It’s true, what several commenters said in response to the nightmare Deeni-doll – the Amish do have nightmare faceless dolls.

You can shop for them.

They’re rag dolls, soft and squashy for small children who like to squash things. They’re like Raggedy Anne and Andy, except…Anne and Andy have faces.

Having a taboo on human faces seems to me a wretched idea. Aversion to eye contact is a disability, not something to instill in people on purpose.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Greg Laden is also outraged by Greenpeace’s vandalism of the Nazca site.

Greenpeace activists entered a restricted area in Peru, where the Nazca lines are located. They drove into the area, and walked around there, and laid out banners. The banners were then photographed from the air (from a drone, as I understand it) to produce a message supporting renewable something. I’m guessing energy. The message was not clear. Nor was the link between their big yellow banners and the sacred and ancient Nazca lines.

This is an abuse of the cultural patrimony of Peru and the native people’s who have lived there.

In this fragile environment, footprints constitute irreparable damage.

One of the Nazca lines was apparently damaged directly, the area around the lines trodden.

As an advocate of renewable energy and supporter of taking action to move in that direction, and an archaeologist, I deeply resent Greenpeace using the Nazca lines as a propaganda tool, and I condemn Greenpeace for thoughtless[ly] damaging this important archaeological site.

I don’t think “thoughtlessly” is the right adverb (and given what he goes on to say, neither does Greg, really). It’s not as if they did it on the spur of the moment, because it’s not a thing you can do quickly and without thinking. They have to have thought about it, so they thought about it and decided to do it. That’s part of what’s so infuriating about it.

With this act in Peru, Greenpeace has made a clear statement. It is a clear statement because this was an act that required organization, funding, decision making, meetings, an OK from various levels up and down the line, etc. at least within the unit of Greenpeace involved. They’ve made a clear statement that Greenpeace as an organization is willing to break the law in an entirely new area. They are willing to violate laws that protect heritage sites. That is a new thing as far as I know for them (though I’ve heard otherwise, see links below). And it is deeply disturbing. It can’t be just a few people involved in this and incidentally using the Greenpeace name.

And it isn’t just breaking the law. Any operation involving Nazca would involve research and knowing something about what they are up against. You can’t plan a project using Nazca and not be aware of the delicacy of the environment, of the fact that numerous people and one or more vehicles on the ground will unavoidably ruin parts of the site. Leaving a footprint at Nazca is like leaving a footprint on the moon (almost). It is nearly as permanent as the lines themselves. Everyone who knows anything about Nazca knows this. These Greenpeace activists must have known this.

So, Greenpeace has made a SECOND statement with this act. Greenpeace has clearly shown that it is willing not only to break Heritage laws in some trivial and non destructive way, but Greenpeace as an organization is willing to physically and permanently damage heritage sites.

On purpose, with malice aforethought.

Greenpeace has also made a THIRD statement with this act. Greenpeace has indicated that it is willing to break heritage law, AND damage a heritage site, for the purpose of making a picture. No whales were saved during the partial eternal destruction of a heritage site. No gyre of garbage was cleaned up while the regional indigenous culture was unceremoniously thrown under the bus. If there was a heritage site who’s preservation was actually doing the equivalent of killing whales (there are such conflicts though mostly involving plants) this might make sense. But this was a heritage site utterly unrelated to anything in the way of conservation or environment being exploited because it is famous to make a vague and not especially effective message.

Being exploited and damaged. A fragile heritage site being exploited and damaged to make a stupid empty advert.

So, the final point is this: Greenpeace is known as an organization willing to break laws, in a big way, to make a larger point. Now, Greenpeace tell us that it is willing to include Heritage laws in that activism. Apologies, consternations, statements of conciliation are not of any interest to me at this point. The individuals and communities that support indigenous rights and heritage can’t afford to extend trust in this sort of situation.

There may be a point where Greenpeace’s response to their own atrocity is sufficient. But I’m 99% sure Greenpeace will never be able to pull off that response.

The first comment said “This is probably the first time I have ever agreed with you 100%.” Same here!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Frank Foley,a Lecturer in the War Studies Department at King’s College London, explains some things about torture for the BBC.

As they came to terms with the shock of 9/11, people at the highest levels of the US government wanted to mete out a ferocious response to al-Qaeda suspects.

But let it not be said that they wanted to torture – of course not. We’re the good guys, so we don’t torture. We do something else, that’s unpleasant, but it’s not what fits under the word “torture.” Hell no.

“Everyone was focused on trying to avoid torture, staying within the line, while doing everything possible to save American lives,” Bush administration lawyer Timothy Flanigan has been quoted as saying.

