Clipmarks | Torture Clips

DIsturbing Origins of 5 Common Nursery Rhymes

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:05:25 GMT

Three Blind Mice

The farmer's wife in the poem is an allusion to the 16th Century Queen "Bloody" Mary I, and her enthusiasm for everything involving torture, death, and basically finding new ways to go down in textbooks as history's biggest bitch. The three mice supposedly represent three noblemen who got together and said, "Gee guys, maybe this Mary lady isn't all there." and were consequently prosecuted for conspiring against the queen.

If you're cringing at the thought of what the cutting off of their three "tails" symbolizes, don't worry. She didn't cut off their dongs. No, she proved she had some form of human empathy, and simply burning those suckers at the stake instead.

Mass beheading in Mexico

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:40:39 GMT

clipped by: flinstoneking
clipper's remarks: More reason why I no longer make a run for the border...

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

MERIDA, Mexico - Eleven beheaded bodies were dumped close to a graveyard outside a sleepy southern city on Thursday in the latest shocking crime in Mexico's vicious drug war.

Police said a farmer found the 11 bodies, showing signs of torture, five miles from this southern colonial city in the Yucatan peninsula often where tourists stop off on their way to visit the world-famous Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza.

All the bodies had star signs and the letter Z tattooed on them, police sources said. A 12th beheaded body was found 50 miles away in a small town to the east of Merida, also showing signs of torture.

It was the latest mass beheading in Mexico since drug traffickers rolled several heads onto the floor of a nightclub in Michoacan state in 2006 in a blatant message to rivals and the government.

Tags: beheading crimes

How to Replace Bush Democrats - Spread the Word

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:34:54 GMT

clipped by: zizzy
clipper's remarks: Obstructionists out!

Clip Source: www.actblue.com

While Democrats control the House of Representatives by 236-199, they cannot pass progressive bills on health care, the environment, jobs, justice, and impeachment – or even stop horrendous Republican bills on Iraq, torture, and warrantless wiretapping – because a few dozen “Bush Democrats” regularly vote with George Bush

replace “Bush Democrats” with progressive Democrats through primary elections, and that’s why we created this page. Read more about our efforts here: http://www.democrats.com/bushdemocrats
The candidates below are running against “Bush Democrats” in Democratic primaries. We hope you’ll join us in supporting them!

Stephen A. Harrison

NY-13 (Map)

Howard Shanker

AZ-01 (Map)

One solution is to elect more Democrats to increase our majority so “Bush Democrats” matter less, and many netroots groups like Moveon.org, DailyKos.com, and Blue America are doing this brilliantly

"Swiss exonerate Europe's last executed witch"

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:20:43 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly
clipper's remarks: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26422359/

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Swiss exonerate Europe's last executed witch

Government declares trial that led to woman's 1782 death was ‘nonlegal’

Documents, paintings, engravings, illustrations and torture instruments are on display at the Anna Goeldi Musueum in Mollis, Switzerland.

BERN, Switzerland - Anna Goeldi was executed for being a witch more than 220 years ago — the last witch beheaded in Europe. On Wednesday, the Swiss decided the least they could do was clear her name.

The parliament of the Swiss canton (state) of Glarus decided unanimously Wednesday to exonerate Goeldi as a victim of "judicial murder," said Josef Schwitter, a government spokesman.

Goeldi was executed in 1782 for an alleged case of poisoning.

Several thousand people, mainly women, were executed for witchcraft between the 14th and 18th centuries in Switzerland, and elsewhere in Europe. Yet Goeldi's trial and beheading in the village of Mollis took place at a time when witch trials had largely disappeared from the continent.

Yep, McCain's record does speak for itself!

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:11:52 GMT

clipped by: boniface
clipper's remarks: Comparing the incidents surrounding the fates of three POWs,' who collaborated with the enemy, makes one question why two faced possible execution for treason, while the third won acclaim as a hero fit to be President of the United States.

Clip Source: www.usvetdsp.com

When two U.S. Army enlisted men were captured by the Viet Cong in 1963, they were plunged into an ordeal that would prove to be a relentless trial of body and spirit by torture. Once they were finally freed, however, their trials began all over again, when their statements critical of the U. S. Vietnam policy landed them in a military court facing a capital offense for violating the military Code of Conduct by "aiding the enemy."

McCain admits that three to four days after he was captured, he promised the Vietnamese, "I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."

On June 4, 1969, a U.S. wire service story headlined "PW Songbird Is Pilot Son of Admiral," reported one of McCain's radio broadcasts: "Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of the United States commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner.

