The Ultraviolet Garden

War is now a permanent export of the USA. So are the attendant war crimes.

And anyone who thinks US security interests are being improved by those ghastly facts on the ground is a damned fool. —jk

Read more here.

I feel the need to draw attention again to the following videos. These aren’t meant to be watched just once. It requires a shift in the way we think. Surviving police encounters—and knowing your rights and behaviorally asserting them as safely as possible—seems to be a bit like learning how to drive. You must first practice many times before you are able to drive without actually thinking about driving. Hopefully, by recalling these facts and scenarios, we as citizens will learn how to stay safer to a point where it becomes second nature. That’s why it’s so important to review these videos now and then.

It’s not enough to simply know these things. If we don’t incorporate them into our lives as good and safe habits, then knowing them doesn’t really do a whole lot of good, now does it?

There’s only one thing that the professor says that I disagree with. The rest of it is completely spot on. Those who know me probably wouldn’t find it hard to figure out which part I disagree with. (If you must know, it’s the part where he says that cops aren’t likely to lie on you! But that’s not pertinent. I am just being picky. I do think he’s dead wrong on that, though.)

Law professor and a police officer reveal why you should never talk to police.

Busted: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters.

From The Star:

Benamar Benatta, a Canadian… like… me… recounts how his country turned a blind, cowardly and disgraced eye when the U.S. unlawfully imprisoned and tortured him for five years. All he wants now is an apology. Canada won’t apologize, so I will. Mr. Benatta, I’m sorry that you were let down by a country that prides itself on a reputation of upholding human rights. —Jeff Green, Toronto

I’m a 10th grade student at Bayview Secondary School and I find it appalling that our politicians have allowed themselves to be blinded by their prejudice. …Benatta has obviously faced traumatizing experiences and needs professional help that the government should provide. Aside from financial compensation for detaining him without evidence in a U.S. jail, an official apology should also be made. Without a full apology, Benatta cannot move on with his life.

If we pride ourselves as a country that upholds the rights and freedoms of all, and values the lives of everybody equally, we cannot allow cases like Benatta’s to be ignored. —Jessica Chan, Richmond Hill

Good people. If only the likes of Stephen Harper had such decency.

The Star has just published the following article about Benamar’s case.

Shrugging Off Torture

He’s the only known case of Extraordinary Rendition in Canada. What I’m mad about is that they still have not apologized for what they put him through. Stephen Harper came back saying that after they investigated themselves they found themselves to be innocent of all wrongdoing. (I will believe an investigation took place when I see proof of it, I don’t know if they had an investigation or an “investigation”. Or if they skipped the whole kerfuffle entirely and said, “Let’s don’t and say we did”.)

But it seems to me that they still have to explain HOW—and via WHOSE authorization—did he end up being delivered in the middle of the night in the back seat of a car and into the hands of his torturers in a Brooklyn jail in the first place! Don’t you guys know we torture people here?

Not only have they deeply affected Ben’s life forever, but we may not know how many other cases of Extraordinary Rendition there might have been. And why the fuck am I capitalizing that euphemism? Somebody please, slap the shit out of me. It’s kidnapping! Oh, excuse me: Kidnapping. (The truth is always worth capitalizing.)

Anyway, I’m very glad that the Star published the article. The story needs to be kept alive. When all the proceedings are done and the crowds go home, he still has to live with what they put him through.

How very dare you, Canada.

Here’s a clip I made from the movie Four Rooms. I love this movie. The first room I could do without but the rest of them are great. This is room 309. The Misbehavers.

I’m behind in a couple of things I need to do, but I’ve actually been making progress.

New photos of the cats.

I wonder if linking to one of my own pages will cause a trackback to appear. I’m about to find out.

Nice try, Michael. Not unexpected. I suppose you don’t have much else to do, legally. There’s not a lot of options open to you. It’s that damn video tape. If only it would go away.

Thanks for the heads-up, Noble.

I had my appointment with Diane today. It went great and everything’s in order. (Her office is very comfortable, put me at ease. She even let Noble borrow a book that he commented on. And she REALLY read my files! I was impressed with the stuff she remembered.)

(I scanned the original copy of the license.) It’s not the type of license that you may see others using, which includes the patient’s photo (I’ve seen them and they resemble driver’s licenses or photo IDs). Those are valid too but if you have what I have (below) then it’s not really required.