What happened was that “the line” bent.

To rise to the level of torture, one legal memo argued, the interrogator would need to intend to cause suffering “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death”.

If the organs don’t fail – hey presto, it’s not torture.

The Americans were about to learn a lesson that the British had already learned decades earlier in the Northern Ireland conflict.

In the second half of the 20th Century, Britain’s security forces developed what they called the “five techniques”: hooding, white noise, a diet of bread and water, sleep deprivation, and being forced to stand in a stress position against a wall for long periods.

We now know that British agents trained officers of Brazil’s military dictatorship in these techniques.

And then word got out, and people elsewhere didn’t think British security forces were the good guys, and it was all terribly wounding to the feelings.

Regardless of the label, the brutality of these techniques was widely condemned when details were revealed. The UK’s international reputation was tarnished and it lost a good deal of moral authority in its fight against terrorism.

Because, sadly, reputations don’t depend just on one’s own firm conviction that one is not a torturer.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I saw this horror via Tehmina Kazi on Facebook. A faceless “Deeni doll” is now on the shelves.

A new faceless doll, produced in accordance with Islamic law, has been launched in Britain.

The ‘Deeni Doll’, which is adorned with a traditional hijab headdress, has no nose, mouth, or eyes, in order to comply with Islamic rulings regarding the depictions of facial features.

A doll with no face – it’s hard to imagine anything more creepy. The picture is certainly a nightmare.

The toy, which took four years to create, is the brainchild of Ridhwana B, a former teacher at a Muslim school.

She told the Lancashire Telegraph: ‘I came up with the idea from scratch after speaking to some parents who were a little concerned about dolls with facial features.’

She continued: ‘Some parents won’t leave the doll with their children at night because you are not allowed to have any eyes in the room.’

‘There is an Islamic ruling which forbids the depiction of facial features of any kind and that includes pictures, sculptures and, in this case, dolls.’

That’s sick. Children love dolls, animal dolls as well as miniature-human dolls; children talk to their dolls, and they don’t talk to the feet or the bum but to the face. Infants pay attention to faces very earl in life. Faces matter, and there’s nothing wrong with our interest in them and in depictions of them. That’s a sick ruling and it should be ignored. That “doll” is a crime against children.

Although the doll, which retails at £25, is currently limited to the ‘Romeisa’ design – named after a companion of the Prophet Muhammad – Ridhwana hopes to extend the range.

‘The Islamic range in kid’s toys is quite limited at the moment with few choices. Although this project took a while, I am looking at researching other ideas in the future.’

‘I am looking at compiling a book for the Islamic upbringing of children in the future too.’

She’s a fanatic. This is fanaticism of the worst, most life-hating kind. Erasing faces is sick, sick, sick.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Zachary Goldfarb at the Washington Post reports on how the insiders told Warren to act like an insider. She had dinner with Larry Summers back in 2009, when she was the chair of that panel panel investigating the government’s response to the financial trainwreck.

Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. … He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule. They don’t criticize other insiders.

I had been warned.

You know what that sounds like?

Everything, that’s what. All the institutions and rackets and industries. Show biz, universities, corporations, the circus – everything. If you’re an outsider you’re free to criticize the insiders, to an attentive audience of all your teddy bears. If you’re an insider it’s omertà, baby.

Only not necessarily, any more, because of the internet. With blogs and social media, your audience might be a little broader than the stuffed animal collection.

But still the basic polarity applies. Outsiderdom=freedom but little power. Insiderdom=power but less freedom.

Warren ignored the warning.

And if the past few weeks are any indication, she can operate as an insider without giving her up outsider credentials. She’s remained outspoken, but has become even more influential. She hasn’t stopped throwing bombs at the rich and powerful — and causing trouble for the White House — but she’s won a spot in Senate leadership [and] changed the shape of congressional debates over financial regulation…

Good. Long may she continue.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another poke in the eye for those wicked people who can’t manage to bend the knee to a god.

Thousands of couples planning non-religious humanist weddings could have their hopes dashed after a row between the Tories and Liberal Democrats saw Number 10 veto proposals to give such marriages legal status.

The Lib Dems want people who are agnostic, atheist or simply do not want a religious ceremony to be able to have a secular wedding, outside of a register office. Couples could tailor their own ceremonies, and select venues that are not licensed for civil weddings.

Aaaaaaaand…who could possibly object to that? What is there to object to? People can secular-marry in a register office, so why forbid them to secular-marry outside a register office? What possible purpose could that serve other than protecting some absurd religious monopoly?

