Links: fury and funny; random and silly; research

[azurelunatic]

http://www.alternet.org/rights/35192/ If this were Barrayar, I'd petition my Count to find out the truth of this. If my Count denied me, I would petition my Countess. If she denied me, I would petition the Empress.

http://archangelbeth.livejournal.com/400237.html?thread=2655597#t2655597 The Sound of Science (filk by incandescens)

http://www.abyssandapex.com/

Benadryl and alcohol get me fucked-up in ways that are pretty much opposite at first: benadryl gives me access to a very limited number of words. Alcohol, on the other hand... The first inhibition that is repealed is the inhibition against using the long words. cite



Research:
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/ancntbrt.html
http://www.unc.edu/courses/rometech/public/content/special/Megan_Randall/Childbirth_and_Midwifery_i.htm

Comments

[cmwinters.livejournal.com]

Wow...that's intense.

Nice how Kerry fucking ignored it. Bastard.

Honesty, I don't understand why the parents don't go to the unit and *take* the kids. Yeah, they'll get court-martialled and potentially discharged but they'll have the right to a lawyer!

ACLU won't take this?

[azurelunatic]

Is it in a place such that civillians have access?

[cmwinters.livejournal.com]

Hm...they should. In any case, it IS possible to go AWOL...I just wonder why these guys aren't doing it.

[crisavec.livejournal.com]

They'd be alot more than just courtmartialed and discharged. Once you're AWOL for more than 30 days, you become a deserter, and under the current rules thats a death sentance(Combat is going on somewhere, and most all of them were injured in combat, hence the death sentance).

Also, most of them aren't "kids"...you have to sign up for duty and that requires being 18 and an adult(yes, you can go at 17 if your parents sign, but you have to be 18 to actually be stationed anywhere other than Basic and Advanced training).

No, ACLU usually won't touch any military issues for a couple reasons. For starters the military operates under its own set of laws, and tends to blow off any civilian interactions. Another reason is that by and large the ACLU hates the miltary and wishs it would go away and that anyone that joined got what they deserved(this is a generalization, but its a fairly accurate one).

[cmwinters.livejournal.com]

Exactly none of those soldiers were injured in combat. They were injured in *training*, and the fact that they are still held to *basic training standards* after they've been in the army for so long was a focus of the article.

I'm fully aware that there's a difference between being AWOL and being declared a deserter. However, a competent attorney could quite easily take dipshit's declaration that "combat operations are over" and turn that into "but we aren't at war officially".

You are flat wrong on the age; it's not *common* but it does *happen*. You can do basic training at 16 (I know people who've done that) and advanced training at 17; you're considered property of the government once you sign and they don't really care about your age. If you've completed your basic training and advanced training and your unit deploys, guess what...? You're going.

The whole reason McCain's office and the other office (aside from Kerry) didn't take action is because they didn't have a written complaint from the soldier. Which it may be possible for them to do even from "inside", and certainly should be the first thing they do when they get *outside*.

[crisavec.livejournal.com]

My apologies...I did miss that, and thought it was combat injured soldiers.

Unlikely. When facing a Courtsmartial board they have a tendancy to dismiss a civilian lawyer, and no military lawyer would dare try to use "combat operations are over" as a defence. Its generaly unlikely that they'd actually go for the death penalty unless you deserted a unit in Iraq or Afganistan(or failed to return from mid deployment R&R) but you'd be looking at a LONG prison sentance in addition to a dishonorable discharge.

No, I'm not wrong on the age. To join the Active Duty miltary you have to me 18(old enough to sign the contract), or 17 with parental permission. If you know people that did complete Basic at 16, they did it under highly unusual circumstances...the only way that I know of that it could happen was certain kinds of Guard units. When I went was hanging out in my Recruiters office just before I left for MEPS the second time(I served 5 years on Active Duty) we had a kid trying to argue that he was 17 and graduated HS and should be allowed to join, but his parents wouldn't sign for him and he was SOL. As far as "once you sign they own you" thats one of the very few cases where a contract can be easily invalidated...if you're under 18, its simply null and void without the parents signing. If they did sign, then yeh...off you go.

I'm not disagreeing that the whole thing is fucked up beyond belief, but just saying "I don't understand why the parents didn't just go get the kids"..well, its never that simple.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

When you find yourself saying "If this were Barrayar, I'd be able to do something about this," the world is somehow a more unsettling place.

[azurelunatic]

Vor have responsibility that they cannot escape, short of death.