Alberto Gonzales endures torture

And well deserved torture at that. The difference between Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales was that the attempt to put her in a job she was unqualified for was recognized and stopped. And why would George Bush think he couldn't get Harriet Miers into the Supreme Court?  After all, he did get the hopelessly unqualified good old boy Alberto into the respectable job of Attorney General. He has never shown any ability other than an unqualified loyalty to the President and a willingness to ignor the Constitution. When I first saw him and listened to him I got this chill up my spine, a gut feeling about his character formed before his first smirk. There have been a lot of smirks from Gonzales since then and now I see that he isn't smirking so broadly these days. He should know that his days are numbered. The war between Republican operatives like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and everyone else goes on. The media conservatives are trying unsuccessfully to characterize the firing of the eight US Attorneys as business as usual and the accepted cost of doing business rather than the selective firings of those who were making certain Republican Senators unhappy by convicting their friends or not seeking political trials against Republican enemies. Not business as usual.

 

 The only question here is  how long he'll hang in the wind, feeling a bit of that psychological torture he has no difficulty in seeing that others suffer. He hasn't made himself any friends in DC and now his only use is in being the cover for the President and taking some of the fire that is moving it's way up the chain. A twisting in the wind that I'm happy to watch. 

 

Iran's Dare
Topic: Politics

I'm watching Iran puffing itself up as it continues to try to bluff it's way to it's goal of becoming armed with nuclear weapons. Many things going on at once and it's hard sometimes to really gauge what the reasoning is behind what they are doing. It's a deadly game of chess and of poker with a number of players who are all capable of starting a war. Israel is sitting there watching Iran march toward arming itself with nuclear weapons and they can't allow that. Or is that what they are saying to force the United States to take action. How long can Israel afford to wait, hoping that the UN and or the United States will take action to keep it from happening. What will be the final trigger that causes Israel to pull the trigger? Will the capture of 15 British soldiers convince them that Iran will not turn back? You can look at it in a number of ways, that Iran is trying to draw attention away from the proceedings at the UN which are turning the screws on them. That the capture of the British soldiers was done not by the government but by the Revolutionary Guard types who are moving on their own to signal their own government that they will allow no backing down and a power struggle is seriously under way right now. Clearly Iran has a history of taking hostages as a way to show the weakness of their enemies and of consolidating internal power. They have gambled before that countries such as Great Britain or the United States are unwilling to militarily attack them and risk a wider war. That only works as long as those greater powers believe that the war is ultimately against their interests. 

The United States and Great Britain have shown an ability to do a great deal of damage to a country before even putting boots on the ground. If they determine that there is no need or desire to put boots on the ground in order to decapitate the Iranian threat then any protection the Iranians think they have is gone. There are four aircraft carriers in the area at this moment, more than enough to destroy every thing they would want to destroy in short order.  And  George Bush certainly has shown a desire to pick a fight. Perhaps as I think about it, the capture of the British soldiers is calculated to determine the willingness of the UN and the United States to use that military force. They are probably closely watching any actions the four carriers will make. If they determine that there is no chance that they can provoke a military response then they will feel that they can continue to seek to fashion their nukes. Which will cause Israel to make plans to attack themselves and the Iranians will think that they can absorb any attack by Israel and come out stronger. Many players, many possible actions and many possible outcomes. 

The Anti Hillary/Apple Mash up AD

You know, the Apple ad, a 1984, George Orwell referenced vision of a dystopian future was a darn good ad when it came out. It had something to say, something to sell and it did it memorably. The Obama operative also had something to sell minus the creativity of the original since of course, we see the original ad. He's merely pasted Hillary's face and Obama's campaign symbols on a preexisting video. I don't care what the details of his denials are with reference to whether or not Obama approved or knew what he was doing, typically these sort of things are done with the tacit approval of their masters with the practiced and disingenuous 'plausible deniability.' And following the Mission Impossible creed, -"if you are caught, the IM force will disavow any knowledge of your actions." Well the guy got caught, he was fired and disavowed so as to protect his masters who hum along as before with no accountability and no consequences. This fellow will turn up again, in a better paid position, his service acknowledged, his future secure. 

