Oh, it’s time to read the news from “back home.” I’m thinking cocoa with Fluff, a nice warm fireside, snow on the trees … but NO!
Critics of the Rotenberg school say the case shows that school officials have failed to live up to their public promises to deliver electric shocks only sparingly and with great oversight.
WHAT?!
Prank led school to treat two with shock
Special ed center duped, report says
Two special education students at the controversial Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton were wrongfully delivered dozens of punishing electrical shocks in August based on a prank phone call from a former student posing as a supervisor, a state investigative report has found.
School staffers contacted state authorities after they realized they had been tricked on Aug. 26 into delivering 77 shocks to one student and 29 shocks to another, according to Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Department of Early Education and Care, which drafted the report. Both students were part of a Rotenberg-run group home in Stoughton for males under age 22.
The Judge Rotenberg center, which serves about 250 adults and children from across the country, has been under fire for more than two decades for its unorthodox behavior-modification treatments, including electric shock treatments. Its defenders say that the school takes in troubled students, some with self-damaging behavior, who have been rejected by other schools. The center, which Massachusetts officials have tried twice to close because of its treatment methods, focuses on serving people with autism, mental retardation, and emotional problems. Ernest Corrigan, a spokesman for the Rotenberg center, said the school contacted law enforcement “within hours” after discovering the prank, and that such an incident has never before happened at the school. Corrigan said they have instituted new safeguards to prevent such occurrences. He also said that while the school regrets the incident, the two male students who received the wrongful shocks did not experience any serious physical harm and did not need medical treatment afterwards.
The shock devices, which are strapped to some students’ arms, legs, or torsos, deliver two-second electric jolts to the skin. The devices are controlled remotely by teachers.
State officials said the identity of the prankster is known to law enforcement authorities, but they would not release his name publicly and he has not been arrested. The identity of the staffer who was fooled into administering the shocks has also not been released. State officials indicated that some disciplinary action took place, though they would not specify what it was.
You gotta hand it to the boys and girls at the National Review. After 5 years of pimping a failed war and an imbecilic presidency, they’ve endorsed a candidate who, in terms of sheer guts and personal fortitude, makes the incredible Mr. Limpet look like Vince Lombardi.
And the endorsement is a , too:
Each of the men running for the Republican nomination has strengths, and none has everything ? all the traits, all the positions ? we are looking for. . . . It is true that he has less foreign-policy experience than Thompson [ed: he’s the really lazy one, in case you forgot] . . . . It is true that he has reversed some of his positions. . . . Romney has been plagued by the sense that his is a passionless, paint-by-the-numbers conservatism. . . . In this most fluid and unpredictable Republican field, we vote for Mitt Romney.
Vote for Romney — he’s likely better than a dose of clap.
1 day before Meeting <1.1> I received and email and voice mail from a scheduled artist in regards to having to cancel his upcoming art exhibition and that he was giving up art.
TO READ THE EMAIL
The Solution:
Invite 33 artists to discuss why an artist would cancel an upcoming exhibition and give up art because he/she believed Jesus told them too.
The response by artists to commit on such short notice to take part in this exhibition is amazing and we’re honored to have so many amazing new and emerging talents from such movements as:
Neo-Existential & Dramatic Realism
Gallery Artist Reps:
Ryan Pratt
Ken Garduno
Gale Hart
Greg Lukens
Kevin E. Taylor
Barry Wolfryd
Chris Peters
John Casey
Darren Breen
Derek Weisberg
Patrick Marraso
Zoso
Martin Wittfooth
James Kirkpatrick
Danny Heller
Paul Torres
Alex Garcia
Guest Reps:
Mark Gonzales
Vonn Sumner
Paul Barnes
Eric Shaw
Josh Taylor
Matt Rota
Max Micelli
Holly Wood
Thomas Hurley 3
Baruch Inbar
Daniel Lara
Shannon Freshwater
Pee Monster
Creative Design by: Visual Narcotics 20mg
Each Artist is available for interviews; please contact:
Daniel at info@theconfroom.com for scheduling and tear sheets
The Conference Room Gallery
325 S. Robertson Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
If there is a place with more abject stupidity swirling around than the right-wing blogosphere, I’d like to know where it is.
Yesterday, Greenwald wrote a about an email he received from Col. Steven A. Boylan, General Petraeus’s spokesman and Public Affairs Officer, which is a saga in itself, since the Officer subsequently denied writing the email in a somewhat bizarre and weaselprickish fashion.
In his post Greenwald quoted from the email at length, specifically noting the portions quoted were excerpts only, and separately linked the full text of the email.
One might think that such full disclosure would insulate Greenwald from allegations of duplicity, but for the fact that some even calling himself “Dread Pundit” accuses him of “[choosing] not to publish” the email in its entirety, and somehow concealing the non-bizarre portions.
But no. And naturally, the other inhabitants of the -O-Sphere pile on, like brain-damaged lemmings pouring over the .
Forget that the email, in its entirety, is still bizarre — especially since the Colonel now apparently denies sending it. And nothing in the email would indicate that it was anything other than “unsolicited.” Greenwald made the entire thing available to his readers.
Just when one thinks Right Blogostan has reached absolute stupid, it goes even lower. We just have to hope it doesn’t someday reach the of Stupid.
