Brit Pussies
You know, hearing the former Brit captives doing their 'why we were pussies' news conference it just you know, it's just annoying. We didn't fight because we might have died. We didn't fight because we couldn't win. Well thank god none of these Nancy boys were around in WWII cause back then the Brits couldn't win either. You know, the Brit Navy was shamed and caught with their pants down by a couple of Pirate boats. Then they gave up without a fight then in only two weeks of captivity they rolled over like a rug. Not even nearly as bad treatment as we give detainees either. No waterboarding, no chained to a floor naked in a cold room or overly hot room. Notice there isn't a lot of noise coming from the US about the treatment, cause of course, thanks to George Bush and Alberto Gonzales those "quaint old fashioned Geneva Convention Rules" no longer apply. But still, it's shameful that the Brits gave up without a fight and then when they gave up without a fight, they further gave up without a fight and became sad mouthpieces for the Iranian thug government. I'm glad at least in Britain some folks are making note of all of this and the shame of it all.   

Most Money wins? Ask President Dean
Yes indeed. Mitt Romney gets the surprise early money lead on the Republican side and Obama gets near to Hillary with money which is the same as a win on the Democratic side. But before President Romney and President Obama go and start measuring the drapes at the White House they need to ask President Howard Dean how getting the most contribution money worked for him. The money for Obama is very interesting, smaller contributions from a larger base of people than for Hillary. This means that the donations to Hillary were more one off types, with the people giving all the money they could give in one shot. For Obama the numbers mean that more people gave smaller amounts and could give more in the future as the campaign wears on. Some commentators say that proves that Obama is really the front runner here. I say that he got the small messiah money from the regular folks who on first blush see him enthusiastically and as the issues are discussed and his positions are known those folks will not still be there giving money.  His base is wide and not deep. Republican money, fat cat money and mormon money went to Romney. The rich have put their money on him but his money won't translate into votes. Already the liberal media folks have started shooting buckshot at him as he is presently getting raked for saying he's hunted all his life and it turns out that hunting consists of two times years apart. His veneer is fading quickly. Tommy Thompson has put his toe into the water and sees himself as a possible leader of the vacant conservative candidate position. One of many pretenders led up by Romney, Brownback, Tancredo and Gingrich. Not one of them showing any spark or upward trending. And then there is the Pollyanish Chuck Hagel sitting far outside and waiting to see if there might possibly somewhere down the line be a place for a anti-war, anti Republican republican. I'm sure he felt the love from the liberal media and how he was their Republican candidate for President and would be in third place if he felt that fire in the belly and stepped up to the plate. As it is, Fred Thompson, not even running is in third place and will get the nomination if he wants it. Great race already and the shoes aren't even laced up yet. 

Money money, who got the money
Topic: Politics

In the old days, the long gone halcyon days of our youth, the big money Republicans and Democrats would have already chosen our candidates for us. Voting with their money they would have anointed their favorites and created the buzz for the acceptable candidates through the media and into our hearts. It would almost seem to be our own choices. Of course every single time the final candidates have been chosen for us we end up asking ourselves how in the heck did we drum up such a horrible slate of potential Presidents. Ah, the old days. But wait. Everything old is new again. The media has given us a glimpse at the real race, the race for money. Keeping with football analogies the first quarter numbers are out and President Hillary Clinton has raised the most money. Sure, a bit ahead of the actual swearing in but you know let's be realistic. The invisible tentacles of the creature known as the Democratic Party are stretched out and really, it's all over but the shouting. Having been given enough time to organize the Democrats have turned their machine on and it's grinding away to the inevitable end. President Hillary is like Secretariat, just cruising along.