That's not what annoys me so much. What annoys me is the shoddy reporting done by all of the networks when referencing the video. CNN and MSNBC are the bigger creeps here. By now all references to it being the original Apple Computers advertising are gone. now it's the 'anti Hillary attack viral video' and the attack ad creep is getting credit for creativity that isn't his and an idea that he didn't think of.  Phil De Vellis - who worked for Blue State Digital which made the Obama campaign site., said that 'this isn't the first citizen's ad' well hell no - that's a damn lie right there since he is attempting to characterize this ad as something done by Joe Citizen rather than by the Obama campaign and someone who worked for the campaign. Dude worked for the Obama campaign by way of the company that made the campaign website. Simple. Easy to connect the dots, anything else said is obfuscation and misdirection. 

Personally I'm glad that the veneer on Obama is starting to erode and the idea of a messiah rather than a human candidate is making way.  

Professor Hagel on Hardball
Saw the good professor Tom Hagel on Hardball with Chris Matthews, a news show on MSNBC. No Chris Matthews unfortunately. Professor Hagel was my Criminal Law Professor and he looked nice and healthy. I believe he was there to discuss what was supposed to be the announcement from his brother, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, that the good Senator had decided to throw his hat into the already crowded Republican Presidential candidate field. Humm. I was watching the cable news channels get all excited and go live to the announcement this morning but I thought it was highly unlikely that Senator Hagel would announce. And he didn't. He announced that he might announce at some later date. That sort of indecisiveness isn't going to raise an army of excited volunteers for him but it's a very odd Presidential field this time around and things aren't going the way they normally do. I've always seen him as a possible Vice Presidential candidate. He's pro life, loved by the NRA, and he's anti flag burning but by being so much of a anti Bush force in the Senate he's incurred the wrath of a good number of active Republicans and getting past the hardcore Republicans in the primaries is problematic. Even the number one polling Republican in the field, Rudy Giuliani is not secure in his front runner position because of a number of problems he has to include multiple marriages, liberal viewpoints and the fact that he's completely untested in any primaries.  The difference is that Hagel is actively disliked by party functionaries and so his hill is higher to climb. By waiting I think he is seeing if any of the front runners falter badly. There's no sense in getting in if Giuliani maintains his traction. Looking at the rest of the field you can see marginal candidates, nobody who sticks out right now as a world beater and every one of them with many problems. You have other problematic candidates waiting in the wings, and of those Hagel is the one with the fewest known personal issues.  And Hagel would be annointed by the media as the 'best' Republican in their eyes and get the media push as well. It is such a wide open field right now and anything can happen. 

Pre Super Bowl
Now Playing: Super Bowl Pregame - oh so Euro Gay
Goodness, what a circus. And not in a good way. Not that there is any good way as far as circus related stuff goes. Can't stand it. Must change channel.

HOUSE

Hugh Laurie has won this year the Golden Globe and SAG Award Winner for Best Actor in a television Drama and every week he continues to blow me away. The writing is fantastic and the acting is right there, real and touching. Tonight's episode was all that and more. At the end I was left wiping the tears away. 

I wandered over to the Television Without Pity Forum and down into the House part of the forum to see what other folks were saying about this episode and was struck by some of the negative feelings there. I forget that people like some things for different reasons. The ones most upset with this episode could have been those who like the show for the mean, snarky and bitingly acrid humor of House toward everyone and anyone. This episode was like a play where the two characters of House and the rape victim debated the philosophy of life and the meaning of the universe. Perhaps some folks don't like to be made uncomfortable in that way. And of course the one House revelation at the end was uncomfortable as well and perhaps it was that bit which others didn't want to see. Humm.

 

House on Fox
Now Playing: Daily Show

Ah goodness. House is my show. My favorite show on the air at this time, a look in the mirror to be sure and this episode in particular. The fellow who had his head electro shocked, could have used one of those at one time. It's interesting how many abnormal behavior episodes can be traced to various medical problems. Of course we aren't much more advanced than we were in the days when barbers were the doctors and doctoring involved bleeding people. Fascinating though.  The House in rehab and the reasons why it's absurd, check. House correctly pointing out that the 'surrendering to a higher power' is just patently nonsensical to rationally thinking humans. True enough that at the point where help is needed the  problems exceed the ability to cope with them but surrendering to nonexistent, invisible pretend higher creatures isn't any sort of answer or way to get someone to accept help. Retarded and like mind control by simple minded folks for simple minded folks. In the end, Tritter not getting his heart's desire, he being House like and motivated by some of the same things, a great character driven story with flawed, human characters. Driven by bitterness and pain and I'll have to watch that episode again.

