Back on duty - Conflict Resolution for the Danish cartoonists

Well… THAT was a long, unannounced break, wasn’t it, dears?

I know we mental nurses are supposed to be on unstinting duty 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, but as you know you can’t always squeeze it all in. It’s not that I haven’t needed desperately to blow off more than a little medicated steam, it’s more a case of finding enough quality time (and the motivation) to prize my tremulous fingers off the Nebuchadnezzar of Bombay Sapphire Gin that I received way back in December, courtesy of the staff Christmas party “Secret Santa” fiasco…

In a fit of unconscionable avarice Nurse Kravitz had put her own name into the hat eight times, not realizing that she’d have to buy presents for eight people if she ever hoped to get out of the room alive.

By the time Kravitz had been handed her fifth gift the sack was almost empty, and the penny had dropped. In the drunken riot that followed Maureen and Doctor Strangelove managed to sneak the terrified Kravitz into the kitchens, crammed into the heated compartment of a Hostess Trolley.

As the baying mob crashed through the doors in hot pursuit, Maureen and the Doctor just had time to shove the trolley containing the now-smouldering Kravitz out of the Service Entrance into the loading-bay, where it hurtled down the concrete ramp and shot straight into the electrified compound fence, causing the Asylum’s antiquated power station to blow several circuits, plunging us (and every town for a radius of fifty miles) into total darkness and mayhem.

The next day an emergency meeting of the Asylum Governing Board was called to discuss the urgent business of rebuilding our inadequate power supply. Should we go Coal, Gas, or Oil and recklessly perpetuate our catastrophically selfish polluting habits, or should we look at Hydro, Wind, Wave or what? Here was a perfect chance to get it right, and invest in a pollution-free, genuinely sustainable energy future. All it needed was Vision and courage. All it needed was intelligence. All it needed was decision-making made by someone without Shit-For-Brains.

Instead, what we’re getting is the reckless insanity of more Nuclear Power. Apparently that's what happens when you put Lunatics in charge.

Much more on this out-and-out lunacy over the weekend.

...But before I go, I must tell you that Professor Pizzo over in the American Annexe has put those controversial Danish cartoons up on the staff notice board so everyone can see for themselves what all the current hysteria is about. Maureen and I went for a peek this lunchtime, and I’ve gotta tell you, we couldn't even raise a titter.

Maureen thinks the Danes should be lynched for not being funny!

Though I prefer Calvin and Hobbes myself, here’s my solution to the prickly problem, based on over 30 years of dedicated Mental Nursing and Guinness-drenched Conflict Resolution…

(hat-tip to Simon Le Vans)

Pat Robertson : Ariel Sharon only has himself to blame...

I’m so vexed with Beijing Catering Services Inc. over in the American Annexe, I really am! After all that fuss and hoo-hah just before Christmas, I thought I’d had to have a quiet word with Dr. Strangelove at the staff Christmas Party and ask him to arrange for Mrs. Kowalski and her strangely shy Mexican kitchen staff to liberally lace Pat Robertson’s food with Clozapine at every possible opportunity.

Little did I suspect that all the time I was talking to the good Doctor he was actually listening to Napalm Death on his iPod, and subsequently hadn’t heard a single bloody word I’d said. Fool that I am I just thought that all the insanely violent head-nodding was because he agreed with me very, very strongly…

I realized the next day that my message hadn’t got through to Mrs. Kowalski when Pat Robertson was caught in the Visitor’s Centre with those vile little bastards Jerry Falwell and James Dobson. They had somehow managed to corner Mr. Camponelli - who runs the hairdressing concession next to the florists stall - and were trying to demonstrate their Christian Love and Tolerance for his provocative (and therefore homosexual) soul by beating the living crap out of him, using several antique King James Bibles wrapped up in pillow cases.

Laverne pushed the panic button, and two minutes later Karl and the boys from Security rushed in with their Tasers set to ‘Stun’, and after a gratifyingly long bout of genital beating accompanied by the acrid odour of singed pubic hair, peace was finally restored.

As soon as I got back to the Nurse’s Station I sent an urgent email to Mrs. Kowalski about the Clozapine, but she wrote back to say that there were insufficient funds to meet my request as her pharma-food budget had been slashed to pay for the War Effort. The best she could suggest for the Pat Robertson problem was Fudge Brownies made with Ex-Lax. At least that would ensure that most of his shit came out of the correct opening.

The upshot of all this is that Pat’s been quietly slipping back down the slippery slope of manic psychosis, and has been having supernatural intercourse with that rather nasty Imaginary Friend of his again:

Pat Robertson - Sharon punished for dividing Israel

The Rev. Pat Robertson said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being punished by God for dividing the Land of Israel. Robertson, speaking on the “700 Club” on Thursday, suggested Sharon, who is currently in an induced coma, and former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995, were being treated with enmity by God for dividing Israel. “He was dividing God’s land,” Robertson said. “And I would say, Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U., the United Nations or the United States of America. God says, This land belongs to me. You better leave it alone.”

See Pat in action HERE (Windows Media) or HERE (Quicktime)

Even though (as you all know by now) your dedicated Care Provider Nurse Riches is a 101% unadulterated atheist, I couldn’t help thinking that if their WERE a god (which of course there isn’t), maybe She’d be more likely to want to treat Ariel Sharon with enmity for being… ooh… let’s say… a mass murdering war criminal…

Ariel Sharon - Profile of an Unrepentant War Criminal

(May 17, 2002)

Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, is currently facing possible war crime prosecutions for two massacres that occurred 20 years apart: the September 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, and the April 2002 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) mass killings in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

Sharon is, without doubt, guilty of these crimes against humanity, and others. He is also unrepentant. For him, these mass killings are merely necessary steps on the path toward his objective of a "Final Solution" to the "Palestinian problem," through the mass expulsion and/or extermination of the more than 3 million Palestinians and Arabs now living in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. Under various labels, Sharon and a rogues gallery of collaborators inside Israel, Britain, and the United States, are now moving toward the final phase of their "mass transfer" plans for the Palestinians and Arabs.

