“Air Marshal Kills Passenger Who Claimed to Have Bomb; No Bomb Found in His Bag, Source Says.” (ABC News) As a psychiatrist, this is a tragic story. It is an exceedingly bad time to be a mentally unstable traveller… or a good time to provoke law-enforcement-officer-assisted suicide. I have had suicidal patients admitted to my care after having tried to provoke the police into killing them; obviously I would not have had them had there not been a modicum of restraint on the part of the police.
Daily Archives: 7 Dec 05
Art, Truth and Power
Bush and Blair slated by Pinter. The playwright launched a scathing attack on US and UK politicians in his lecture as winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature.
“(America) has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good “
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And my reader, m, comments:
“It is indeed a sorrow that we have not followed Washington’s advice about avoiding foreign entanglements in this matter. As a nation we have been played for collective fools by a group of confidence artists. We suffer mightily from the results of this fraud, but our pain is nowhere near that of the peoples of Iraq.
The worst, is that the con was such a shoddy job. It is truly disheartening that so many, were played so well, by such stupid bald-faced lies.
Criminal trials of the perpetrators would certainly help to reduce the probability of a repetition in the near future. The Bush cabal seems to love severe punishment for lawless behavior, so let us indulge them.”
Is Congressional Pressure Working?
US ‘shifts’ position on torture: “The US secretary of state says the UN treaty on torture applies to American interrogators in the US and overseas, in an apparent shift in US policy.
The Bush administration has previously said the convention which bans cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment does not apply to US personnel abroad.” (BBC)
From Grief, Recrimination
Iran blamed over Tehran air crash: “The authorities in Iran are facing bitter criticism over Tuesday’s crash of an ageing military transport plane that killed about 110 people.
Reports say the plane had experienced technical problems all morning, causing the take-off to be delayed for hours. Iranian media also say the pilot had asked twice to return to Mehrabad airport to make an emergency landing, but was refused because it was busy.” (BBC)
