Looking outward (it happens sometimes)

First, this is for my mom:


Three weeks until we close on our house. That's 21 days, and in 23 days we'll go over and stand in our blessedly spacious house... and then start filling it up with our stuff, some of which we never unpacked when we left California. I figure we'll end up getting rid of half our stuff (giving some away, selling some, using some to furnish our store which Antonio will finish renovating this summer [*fingers crossed*]). But the house has built-in bookcases all over, including up in the loft, so I can finally bring out my many, many books and feel like an intelligent person again. Well, a well-read person, anyway.

So much for mundane stuff. I finally pulled my head out of the sand and started watching and reading news again. Stuff like this absolutely turns my stomach. If the tables were turned, the US would be spouting holy terror and launching nukes.

"They said they were going to kill us, but in the end they took the bags off our heads and I was surprised to see my friends around me." --Haydar Sabbar Abed, Iraqi inmate, as told to BBC News.

Neither side in this conflict has exactly played fair, but clearly -- not that it wasn't crystal clear before -- current US "leaders" don't believe stuff like the Geneva Convention applies to them, either. To wit:

In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:

1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) Taking of hostages;

(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

President-select Bush is "reportedly annoyed" with Donald Rumsfeld over all this. Probably because Bush and his Rove-ing progaganda masters got taken by surprise and didn't get a chance to spin or squelch this stuff. Now it's a big mess, and that's bad for the administration. Because it's all about Face, you know.