[…]

In 1953, Sharon founded "Unit 101," a secret death squad within the IDF that committed several mass murders of civilians. In October 1953, Sharon's "Unit 101" massacred 66 innocent civilians during a cross-border raid into the Jordanian West Bank village of Qibya. Under intense machine-gun fire, local residents were driven into their homes, which were then blown up around them, killing the occupants by burying them alive in piles of rubble. The April 2002 IDF massacre at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin was, in fact, modeled on Sharon's "Unit 101" operations at Qibya.

On Oct. 18, 1953, the U.S. State Department issued a bulletin denouncing the Qibya massacre, demanding that those responsible be "brought to account." Instead, Sharon was rewarded for his war crimes by having his "Unit 101" absorbed into the Israeli paratroop corps. By 1956, Sharon had been appointed paratroop brigade commander.

Between Feb. 28, 1955 and Oct. 10, 1956, a Sharon-led paratrooper brigade conducted similar cross-border invasions into Gaza, Egypt, and the West Bank in Jordan. At the West Bank village of Qalqilya, Sharon's death squad killed 83 people.

…and a general, all-round sadistic racist…

Ariel Sharon's Vision - Maximal Killing

And “maximal killing” is what Sharon and his commando unit brought to Qibya on the night of October 14, 1953. Their attack left 70 dead.

The Arab Legion investigated and determined that the Israelis had moved from house to house "systematically killing" the residents before blowing up their homes. This account, Morris says, is corroborated by Israel Defense Forces post-operational reports, which describe breaking into most of the houses and "clearing them" with fire and grenades.

A United Nations report suggests an even more grisly sequence: "Bullet-riddled bodies near the doorways and multiple bullet hits on the doors of the demolished houses," the document says, "indicated that the inhabitants had been forced to remain inside until their homes were blown up over them."

Commander E.H. Hutchison, a U.S. naval officer serving on the U.N. armistice monitoring commission, investigated the slaughter. "Here and there from between the rocks," he wrote, "you could see a tiny hand or foot protruding."

[…]

And Qibya was no aberration for Ariel Sharon. A 1985 Israeli biography, Sharon: An Israeli Caesar by Uzi Benziman, describes two earlier incidents in which Sharon honed his murderous instincts.

He killed two women from the Arab village of Katama in order to induce a Jordanian military response. Later, in a raid on the el-Burj refugee camp, his plan called for trapping the Palestinians in a lethal crossfire between two groups of soldiers.

The plan worked: 15 refugees were killed.

Benziman, the biographer, describes Sharon's consistently sadistic behavior toward Arabs: His men "witnessed him laughing as a junior officer tormented an old Arab and then shot him at close range; they noted his composure as he planned operations designed to kill as many civilians as possible; they carried out his intricate plan to trap a peaceful Bedouin boy shepherding his flock."

…who was just about to get well and truly nailed for accepting a $3,000,000 bribe from Austrian millionaire and Jericho casino owner Martin Schlaf in 2003…

Israeli Police Say There´s Evidence Linking Sharon to $3 Million Bribe

(Jan. 4th 2006)

The police say they know of evidence linking PM Ariel Sharon to the receipt of a $3 million bribe. So reported Channel Ten tonight, causing a storm of reaction and calls for Sharon to resign.

The investigation of the money trail to Sharon has been underway for over three years, and in fact was first publicized before the last national election, in 2003. The case is known as the Cyril Kern affair, named for the South African friend of Sharon who served as a conduit for the money. The source of the cash, however, has long been suspected to be Austrian millionaire and Jericho casino owner Martin Schlaf. The police say the money was used partially to help Sharon pay back campaign contributions that he had received illegally in 1999, and partly for the Sharon family's private use.

[…]

A live Sharon will have to face prosecution for the Kern-Schlaff bribes, even in Israel's thoroughly corrupt legal system. A dead Sharon will not have to face prosecution. And that would be just fine for the creme de la creme of the country's political leadership.

…and at the very least $690,000 in bribes from corrupt real-estate developer David Appel in January 2004…

Sharon May Face Indictment in Bribe Case

(Jan 21 2004)

David Appel was indicted in the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court for allegedly giving Sharon hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote a tourism project in Greece and also to help rezone urban land near Tel Aviv before and during Sharon's term as prime minister.

[…]

The indictment over the scandal - widely known as the "Greek Island Affair" - centers on allegations that Sharon's son Gilad received large sums in his father's behalf from Appel, an activist in Sharon's Likud Party who was trying to promote the project in Greece during 1999. Sharon was then foreign minister and allegedly was asked to use his influence to push forward both projects, although neither came to pass.

Specifically, the indictment said that during 1998-99 Appel "gave Ariel Sharon a bribe in recognition of activities connected to the fulfillment of his public positions."

The indictment said Gilad Sharon, while ostensibly a consultant in the Greek project, served as a middleman in accepting the bribes. "(Appel) and Gilad agreed to this arrangement despite the fact that the defendant knew that Gilad had no relevant professional qualifications," it said.

