Right Wing Nut House

If you are a sports fan and live in Chicago, the story unfolding on the South Side of the city where grown men in silly looking clothes and serious looks on their faces play a game that civil war soldiers called “Rounders” but that Chicagoans are currently referring to as “Hangman, is all too familiar. Outside of a magical, glorious run of 8 6 World Championships in 10 8 years by the Bulls, Chicagoans are inured to failure by their sports teams. It’s become a source of embarrassment for the city that the record of futility enjoyed by its baseball, football, and hockey teams has surpassed any other city’s sports franchises.

A large part of the feeling is tied up in the Chicago’s former nickname “The Second City.’ Chicago is not the “Second City anymore.” Los Angeles surpassed Chicago in population back in the 1970’s. And “The Third City” just doesn’t seem to have that snap, crackle, and pizazz as other nicknames that cities have attached to them either by default or design. “The Big Apple,” The Big D,” “Music City,” and “The Big Easy” are complimentary monikers that bring tourists who drop millions of dollars into the civic coffers, attracted by the reputations of those towns for fun and frolic. Hell, even Detroit is “The Motor City, despite the fact that few if any automobiles are built within the city limits today.

But Chicago? Chicago used to be “Hog Butcher to the World” until the hogs got all huffy and decided that the slaughterhouses of Kansas City were preferable to the cramped, dusky environs found in “The Jungle” of Upton Sinclair. And “The City of Big Shoulders” that poet Carl Sandburg saw has shrunk to “The City of Slim Hips” found in the gentrified neighborhoods on the city’s North side.

Not to worry. There would always be the Bears and the Cubs. What of the White Sox, you ask?

The White Sox have been an afterthought in the minds of Chicagoans for more than 100 years. This situation was exacerbated by the ownership of the franchise by the Comiskey family whose tight fisted policies toward both the players and fans were legendary in the sports world. Charles Comiskey, owner of the team during the infamous “Black Sox” betting scandal of 1919 reportedly made the players pay for washing their own uniforms. And while more competitive as a baseball team since the end of World War II than the hated Cubs, the team always seemed to come up short during crunch time.

On more than one occasion during the last few weeks I’ve had some troll send me an email gloating about the fall of my White Sox from invincibility. Invariably, the correspondent is some rube from the sticks, at which point I politely inquire as to the status of their major league franchise. This has proved itself to be an effective riposte because, of course, there is no major league sports franchise in Iowa, or South Dakota, or some such place where the people are dependent on minor league teams for sports enjoyment. Our teams may suck, but at least we’ve got major league sports franchises - or at least teams that call themselves such. I wouldn’t necessarily call the Blackhawks “Major League” anything given that their current owners, the Wirtz family, are more interested in their lucrative liquor distribution businesses than they are in putting a professional hockey team on the ice.

But with the national media finally turning their gaze to the White Sox, it’s become something of an embarrassment to realize that the “collapse” of the team is making more national sports news than the bitter division battle between the Red Sox and Yankees. What has happened is not a collapse as much as it has been evidence that there is in fact a God. For only God could make a team like the Cleveland Indians to scorch the American League as the Tribe has done in the last two months.

The Sox had a lead of 15 games on August 1st over the Indians. Since that time, the Sox have coasted home with a .500 record - 25-26. The Indians however, have been unconscious. Playing at nearly a .750 clip - including winning an unholy 17 out of their last 19 ballgames - the Indians have surged to a 37-12 mark during the same period. Not coincidentally, this is virtually the same record the White Sox had for the first two months of the season.

Alas, when tallying up wins and losses, it matters much more how you finish as season than how you start it. Thus, my Sox find themselves fighting for their playoff lives this week. And the prospect of a three game series to end the season in Cleveland that could decide everything has most of us who root for the South Siders having feelings somewhat akin to those of the hogs many years ago who were led into the pens of the stockyards to await their fate; an overwhelming desire to have it over with already.

There is still a good chance the Sox will make the playoffs if not win their Division outright. The Yankees and Red Sox also have a date with history and destiny next weekend. One of those teams will take two out of three games which means the Sox will still probably sneak in as the American League Wild Card entry in the playoffs as long as they don’t have a major swooning experience against the lowly Detroit Tigers who they play for four games in the lead up to the weekend war with Cleveland. And Cleveland may falter a bit when they play Tampa Bay’s youngsters who are led by the most intense man in baseball, manager Lou Pinella.