Sure, the Messiah, as lampooned by some wit who dressed Obama up as Jesus, is holding his own in second place and ready to take the lead if Hillary stumbles between now and the nomination. Right now he is the media's Cinderella choice for the Democratic nomination. He's the Messiah, a perfect being that all the hopes and dreams of the fantasy crowd are being projected upon. And as long as he doesn't get too nasty against Hillary he will be the Vice Presidential nominee and eventually the President himself in the coming Democratic Era. Obama is suspiciously unwilling to put his cards on the table and release his fund raising totals yet. Notice that the media doesn't even whisper that anything is amiss with this or that it shows weakness or lack of organization as they would harp on if it wasn't their own darling. Obama right now would pick Wesley Clark as his running mate. He can't go for Joe Biden or Chris Dodd cause they are both Senators like himself. It would be a look for a Governor, white, from the South or the West.

Last time one of the Media darlings was John Edwards. He's still running and in third place by all accounts. He has been running for the nomination since the last election and his 14 million dollars is respectable but not where he had hoped to be at this time. The emergence of Obama has really been a horror show for Edwards and Hillary, the unexpected new face that sucks the magic away from the other two because lacking any history he also lacks the detractors and haters that are like barnacles on the hulls of the SS Hillary and the SS Edwards. He can hope the other two beat the crap out of each other and allow him to slip in between them. No VP slot for him, it's the big dance or bust.

And Bill Richardson knows he's running for a Vice Presidential slot, look for him to hope to get a fourth place or two, declare victory and then sticking to Hillary like a lamprey by endorsing her. If Obama gets the nod Richardson has no chance at all of the slot, Obama would look to a white male as a VP running mate.

The media of course hates Republicans. The way they acknowledge and cover the Republican candidates is ambivalent at best. The Romney money, the Republican institutional money has not surprisingly gone to Romney. Nothing to be astonished over. Business sees him as their best chance of having a friend in power, someone who has no ideological problems with swaying in the wind and doing what's best for business. He's against abortion, he's for abortion. He's more liberal than Ted Kennedy, he's Ronald Reagan. And of course, he's Mormon. A definite snake that wins the money title but votes, ha, let's see him get some primary votes. But as I think about it, he's the Vice Presidential nominee. He'll bring the institutional money and as we know, the Trilateral Commission secret government type folks look longer term the same way they looked to putting Bush the Elder in with Reagan.

McCain, the last darling of the media when they hoped he could bump off Bush the Idiot (Jeb has to be Bush the Younger) can't bump off Bush now so he's McCain the war candidate and McCain the 70 year old tired looking dude. He was the institutional Republican candidate but the Republican Party is broken now. We can thank the Bush Presidents for this state of affairs as together they have destroyed the Republican Party as a viable force at least in the short term. I can't see McCain lasting very long but the candidates now are very weak and it'll just take Rudy Giuliani blowing up to be the front runner again.

Rudy Giuliani right now is the Republican front runner on the basis of people remembering how he preformed as a leader and Mayor of New York through the 9-11 crisis. Imagine that, picking a candidate based on his performance, outrageous. As far as primary Republican voters and their beliefs, he's ten kinds of wrong. Wrong on abortion, wrong on social issues, three times married. Voters vote based on present needs and a strong executive is what is needed now and Rudy has a chance of getting through the process as the nominee based on that. Will the issue voters cut their own noses off and vote for some Brownback, Tancretto or Gingrich? Ah, who knows. That's why it's worth watching to see.

To show how weak and flawed the Republican field is, in third place is Fred Thompson who isn't even running. If Rudy stumbles, look for Thompson to pop into the field and take the nomination. It's Rudy's to lose but he's got a bigger mine field to cross. His support is wide but no deep and so while a lot can happen I think it's going to be Fred Thompson running with Romney. Speculation. How fun is that. But it's still a giant house of cards and one slip by one candidate and the whole thing changes all over again. How great is that.

Kidnapping as a Foreign Policy Move
Now Playing: Pandora Internet Radio - Kate Bush Radio
Topic: Politics

Well, it continues. The Iranians, well practiced in the art of kidnapping and other cowardly activities have taken to their role as the criminals or wife abuser who blames the victim for the whole mess. See, it's the British who are to blame for the Iranians deciding not to let the female go since you know, them damn Brits are going to the United Nations with this matter. It's the fault of the Brits if the Iranians put these people on trial. It's the fault of the Brits for everything, the Iranian thugs aren't responsible for their own behavior and their own actions in kidnapping these soldiers at all. It's the victims fault, if only they wouldn't have let me I wouldn't have hurt them. Yup, it's your basic small time thug mentality we're dealing with. 