The bad thing is that because of that talent show on Fox there won't be any new House episodes for three weeks. Curses to you shiny blue talent show with untalented goofy people who are shown in order to be laughed at. Don't know why anyone can watch that show. But then, different tastes for different people.  

Happy New Year
Now Playing: Garrison Keller's New Year's Show
With the end of 2006 I'm watching K.T.Tunstall on the local PBS station, my favorite new singer/songwriter artist who bangs on a Gibson Dove like it's a drum as well as playing it like the beautiful guitar it is. Truthfully I cringe a bit when I see her hitting it, the Gibson Dove she was playing costs thousands of dollars. A beautiful singing voice as well an being impishly beautiful and it's one of those pleasures to have discovered her. Good stuff. In music she was the best of the year. Also there was the collaboration between two of my all time favorite jazz artists. Al Jarreau and George Benson came out with their first CD together and it was great. Al Jarreau singing on George Benson's Breezing is classic. The Seals and Croft song was well done and the whole album flows with artistry and a liveliness that neither performer has created in a while. I saw them in their concert tour before the CD came out this year as well and it was simply magic. Al and George seemed to push each other to put out their best effort and I can say that with confidence since earlier in the year I saw George Benson perform by himself. He was great, how could he not be? But put up against the concert with Al Jarreau it seemed flat. Like old friends I hadn't seen in many years it was tear inducing hearing the songs I've sung out loud for many years. We all look older than I remember but the songs remain as fresh and wonderful as the first time I heard each performer.

It wasn't such a good year for the Constitution as the Bush administration continued it's assault against the rule of law in their efforts to find terrorists and other strawmen. Like a bad remake of 1884 the eternal enemy was used as an excuse for curtailed civil liberties and domestic spying on citizens. Joseph Padilla, by all accounts a simple street delinquent was labeled after 9-11 as public enemy/scapegoat number one, an American citizen who was denied each and every possible constitutionally assured right the Constitution and Bill of Rights affords. He was locked up without council, without charge, tortured and treated in ways that would assure any Nazi or Japanese soldier in World War II a place in a war crimes trial. If the methods of his torture could be thought of as less barbaric than those of the Nazi's or Japanese it's only a matter of the intervening years and refinements made in the methods and ways of the torturers. The people of World War Two frequently were mocked for using the excuse of 'we were only following orders' and I wonder these days what the guards and jailers and those patriots who use waterboarding, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and all of the other more 'sophisticated' and 'civilized' methods of torture must be telling themselves about their behavior. Do they wonder if they will someday be held to account for their roles in assisting the cruelty and barbarity condoned and encouraged by the Bush administration? If the President and his functionaries wish to call you or I a Security risk or possibly somebody who may be thinking of planning some act of terrorism against the United States then you can really, by dint of law, become a nonperson. You can vanish and no lawyer, friend or congressman can do anything to help you. Like Joseph Padilla, you can be accused, locked up and held indefinitely. If the New York Times is to believed, Joseph Padilla is now a gibbering mentally unbalanced person. The government lawyers, who deserve their own place in Dante's or anyone else's hell, now argue that the whole thing needs to be kept secret since Mr. Padilla is no longer able to assist in his own defense. Like the officials of Nazi Germany who shed their Nazi uniforms and associations when the allies came these people engaging in these activities do know that they are engaging in unconstitional, internationally outlawed behaviors but will to a man deny any culpability when the worm finally turns on them. Didn't you know it was illegal and a crime against humanity to torture people? The answer will be "I was only following orders."