It said Appel sent a total of $690,000 to Sharon's family ranch in the Negev desert. Appel also promised to support Sharon in party primary elections, the indictment said.

[…]

Opposition lawmaker Yossi Sarid said that if cornered, Sharon might use diversionary tactics, with dangerous implications.

"He could complicate the country in military or political adventures," Sarid said. "He could get us caught up in a little war." (Nurses Notes: Such as launching a missile attack on Iran around March 28^th, perhaps?)

…which would no doubt have helped that adorable, tubby mass-murderer to pay back all the illegal election campaign contributions and bribes he received back in 1999.

If Ariel Sharon's not already dead by the time I post this, it surely can't be long. I'm sorry for his family that they're going to lose someone they presumably love very much, but that's as far as my sympathy goes. I really can't think of Ariel Sharon without thinking of all the largely defenceless men, women and children his troops have butchered in Palestine during my lifetime. I think of the Peace Activists who have been killed by out-of-control Israeli soldiers, simply because they were there to witness Israeli brutality and report it to the outside world.

The unctuous, mealy-mouthed public statements and pious platitudes gushing from the mouths of the various world leaders last night was quite sickening to witness. I thought Blair and Jack Straw were oily enough, but when I heard George Bush describe Sharon as "A good man", I started to get black spots before my eyes and found it hard to breathe. Hey! We all know the man was a brutal, racist killer. We all know the man was ruthless and callous. Warrior my arse! Ariel Sharon revelled in all the expressions of his own violence. That's not a warrior, that's a mental abberation.

I bet the last wish on his conscious mind will be that he live just long enough to press that big red button to rain death on the Iranians.

By the way: Don't think for one second that anything I've said here excuses for one second the monstrous, murderous atrocities committed by Hamas and the Al A'Qsa Brigades and all the rest of those totally out-of-control criminal gangs who have nothing on their tumescent minds other than revenge and hatred. The Palestinian gangs are at least 40% of the problem as long as they refuse point blank to eschew the bomb for the ballot box and more civilised behaviour.

But... as long as there are all those unresolved questions about possible Israeli involvement in 9/11 to stop the World from being sympathetic to the brutalised, dispossessed Palestinians in their torment, the AIPAC spying scandal in Washington, Sharon's deep, deep corruption and the general stinking, corrupt and parasitic state of Israeli politics (and other countries' dirty complicity), I think we should forget about Ariel Sharon as quickly as everyone forgot that other corrupt ideologue Arrafat, and hope that whoever follows next is less of a sociopath, and who actually has a plan for the future that doesn't continue the brutal suppression and captivity of the Palestinians.

Maybe I'll pop back upstairs and ask Pat Robertson what his "Special" Friend, Bejeebers, would do in this situation... I like to think that Bejeebers would insist on all those United Nations Security Council Resolutions being carried under the real threat of sanctions, embargoes and occupation by UN Peace-Keeping forces. Maybe, just maybe, Bejeebers would want the USA to stop vetoing every single UN Reolution against Israeli brutality just because the US wants to keep a massive military presence in the Middle East because they have it in mind to help themselves to all that precious oil. My Prrrrrrreciousssss...

But Hey! That's just me... and who am I to try and second guess the possible intentions of a non-existent mythological being, anyway?

A personal message from Nurse Riches

Pat Robertson - Stark, Staring, Mad.

There are times when even we hard-bitten Mental Nurses have to hang our heads in sheer disbelief at the utter insanity of some of our inmates here at Asylum Earth. No… We’re not talking about King George this time. We’re not even talking about Princes Cheney or Rumsfeld. It’s His Holiness Pat Robertson again, I’m afraid.

Clearly he’s been slyly tucking his Thorazine under his tongue and spitting it out when no-one’s looking, and consequently the messianic delusions are overwhelming him again. Maureen, bless her, finds it hard to tell the difference between Pat out of his brain on psycho-actives and Pat in his usual psychotic state.

Last Thursday on his Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club” Robertson (aided and abetted by his vain, sycophantic co-host Terry Meeuwsen) was venting his venomous multi-millionaire’s spleen, reacting to a ruling by a federal judge that it was unconstitutional for Cobb County, Georgia, to require the attaching of stickers onto school biology textbooks stating:

“This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”

Clearly unable to cope with the inconvenient reminder that the Founders of the American Constitution had out-of-control arseholes just like Pat Robertson very firmly in mind when they penned the First Amendment to establish a sturdy constitutional wall between Church and State for the protection of the People, Robertson blew several fuses deep inside his tiny mind, and in a feat of diseased mental contortion the likes of which I have never before witnessed, he began to rave:

ROBERTSON: You know, what we have got to recognize just there in this case is that the Evolutionists worship Atheism. I mean, that's their religion. And evolution becomes their religion. It is a matter of religion. So this is an establishment of religion contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. And the fact that somebody comes along and says, "We are not sure that it's accurate, it's a theory and not a fact" -- how can you say it's a fact? You are talking about 10 to 15 billion years ago. Who was there?

MEEUWSEN: Scientifically, you would think that the scientific community would rise to the occasion and say, "Absolutely, let's keep an open mind. Let's continue to discover and search."

ROBERTSON: Yeah, well, a lot of scientists are. More and more are. They are saying there are just too many things that can't be explained by evolution. But, I mean, these fanatics, I mean, it is a religion, it is a cult. It is cultish religion, and whenever you start talking about the origins of life, you now get into religious matter, and theirs is just as much religion. The only difference is that even questioning, questioning that -- the ACLU says even if you question our religion, you are guilty of violating the First Amendment. I mean, give me a break.