So the outlook, while grim, is not beyond hope. But after such a fine season during most of which the White Sox had the best record in baseball, it would be a shame if they were denied playoff entry at the last moment by some angry god who we Chicagoans offended many years ago and who has caused us untold amount of suffering when it comes to our lame, but loved sports franchises.

I will be a guest on the Charles Booker Show on KAHL in San Antonio, 1310 AM to talk about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

If any of my readers live in San Antonio and have the ability to tape my segment, which begins at around 5:30 PM, I’d appreciate it.

Calling all bloggers!

You have until Monday night at 10:00 PM to get your entries in for this week’s Carnival of the Clueless.

Last week was the best yet with 35 entries from both the right and left side of the political spectrum hammering those individuals and groups among us who are truly clueless.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

Each week, I’ll be calling for posts that highlight the total stupidity of a public figure or organization – either left or right – that demonstrates that special kind of cluelessness that only someone’s mother could defend…and maybe not even their mothers!

Everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whether it’s the latest from Bill Maher or the Reverend Dobson, it doesn’t matter. I will post ALL ENTRIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENTS EXPRESSED OR NOT..

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

Can you believe that summer is almost over?

Of course, sitting in my dungeon as I do 12 hours a day, the seasons all seem to run together. Why its seems like only yesterday I was hosting the Bonfire during Super Bowl week. This made for a ready-to-burn Bonfire motif, something sadly missing from this week’s conflagration. I guess what that means is that I’ll have to rely on my wit and wisdom to pull off the snarkiness necessary to make this week’s bunch of Bonfire fodder worth reading. Let’s see who wants to step up and get swatted first…

While not technically a Bonfire post, this Bonfire reminder from Kevin had some guy named Don Surber scheduled to host today instead of me. And this after Kevin had been begging me for months to once again lay my magic pen on his little bonfire project. (I really do hate it when the little people get all gushy on me).

And speaking of Don Surber… Next week’s Bonfire host has a horribly persnickety post about people who don’t tag their links to open in a new window. Well Jeee Zuz Chriminy! What a grouch. And you oughta know by now Don that if you tell someone to do something one way, they’ll make damn sure to do it the opposite.

Andrew at Dodgeblogium goes after Mr. Wills who hosted the Carnival of the Vanities last week and had the temerity to actually rate the posts submitted. I got a “8.” What’d you get Andrew? Andrew?

I can see why Harvey at Bad Example wanted to roast this post…it’s incomprehensible. For instance, what’s a “Numa Numa Dance?” See! I knew you’d hate it too.

This totally worthless piece is from Brian J. Noggle (I heartily distrust anyone who puts their middle initial in the name of their blog). What passes for a “musing” is truly obscure. Who cares about the Cardinals anyway - they will be toast when they meet my beloved White Sox in the World Series.

Bill at Pirates Cove compares Judith Miller to Charles Manson. Nice try Bill. I’m sure Judith Miller does not think she is Jesus Christ (I’m not so sure about her bosses at the Times).

Blog d’Ellision (mmmm…sounds French. I already hate it) gives us a wooden post about Velociman who I take it is another blogger. God, I hate inside blog jokes. Nice picture, though.

This link from Technogypsy is unfair. It leads to another post whose obscurance is matched only by the brevity and incoherence of the writing. But that’s not why it’s unfair. The link also displays last week’s Bonfire that he hosted! Talking about milking your Bonfire for all that it’s worth! Clever, but not quite clever enough! (Note: This link from the gypsy also came in the mail. It seems that I received the tail end of last week’s mail. But it’s okay. I’ll get Surber to link this Bonfire next week too)

Baboon Pirates is in a snit because they’ve banned wood chippers in the “euthanizing” (I prefer “slaughter”) of poultry. This is truly a fowl post - real bird droppings. (Insert stupid pun here.)

The Conservative Cat must be off his meds. Ferdy the cat definitely needs professional help writing about Star Trek and pedophilia in the same post. I know, I know…it was some moonbat psychologist from Huffington Post. But for God’s sake, don’t encourage the witch!

Rusty Shakleford at Jawa Report almost didn’t get this link. How can we throw a post with gorgeous, young (emphasize young as in “jailbait”) nubile, half naked, smiling, innocent girls on the Bonfire? Okay Doc…you got your link (and your traffic no doubt.)

HectorVex has a conversation with Cindy Sheehan and David Duke. I think it’s fictitious but it sounds just a bit too plausible for parody. Next time, try Sheehan and Osama. Now for that I’d click a link to read.

