Why giving everyone the same rights matters

"We are confronted here with the heartbreaking facture of a family. Brett and Patrick have spent twenty-five years together as life partners – longer than Patrick lived at home with his parents – and their future life together has been destroyed by Patrick’s medical condition and by the Atkinses’ unwillingness to accept their son’s lifestyle."

Some of the other details are just appalling.

“the Atkinses acknowledged that it was ‘probably true’ that if the trial court did not order them to allow visitation between Patrick and Brett, they would not allow any contact between the life partners.”

The men in question have joint ownership of a home, the ill-partner's family have been given complete control of it.

Which seems to be a theft, to me; certainly in the "L"ibertarian sense.

On a more personal scale, I'm watching a failure to think ahead cause problems. A freind's son got married about four years ago. Only it seems he didn't. Someone made mistakes filing paperwork (I don't know all the details) and the marriage was never recorded.

They have a child. She has decided that things aren't working. She left, took their kid to her parents and took up residence with friends. Now she wants to move to Missouri, with their kid.

Since they aren't married... it's going to be ugly. Her parents delivered a strange "agreement" for him to sign. One in which he is supposed to waive all parental rights, not allow any future girlfriends to influence the child and give her permission to "do whatever she deems necessary to to further [the child's] best interests."

There is a promise that, if he agrees to this, he'll get custody for most of the summer.

Mind you, as I read it, that last isn't binding, since, by the terms above, he has 1: no rights, and 2: the mother gets to do whatever she deems in the best interests of the child.

Needless to say, he hasn't signed it, and is going into debt with his lawyer.

It would be differently difficult were they married, in fact, but at least the terms of the dispute would be known.

More (as if most of you needed it) of the reasons torture doesn't work

The Lybians admit they tortured the medics they sentenced to death, and then held hostage for ransom.

I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you, to discover that they made false confessions as a result.

And way back when, we shipped Maher Arar to Syria, so he could be tortured (and we'd have, "clean" hands). That one was offensive on lots of levels (not least because he was a Canadian, only in the US because he had to change planes). Why? They also suggest that the investigation of Mr. Arar was prompted by the coerced confession of Ahmad Abou el-Maati, a Kuwaiti-born Canadian who was also imprisoned and tortured in Syria.

That was in today's New York Times Of note, though not at all shocking, is that the US Gov't wanted that supressed. More interesting is this, The newly released sections indicate that neither the Syrian government nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation were convinced that Mr. Arar was a significant security threat.

Yep. The FBI, and the Syrians were of the opinion this was nonsense. The CIA, it seems, had a different view.

Why? Because someone who had been tortured named him, and the CIA has people who say torture works; they may even believe it.

How does this affect the data stream in other cases?

It spoils it.

When you read the Vanity Fair article I linked to a couple of days ago, you will see that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, falsely confessed to killing Daniel Pearl.

If he was willing to make that sort of false confession, how much else of what he "confessed" to is solid information? Also on that point, how much effort has to be diverted from other things, to check out and confirm/deny the things to which he's confessed?

If we torture those whom we are questioning to confirm/deny those things, how shall we vett the information they give up?

There's a simple answer, one that's proved effective for decades, even centuries... don't torture them. The info you get is more likely to be valid; confirming/denying it will be faster/more reliable, and the problems of positive feedback decline.

It's also more likely to get information with speed, which is the most important aspect of collecting intel.

How to handle extortionate twits

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has been in the publishing end of the book business for I don't know how long.

In the course of that she's seen a lot of the bickering which goes on between bookstores and publishers. My family has owned a used bookstore for almost 25 years. In that span of time I've seen (at a remove, being a used bookstore) some of that. I do know that customers want variety.

Which is why her post on an Aussie chain cutting off its nose, to spite its face is a treat to read.

As someone who has been selling books for going on 27 years (we sold books before we had a store), and someone who buys books, this sort of arrogance; we are a big chain, and can dictate to you, our supplier, what you will charge us for what we wish to buy, is horrible.

Follow the links, read the comments, and raise a glass to Michael Rakusin, who knew just what to do about this sort of thing... drag it into the light, and show it to the world for what it is.

Sean Hannity is not a mensch

Avedon Carol (The Sideshow) posted a link to a Kos Diary about the Freedom Fund of Sean Hannity and Ollie North.

Now, it's no secret that I don't like Ollie North. I think tht the Corps didn't drum him out in disgrace is a black mark on them (my father, who was in the Corps, well let's just say that my feelings about North are practically lovey-dovey compared to his).

But this seems to be a new low. Using people's support for the dependents of dead soldiers to skim off huge amounts of money to themselves, and to further political agendas is stooping to the level of whale shit.

It's not that I begrudge them raising money for causes (or even themselves) but they are lying to people about where the money goes, and using dead troops to soak them for the money.