The British Humanist Association (BHA) reacted furiously to the news, saying it was “shameful” that non-religious couples could not marry in ceremonies with the same legal status as believers.

Under current English law, weddings can take place in any registered religious building including churches, mosques and even premises belonging to the Scientologists, Spiritualists and the Aetherius Society –  whose members believe in aliens and that the Earth is a goddess.

They belieeeeve something; that’s what counts. It doesn’t matter what, as long as there’s no reason to think it’s true. People who fail to do that are eccentric and must be punished.

A historical exemption allows Jewish and Quaker ceremonies to be conducted anywhere – a legal provision that could be extended to allow humanist weddings. A government consultation, launched after the legalisation of gay marriage, found considerable public backing for the reform.

In Scotland, where humanist weddings have been legal since 2005, there has been an increase in the number of people getting married, against a general decline in the UK as a whole. Humanist weddings now account for 10 per cent of all Scottish marriages, making it the third most popular form of marriage in Scotland.

I guess humanists in England and Wales will just have to move north.

Andrew Copson, the chief executive of the BHA, described Number 10’s intervention as “astonishing”, saying it would be a “huge shock” for thousands of couples.

He said: “It is shameful that Number 10 would block the wish of thousands of couples to start their married life in a way that is personal and meaningful to them. Giving legal recognition to humanist marriages is a simple measure which adversely affects no one, has huge popular and political support, and would increase the number of people getting married each year.

“Under this government, Scientologists have been added to the list of religions that can perform legal marriages… To describe the legal recognition of humanist marriages as a “fringe” issue insults the many non-religious couples – much larger in number than these many small religious groups – whose planned marriages next year will not be able to go ahead if Number 10 blocks this change.”

It’s hard to disagree with him.

The BHA has waged a long campaign for humanist marriages to be made legal. A hard-won amendment during the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 compelled the Government to hold a consultation on the issue and awarded them order-making powers to introduce it.

And Cameron just wadded it all up and threw it in the bin. Nasty.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Right now at a cafe in Sydney.

The story says the people in the window are staff. Not even privileged rich coffee-sippers, but young people who staff the cafe.*

Picture: Courtesy of Channel 7. Source: Supplied

AN ARMED man is holding several people hostage at a cafe in Martin Place in Sydney.

There are hostages standing with their hands up at the windows in the popular Lindt chocolate shop, which has two or three entrances. There is also a black and white flag being held up in a window. It is believed to be the Black Standard, a jihadist flag.

Staff in shop aprons can be seen with their hands on the windows.

Police officers have guns drawn outside the cafe.

The chocolate shop is 30 or 40 metres from the Channel 7 offices so they have cameras trained on the building. The newsroom at Channel 7 have been evacuated.

That’s presumably how they got the photo of the hostages.

Happy holidays.

*Sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest it should have been rich people. It just seems like an extra stab to terrorize the people in aprons…But nobody deserves this; nobody.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

God Dick Cheney is an embarrassment. He was on tv this morning saying how fabulous torture is and how he regrets nothing.

The former vice president showed little remorse for the dozens of prisoners who were found to have been wrongfully detained, for the man who died in the program, or for people like Khaled El-Masri — a German citizen who was shipped off to Afghanistan and sodomized in a case of mistaken identity.

“I’d do it again in a minute,” said Cheney.

He also spoke repeatedly of how the program was justified to get the “bastards” who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.

He’s really that stupid? Or that self-blinded or that warped by his own loyalties? He really thinks the badness of the 9/11 attacks justifies bad things done to other people, including innocent people wrongly detained? He really misses the point by that wide a margin?

About the program’s serious errors — and the abuses that CIA Director John Brennan described as “abhorrent” on Thursday — Cheney said, “I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.”

Spoken like a true war criminal.

The Senate report has led to new calls for former Bush administration or CIA officials to be prosecuted for the torture program they oversaw, but Cheney on Sunday dismissed an appeal from Ben Emmerson, the UN Special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, to reopen inquires.

“I have little respect for the United Nations, or for this individual, who doesn’t have a clue,” said Cheney.

Back atcha, war criminal.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Here’s an interesting issue.

From the context where I found it, I gather it’s one of those right-wing moral panics about creeping PC run amok creepingly amidst us, but setting that aside, it’s still an interesting issue. The issue is something like: can an exam question about a very fraught current event or series of events be so emotionally loaded that it either shouldn’t be on the exam or should have a trigger warning?

Eugene Volokh writes it up for the Washington Post.