This an actual blog. They call it “AAFFLLAACCKK .” I don’t know quite what to say. Perhaps I could ask for a show of hands to see if we should throw the entire blog on this bonfire? But they’re new at this so let’s give them a second chance.

Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality is asking if your brain has ever gone into a feedback loop. The way I read it, he’s asking if your brain has ever gone into a feedback loop. From what I gather, the post is about your brain going into a feedback loop. Hey! Just a gol dern minute. This one is insidious. Light that post!

Beth’s entry from My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has the advantage of submitting the briefest post I’ve ever seen. Maybe the next one you can leave blank, Beth. And you’ve only left 14 comments on this site so you have a ways to go to catch up.

Coffee with CrankyBeach has a post about going to the dermatologist. Yuck! To me, there’s no sense telling everyone you’ve got some unpronounceable skin disease that will eventually cause your limbs to rot and eventually fall off. Of course, Crank didn’t admit to any such thing. But I can read between the lines. I will say not bad for typing one handed. Better get used to it….

Miriam’s Ideas is the name of the blog. And I sympathize with her. She had such a case of writers block she actually did a post on what’s on her nightstand. I don’t have a nightstand. Nor do I wear pajamas to bed. And if there’s anything else personal you’d like to know about me, just ask.

Wunderkraut asks a really, really dumb question. “Who here remembers my post about two and a half weeks ago about putting flow monitors into manholes?” Wouldn’t you be embarrassed to answer yes to that question? I think the boy should get out more.

From the “It’s Never Too Early Department” Maryhunter at TMH Bacon Bits has a post on stopping the ACLU from stopping Christmas. The jumping Santa is nice but the representational figure you’re using for the ACLU isn’t quite demonic enough. Next time, try using a picture of a Cave Troll from LOTR.

Just to show that insipid minds think alike, Jay from Stop the ACLU also has a post on why the ACLU should keep its bloody hands off Christmas. Enough is enough! I want no more Christmas themed posts until November!

Mean ole Meany channels Elvis and celebrates a birthday for someone. Not only that, but Two Dogs links to another post in this Bonfire! Is this incest? Or coincidence? I smell a conspiracy afoot. Either that or my tin foil hat needs adjusting.

Steve Pavlina.com bills his blog as “Personal Development for Smart People.” Well, that let’s just about everyone out who’s posted this week. The post itself - “How to know when to end a long term relationship” takes 1500 words to say what I usually say in about 10.

Northstar at Peoples Republic of Seabrook is a panderer. But that’s okay since he’s pandering to gay people. Now if I were some rightwing whacko, homophobic nut I’d say something really off color and tasteless. Since I’m not, I’ll just think it.

Note: If I missed anyone please let me know. I got some of the emails mixed up so if I didn’t include your entry I apologize. Just leave a comment and I’ll fix it in a jiffy.

The votes are in and yours truly ended up in the top spot for this week’s Watcher’s vote. My post on the death of James Doohan juxtaposed with the 36th anniversery of Apollo 11 finished in the top spot followed closely by an excellent piece by The Glittering Eye on nuclear terrorism. Finishing in the third spot was newbie New World Man’s post “Roberts Rules.”

In the non Council category Hog on Ice won with a post entitled “Anonymous Rectal Intercourse.” Finishing second was Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club with his post “And Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.”

If you’d like to participate in this week’s Watcher’s vote, go here and follow instructions.

Calling all bloggers!

You have until Monday night at 10:00 PM to get your entries in for this week’s Carnival of the Clueless.

Last week’s Carnival was the best yet with 22 entries from both the right and left side of the political spectrum hammering those individuals and groups among us who are truly clueless.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

Each week, I’ll be calling for posts that highlight the total stupidity of a public figure or organization – either left or right – that demonstrates that special kind of cluelessness that only someone’s mother could defend…and maybe not even their mothers!

Everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whether it’s the latest from Bill Maher or the Reverend Dobson, it doesn’t matter. I will post ALL ENTRIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENTS EXPRESSED OR NOT..

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

The Boston Globe’s James Carroll has evidently decided that the conventional history of our effort in the Pacific theater in World War II just doesn’t cut the mustard. He has taken it upon himself to not only invent an alternative history of those events, but to also accuse the troops who fought in that war of being inhuman monsters:

Even as the valor of what they did on one beachhead after another is properly honored, the American fighters of the Pacific War were not heroes. The desperation of island combat included exchanged barbarities of which no one would willingly speak for a generation. On the American side, there were foul racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war.

