Month: January 2007

Because rape isn’t traumatic enough

Greg Civil Rights, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Religious Wrong

Unbelievable. A woman goes to the police to report a rape – and is arrested herself because of a paperwork glitch dating from when she was a minor.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, she was denied emergency contraception because her jailers considered that “against their religion.”

“They were more interested in prosecuting her for something that’s a paperwork snafu from four years ago, that was juvenile. They were more interested in working on that than finding an experienced rapist,” stated the victim’s mother.

Still, the woman was put in handcuffs and taken to jail. She was not allowed bond, and the medical staff at the jail refused to give her the Morning After Pill even though it had been prescribed at the hospital.

“The medical supervisor would not allow her to take the pill because she said it was against her, the supervisor’s, religion. So, here we have a medical supervisor imposing her beliefs on a rape victim,” claimed the victim’s attorney Virlyn Moore. “As a human being, how someone could be so violated by this monster and then the system comes along and rapes her again psychologically and emotionally – it’s outrageous and unconscionable.”

I don’t even know where to begin, this is abominable beyond belief. The medical staff at the jail needs to lose its job. Now. Do your job, without judgment and prejudice, or GTFO. At this point I’d prefer the latter.
Raped by the system indeed. I hope the local sherrif’s campain opposition is taking notes for the next election cycle – what if that were your wife or daughter?

Feministing.com

The young woman was arrested on a Saturday, and wasn’t able to leave jail until Monday afternoon. After being raped. Just sit on that one for a while. Unbelievable.

The Reaction

I am not making this shit up. Planned Parenthood has a page where you can write and send an email to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

Feminists to the Rescue

I am so happy that another woman could spend the night in jail for being a rape victim while her rapist runs free.

Biting back

Greg Business, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

This is good.  A teen, sued by the music industry, sues back.

A New York teen, dubbed a pirate by the Record Industry, is counter suing them for defamation, violating anti-trust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

In papers responding to a lawsuit filed by five record companies, Robert Santangelo, who was 11 when he is supposed to have downloaded music, has come out fighting. He denies sharing music using P2P technology and says it’s impossible for the record companies to prove that that he did.

Robert Santangelo and his lawyer, Jordan Glass, have raised 32 defences against the music industry’s charges. Amongst Robert’s defence is the information that all the music that it was claimed he downloaded he already owned on shop bought CDs.

Smart kid, and I hope he the industry gets it’s collective butt handed to it.  The music industry is facing the same pressures, philosophically at least, as the print media.  It can adapt or die.  Look at what they did with Napster – potentially the greatest marketing tool ever invented.  But alas.

Still getting it wrong

Greg Bush Adminisration, Civil Rights

Of course, making things right – to the extent possible – would be admitting error so of course Bush and Co. can’t do that.

I don’t like to use the word “evil” casually, but I don’t know what else can be said about stuff like this.

Chinese Uighurs who have been imprisoned for the past month at a new state-of-the-art detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being held around the clock in near-total isolation, a circumstance their lawyers say is rapidly degrading their mental health, according to an affidavit filed in federal court yesterday….

The Uighurs’ (pronounced weegurs) detention by the U.S. military, after being sold for bounty by Pakistanis in early 2002, has long attracted controversy. The men had just arrived from Afghanistan, where, they said, they had received limited military training because they opposed Chinese government control of their native region. But they said they never were allied with the Taliban or opposed to the United States, and had fled to Pakistan only to escape the U.S. bombing campaign.

Obsidian Wings:

These men were captured by bounty hunters nearly five years ago. They are in all likelihood innocent of any crime, and of any act against the United States; they have certainly never been tried and convicted of any. We have held them in captivity since then, away from their wives and families. If they returned home now, their children probably wouldn’t recognize them – and as those of you who have kids will surely recognize, those are some of the saddest words there are.

HT: Sullivan who observes: Hey, they’re terrorists. Because … er … we say so.

Mike Gallagher is an ass

Greg Terrorism, The Right

Why does this right wingnut radio host hate America?

Seeing Jane Fonda Saturday was enough to make me wish the unthinkable: it will take another terror attack on American soil in order to render these left-leaning crazies irrelevant again. Remember how quiet they were after 9/11? No one dared take them seriously. It was the United States against the terrorist world, just like it should be.

Hat tip: Atrios 

Spoiling or saving?

Greg Election 2006

Interesting piece at DKOS compares the “Green” spoiler effect that gave us President Bush, to the libertarian spoilers that gave us a Democratic Congress in 2006.

Missouri Senate

McCaskill (D) 1,047,049  50
Talent (R)    1,001,238  47
Gilmour (L)      47,504   2

Montana Senate

Tester (D)      198,302  49
Burns (R)       195,455  48
Jones (L)        10,324   3