If you don’t believe me, watch for yourself HERE. Or download the file to keep forever and ever HERE (Quicktime) or HERE (Windows Media)


As you all know, things had just died down nicely since Robertson’s last excruciating outburst on November 11th following the ousting of the entire School Board in Dover, Pennsylvania, which event immediately followed the closing arguments and summing-up in the notorious Intelligent Design court case.

Totally fed up with being made to look like a bunch of village idiots in the eyes of the World by the unhinged evangelical Christian fundamentalists in their midst, the townsfolk of Dover had their revenge by sacking the entire school board and replacing them with more Intelligent, Evolved Humans.

By way of a quick reminder: As you probably understand, American Supremacist Creationism (in ALL it’s miserable disguises) contends that because many things in the biological world are very complicated and, since they can’t yet be fully explained or reproduced in the laboratory by Satan’s Scientists, Life can’t possibly have evolved into such wonderful, adaptive complexity from something so stupid as a very lucky protozoan bacterium hooking up with a primordial virus in a marriage of convenience in some far-gone sulphur pool, eventually progressing into the full awesome glory of the animal kingdom, past, present, and future. Oh, no!

Unable to accept that creatures so marvelous as White Christian Men and their Bitches could ever have been related to something so dirty and as haphazard as a lump of hot pond snot, the vain-glorious Fundamentalists insist that such complexity can only be created directly by God. Not only that, but all life was created as-is in one go, with nothing intermediary between Fuck-All and Adam. It says so, (apparently) in their book of mythologies and barbaric old-wives’ tales.

Lesson over. Back to November 11th:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of Dover, that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.

All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" — the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power — as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

Robertson issued a statement saying he was simply trying to point out that "our spiritual actions have consequences."

"God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever," Robertson said. "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."

Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Original article HERE

In a nutshell (for those of you who have just got back from spending the last year wandering around Antarctica looking for a penguin to kick), the Dover School Board had been hijacked by recidivist fundamentalists who became obsessed with the compulsion to parade badly disguised Creationism as so-called “Intelligent Design” – claiming it to have some kind of scientific basis – and, with the self-righteous pompousness that only Evangelical American Christians can muster, began moves to give Creationism an intellectual parity with Evolution in school biology lessons, initially by having statements read out in biology classes explaining that ID was a viable alternative to Knowledge.


The statement referred Dover’s lucky, lucky students to a notorious book called “Of Pandas and People” (originally titled “Biology and Origins"), many copies of which had been placed in the school library by one of the Board Members and paid for by a local Religious organisation.

In court the guilty Board Member openly lied about who had paid for the books. (Tsk! Tsk! These Observant Christians, eh? Have you ever wondered why “Thou Shall Not Lie” never made it back down the mountain with Moses?)

This book is the entry-level handbook of the Intelligent Design cultists, which had been re-drafted several times in recent years and had all the original references to Creationism and God replaced with the phrase Intelligent Design. As was proved in court, it’s a very dishonest book - but then again most religious material seems to me to be based on nothing more than distortions, fantasy, propaganda and self-serving half-truths. (Offended? Boo Hoo for You!)


Here’s a brief extract from the fascinating court transcript to illustrate the point:

Attorney Eric Rothschild presented evidence to the court that the Foundation for Thought and Ethics had been lying to the IRS, the general public and, was attempting to lie to the court in Harrisburg. Rothschild cross-examines FTE president, Jon Buell:

OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
BUELL - CROSS - ROTHSCHILD[Page] 97

[Rothschild is confronting Buell with two versions of "Of Pandas and People" - the earlier version was called, "Biology and Origins".]

A [BUELL]... it would be difficult for me to imagine, having achieved something like that that receives accolades from the highest levels of science, and turn around and talk about creation science, and try and publish a track or a book or, you know, some kind of a subterfuge promoting creation science.

Q Actually in this version of the book it describes who creationists are, doesn't it, if you look at pages 23 and 23 and 24. It says there's different types ofcreationist's literature. There are older creationists,younger creationists, agnostic creationists, right?

A Yes. We were trying to give some articulation to the breadth of what that term means.

Q And then if you could turn back to page 22, you explain that "Creation is the theory that various forms oflife began abruptly, with their distinctive features alreadyintact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers andwings, mammals with fur and mammary glands."That's how you defined creation, correct?

A Yes.

Q All right. And I would like to take -- you to take a look at an excerpt from Pandas and People. Turn to page 99 in the excerpt I gave you.

A All right.

Q Says, "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, etcetera."
Do you see that?

A I see it.

Q So that's pretty much the exact same sentence substituting creation for intelligent design, isn't that right?


That fateful decision by the School Board caused science teachers to walk out of their classrooms, because they refused to be a party to what they (and the court) believed to be an unconstitutional act. Eight concerned families had sued the school district over the matter, and today the federal judge gave his ruling:

In his ruling, Judge Jones demolished assertions by members of Dover's former school board, or administrators, that the theory of intelligent design (ID) was based around scientific rather than religious belief.

He accused them of "breathtaking inanity", of lying under oath and of trying to introduce religion into schools through the back door.

The judge said he had determined that ID was not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents".

In a 139-page written ruling regularly studded with criticism of the defendants' arguments, the judge said: "Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

The result was sweeping.

After "countless hours of detailed expert witness presentations," Jones wrote, "the court is confident that no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than are we to traipse into this controversial area." He said he wanted to avoid "the obvious waste" of other judges' time if he left the issue open.