Who needs softball questions tossed by professional fluffers like Steve Sammon when you can just :
FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.
Reporters were given only 15 minutes’ notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA’s Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a “listen only” line, the notice said — no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets.
~~~
He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters — in one case, he appears to say “Mike” and points to a reporter — and was asked an oddly in-house question about “what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration” signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.
FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he’d allow just “two more questions.” Later, he called for a “last question.”
“Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” a reporter asked. Another asked about “lessons learned from Katrina.”
“I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” Johnson said, hailing “a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team.”
“And so I think what you’re really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership,” Johnson said, “none of which were present in Katrina.” (Wasn’t Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn’t seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA’s greatness.
Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We’re told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA’s deputy director of external affairs, and by “Mike” Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John “Pat” Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.
Fake news perfected, even to the point of cutting out the middle man. Jeff Gannon, you’re obsolete.
I’m right there with you, The same thing happened to me.
“There is a close-up of a woman having a baby, a close up straight up her vagina, and that’s all you see, and these are thirteen year old boys and girls, and its bloody and disgusting. Within thirty seconds two boys had fainted and the lights went on and they were carried out. I put my hands over my face because I realised I couldn’t watch this.”
The actress, who is married to American director Taylor Hackford, said she was deeply affected by the film: “I swear it traumatised me, I haven’t had children and I can’t look at anything to do with childbirth, it absolutely disgusts me.”
Is she disgusted by gallbladders? This is straight out of Dr. Moreau … or
MONDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) — French surgeons report removing a gallbladder through a woman’s vagina, joining a handful of surgeons around the world who have tried the novel technique because it eliminates visible scarring and minimizes postoperative pain. In March, surgeons at Columbia University in New York City performed a similar operation, and, last week, so did surgeons at the University of California, San Diego. The procedure has also been used for removing the appendix.
What next? Your Costco groceries? Even kids, for the most part, are “optional,” as is everything else that goes in/out … but not through. Seriously. That is just plain wrong. What sick bastard came up with the “let’s try this exit” approach? I’d rather have a scar on my side then a gallbladder in my - oh, I can barely even write about this. Dame Helen, where are you?
Thank the Virgin Mary that there is someone on our side:
“As a woman, I find it distasteful and invasive to have the vagina used as a midtown tunnel for the traffic of surgery, simply because there are a few surgeons who are looking to find something new to do,” said Dr. Christine Ren, an assistant professor of surgery at New York University School of Medicine.
Think of it this way: knowing that a gallbladder had taken the tunnel would you stop at that rest stop for a bite? I think not.
Dana Johnson, who had her gallbladder removed through her vagina at the University of California at San Diego on Sept. 11, “I think it would be more gross to have it taken out of my mouth, but that’s just me,” said Johnson, 42.
I have a week to go. Came in this morning and well … sent this email out not long after.
SUBJECT: FOUND ITEM ON MY OFFICE FLOOR
One “used” or rather, “worn,” black THONG. Not shoe - underwear.
If you’re the one who was having fun after hours near (please, not ON!) my desk, you can come and claim it. It’s in Steve’s trash barrel, because he’s out today.
Donna
Update: my coworker suggested we take a “scene of the crime” pic.
Wingnut blogger Confederate Yankee, from pro-war blogger/reporter Michael Yon to an article in Newsday reporting chaos in Basra in the wake of the British Army pulling its forces out of Basra and halting military operations in that city:
Basra is not in chaos. In fact, crime and violence are way down and there has not been a British combat death in over a month.
Of course, as noted above, the British army pulled out of Basra just over one month ago. Could there be a connection between the in Basra and the fact that the troops who aren’t in Basra weren’t killed there?
Meanwhile, today’s :
In the southern city of Basra, there are already signs of religious extremism being used to rein in women. Police say gangs enforcing their idea of Islamic law have killed 15 women in the last month. “There are gangs roaming through the streets . . . pursuing women and carrying out threats and killing because of what the women wear or because they are using makeup,” the Basra police commander, Maj. Gen. Abdul Jaleel Khalaf, said this month.
Sometimes notes are left on the women’s bodies saying they were killed for violating religious law or social traditions.
“This is a mockery for us, when you speak about freedom,” said Hanaa Edwar, who heads the Iraqi Amal Assn., a human rights group opposing Article 41. “There will be no choices for women if a man makes a decision that he wants to live a certain way. Step by step, we will end up in a religious state.”
Sounds like chaos to me. Naturally, Right Blogostan will have to instantly devote itself to proving that Maj. Gen. Abdul Jaleel Khalaf doesn’t exist, or lives in too nice a house or goes to a pricey private school.
MORE: get a load of the comments below. Wingnuttia goes from simply dumb to incomprehensibly stupid.
Keeping with recent times and recent controversies, societal reflective artist KELLY WAN has decided to “honor” Mr Vick with painting this special portrait. You may be asking yourself why is this portrait so unique? WAN has painted this portrait of Vick using acrylic paint based with DOG FECES. That’s right…. DOG FECES. The painting is 16in x 20in and is ready to be framed. A portion of the winning bid will rightfully be donated to PETA, the organization that works hard to make sure animals are treated humanely.