Several readers have asked me about the controversy at UCLA Law School related to this exam question in a First Amendment Law class:

Question I (35 minutes)

CNN News reported: On Nov. 24, St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch announced in a publicized press conference that Police Officer Darren Wilson (who has since resigned) would not be indicted in the August 9 shooting of Michael Brown. Michael Brown’s stepfather, Louis Head, was with hundreds of protesters assembled outside the police station, listening on loudspeakers and car radios when they learned Officer Wilson was not being charged. Standing on the hood of a car, Mr. Head embraced Michael Brown’s mother. Mr. Head asked someone for a bullhorn but it was not passed to him. He turned to the crowd, stomped on the hood and shouted, repeatedly, “Burn this bitch down!”

Police Chief Tom Jackson told Fox “News,” “We are pursuing those comments … We can’t let Ferguson and the community die [as a result of the riots and fires following McCulloch’s announcement]. Everyone who is responsible for taking away people’s property, their livelihoods, their jobs, their businesses — every single one of them needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

County Attorney Robert McCulloch asks lawyers in his office whether to seek an indictment against Head by relying on a statute forbidding breach of the peace and another prohibiting rioting (six or more persons assembling to violate laws with violence). A recent hire in the office, you are asked to write a memo discussing the relevant 1st Amendment issues in such a prosecution. Write the memo.

My colleague Prof. Robert Goldstein had this question on his exam; some students complained, and he decided to partly withdraw it: He didn’t count it for students who got a lower score on it than on the other questions, and this didn’t affect the grades of students who got a higher score on the question, because the class was too small to be graded on a curve.

My first thought, before reading Volokh’s commentary, was that that and other things like it are exactly the kind of thing many lawyers have to think about every day. It goes with the job. Adding trigger warnings would seem kind of like adding trigger warnings to exam questions about ooky things like blood and infections in med school. What would be the point? If crucial parts of the job squick you out, then that’s not the right job for you.

Volokh, after commenting on more practical aspects, confirms what I was thinking:

To be sure, some people might be deeply emotionally invested in an issue, and have a hard time viewing it from both sides. But a key part of a law school education is to learn how to do this, even when you are emotionally invested. If you want to work for, say, the NAACP (or the NRA), you will do your clients no favors by being so zealous in your opinions that you fail to grasp the best arguments on the other side.

And that is also true when the matter is still raw in your mind. Often you have to make arguments just days after some traumatic event (here the exam was two weeks after). Indeed, often you have to make arguments just days after a traumatic event that involves you much more directly than the Ferguson incident involved UCLA students — for instance, what you see as a racist verdict that will send your innocent client to prison, or an appellate decision that you think unjustly rejects an argument that you’ve spent years developing. As a lawyer, you need to master your emotions enough to deal with such situations. As a student, you have to learn how to do that.

It doesn’t do to lose your temper or burst out sobbing in the courtroom if you’re one of the lawyers. You have to train yourself (or let yourself be trained by others) not to react to triggers. That’s part of many jobs.

This can end up being a source of tension or estrangement between the two kinds of people. The ones who have learned how to tamp down their emotions can overlearn it and become tamped down in all contexts instead of only the job one. Even those who don’t can seem cold and bot-like to the rest of us. It’s a little bit tragic, really.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I’ve been remembering the tinctures – the tiny little tinctures that Prince Charles used to sell for £10 the 50 ml bottle. He doesn’t sell them any more because the regulators told him to stop pretending they had medicinal value.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint over the online advertising, for a range of organic products, including Duchy Herbals Echina-Relief Tincture and Duchy Herbals Hyperi-Lift Tincture saying the product had no “scientifically proven benefits for treating colds and low moods”.

The advert for the products, which are sold for £10 for 50ml in some Boots and Waitrose stores, claimed “If you haven’t managed to escape the winter sniffles, look no further than our new Echina-Relief Tincture, which offers natural relief from cold and flu symptoms … Our Echinacea, Hypericum and Detox Tinctures provide alternative and natural ways of treating common ailments such as colds, low moods and digestive discomfort …”.

The regulator found that the Duchy Originals advert breached the code in four areas including substantiation, truthfulness and medicinal claims.

The ASA ruling said: “We noted that it was intended that the Detox Tincture was presented as a food supplement that could help eliminate toxins and aid digestion. We considered however that the claim that it could “treat … digestive discomfort” implied that Detox Tincture had scientifically proven benefits. Because we had seen no evidence for the efficacy of Detox Tincture, we concluded that the ad was misleading”.

The watchdog said the advertisement must not appear again in its current form.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)