Jones marshaled detailed evidence on everything from the pain and division in Dover to the unusual history of ID. Witnesses testified they were called atheists and un-Christian for opposing the ID policy. One was told she would go to hell. One said people were afraid to talk to him "because I'm on the wrong side of the fence."

The judge also noted that 150 references to creationism and creationists in Of Pandas and People, a book the board policy recommended to Dover students, were replaced by references to ID after a 1987 Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional to teach creationism, which holds that God created life. That's "compelling evidence," Jones said, that ID is "creationism re-labeled."

John West, an official at the Discovery Institute, a leading proponent of intelligent design, called the opinion "a real overreach by an activist judge who thinks he can stop the spread of a scientific idea through government-imposed censorship." He said the ID movement will progress despite the judge's "delusions of grandeur."

Jones anticipated the attack. In his opinion, he denied being an activist and blamed the outcome on "the activism of an ill-informed faction of the school board." He labeled the board's actions "breathtaking inanity."

Former school board member William Buckingham defended the ID policy. "I'm still waiting for a judge or anyone to show me anywhere in the Constitution where there's a separation of church and state," he told the Associated Press.

Lawyers for the Dover parents said they had struck blows for public schools and religious freedom. With ID activity in more than half the states, they urged school officials to look at what happened in Dover before risking similar consequences.

"The real heroes of this story are the plaintiffs," said Witold Walzcak of the Pennsylvania ACLU. "They stood up against the school board policy. They are very, very courageous."

EXTRACT OF RULING:

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the (school board) amount to a pretext for the (school board's) real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause."

"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. This is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board. The breathtaking inanity of the (school board's) decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the (school board) who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."

"The evidence presented in this case demonstrates that ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications."

…not satisfied with this ruling, the whining Fundamentalists clearly will have no qualms about wasting everyone’s time (and probably millions of tax-exempted dollars which should be spent on helping to rehouse black people keft homeless by Hurrican Katrina, or on other acts of Christian Charity) in traipsing their obsessive compulsive disorder all the way to the Supreme Court. Watch this space…

Harold Pinter attacks Bush & Blair.

I know, I know... It's been far too long, and I still don't have time to sit and collect my thoughts, what with every wild-eyed Christian Lunatic in the Asylum running 'round the wards leaving over-excited piss-trails everywhere at the prospect of the planned mini-bus outing to the local Roxy Cinema to see "The Lion, The Witch and The Penguins - The Chronicles of Bananas" (or whatever it's called... I lose track of their desperate, infantile obssessions).

Anyhow... I've just got time to throw you all a tasty titbit from the British Annexe of Asylum Earth which might put a warm smile on all those tired, shopping-abused faces of yours...

Here’s a must-see story run by the BBC today:

British Nobel Prize winning playright, Harold Pinter gave a lecture on Wednesday on the subject of Art, Truth and Politics. Pinter used the lecture explore the fact that whilst artists spend an enormous amount of time and energy imbuing their works with (usually) self-evident Truths – which is essential to Art - the same could not be said for Politicians, who spend all THEIR time and effort keeping the public in ignorance.

Pinter then launched a corruscating attack on Bush, Blair and their mutual War Crimes.

Rather than me pull focus from Harold Pinter by paraphrasing him badly, listen to what he said yourselves.

• See the BBC News article HERE

• See Information Clearing House’s superior streaming video of Pinter’s Lecture HERE

• Truthout's full transcript can be read HERE

All I can say is that Harold Pinter speaks for a lot of us.

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks.

By way of a small diversion...

Aah! It's nice to be back at work in Asylum Earth. I had to make a mercy dash to the wind-swept East Yorkshire coast to minister to the needy of the parish, and spent a few very relaxing days in the good company of Nurse Riches Snr. (Yes, Nurse Riches DOES have a father!), and had several exhillerating walks along the wild, fossil-strewn paleo-beach. It sure as hell blows the cobwebs away!


I thought I'd share some of my snaps with you whilst I do some catching up in Patient's Records, as I had no time for TV or newspapers whilst up there, and the Internet connection at Riches Towers is a scandalously primitive 56k dial-up, which drives me into a state of impotent fury.

Simply checking my emails made me feel like I was having one of those horrible dreams where you're trying to run from a hurtling monster, but seem to be stuck in slow motion... or maybe being buried alive. You get the picture, I'm sure.

I have promised a Broadband revolution next trip up. Viva Routers!

In the words of the Maharishi

Whilst you're all waiting for me to put down those catheters and get down to posting my next blog, I'd like to share with you some words of wisdom imparted to me by my personal mentor, a Zen master with Chakras the size of George Bush's budget deficit:

Maharishi Phucknuckel’s Guide to Zen

• Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just fuck off and leave me alone.

• The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a flat tyre.

• The darkest hours come just before the dawn, so if you're going to steal your neighbour's milk and newspapers, that's the time to do it.

• Sex is like air. It only becomes important when you aren't getting any.

• Don't aspire to become irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

• Remember: No-one is listening to you until you fart.

• Never forget that you are unique, just like everybody else.

• Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

• If you think nobody cares whether you're dead or alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.

• Never judge somebody until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, by the time you judge them you'll be a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

• If at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving.

• Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

• Have you ever lent someone £20 and never seen that person again? It was propbably worth it.

• If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

• Some days we are the flies; some days we are the windscreen.

• Don't worry - it only seems kinky the first time.

• Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

• The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.

• A closed mouth gathers no feet.

• There are two theories about how to win an argument with a woman. Neither one works.

• Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.

• Never miss a chance to shut up.

• Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

• The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed.
  

May the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you all with His Noodly Appendage.

Mr. Galloway in the Lion's Den

Mr. Galloway in the Lion's Den

So there I was in the Sluice Room the other day minding my own business and rinsing out the bed-pans when Maureen came crashing through the double doors, her turkey-neck flapping wildly, and waving a copy of our local free newspaper, “Harrowing Times”, like she was beating off a swarm of Africanized Bees.

“Look! Look at THIS!” she squawked, jabbing her finger at the front page, “Can you believe this?”

Fully expecting to be shown an editorial on the exciting events a couple of days ago in the US Senate when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid forced the Senate to shut down into a ‘closed session’ and demanded that the Senate Investigation Committee complete the report promised one and a half years ago into the information and intelligence used by the Smirking Chimp to hoodwink America into the illegal, now-intractable Iraqi war, I read the headline – but instead was surprised to see “Galloway Accused of Oil-For-Food Scandal”

As everybody knows (unless you’ve been hiding in a small cave in Tora-Bora) the Americans tried stitching up our Gorgeous George – Independent Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green – by accusing him earlier this year of benefiting from the shambolic Oil-for-food scheme set up by the UN during the Iraqi sanctions following George Bush Senior’s Gulf War.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations - led by the vain, ambitious, homophobic, opportunistic Junior Senator for Minnesota, Norm Coleman - had made a series of allegations against Galloway and, in the true spirit of Arrogant American Republican Party dirty tricks, had omitted to have any prior dialogue with Mr. Galloway before sending press releases all over the world smearing George’s reputation.

These accusations were identical to those originally made immediately post-invasion in 2003, when as if by magic out of the still-smouldering remains of an Iraqi ministry there appeared some documents (since proved to be blatant forgeries placed there by enemies of Galloway) which named George Galloway as benefiting from oil-for-food. The allegations initially appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, to be instantly repeated in Britain by the right-wing Telegraph, whose reporter had fed the story to the Monitor. Galloway sued for libel in the High Court and won. The Christian Science Monitor publicly groveled and retracted without reservation, as did the Telegraph - their dirty tricks exposed.

What the smug, self-assured Senator Coleman HADN’T expected was George Galloway famously hopping on the next Jumbo jet to Washington DC, whereupon he merrily proceeded to absolutely wipe the floor with a stunned Coleman, in front of the world’s media.

Galloway not only vociferously denied all the allegations, he challenged the Committee to show the slightest shred of evidence, and then went on to attack the “lickspittle” Coleman and the Bush Administration for their war crimes and complicity in mass murder.

Coleman never knew what hit him. The fearless Galloway’s total lack of sniveling servility was unprecedented, and his eloquent barrage of facts and figures relating to the American Crime of the Century, whilst reminding all and sundry present that in every respect he had been right in everything he had said pre-invasion about the true nature of the situation in Iraq. Coleman was speechless, and crawled off with his tail between his legs, his pompous, self-aggrandising image in tatters.

Coleman, his colleagues, and therefore the Bush Administration were absolutely furious that Galloway had stood up to them, and obviously they have spent the last six months desperately trying to cobble together something which might look like documentary proof of their allegations.

“Maureen, you silly old cow, that newspaper must be six months old”, I snorted. “This is old news”

“No, Nurse Riches, look at the date, look at the date!” Maureen cried, shoving the paper in my face.

I looked again, and sure enough the paper was dated October 25^th. What was going on here? I sat Maureen down on a mound of used Beijing Industries Surgical Gowns, poured her a stiff dose of wallop from her hip-flask and studied the paper.

Sure enough, Senator Norm Coleman was repeating the April allegations again, but this time was waving around a sheaf of low-quality photocopies of faxes purporting to be the “smoking gun”, allegedly proving that oil money from the old Iraqi regime had gone into George’s bank accounts, or those of his charity, “The Mariam Appeal”. This, they claimed, was the proof.

Galloway immediately responded in characteristic fashion, absolutely denying the accusations, and pointing out that Coleman’s primary witness – Iraqi ex-prime minister Tariq Aziz – had been locked up in a prison cell in a secret location since his capture in 2003, and was facing the death penalty himself. How, Galloway demanded to know, could you seriously say that on the one hand Aziz was accused of being a genocidal maniac, yet in regards to Galloway, his statements were suddenly to be completely credible?

George Galloway immediately demanded that the Senate Investigations Committee charge him with perjury, as this was what they were telling the world was what he had done. He challenged Coleman to repeat the allegations away from the protected privilege of the Senate building, which Coleman has refused to do. Galloway wants to be charged by Coleman’s committee so that he can demand that Tariq Aziz be produced in a court of law to be questioned by Galloway’s legal team.

The very next weekend, by the way, Tariq Aziz’s lawyer stated in Paris that Aziz has never said that George Galloway was ever involved in oil-for-food allocations.

Coleman has also claimed that 100-150,000 dollars of oil-for-food money appeared in a bank account belonging to George Galloway’s estranged wife, the Jordanian scientist Dr. Amineh Abu-Zayyad, who has herself incurred the wrath of the Americans for her long-term research into the devastating incidence of childhood cancers appearing in areas saturated with depleted uranium from US Army munitions. Dr. Abu-Zayyad herself now has cancer.

A very brief bit of background for the uneducated amongst you:

George Galloway has been one of the loudest, most provocative opponents of the illegal American/British invasion of Iraq on trumped-up intelligence, and has made himself a great number of very dangerous enemies in the process.