The trial of Saddam Hussein was a joke. Judges removed because they were not sufficiently hateful toward Hussein, lawyers killed constantly and a total farce most resembling the show trials of the Soviet Union was what we were witness to. A sovereign country invaded by my country. A sovereign country invaded and destroyed on false pretenses for some alleged charges that when they were made I knew were false but the media and other leaders who should have tried to protect us and who should have tried to protect the rule of law were swept up and kept silent. The legal ruler of that country hunted down and put on trial in what was nothing more than a show trial and taken out in the dead of night to be hung by a bunch of thugs who mocked Hussein like the lawless thugs they were and who chanted the name of another thug whose militia kills American soldiers every day. It's a national disgrace to see the values and beliefs of the country further brought down to the gutter. And beside all of that, the people who led us to this ill conceived and badly planned war with an enemy that was not a supporter of terrorists got it all wrong. Because Hussein was a secular dictator, not a religious zealot who wanted anything to do with the terrorists our fight is with. Like Tito in Yugoslavia, Hussein used an iron hand to keep religious rivalries under control and like Tito, without Hussein the whole region fell apart, the groups fighting each other. The countries supporting the terrorists are Iran and Syria. Those are the real enemies and they are still there supporting our enemies. The bombs/ied's blowing americans up in Iraq are made in Iran. So the Bush administration is evil and stupid. A dangerous combination and we're along for the ride they've sent us on.

It's a sad world we have here. The democrats have won the election based on the desire of the American people to end all of this madness. But the Democrats are like the Republicans in that they'll say and do whatever they think we want to hear so that they can get elected and reach power. Once they have that power they will do not do what we elected them to do. The deconstruction of the Constitution will continue under their auspices and the war will continue despite the voice of the people having said loud and clear that they wish it to end. The main job that the Democrats will work feverously toward is keeping themselves in power. That's it. That's what they will work on. I hear the Republicans are talking about 'getting back to the values of Reagan' - and of course what they mean to say is that they need to mouth those platitudes and wave those flags to get elected again. They will continue to serve their masters, those who finance their campaigns and what you or I want them to do is not important except as to fit into a mostly empty photo op to be used during the next campaign. It doesn't look good, the future that is. It never does but somehow it comes along no matter what we do. Hopefully the democrats will heed the voters and successfully curb this President this year. I'm not holding my breath.

Expanding the Size of the Military - About Time
Jesus Christ, about time the idea formed somewhere to increase the size of the military. It's 'news' that's just flashed across MSNBC and the Washington Post. 'Bush to Increase the Size of the Military' - you know, they have Air Force and Navy pushed into Army positions, there was a sailor whose funeral I saw on a newspaper who was killed in Iraq while doing convoy duty. A sailor, on convoy duty. It's all the need for soldiers being met through the use of contractors, navy and Air Force personel. It's criminal, it's a problem that's been there and hasn't been addressed and with the incompetent folks in charge you can guarantee the fact that they are addressing this problem years later than it should have been addressed. 

House "Merry Little Christmas"
Topic: Art and Poetry
I've got only a few television shows that I bother with these days, any days for that matter. Heroes and House are the two shows I don't miss. The other night the episode of House was called,  "Merry Little Christmas" but it was nothing like a Merry Christmas show. The story line with the angry angry cop named Tritter was moving along. They had put the squeeze on House and his friend Wilson had caved under the pressure and made a deal with the police. No jail time for House if he accepted the deal of rehab and probation. Of course House wouldn't even consider taking the deal. He didn't feel as if he had done anything wrong at all. I think Wilson asked House if his pride was worth going to jail for. Of course it was, Cuddy and everyone else knew the answer to that, was yes. Pride would overcome any sort of rational decision making. Rational for someone not under attack, Wilson thought in his rational train of thought that anyone would rationally choose the lesser of the two difficult choices. That's how he rationalized his conduct and his betrayal. The police of course, the experienced folks involved knew otherwise, they knew they had him, they knew House, like anyone else in that position would not yield and was therefore caught.  Prickly, principled, House wasn't going to change his position even if it meant personal and professional disaster. They aren't principles if you don't stand up for them, they don't mean anything then and anything that you stood for or believed would mean nothing if you chose comfort over principles. The smirking lawyers and police come to you and say 'plead guilty and you won't go to jail' - but if you don't feel you're guilty then it's not an option, if fact, House at that point was refusing to even acknowledge the police and the charges against him. If he had  maintained that  opinion, that frame of mind, he would have walked into the courtroom and not participated.  Doing anything at all would have denied everything he had thought and felt before that moment, it would have been the same as taking the easy way out - regardless of the consequences. In fact, the consequences would have been an affirmation of everything he had thought and felt and the pain would be confirmation and purification and ritual punishment all at the same time. But, House was an addict in flux, in panic and going through that whole mind altering brain storm. Unlike someone on an antidepressant whose mind would be mostly gone, unable to maintain a vast array of thoughts and to be able to think through various choices and who would lock into the one way of thinking, House's mind raced through the needs of the addict and the need to get a fix, then the knowledge that he was racing to the wall. He OD's, wakes up and in a moment where he is stripped of his self respect and the careful shield he had created to protect himself, he then goes to see the cop Tritter and gives up. Of course, Tritter doesn't let him give up and accept his humiliation. Tritter tells House that he has new evidence and that evidence lets him take the deal off the table. And we end the episode. When the next episode comes, House will have steeled himself, he will have built his walls back up and Tritter will ultimately have lost his chance to actually win. Not giving up is winning. It's a wait until the next episode, sometime in January. I love House, he isn't a Superman, he's in pain, he crashes and falls down but he continues and exists and sometimes that's the only victory you get.