To deconstruct such idiocy would require one to ignore the actual history of that “savage” conflict and instead, travel with Mr. Carroll down the rabbit hole of obfuscation and ignorance and emerge in a world where moral equivalency has acheived supremacy over common sense and rational thought.

The theme that Mr. Carroll clumsily tries to advance - that American GI’s in the Pacific were somehow motivated by racism and revenge that led to a “generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war” is breathtaking in it’s discounting of Japanese war aims and the way that the Japanese military waged war.

The militaristic government of Japan launched wars of agression against China, Malaysia, the Phillipines, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Korea, Viet Nam, Singapore, and the United States to name a few. Their purpose was to unite all of east Asia in a “Co-Prosperity Sphere” where Japan would rape those nations of natural resources and use the inhabitants for both slave labor and sex slaves. Without exaggeration, it can be said that the Japanese army raped its way across the continent of Asia.

Only one thing stood in the way of Japan’s dream of empire; the United States Navy. Hence, the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the six months following the Pearl Harbor catastrophe, the Japanese attacked and occupied several island chains that served as forward bases both for defense and for future operations we now know were planned for New Zealand and Australia. In order for the US Military to win the war, it was believed that we would have to invade Japan proper. To do that, we had to defeat the Japanese military who were occupying the island chains that ran roughly southwest to northeast from New Guinuea to Okinawa.

Two things made the island warfare in the Pacific different from the kind of war being fought on the western front in Europe against the Nazis. First, the distances involved were staggering. From Pearl Harbor to the Philipines was 4,500 miles. These vast distances meant that any offensive operations against Japan would be totally dependent on the navy’s ability to carry troops and resupply outposts captured in our drive across the south pacific.

The second huge difference involved the way that the individual Japanese soldier fought. Subscribing to an ethical code known as “Bushido” or “way of the warrior,” these beliefs all but insured that any confrontation with western soldiers would result in combat that would confuse, frighten, and even overwhelm those unfamiliar with the strict tenets of the code’s “moral” precepts. These precepts included frugality, loyalty, mastery of martial arts, and honor to the death.

A perfect example would be the battle for Okinawa. Approximately 25,000 Japanese soldiers faced off against more than 100,000 Americans. Using tactics that disoriented and frightened the Americans - including night ambushes, firing from caves and prepared underground positions, suicide attacks against vastly superior forces, and mass suicide by civilians and military - our soldiers quickly realized that in order to stay alive, it was best to shoot first and keep shooting until all the Japanese were dead. Out of 25,000 Japanese troops engaged at Okinawa, 129 surrendered. The rest either committed suicide or died in combat.

How to deal with such fanaticism? Is it racism to kill an enemy before he kills you? There’s no evidence that Japanese POW’s were treated with any more malice than German POW’s. There were a heck of a lot fewer of the former for reason’s I’ve described. And as far as the “savage air war” that was carried out one has to look at the Japanese war industry and how they had made workers’ houses the hub of industrial activity that kept that Japanese war machine in business. By locating factories in residential areas, the Japanese military planners were able to disperse industrial production so that workers’ dwellings became mini-workshops contributing to the factory’s productivity. The only way to effectively bomb the factories was to destroy the housing for the workers as well.

All of this information is not a secret. It’s not locked up in a closet somewhere and guarded by CIA agents. The fact that Mr. Carroll didn’t bother giving any perspective to his screed cannot be due to a lack of available information. One must surmise it was a deliberate omission.

The racial overtones to the war in the Pacific were contained in the propoganda fed to the American people and soldiers who fought in that theater. But to say that the soldiers themselves were motiviated by racisim and revenge is ridiculous. One would have to be a psychic to be able to glean those kinds of intentions from our military.

Were some individual soldiers racist? Obviously yes. But to tar and feather the millions of fighting men who fought in the Pacific theater with such a baseless charge is either a sign of complete ignorance or of a virulent anti-Americanism that ignores history and circumstance and descends into hyperbole.

I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which explanation illuminates Mr. Carroll’s motives.

UPDATE

I came late to this party. Here’s Jeff Godlstein’s excellent takedown:

Leaving aside the idiocy of a formulation that insists that because war itself is hell, all those involved in fighting it are equally deserving of both its glories (such as they are) and its shames, Carroll’s real rhetorical transgression here—over and above the shots he takes at veterans—is to insist, against all reason and in the face of the billions of words spilled in its defense, that no one is able to say why we are fighting in Iraq. Which, like the rest of his piece, is utter nonsense.

