I’d heard about in the news a few weeks ago ago a woman in Iran that had been blinded by acid, thrown in her face by a jilted wannabe suiter. In the subsequent trial, she had pleaded that, as punishment, he should have acid dropped into his eyes and be blinded as well. An “eye for an eye”, literally.

Yesterday, I saw that a verdict in the trial had been reached, finding in favor of the woman and when handing down the sentence, the judge actually agreed with the woman and ordered the man to have a drop of acid placed in each eye and be blinded. Hot DAMN!

To quote:

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — An Iranian woman, blinded by a jilted stalker who threw acid in her face, has persuaded a court to sentence him to be blinded with acid himself under Islamic law demanding an eye for an eye.

Ameneh Bahrami refused to accept “blood money.” She insisted instead that her attacker suffer a fate similar to her own “so people like him would realize they do not have the right to throw acid in girls’ faces,” she told the Tehran Provincial Court.

Her attacker, a 27-year-old man identified in court papers as Majid, admitted throwing acid in her face in November 2004, blinding and disfiguring her. He said he loved her and insisted she loved him as well. [Full article]

A photo of the victim and douche who did the deed:

Do I see a slight physical resemblance to Richard Ramirez in the guy?

The thing I find the most ridiculous about this him is that:

Majid said he was still willing to marry Bahrami, but she ruled out the possibility and urged that he remain locked up.

Gee, thanks Majid. You’re a champ!

I can’t decide if this acid-blinding punishment is sick and fucked up or totally awesome.

On one end, it’s the fucking 21st century and a government is dropping acid into a man’s eyeball. Granted, he did some really bad shit, but still.

On the flip side, there’s a lot of acid throwing going on over there and often, the guy gets away with it completely. So, it’s nice to see someone drop the hammer on the guy in a way that’s getting some serious attention.

Right smack dab in the middle is the morbid fucker in me, that can’t stop thinking how cool it has to look. Strapping some guy down, immobilizing his head, retracting the eyelids and making that motherfucker scream. Quite the good mental picture.

I suppose it’s just a matter of time before there’s a Metal band out there with the name, “Acid Eye”.

This anti-waterboarding ad campaign, put out by Amnesty International is absolutely brilliant. Supposedly it will be running in movie theater previews, starting next month. Awesomely deceptive.

[Link to campaign site]

Vikings were some twisted motherfuckers. According to some of their poems and sagas they used a totally tweaked form of execution they liked to call the “Blood Eagle“. The shape of an eagle would be carved into the back of the condemned and his ribs would be severed close to the spine and pulled back so they resembled wings or feathers. Salt would be rubbed into the wound and finally, the lungs would be pulled out through the opening.

From the Orkneyinga saga:

“There they found Halfdan Long-leg, and Einar made them carve an eagle on his back with a sword, and cut the ribs all from the backbone, and draw the lungs there out, and gave him to Odin for the victory he had won…”

Whether the Blood Eagle was real or not or whether the method described above was the de facto way to do it is not really known for sure. I’d like to think it was real. Vikings rule!

The method of execution known as scaphism is some sincerely funky and evil shit. Practiced in ancient Persia, the name is a combination of the Greek word skaphe and the Latin word for boats.

A man who had sufficiently fucked the rule of law enough to rate a dispatch by scaphism was stripped of clothing and bound up tightly; secured within a trough or small canoe-like boat. He was then force-fed milk and honey until a situation of extreme diarrhea had been reached. The condemned was then rubbed down with more honey and then set afloat in stagnant water, exposed to the sun.

Insects would be attracted to the honey covering the body, biting and stinging him and as feces accumulated in the boat, the bugs would begin laying eggs and starting a happy little community amongst the shit as well as in the man’s flesh.

Death, from a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock probably came a very long time after the prisoner went completely fucking insane (as I know I would).

I kill a lot of time on Wikipedia. Ancient and Medieval history is usually my thing. I just love how one one quick search can just spider into a multi-hour smorgasborg of topics.

I was reading about the Catholic church’s Medieval inquisitions a few days ago and found myself kind of slack-jawed at the correlations between the process back then and what is happening now.

According to the wiki entry:
(more…)

I was just reading this article about improper treatment of Gitmo prisoners and a little factoid jumped out at me:

“In a previously unreported allegation, one interrogator bragged to an FBI agent that he had forced a prisoner to listen to ‘Satanic black metal music for hours,’ then dressed as a Catholic priest before ‘baptizing’ him.“

I’d be very interested in knowing what music was used. What bands would be considered abusive to a Muslim inmate? I would have thought Christian Country/Western a better choice. It sure as shit would make me spill the beans after a couple hours of high volume exposure.

I love Black Metal to a near retarded degree. I like the music, the imagery and the ideals behind it. It’s depressing to hear that people are being abused with it. It’s wrong and it angers me. But, on a disassociated and aesthetic level—it kind of makes sense. I mean, it is Black Fucking Metal. Aural and psychic abuse is usually the general aim. Honestly the whole thing reads like a Black Metal video, the prison, the priest, everything.

Would this constitute good Black Metal media coverage?