over and has been for ever. Refs miss stuff and I’ve accepted that in every game I’ve ever played, coached or even reffed in. At the beginning of the match both the teams accepted that.

Earlier in the game Keane handled the ball but was seen by the ref. If the ref hadn’t seen it and Keane had run on down the field and scored do you think the Irish would be calling for a replay? Actually if that had happened I don’t even think the French would be saying much, outwith the press that is, who always whine.

Also I don’t know about you but I love the poop that flies after a decision like this. It’s great for the game and for the fans. Controversy makes the sport all that more enjoyable. One of the reasons why this incident has been so discussed is because it is so rare an occurrence. Referees do a great job, most of the time they get a throw in wrong or fail to award a free kick when someone is clipped accidentally. In fact TV commentators screw up more often than the folk on the park even with the benefit of slo-motion replays. Self righteous talking heads and the stats geeks need to grow up and realise this is a human endeavour; players miss open goals, coaches make bad substitutions and refs can’t see everything. As a result players are traded, coaches are sacked and referees are demoted, it’s a performance related enterprise. If you take any of that away then the sport loses its romance and also what drives it onwards, improving all the time.

The joy of footy is there is no undo button, no restart level switch you have to live with the consequences of your actions just like life. Clubs continually talk about being in business, well if a competitor messes up and goes out of business costing you a contract do you get a “do-over” that allows you to reconsider signing that contract? No you don’t, you file a claim as a creditor, roll with the blows and learn from it.

Grow up people real life occurs on a time line, you don’t get a mulligan just because “the bad man made you cry.”

MacKay repeated that his criticism of Colvin is not personal but that the evidence he gave “cannot be sustained.”

“I don’t believe it’s credible. I don’t believe it’s backed up by fact and what we have to deal with in a parliamentary hearing, as we do in a court of law, or another judicial or public inquiry, is evidence that can be substantiated.

“That evidence and the suggestion that every single Taliban prisoner that was taken into custody and turned over was tortured is simply not credible and cannot be sustained by facts.”

Even if there have been no cases of torture (which is highly unlikely given revelations about US detainees), Colvin still passed his concerns up the chain and those who were there did very little investigating and took even less action. Our Tory overloads are desperately trying to distract us because it is undeniable that they did nothing to look into the reports until it was obvious the issue was not going away.

Cut to another suspicious character in the events, retired General Hillier, who also uses some strange language to respond to Colvin’s claim:

“The guy said some things and, really, nothing ever caught my attention based on what he perceived he said or perceived he sent,” Hillier said Thursday. “

especially as a month ago this appeared on the public record (My emphasis):

After published allegations of torture surfaced in 2007, Conservative ministers denied they had any previous knowledge of problems with the transfer of detainees. But Hillier now suggests he was aware of allegations possibly as early as 2006. He writes that he also warned officials in Ottawa that prisoner transfers would stop in the fall of 2007 unless inspectors visited Afghan jail continuously.

So General you were aware in 2006 and made Ottawa aware or you weren’t aware cos you saw nothing? It seems like both the military and the government are engaging a bit of CYA and trying to shoot the messenger.

For a more in depth coverage see Contrarian.