And Ace weighs in with this:

There is a certain sort of person whose intellectual vanity causes him to reject what he considers the low-class and uneducated “standard” form of patriotism exhibited by his cutlural and moral inferiors. It’s the impulse to differentiate oneself from one’s (putative) lessers and thereby elevate oneself into the ranks of the elite.

The same shallow impulse that causes eggheads to reject good movies, such as Dumb & Dumber, because they’ve got mass appeal.

Paul Geary at The New Editor:

This isn’t even moral equivalence with fascists. At least they killed for a reason. We’re worse.

Why write this for publication on July 5? Why not publish this on Memorial Day, when we hapless Americans are busy honoring our dead non-hero racist savages who make war for no reason?

Ace of Ace of Spades can be one of the funniest guys on the internets. His humor tends toward the scatalogical at times and his rants can go overboard in being personal - especially toward Andrew Sullivan (although Mr. Sullivan deserves it at times).

But he can also, when he sets his mind to it, be quite eloquent. Here’s some of his take on the Rovian controversey:

And of course not all (or even most) liberals are unpatriotic. Although it pains me to say it, I have little doubt, for example, that Aaron Sorkin, producer and writer of the West Wing and screenwriter of A Few Good Men, is quite patriotic about America. A love of America drips from his writing, even though, of course, that is love of America’s potential as a liberal bastion. He’s a dickhead and a crackhead, but he does love America.

Witness Dick Durbin. Durbin could have made his point using language that left little doubt about his love for America — he could have simply said that America is the greatest moral force in the world, and that we should not taint ourselves by being anything less than that, even dealing with those who frankly deserve it — but he didn’t. He compared our troops to the Nazis, Soviets, and the Khmer Rouge.

Read the whole thing. It simply says what needs to be said.

The votes are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council and the winner is the lovely and talented Dr. Sanity with a great post entitled “Beautiful Indifference:” The good Doctor gives us a case study of one “Mrs. O’Hara” whose “La belle indifference” to her malady is a sign of hysteria:

A middle-aged woman was referred to the psychiatric emergency room when a rather thorough medical examination could not explain the sudden onset of a complete paralysis below the waist. Additionally, the Resident was concerned because her “affect” was rather strange. It seems that, despite what one might normally consider a rather devastatingly traumatic event–the loss of one’s ability to walk or to experience any sensation below the waist–the patient was laughing and joking with the medical Resident.

As it turned out, Mrs. O’Hara was eventually admitted to our inpatient unit (yes, they actually used to admit patients like this back in those days). I did not follow her closely, but it turned out that her husband of many years had recently left her for a much younger woman. They were in the middle of a nasty divorce, fighting over how much money she was to get. The whole situation would have been quite upsetting to anyone, but Mrs. O’Hara insisted it didn’t bother her at all–and as long as she insisted such was the case, she was unable to use her legs. She literally “couldn’t stand on her own two feet” and didn’t seem to much care (”la belle indifference”)

I tell this story merely to demonstrate “la belle indifference” and to segue into a discussion of the curious, but beautiful indifference of our own Mainstream Media.

Curiously, because they are journalists, and I would think that journalistic instincts are easily aroused by curiosity, the crop of journalists we must deal with today seem to be suffering from a form of mass hysteria. Their journalistic insticts; their curiosity; their “nose” for a story has been severely impaired–almost paralyzed you could say, and they don’t much seem to care!

She then charts a devastating comparison of what the MSM is obsessed with and what they’re indifferent to. A must read to understand the pathology of the left.

Finishing a strong second was an interesting post by Gates of Vienna that I’m pleased to say, was triggered by my D-Day post regarding some of the “what if’s” in history:

In a house filled with amateur historians, the post sparked dinner table conversations that lasted for several days. Finally, the consensus came down to one incident, one date, that changed the course of the 20th century and set into play the events which were to dog the rest of our days, even down to the present.

That moment, of course, is June 28, 1914. The incident is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austro-Hungarian throne, by Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo.