Apocalypto
Now Playing: Bronco's game vs the Chargers
I went to the first matinee on Friday to see this movie. The buzz, the controversy, the online discussion and most of all the trailer and previews I saw with my own eyes led me to have a good deal of hope for this movie. I wasn't disappointed. A great movie is magic, it can transport you completely out of your body and into the heart of the movie itself. Apocalypto is a great movie and it did just that for me. It's a cross between the movies Braveheart and Naked Prey (1966 Cornel Wilde) and National Geographic if the National Geographic was able to bring those ancient cultures to life. The movie is one man against insurmountable odds and as it's happening you can't even begin to imagine how he's going to get through the next moment let alone how he's going to actually emerge victorious.

Mel Gibson takes you to a world of such beauty and horror that you've seen thin images of in National Geographic and you know about but which you've never actually seen. It's one thing hearing a quiet narrator on a PBS show point to the top of a Mayan pyramid and tell you about the human sacrifices and it's quite another to see Gibson's cinematic vision of that world. You've never seen it in a movie, you've never seen it anywhere. The lack of recognizable actors helps create a raw naked vitality which doesn't allow your mind to lose the illusion of  this world.

The movie is intense and bloody as advertised but not gratuitously so. I've seen movies with far more violence praised by the same folks bemoaning this movie. Which brings me to the reviews by the NY Times reviewer and so many others online which are to my mind biased and colored by intense dislike for Mel Gibson himself.  That really reflects more on the ability of the reviewer than of the movie. If you're reading this then I assume you can make up your own mind. If you don't like Mel Gibson and don't want to see anything that he does that's fine. If you want to see a outstanding movie, a movie that is adult fare - and you understand that, this movie will not let you down. I'm going to go see it again myself.

Nancy Grace is Still a Hateful Evil Bitch
Now Playing: Glen Beck Show
Yes indeed, you know it's always instructive to see where one corporate whore is following the instructions of his masters and providing a puff kissy ass episode whose only function is to try to rehabilitate the completely evil, nasty and sued Nancy Grace. Her karma is finally catching up to her as witnessed by the lawsuit against her for her part in killing that very troubled and disturbed woman who may or may not have killed her own child. The woman, whose son vanished and no evidence found of where or why, and who is suspected of murdering her own child, was taken apart by Nancy Grace on air and who afterwords killed herself. I don't believe that it's a single episode of behavior and destroying of human beings is likely something that Grace has done in her previous life as a prosecutor. But her attitude and behavior illustrate her hatefulness. I flip by the channel she is on as quickly as possible since she makes me so mad just looking at her. But seeing her on Glenn Beck's show was just over the top for me. The plastic and absurd effort to save her tattered reputation when after all, it's reputation that matters in tv and not the reality, - is beyond the pale. But Beck demeans only himself and the whole network. It's really sad, sad and amusing. But as I said, karma will catch up to everyone and her's is catching up to her. 

sinus headaches and other depressing things
Topic: Mysteries of Life

Well those antihistamines are doing not so well, it's always a test of fortune to try to determine the amount that helps as opposed to the amount that makes you sleepy and dizzy. What makes it worse is the football game results, Broncos losing to some team whose name I have already forgotten, - my mental defense is to forget that which pains me. That and turn the dial to ignor, so I won't listen to any sports reports or deal with any football information for a while. Like the head in the sand only less ostrich like since eyes and ears full of sand seems rather a waste of time and energy. Nope, occupy the mind with other things of interest, playing guitar, trying to read the foreign policy tea leaves to see where events will find themselves.