The following is indeed a “license” to use cannabis.

My license to grow, cultivate and use cannabis

Youtube pulled the video of Deputy Paul Schene and Travis Brunner. Good thing I downloaded it beforehand.

Again, here’s the video. I reposted it.

If you’d like to d/l it, right click and “save as”.

Unlike the others, this vid has sound. I wouldn’t have it up any other way. See, I don’t think it’s okay to sanitize things so we don’t have to experience any trauma. As long as we, as a collective, support the police/policy; as long as we accept the principle of qualified immunity for cops, then we should be made to witness the results of that mistake.

Sound and all.

“Be made to” isn’t the best way to put it. I’m not talking about forcing anyone to witness anything. I’m referring to its availability to those who actually do want to know what these cretins get up to while they’re supposed to be serving and protecting the public—a public which includes Malika Calhoun. Of course that’s not what this goofy asshole did.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the testimony of the police hasn’t lived up to the good faith and qualified immunity bestowed upon it.

The guy in that video assaulting Malika is the same guy who shot two persons (1 of them to death) in ’02 and ’06. He has been under investigation for those shootings. Might want to look at this guy’s entire career. He’s apparently had it made… like a serial killer in a horror film.

I can’t think of any good reason for giving police officers special privileges. In fact, considering the special powers and resources they already have, it makes sense to hold them to a higher standard than the public at large. A crime committed by a police officer, if treated differently than one committed by anybody else, should carry a tougher penalty, not a lower one.

And we should get rid of those special charges and penalties for people who victimize police officers, too.

Frankly, if regular paychecks, taxpayer-issued guns and armor, and backup a radio call away aren’t enough to keep Paul Schene and his buddies happy in their work, they’re welcome to try their hand at really dangerous jobs, like driving taxis or working on commercial fishing boats. —J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner

You can read the rest of J.D.’s article here.

The house feels empty as hell without Lucky. We’ll always remember her sweetness. She came with her own sound effects. Sometimes she sounded like General Cornrow Wallace! She’d roll up on you like that.

Ptttttttdddddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

That’s when she felt playful.

*sigh*

Onward.

I’ve been piddling around with wordpress themes. I’m using “LightWord” now.

I modified it slightly. I’m actually quite satisfied with it. It meets all of my requirements now. I still don’t understand why so many ppl place the comment section in the byline area.

In this case the theme didn’t even have a byline; it was easy enough to add.

I’ve also added a “like/dislike” plugin but only the comments are showing the rating. I need to figure out how to make it work on posts. If you use wordpress, maybe you’ll find these useful:

Like/Dislike Comment Rating worked for me.

Like/Dislike Post Rating didn’t work for me. I’ll figure it out eventually. Probably something minor.

I never know which plugins I’ll end up keeping. Usually I just play with things, if they are useful they’ll be kept. I liked “The Wall” plugin, but since it had to keep refreshing to load the most recent wall items it made my logs practically useless.

Although a simple filter would fix that problem. I’m just too lazy to do that. Maybe later.

Right now I’m working on the RWA Scale (see “Altemeyer’s Authoritarians“). I can’t use his questions. But if I come up with my own questions it should be fine. Check out his book if you haven’t. (It’s free. Also he prefers that ppl be introduced to his RWA Scale via the book. In this way, they learn that it may—or may not—be useful for individuals; it’s more geared toward getting average trends in groups of persons.)

When he asked me to remove the RWA survey, of course I complied. Nothing to do with copyright it’s just general courtesy. But, as his own survey predicted in my case, I have my own opinion on this.

Given that, do I even really need to take the survey myself? (Of course, I did. I scored very low, obviously.)

I’m also interested in doing an equivalent of the Social Dominance Scale as well. I can’t use his exact questions, but again you can’t copyright an idea, only the expression of it. And as long as I’m not using his questions, I should be okay. I’ve actually got a good idea about this but we’ll see. What I’d like to do is use actual things authoritarians or their followers have said—quotations, in other words—as the items on the survey. Looking at many of these, I could easily come up with quotations from “The Georges”. (Of the Bush persuasion, of course.)

There’s not exactly a shortage of folks who are quotable in this respect.

Have a good day all.