Tag: torture

And in the end, we’ve got Dick

We already know that Dick Cheney really likes torture. What we didn’t know, until alleged by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on July 12, is that he didn’t want to share any of the sweet, sweet waterboarding with Congress.

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that CIA Director Leon Panetta was ordered by then-Vice President Cheney to not disclose the use of abusive interrogation techniques to the official oversight panel for intelligence-gathering.

So, if you’re looking for anyone to blame for U.S. torture, Cheney wants you to know that it was all him, none for you, get your own imported foreign nationals to erotically manpile.

The Bush speaketh

Former-president George Bush finally decided he had stayed out of public for long enough, venturing out to give a little speech at the Economic Club of Southwest Michigan.

In stark contrast from Cheney’s “I’m to old too old to go to prison” speech last week, Bush spoke about his decisions in the Oval Office (including torture briefly), adjusting to life in Dallas and picking up dog ####, which isn’t as macho as clearing sage. He summed up his hopeful epitaph with:

“‘The man showed up in the office with a set of principles, and he was unwilling to sacrifice his principles for the sake of popularity.'”

(Don’t worry, Mr. Bush. Your popularity was never in question.)

Confident words? Yes, but that’s because presidents don’t go to PMITA penitentiaries: that’s the VP’s only real duty.

SG Translates: Dick Cheney’s May 21 speech

Politics is a lot like Armaic literature: with a little bit of effort, you can read whatever message you want from it. It’s times like these that we help cull the bull from the puckey to translate for our often misunderstood policy makers.

Today, we’re reading, former Vice-President and reigning American Boogeyman, Dick Cheney’s speech on Thursday in response to Obama’s about torture, Guantanamo Bay and 9/11.

(C’mon, you’d think he’d leave that out? Not reliving 9/11 is like Bon Jovi not playing “Livin’ on a Prayer!”)

[Skipping the introductions and cutting right to the meat … ] Continue reading SG Translates: Dick Cheney’s May 21 speech

Take it from Snee: In which our hero watches ‘chick flicks’

So, last week I mentioned that married men are forced to watch chick flicks. Of course, the more whipped boyfriends out there have probably done the same, which is why they’ll always be groomsmen: gentlemen, you don’t give the back rubs away for free. (Whores.)

Now, I could just whine about these films, but that’s not the kind of content you expect in this column. Instead, I will share my insights with you you for surviving these films, achieving relationship leverage and using said leverage to do all those things you’ve only seen in cave paintings.

Think of me as a former Forest Recon who escaped from a POW camp and survived for six years in the jungle by eating his former NVA captors. Now I’m going to teach you ballet. Chainsaw ballet. Continue reading Take it from Snee: In which our hero watches ‘chick flicks’

An end to torture?

Well, here we are in the first 24 hours of Barack Obama’s presidency, and what story do we have to present to you? More torture, but this time of American citizens.

In a study to learn how the brain reacts to dieting and food cravings, scientists ordered 23 male and female volunteers, who weren’t even obese, to fast for 17 hours! If you think the food deprivation is the worst part, then put on your outrage galoshes:

“During that period, he and his team interviewed them about their favorite foods and asked them to rank each on a 1-to-10 scale. The researchers then selected one food for each subject, the only requirement being that it scored 7 or above in desirability. When the 17 hours were up, the volunteers were injected with a nuclear tracer, placed in a brain-imaging PET scanner and presented with a food they craved.”

Oh, they’re not done yet:

“‘If you said you liked barbecued ribs, we’d put a big portion of them in front of you,’ says [Dr. Gene-Jack] Wang. ‘We’d warm them in a microwave first so you couldn’t get away from the smell, and we’d give you a cotton ball with a bit of the food on it so you could taste it. Then we’d have one of the nurses describe how the food was made.'”

And did the patients then receive the food? No, they were told to think of something else and were required to keep their eyes open.

So, what did they learn in the name of science? That people have a hard time sticking to diets when tortured with juicy, succulent ribs. Way to let us down, President Obama.