This was too good to pass up…

Police: Accused shooter hated liberals, expected to be killed

And yet we are the “crazies”.

Source

Who cares if they are innocent?

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba…what a lovely place to be incarcerated indefinitely, especially if you’re not really an “enemy combatant”.

From the Washington Post:

A CIA analyst warned the Bush administration in 2002 that up to a third of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been imprisoned by mistake, but White House officials ignored the finding and insisted that all were “enemy combatants” subject to indefinite incarceration, according to a new book critical of the administration’s terrorism policies.

Well, isn’t that nice. Does this not demonstrate that Bush is in no way after justice?  How can we keep turning a blind eye to this, saying that this prison is legitimate, when even the CIA is saying that there are a lot of wrongful imprisonments occuring? This is anothers sick display of the Bush Administration’s arrogance. They just KNOW that all of the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay deserve to be their indefinitely, or else they wouldn’t be there in the first place. The logic is clearly impeccable.

Now, we all know that the President is a big fan of the line “listen to the commanders on the ground”. Well have I got news for you Mr. Bush.  The top military commander at Guantánamo Bay, when told by an analyst that up to one third of the detainees were wrongfully imprisoned stated that “even higher percentage of detentions — up to half — were in error”.  But alas, this administration is playing the role of monarch, not executive.  Cheney’s staff director, David Addington, makes this completely clear when he states that “We are not second-guessing the President’s decision. These are enemy combatants”.  No review of evidence necessary. The President and his staff just KNOW that these guys are the “worst of the worst”, despite all the evidence to the contrary, presented by the governments own agencies.

This mindset permeates neo-conservative thought. Whether it be their admant opposition to true sex education in favor of abstinence-only “education” (which has been proven to be very ineffective, at best), or their insistence that each prisoner at Guantánamo Bay is a terrorist ’cause Good Ol’ George says so. The arrogance of these people, to think that they can just close their eyes and wish the evidence away, is stunning.  It’s a dangerous mindset, but it’s one far too many Americans wish to embrace.

Welcome to the Kingdom.

Updates and Shadowing Part III

Alright…so for the past few days I’ve been ill enough where I actually felt the need to sleep during the day. That doesn’t happen very often, so hopefully the lack of an update hasn’t kept the three of you who read this wondering where I was. But anyway, that was just a quick update on where the hell I’ve been for the past few days.

So before I got sick, this past Sunday, I went to the ED and shadowed for three hours. I would’ve liked to stay longer but I had other comittments (one of the few graduation parties i’ve actually had a really good time at so far). But despite only being there for a few hours I got to see a few interesting things, most medical, but one of the most interesting things was seeing the new residents in their (I think) second week.

So I was only there for a few hours, and it was a bit ‘slow’ but I did see some pretty cool things.

Shoulder dislocation – Oh man. The patient came in with a dislocated shoulder (his fourth or fifth) from playing basketball and you could see the pain on his face and hear it in his voice. This wasn’t made much better by the attempts to fix the shoulder while he was still awake. An older resident and one of the new residents attempted to move it back into place.  This didn’t work so they had to anesthetize him and then do the procedure.

Coxsackie Virus – Patient had been diagnosed with Coxsackie virus and came in generally just feeling sick. She was photophobic, tired, and generally felt unwell. The pt had symptoms of Coxsackie. There were sores on her mouth that were characteristic of coxsackie.  This patient was the last I saw before I had to leave, so I never got to find out whether she was admitted or discharged and with what treatment. But it was an interesting case, and the attending I was shadowing suspected viral meningitis.

It was a pretty good day, and even though I was only there for a little bit, I got to see some cool things. So  now I’m up to about 18 hours of shadowing in the ED and I’m really liking what I’ve seen, even the midnight – seven in the morning shift. It’s obviously too early to decide what specialty I eventually want to go into, I haven’t been exposed to enough to know for sure, but EM is definitely a possibility so far.
Peace out.