His interest in Middle Eastern affairs was prompted originally by the plight of the Palestinian peoples at the brutal hands of the Israeli government. Almost alone in British politics, Galloway campaigned tirelessly for recognition of the rights of the Palestinians, and called for the United Nations to enforce a single one of the sixty-five Resolutions made against Israel between 1955 and 1992, or the twenty Resolutions passed against Israel between 1993 and 1995 for their brutality towards the Pal;estinians, their allies in the region, and for flagrant breaches of the Geneva Conventions. All of the Resolutions were vetoed by the US, who also put behind-the-scenes pressure on the Security Council to also veto Resolutions against Israel.

Galloway’s relentless campaigning made him many enemies in Israel, the USA and Britain, but undaunted he continued, despite facing a stream of attacks from the British political establishment.

Later on Galloway turned his attention to the Iraqi people, and, on seeing the devastating effects on the population caused by the US-sponsored sanctions, deeply involved himself in humanitarian work during the Sanctions. He went on to found the Mariam Appeal, a charity set up to raise money to finance treatment for a little Iraqi girl with leukemia, who, because of the effects of the sanctions, couldn’t get medical treatment, and was likely to die as a result. The Mariam Appeal highlighted the fact that untold thousands of innocent Iraqis died during the oppressive sanctions. Again Galloway was making powerful enemies by exposing the cruelty and injustice done to the Iraqis.

Galloway was eventually expelled from the Labour Party for his loud, outspoken opposition to the invasion of Iraq and Tony Blair's involvement in it.

The Oil-for-food scheme was set up by the United Nations as a way of allowing the Iraqi government to maintain an income revenue from limited oil sales which was supposed to be spent on medicines and food, as opposed to bombs and guns. As we all know, Iraq was run by Saddam Hussein, a crazed despot who had spent the last twenty years stealing Iraq’s oil wealth for himself and his psychopathic family and ruthlessly crushing any dissent from the general population, with the full support of the US State Department, who helped Hussein buy chemical weapons etc. etc. etc.

In no time flat Saddam Hussein was manipulating Oil-for-food, and had found a way to completely subvert the planned intention of the scheme by tapping into the inherent corruption and greed of almost everyone who wanted to carry on doing business with Iraq (including American companies). Funds were diverted left, right and centre, and false paper trails created so no-one could readily see where all the money was vanishing to.

Galloway has repeatedly accused George Bush Jnr. and Tony Blair of war crimes and state-sponsored terrorism, and, as the Truth Of The Matter finally seems to be about to begin to be uncovered thanks to the Fitzgerald enquiry, Senator Harry Reid’s tactical victory, the Downing Street Memo pressure groups, the burgeoning Anti-War groups, the corruption indictments leveled against several senior Republican figures, and the first signs that the previously subservient mainstream media might finally be breaking ranks and turning against the fascistic Orwellian Administration.

The cornered war criminals are going to have to do everything they can to create diversions and distractions to buy themselves enough time to try and bury the evidence of their crimes against humanity. We live in interesting times, and may yet see Justice being done.

Finally, today, we hear that Norm Coleman has just issued a press release saying that they have passed their so-called findings on “To the relevant Legal Authorities”, which is supposed to imply yet again that they have something on George Galloway. Coleman reckons that he can pressure the UK government to tie Galloway up in the English courts on trumped-up charges. Galloway wouldn’t be able to call Tariq Aziz as a witness in the UK to prove that Coleman is a liar, because, of course, the Americans have Aziz in their custody.

What convenient timing this all is, bearing in mind the furore and rumpus of the last couple of weeks, with special investigators beginning to force the lid off the filthy dealings of the most murderous, criminal governments the US has ever had. You Americans can expect lots and lots of Galloway over the next couple of days… anything to take the attention away from Plame-gate, the Niger forgeries, the Republican-dominated Senate’s complicity to hide information from the American public, the Downing Street Memo, and all the rest of it.

I’m going to remind you all that George Galloway, a man of amazing courage and principle, is a massive thorn in the side of the establishments who have the most to hide – The Bush government, the Blair Government, Israel, and the Iraqi dissidents like Ahmed Chalabi who have fed the false information to Bush’s Cabal and in so doing gained control of Iraq for themselves, all of whom have colluded over the years to do everything in their power to avoid their share of responsibility for many, many crimes carried out against the arab people. George Bush took the USA to war in 2003 on the back of spurious, fixed “intelligence”, and forged documents seem to be a favourite device of these corrupt warmongers, who will stop to nothing to get their way.

When all this comes out in the wash in an open court of law, I fully expect George Galloway to be vindicated, and the “smoking gun” touted by Senator Coleman to be yet more bad forgeries… unless the Americans find a way to try him in the USA, in which case I fully expect George Galloway to be denied Justice.

NotifyList thingy isn't working

So much for labour-saving devices - I installed a NotifyList panel so people could subscribe from the main page and... it doesn't seem to work.

Harumph! Double Cod-Liver Oil AND an enema for THEM tonight!

Until I get this sorted out any new subscribers should send Nurse Riches an email by clicking here and putting "Subscribe" in the subject line.

Powerlineblog and Joseph Wilson - will they apologise?

Having nothing better to do today now that Maureen's back at work since her suspected Bird Flu turned out to be just a bad reaction to a rather fiery Chilli chicken kebab, and having a spare half hour, I was idly clicking through some of the nastier Republican blog sites in the Internet Kiosk just next to the Visitor's Cafe, and dipped into the notorious Powerlineblog.com - an experience not to be recommended for the faint of heart or the squeamish.


