Parlay: Return Saberi, Free the Pirates

Blacksburg spring is making its welcome return. Yesterday was a nice day for picking up litter during the Big Event. Lesson learned: Smoking and drinking, bad for your health, worse for town cleanup volunteers who have to sift through cigarette butts and cut their fingers on broken bottles. Douchebags.
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A story I’m following with interest: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi should be allowed to offer a defense during an appeal on spying charges.

Saberi is a freelance reporter living in Iran for the past 6 years. She was working on a book about Iranian culture and planning to return to the U.S.

…Really? This is something the president has to ask the judiciary to do? Listen, I’m all for countries deciding how to run themselves, but you can’t just detain other countries’ citizens, give them a 15-minute trial, and sentence them without the right to a defense. Not and expect to be recognized as a modern power with whom the rest of the international community wants to play.

I firmly believe that journalist should have the right to witness and report on international experiences. Ahmadinejad is actually making a shrewd political ploy this time and I’m on his side, for once. He wants to be seen as a reformist to win re-election…reformists want the U.S. and Iran to have less hostile relations. Well, we have no business establishing diplomatic ties with a country that won’t respect basic human rights or the principle of journalistic freedom. Clinton and Obama should pressure them hard to give Saberi a fair trial and release her immediately if and when they find no real evidence that she was working with U.S. intelligence services. And that should be a major negotiation point with us if and when we come to a table to talk with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Come on. We got Captain Phillips back. We can get Saberi back. Make this a good month for American icons abroad.

While we’re at it, let’s keep Hossein Derakhshan in mind too. He’s a blogger who’s go on record opposing U.S. military intervention in Iran who, regardless, has been held in Iranian custody since Novermber 2008.

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In other news, the United States still sucks at making the world think we don’t support torturers.

US President Barack Obama’s decision not to prosecute CIA agents who used torture tactics is a violation of international law, a UN expert says.

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, says the US is bound under the UN Convention against Torture to prosecute those who engage in it…

…Human rights groups have criticised President Obama’s decision to protect CIA interrogators, saying charges were necessary to prevent future abuses and hold people accountable.

President Obama banned the use of the controversial interrogation techniques in his first week in office.

Come on, Barack. I realize you’re afraid of being accused of being “soft” on national security or some other stupid conservative bullshit designed to make you lose your appeal with the mainstream, but justice is justice. Do your best to be fair to people who we determined were “only following orders,” but the buck has to stop somewhere. Jail time for some is the least you can do to make up for torture. We’ve refused to prosecute Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld…who gets held accountable for something you yourself said is illegal under international law? Do you know what the meaning of illegal is? I was under the impression that it meant that it has consequences – BAD ones.

Not Ba-rock, man. (Another episode of Ba-ROCK or NOT coming up next week or so).

Moving along, four people involved with The Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in prison and a combined damages package of about $3.65 million dollars.

Aw, bullshit, man.

What is this even supposed to do? Discourage people from torrenting? Get real. You shouldn’t be able to imprison someone because other people do illegal things on their website. That would be like imprisoning Tom from Myspace for faciliating child molestation. When are authorities going to wake up and realize that online distribution, including torrents and P2P, are the new direction for the market for media?

Aw, man. You guys sure fucked up when you didn't nip the VCRs in the bud. You'd best make up for it by going after Torrenters!

It looks like they’re appealing or hiding out. Stay out of trouble, guys. PhilthePill shows solidarity.

Er, what’s this about a MacOSX Botnet? How do I protect my hyper-expensive computer from it?

And finally, you’d better hope these ants don’t give women any ideas.

"Well, bitch, if that's the way it's going to be, screw you and your stupid ant colony, I'm going to go hit up some Queen Bees at the 19th Hole."

I haven’t forgotten about  my quest to gauge the Mexican drug cartels’ threat…I’ll look into it next week.

Here’s a picture of a giant rubber duck.