Illegals shock, suffocate, slit throats in U.S.

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:51:00 GMT

clipped by: dl211
clipper's remarks: Crime creeping across U.S. border

The drug-related murders came on the heels of recent reports of tightened U.S. security along the Southern border as cartels send murderers-for-hire into the U.S. Last week, Texas and New Mexico authorities reported a hit list identifying 15 to 20 targets in the two states alone.

Illegal immigrant violence has claimed the lives of many Americans. As WND reported earlier, MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, a highly organized and well-funded Central American gang, has infiltrated at least 33 states across the U.S., according to law-enforcement authorities. The gang is well-known in Los Angeles, Houston, New York and Washington, D.C., for excessive brutality. Any person suspected of cooperating with authorities is hunted down, tortured and killed. Initiation rites include kickings, beatings and gang rapes.

Clip Source: www.wnd.com

Illegals shock, suffocate, slit throats in U.S.

Alien murderers-for-hire send 4 shipped back to Mexico in body bags

A showdown over drug money between suspected Mexican illegal aliens in Alabama ended with four men in prison and four shipped back to Mexico in body bags.

Three suspected illegal aliens from Mexico and another man have been arrested and charged with capital murder for electrocuting, stabbing, suffocating and beating five men to death in a murder-for-hire.

The four suspects were paid between $400,000 and $450,000 to torture the victims with electric shock and slit their throats in an Alabama apartment, police said Tuesday. The murders have been tied to a drug cartel that transports cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, the Birmingham News reported.

Tags: illegal, immigration, murder

At the DNC Convention, Sixties Radicals Are Going to "Save the World", Again!

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:18:59 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: for America will be best achieved through policies of generosity and caring toward the rest of the world.” All America has to do is dedicate “1%-2% of the GDP each year for the next 20 years toward once and for all eliminating domestic and global poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, inadequate health care, and repairing the environment of the planet.”

Once and for all? And to think no one had figured out sooner that we could merely legislate the human condition out of existence. Of course, collecting the money is only half the battle. Once we confiscate the necessary funds, according to the NSP’s helpful 32-page booklet on the Global Marshall Plan, all we have to do is “create an international, unbiased, nongovernmental agency for receiving the funds . . . and distributing them in a way that is environmentally sensitive, respectful of native cultures, safeguarded against corruption [...]

Clip Source: article.nationalreview.com

True to form, the event began with bad folk music followed by a prayer. Not just any prayer, but a prayer by John Dear. According to his official bio, the Roman Catholic priest has been arrested 75 times “because he so fervently believes in peace.”

“Take a deep breath and breathe in that holy spirit of peace . . .

Help us end poverty and starvation and relieveable [sic] disease and end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine and all of our wars and abolish the death penalty and torture and all our nuclear weapons. And help us enact a Global Marshall Plan to feed the world’s poor and justice and peace to all our sisters and brothers.”

While the “spiritual progressives” gathered here in Denver for DNC convention are every bit as spacey their name suggests, their “Global Marshall Plan” is for real. The Global Marshall Plan — a.k.a. House Resolution 1078 — has 20 Democratic co-sponsors in Congress.

According to Rep. Keith Ellison, “House Resolution 1078 recognizes that lasting security

Tags: dnc, global poverty, global marshall plan, h.r.1078, 1%-2% of the u.s. gdp, 20 years, rep. keith ellison, 20 democratic co-sponsors in congress

McCain

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:32:02 GMT

clipped by: lp97702

Clip Source: www.bloglines.com

"You’re the Republican candidate for president and you want to fix the country's problems even though you don’t know much about the economy, you don’t know how to use the internet, you don’t know how many houses you own or what kind of car you drive, you admit you don’t think clearly when you’re tired, you make frequent gaffes on foreign policy, you think offshore drilling is a short-term solution to high gas prices, you support torture and keeping the Guantanamo prison open, you make rash decisions and statements from which you have to quickly backtrack, you have an explosive temper on a hair trigger, your idea of health care reform is 'wear more sunscreen,' you're for stem cell research except when it's done on stem cells because you consider them all American citizens, and you voted to support the policies of the worst president ever 100 percent of the time this year?"
"Trust me, my friends. I was a POW."

media coverage of DNC is insane

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:18:33 GMT

clipped by: kroqben
clipper's remarks: i'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks so. the article gets part of it, but it misses the whole sycophantic relationship msnbc has with the democratic party. it's nauseating to see olbermann and matthews fellate the party so blatantly. how can any progressive complain about foxnews' support for the gop when msnbc is just as bad?

anyway, hillary knocked it out the park tonight - perfect perfect speech.