Don't ask me why - must have been the two bottles of Barley Wine I had knocked back in my tea-break - but I was trawling through their archives, and came across a posting from July 2004 in which they triumphantly called former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson a serial liar for his report on the complete lack of evidence that Iraq was buying enriched Uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.


As we all now know beyond a shadow of a doubt, Wilson was right, the supporting documents were all blatant forgeries.

see the forgeries here.

The fallout from the Bush Administration's attempts to intimidate and discredit Wilson by illegally outing his wife as a covert CIA agent (and thereby endangering not only her life but the lives of all her carefully nurtured Middle Eastern contacts) is just about to explode very publicly across our newspapers and televisions as senior Whitehouse officials are dragged in front of the Federal Courts for their criminal actions, including perjury, obstruction of justice and, if there's enough provable evidence, treason.


Bearing all this in mind, and knowing how influential the rancid Powerlineblog is in Republican circles (and therefore the mainstream US Media), I couldn't resist the overwhelming urge to send them a little love letter from the British Annexe of Asylum Earth, which you'll find below. I'm expecting a fairly abusive reply, which I'll have great pleasure in posting here for your collective glee. I hope Powerlineblog don't disappoint me... I love a good bitch-fight!

Hello, Powerlineblog;

I was just browsing through your bitter blog, and found this from July 2004:
................

Kerry Clings to Yellowcake Myth

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, now exposed as one of the most bald-faced liars in American history, has been a campaign adviser to John Kerry. Wilson's website, risibly titled Restore Honesty, is paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc. So we've been wondering whether Kerry will distance himself from Wilson, now that the Senate Intelligence Committee report has exposed Wilson as a serial liar.

It appears, however, that Kerry still hasn't gotten the word on Wilson and the Niger uranium story. Just four days ago, in a press release titled "What Did He Know And When Did He Know It?", Kerry's campaign excoriated President Bush for his State of the Union reference to the "debunked...Niger/yellowcake claim," which Kerry also called the "false Niger claim."

.................

In the interests of honesty and decency (two virtues which you claim sole possession of, but which doesn't seem to be at all apparent from your aggressive, bigoted writings), and since your heroes are just about to be exposed as liars and criminal warmongers, and the lies that were used to start this illegal war for the personal enrichment of several fascist billionaires are all about to be uncovered, I wondered if you might be men enough to post an apology to ex-Ambassador Wilson, for calling him a serial liar? Does the Truth even MATTER to you? I wonder...

As Wilson said at the time, the yellowcake claim was unsubstantiated, and this has proved to be the absolute truth. Niger never had the capacity to maufacture Yellowcake uranium in the quantity or purity necessary for weapons production. The documents that your pin-up boys waved around at the UN were blatant forgeries fed to them by cohorts of Chalabi via the Italian Secret Service, which I suspect the CIA and the WhiteHouse Iraq Group knew perfectly well to be the case, and they were hell-bent on trying to shut Wilson up in the most intimidating way (short of having him bumped off) before anyone else got near the Real Truth of the matter.

Had the Bush/Cheney Administration not been so corrupt, two thousand American servicemen and women would still be alive, America would not be divided, and you, your children and your grandchildren would not be in astonishing, massive National Debt to the Chinese, who I'm sure will be calling in that debt with interest when it suits them… make no mistake about it.

Had the Bush/Cheney Administration not been harbouring incompetent, fascist dreams of world-domination through murderous force against a completely defenceless third-world tin-pot country, and had instead concentrated on capturing Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora when they had the chance, you wouldn't be in the godawful mess you're in right now.

By the way... why do YOU think President Bush allowed every single member of the Bin Laden family free passage to escape from the USA the day after 9/11? What do you think personally of the deep, dirty financial involvement the Bush family has had with the Bin Ladens? Wouldn't you think that they should have been rounded up by the FBI and questioned, at the very least? Wouldn't you think that the President of the United States of America would want them captured and grilled for any information, seeing as their son was apparently behind the attacks? What do YOU think?

It's just a matter of time now before the Truth comes tumbling out about the lies and deception which people like you have championed because it suited your bitter, selfish, jaundiced view of the World, and your over-inflated opinions of your place in it. All you have succeeded in doing is to make your country a Pariah in the eyes of the World, and it will take many, many years for America to repair the disastrous damage done by the criminal gang which you hold so dear to your hearts.

Nobody believes a single word that spews from the President's mouth. The World knows he is a liar and a puppet. Your so-called Foreign Policy is incompetent and antagonistic. Frankly, America under the Republicans is a corrupt, vicious disgrace.

Tragically the Democrats are as incompetent and as morally dishonest as the Republicans, mired as they are in corporate influence and the old-boys network. The Republicans and their fanatical so-called Christian cheerleaders have divided your country in a shocking, profound way, and I can't begin to think who you have amongst you who is capable of building all those bridges necessary to make America a country worthy of respect again.

I wish you all the luck in the world, and hope you are men enough to accept the Truth when it is uncovered and have the moral integrity to deal with it, accept your part as mob supporters of a regime which has been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of completely innocent Iraqi women, children and men, and to play your part through your influential blog in repairing the damage you’ve helped cause, instead of entrenching yourselves even deeper in your mutual Imperialistic, racist fantasies.

Some democratic Republic YOU turned out to be.

Here's a pertinent quotation for you to think about:

"It's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

Hermann Goering,

Kindest regards,

PETE RICHES

So... what do you reckon are the chances of getting an answer from Powerlineblog? Don't hold your breath!