Have you ever looked into the various speech-to-text tools out there as a way to rely less on your hands to interact with your PC?

Putin is shredding Russian democracy, simultaneously our republic is being trashed, too. Too many people are being tricked by statists, and their propaganda organs. I can see how people have to resort to stunts such as what Pussy Riot pulled. (But can easily be misrepresented by propagandists.) But, realistically, what is the alternative?

In the late 1800s, Robert Burns managed to criticize the Crown and State with much of his writing. It was always a bit of a mystery to me why he wasn’t arrested and transported, as was common at the time. The best explanation I ever got was that he was “too famous”. State punishment would backfire. Blowback. But its 2012 and we don’t face the potential array of punishments that Burns did. So why are so many gutless when it comes to criticising NDAA, the detention of Bradley Manning, the shredding of the Bill of Rights, assassination, warmongering, and drone strikes?

PS: I didn’t know Bear was in my church a couple of years ago, right behind me during the Easter vigil.

Hey, as Tony Manero famously said, WATCH THE HAIR!

Second, Coombs is proffering the best LEGAL defense he can come up with. I’m not a lawyer and god knows I don’t know how their heads work. But I do know they understand how the courts function, and what arguments are likely to gain traction to give their clients the best defense. I believe Manning is screwed, no matter what. I’m still out here fighting for him, and I will continue to do so, but I believe his fate is sealed. I’m not his lawyer. I don’t have to come up with a defense. If Coombs thinks this transgender defense is the strongest case he can make, knowing how the military works and how the legal process works, then fine. All it means is this is a legal argument.

Third, uh, it doesn’t matter. This “is-he-or-isn’t-he?” is a smokescreen. The critical issue is that we have a whistleblower who was unlawfully detained, without charges, and tortured — which is what solitary confinement is, according to international law — and abused and humiliated, for 8 months before charges were even drawn up. And he’s being railroaded in a kangaroo court by an administration that wants to break him and thinks that by doing so it can prosecute and imprison Julian Assange, and, even better, scare the wits out of anyone else out there who might consider blowing the whistle on crimes and abuses. Frankly, I don’t give a shit if he’s male, female, transgender, or whatever other terms are out there that admittedly I’m not up on. It’s not important.

Fourth: “I do suspect that the abuse of forcing Manning to be naked is likely linked to the rumors about his gender identity.”

I must disagree. It is commonplace to humiliate prisoners, all over the world, at all different times throughout history. And one of the most common ways to do that is to strip people naked. Torturers routinely do this. It’s done as punishment, as humiliation, as a way to threaten even more an already subjugated person, and as an exercise in power. To show who’s boss. (You know this, Sungold, from your familiarity with Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment.) It’s also done in hazing — in sports, in the military, at bachelor parties, etc. Sure, the sadistic shits at Ft. Meade might’ve gotten off even more on forcing him to stand naked if they’d heard rumors about his sexuality. But they wouldn’t have had to know a thing about it to do what they did.