Dymphna then goes on to detail young Princip’s unlikely role in the assassination and how the blundering of “Queen Victoria’s grandchildren” (the Crowned heads of Europe in Russia, England, and Germany) led not only to the slaughter of WW I, but also the Russian Revolution that eventually led to the deaths of perhaps as many as 100 million more:

In 1917, If only the German high command had not made the strategically brilliant move of sending Lenin to the Finland Station in a sealed train. If only if Russia had not suffered the particular reverses it did on the Eastern Front; if only the United States had entered the war earlier rather than later…If… if… if…

Timing was all, and timing led to the ascendancy of socialism. All the murderous totalitarian tyrannies of the 20th century — Fascist, Nazi, and Communist — were socialist in nature. One hundred million or more souls perished, directly or indirectly, as a result of socialism. Whether tortured and murdered in the camps, starved to death in deliberately engineered and accidental famines, or killed in the wars brought on by the dictators, the victims at the hands of the 20th century were, by and large, the victims of socialism.

Finishing third in the Council voting was a great post from E-Claire called “Sins of the Fathers…” which takes on the issue of reparations for slavery and the gigantic problems associated with such an undertaking:

How do we decide how much to give to whom? How black do you have to be? I thought we’d gone beyond “a single drop of blood” or the idea of “high yella” folks. Who stands in line for the pay off? 1/4? 1/16? do some folks get 10¢ on the dollar and others FittyCent? How does one prove it?

Where do I stand in line for *my* reparations? I’m part Irish and you know the old sign: “No Irish Need Apply” but ‘former slaves’ could. And the German side were bourgeois industrialists. Do I just pay myself?

Provocative questions…read it all.

The winning non-Council post is Rusty Shackleford’s heart-rending response to Kos over the Durbin comments. It’s called “Kos Says U.S. Torture ‘Equal’ To that of Saddam Hussein (A comparison).” (Warning: Disturbing images)

Will someone please grab Kos head, pull it out of his ass, and force him to please see below.

You, Kos, are a certifiable idiot whose blind partisanship is disgusting and unethical.

I don’t know Doc…why don’t you tell us how you really feel…

You can see all the nominated posts here. And if you’d like to participate in the Watcher’s vote, go here and follow instructions.

Guard: Now, Mr. Terrorist — you have one last chance. Confess the heinous sin of heresy, reject the works of the ungodly — *two* last chances. And you shall be free — *three* last chances. You have three last chances, the nature of which I have divulged in my previous utterance.

Terrorist: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Guard: Right! If that’s the way you want it — Guard! Poke him with the soft cushions!

[2nd Guard carries out this rather pathetic torture]

Guard: Confess! Confess! Confess!

2nd Guard: It doesn’t seem to be hurting him, Captain.

Guard: Have you got all the stuffing up one end?

2nd Guard: Yes, Captain

Guard [angrily hurling away the cushions]: Hm! He is made of harder stuff! Guardl Corporal! Fetch…THE COMFY CHAIR!

[JARRING CHORD]

[Zoom into the Corporals' horrified face]

Corporal[terrified]: The…Comfy Chair?

[2nd Guard pushes in a comfy chair -- a really plush one]

Guard: So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Guard! Put him in the Comfy Chair!

[They roughly push him into the Comfy Chair]

Guard [with a cruel leer]: Now — you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunch time, with only a cup of coffee at eleven. [aside, to 2nd Guard] Is that really all it is?

2nd Guard: Yes, Captain.

Guard: I see. I suppose we make it worse by shouting a lot, do we? Confess, man. Confess! Confess!

Confess! Confess

2nd Guard: I confess!

Guard: Not you!

**Not really overheard at Gitmo. I’ve taken some liberties with the classic Monty Python skit.

For what really goes on at Gitmo, see this Time Magazine piece on the interrogation logs of the 20th hijacker. As the Captain points out:

The Time report includes mention of the terrible, inhumane methods often alleged by the righteous at Amnesty International and other self-appointed watchdogs of the American military. Readers will be excited to learn of these horror-provoking techniques that Time reveals in its exclusive:

Worst of all, the one method on which Human Rights Watch could nail the US military, is the playing of music by Christina Aguilera as a punishment for non-cooperation. Other than Michael Bolton, which I believe would be an explicit Geneva Convention violation, it’s hard to imagine a crueler torture.

The things they do in our name.

UPDATE

Bill Ardolino brings a welcome change to internet punditry. Instead of overly long, verbose essays that whine, rant, and rage against ideology or issue, Mr. Bill has spared all of us by using what he calls “Minimilist Punditry” to describe his take on the “Comfy Chair” interrogation techniques outlined in the Time article.

I won’t spoil his brilliant analysis by saying anything further, but after reading his to the point screed, return here and go below the fold for an additonal thought.
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