Clip Source: www.thenation.com

Media Gone Mad

I try not to let the MSM's agreed-upon national news narrative upset my plans to have a good time, but many more times than not, I find the mass stupidity of so many putatively smart people, marching in unison to a destination that invites--nay--allows no logical point of entry. If you read today's Note, which is how I submit myself to this torture in as short and relatively painless form as possible, you can find any number of literally nutty notions.

Take a look at whom they cite when it comes to evidence of this supposed disunity: other journalists.

Each offers evidence that is either purely editorial and unsourced, or sourced anonymously.

China Goes Out With a Bang.......

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:09:05 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: ........ and The Whimper of the Oppressed is Barely Heard........

I wonder, though, if anyone oohing and aahing over the fireworks in Beijing gave thought to the thousands of Chinese peasants who will die because their government took their water away so it could produce the fake beauty of the Olympic compound.

Maybe we’ll see that story show up in an NBC news report, do you think? I’m sure the network will get right on that as soon as it gets up off its knees and straightens up its clothing.

Clip Source: www.sundriesshack.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - The Beijing Olympics ended with a blaze of deafening fireworks on Sunday, bringing down the curtain on a Games that dazzled the world with sporting brilliance and showcased the might of modern day China.

It looks like China got everything it wanted out of the Olympic Games: a clean bill of health from the media, the fawning adoration of IOC bureaucrats, and a green light to starve, imprison, steal property from, and really torture its citizens at will without having to worry about any meaningful protest from any other nation. Plus it managed to pick up some additional loyalty from the Chinese who live in the cities, even those who have had their houses and lands stolen from them to build the lavish venues used in the past two weeks.

Did China show us its might? You bet it did, and we in the free world were too mesmerised by the pageantry to notice much of anything else.

Tags: ioc bureaucrats, beijing olympics, nbc, human rights violations, land/homes stolen from peasants, jailed dissidents/protesters

10 Things you should know about John McCain

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:42:11 GMT

clipped by: moonspirit4ever
clipper's remarks: Number Two is more then enough reason for me to cast my vote elsewhere. But the rest are scary too.

Clip Source: www.oliverwillis.com

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.

4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.

Price of China’s Olympic Success

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:23:45 GMT

clipped by: hitchhiker08
clipper's remarks: Cradle-snatching!

Clip Source: www.odditycentral.com

The Price of China’s Olympic Success

I always knew being a professional athlete meant making serious sacrifices and that gymnasts don’t really have a childhood, but this like modern day torture to me.

It’s nice to compete and win a title for your country but I have to wonder if it’s worth going through all this…

As a parent I couldn’t let my kids go through anything like this, no matter how much I wanted them to be successful in sports, it’s just too much.

Tags: olympics, china, toddlers, training

Only 8% of Guantánamo detainees alleged to be al-Qaeda...

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:31:58 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: ... and 55% are "not alleged to have engaged in any hostile act" against the US. 95% were turned in by bounty hunters seeking rewards, not captured on the battlefield. How is this justifiable?

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Madness and Shame

By BOB HERBERT

“After reviewing 517 of the Guantánamo detainees’ cases in depth,” she said, “they concluded that only 8 percent were alleged to have associated with Al Qaeda. Fifty-five percent were not alleged to have engaged in any hostile act against the United States at all, and the remainder were charged with dubious wrongdoing, including having tried to flee U.S. bombs. The overwhelming majority — all but 5 percent — had been captured by non-U.S. players, many of whom were bounty hunters.”

“One source of ideas,” she wrote, “was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, “torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis.”

I felt as if I was in Never-Never Land as I read: “In conversation with British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, the top military lawyer in Guantánamo, Diane Beaver, said quite earnestly that Jack Bauer ‘gave people lots of ideas’ as they sought for interrogation models.”

Tags: guantanamo, human_rights, gwot, civil_rights

Was McCain Actually Tortured?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:04:33 GMT

clipped by: dulios

Clip Source: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Does Bush Believe McCain Was Tortured?

The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet.

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture.

Tags: torture, war crimes

Ethics of Groups

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:54:19 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: humanknowledge.net

Groups. Groups of individual beings do not have volition or sentience, and cannot be subject to coercion or torture except insofar as their individual members are so subject. Thus groups per se have no separate right against coercion or torture. There is a sense in which some groups -- species -- are alive, and so species have the right not to suffer extinction.

Tags: groups, ethics, entity, species, rights