when she did her first surgical rounds at UCSF, she called me and said: "Do not let anyone cut your skin unless it is medically necessary! REALLY necessary."

The idea that plastic surgeons routinely subject their patients to the same risks of infections, bad anesthesic reactions, flesh eating bacteria and superimmune bugs as, say, kidney transplant patients boggles my imagination.

In my view, it is per se medical malpractice.

And the fact the patient often takes those risks not in a truly informed manner, nor, ultimately necessarily in the best interests of the patient, but rather in order to subsidize the plastic surgeons life style, is abomination.

There are plastic surgeons doing breat augmentation on 15 year old girls. They don't even know yet how big their boobs might get.

A well-meant caveat to women: If any male in your life, boyfriend, fiance, husband, asks you to get a boob job, you just say you'll be happy to just as soon as he gets a penis augmentation job from the same surgeon.

. . . and if the old geezer can't pay, then you can go to the county prosecutor and file criminal charges . . . that'll show him. And your Mom will be a lot happier with Dad in the hoosegow.

GREAT ADVICE, Cary. Call that lawyer tomorrow!

and post at Salon: terkoy and steveiek, it was nice of you, because we didn't have to go out on the campaign trail and spend months listening to retards, political naivete and buckets of lies in person, we could just sit at the keyboard letting you provide the moronic commentary so representative of the 30% of functional imbeciles that ARE the Republican base.

Just for the record's sake, could we identify the political enemies FDR threw in jail, or are you just spouting the preposterous revisionism of Thomas Fleming? Broaden your reading habits.

At his first cabinet meeting in late February 2001, all George Bush wanted to talk about was invading Iraq. 9/11 hadn't happened yet, but the retard was fixated on getting the US into a war in the Middle East to prove George W's dick was bigger than George HW's.

How do we know this? It was reported by Republican Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill and by Richard Clark, the National Security dude.

Warrantless wiretapping? Again, it started BEFORE 9/11. As for 9/11, had Bush or Cheney or Condi Rice done jack shit after reading a memo saying Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside US, indeed, had Condi merely read the stack of intelligence sitting on her desk while she talked football with Bush in Crawford, perhaps the 3,000 deaths in NYC could have been avoided.

The Republicans are CRIMINALLY responsible here, so how about you can it with your revisionist fascist prattle?

Go get fu**ed right after asking how the 750,000 dead Iraqi civilians feel about yer Republican family values.

In 1988 he signed the Convention Against Torture, which was then ratified by Congress and made the law of the land by Article III of the Constitution:

Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made . . .

The Convention states clearly and unequivocally:

. . . the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person . . . No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture . . . An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

What part of no exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture do Elephantman and others fail to understand?

Revenge: Revenge (synonym vengeance) is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a (real or perceived) wrongdoing. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of justice, revenge connotes a more injurious and punitive focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one.

Justice: Justice generally implies actions undertaken and supported by a legitimate judicial system, by a system of ethics, or on behalf of an ethical majority, revenge generally implies actions undertaken by an individual or narrowly defined group outside the boundaries of judicial or ethical conduct. The goal of revenge usually consists of forcing the perceived wrongdoer to suffer the same or greater pain than that which was originally inflicted.

The people want justice, NOT vengeance. It's a distinction that matters.

It's called the criminal justice system and its worked - more or less - for 220 years. Truth Commissions are for emerging third world entities. We have the awesome weight of the history of Anglo-American law, dating back to 1215 and before!!!

I live in Missouri, and Article I of the Missouri Statutes says:

The common law of England and all statutes and acts of parliament made prior to the fourth year of the reign of James the First, of a general nature, which are not local to that kingdom and not repugnant to or inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, the constitution of this state, or the statute laws in force for the time being, are the rule of action and decision in this state

We've got a history and tradition of the Rule of Law. And interestingly, James' son, Charles I, was the guy who claimed Unitary Executive power in 1648, telling Parliament: The King Can Do No Wrong! [Sound familiar?] Parliament disabused him of this preposterous notion by lopping off his head in 1649.

If Parliament could try and convict a monarch in 1649, why in the world can't the American justice system try and convict Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc. (IF they are found guilty).

The Rule of Law is binding upon the government and all of its officials! ~Justice Anthony Kennedy, ABA Keynote Address, 2006

He'd come under fire recently for having tried to squash subpoenas issued during the legislature's "Troopergate" investigation

Go ahead, blame Spellcheck.