There is an interesting Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker that will probably set tongues a wagging for a while. The main bit that's being picked up by the liberal press is that he references a CIA report that says there is no evidence that Iran is trying to make a nuclear bomb. He says that Israel intelligence which has more of a human intel aspect unlike the satellite reading CIA, says that they are in fact testing triggers and are darn well trying to get themselves a nuke as quickly as possible. Also that Israel will go forth and do something about them but that Cheney says wait for us and we will do it when and if it needs to be done. That the Iranian leader, like Saddam, is happy to leave the impression that he's trying to get nukes when he's not, since it makes him look like a bigger and stronger dude for the mullahs and street people back home.  As always, various interests will cherry pick the quote that agrees with their own opinions and rail in whatever direction those opinions lead them. What is without doubt is that Iran is risking a bombing campaign and it assumes that the risk and possible bombing is worth the increased prestige and appearance of power in the region. A region it finds itself the biggest player in. And of course, because of the bubbling, inept foreign policy leadership in the Bush White House there is a good chance Iran will emerge stronger than when Bush started his ill advised and ill considered Mid East adventures. 

 

Benadryl as a food group
Topic: Mysteries of Life

Yes indeed, the constant need for benadryl for those pesky allergies makes me wonder if benadryl is in my own personal food pyramid. Watery itchy eyes so I can't see, runny nose and sneezing. Good times, good times. I'm vaguely aware that the food nazis have taken away the easy to understand food pyramid and have decided that there's some other division of foods we need in order to keep alive. I don't pay attention to that tripe. Eat lean foods, vegetables, fruits and the all the good stuff in moderation. If the food you eat makes you feel bad and makes you fat well then eat something else. It's not rocket science after all. And speaking of rocket science I've noticed the astronomy nazis have decided that Pluto isn't a planet any longer. Well fark those goobers, it's a planet, it's the ninth planet and the desperate attempt to change that fact is an attempt by a bunch of no name wanna be astronomers to be relevant in their field. A totally useless change only done in order to be strutting asses.  Same goes for the morons who decided that it was a good idea to change the name of the brontosauraus to something else. Another pointless, annoying change of names of something that was just fine the way it was. It's a mark of the stagnation of those fields of scientific inquiry when the best they can do is to go around changing the names and structures of things we already know. No other valid reason for it and bloody annoying.

And back to the benadryl. You know there are precious few things that actually work to help with allergies. Dristan cold works for me, tylenol sinus makes me groggy and disoriented so that one sucks. Benadryl works a bit, makes me a little groggy but I don't start to feel a drift from reality taking those. But now, thanks to all the crack heads and meth do it yourself factory entrepeneurs, the government has persuaded the cold medication makers to take out whatever it is in their medications which work and which unfortunately are used in the recipe to make meth. They advertise that they have 'new formulas' which hopefully can't be used to make meth. Unfortunately the new formulas suck. It's all very annoying.  Well enough ranting for the moment. 

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Lordy me. One browser won't let me insert pictures, none of them will let me put one of those utube videos in here although I should be able to.  Watching the democrats fight in the Congress, no Murtha for second in command, the second in command Hoyer,  is an enemy of Pelosi. Ah, politics, it's all good. Interesting in the way a really good mystery is. You don't know for sure what is going to happen, who's going to be victorious, who's going to flame out, who's going to entertain us the most. The race for President in 2008 is on and watching 
the front runners Clinton, Obama, McCain, Gingrich, Gulliani, Romney, Thompson, Kerry, Edwards and others working their way out 
of the underbrush is wonderful. Each one positioning themselves, posturing. I've seen Senator Clinton acting stern and strong when questioning General Abizaid. I've see Edwards everywhere getting his face up there and being interviewed by Jon Stewart. Gingrich being interviewed
everywhere as well. McCain up there sternly talking to Abizaid, Obama being charismatic and being gazed at adoringly by Oprah. It's bizarro Kabuki theater meets Monty Python. So cool. So unreal.