The Brits, it's on them for not fighting in the first place. Thugs don't understand being calm and non confrontational.  They see that, the same way that wild animals see it, as weakness. NO points are gained by not hitting them on the nose or right between the eyes. Give them another day or two, go up to the UN and prepare to escalate. It's a problem that isn't going away anytime soon. The longer we allow them to swagger around the harder it will be to eliminate the problem they pose.  Hell Ahmadinejad is probably hiding in a safe house already and wishing he had control over the military clothed thugs who took the Brits in the first place. 

Sick Bastards

You know, those Iranians are some sick bastards. Taking hostages is second nature to them of course, they do have that history of doing so. Then they make their captives parrot unbelievable statements nobody believes and think they are getting away with something. Idiots. Not only that, they take a woman soldier, who is not muslim and impose their religiously inspired female hating garb on her. Calling them barbarians is an insult to barbarians. It reminds me of Saddam and his patting the little boy on the head when he was in the hostage holding business. That worked out well for him didn't it? 

I'm looking at the BBC and having a hard time finding any coverage of the British sailors who were taken hostage. That struck me as odd. I hear the whispers that the British are looking at being more low keyed about the whole thing and I think it's two different reactions. The BBC has just plain taken sides against it's own government and against it's people. More coverage on Mugabe than it's own sailors. That seems criminal right there. The British government and it's slow and easy reaction, combined with it's non conflict orders to it's soldiers and sailors is equally criminal. Not letting it's people defend themselves, not defending them in the first place. They might as well have put them in sun dresses and had them doing nothing. Hopefully their rules of engagement will be reassessed.

Will there be a confrontation against the Iranians. We can only hope. It needs to happen, there is no need to use anything other than planes and ships to decapitate the Iranian military than what we already have in place. It will end a good deal of the blustering and posturing. Perception is reality, especially over there and the perception that the Iranians are able to tweak us and the British enhances their position and statute in the area. Reagan destroyed their Navy in reaction to provocations, simple. Let's blow it up and blow up their nuclear facilities and ask them if they want another. Otherwise the Iranians will just slow bleed this, maybe we'll release the woman, oh no, we didn't mean that. We're not releasing them until they say they were trespassing. Well, maybe after the trial. No, no. Give them a date certain then start blowing shit up. It's the only language they understand, it's a language and an ability we still have and it's a matter of just having the will to do it. 

American Nude Idol
Now Playing: My spyware program
Topic: Mysteries of Life

 

One of the television shows I make it a point of never ever watching is American Idol. It's not that I feel that I'm a snob or better than anyone else for not wanting to watch the omnipresent television presence of Simon, Paula and that other guy. I mean, it's hard to miss the show since it preempts the television show I do enjoy watching - House. It's on every cable news show to include the Keith Olbermann Show Countdown so I do know every aspect of every scandal to include the singer/idol hopeful Sanjaye and his big ever changing hair as the latest must know bit of American Idol trivia and made up controversy. Sorry, I'd rather remember Paula Abdul as the very cute woman who sang and danced with a Zoot Suit wearing cartoon cat. Still and all, it's a show that must be endured. Like Major League Baseball or the latest big and over hyped prime time game show.

The previous big scandal/big hype story that consumed countless hours of news and gossip time involved yet another young lady with yet another big bunch of nude and semi nude pictures. No, not Anna Nicole. The other one. It's an old story that never gets old. Somebody emerges from nowhere and then whatever dirt or skeletons are in the closet now come pouring out for all to see. The feeding frenzy cranks up and the hypocritical mob acts shocked at the nude and semi-nude pictures but of course making sure to show those pictures at every opportunity. Someone who seeks entertainment fame has nude pictures in their background.  So shocking, an extrovert with nude pictures.

A few things of note. The cheesecake type pictures were splashed everywhere on TV and the blow job pics were ignored by the mainstream media. Of course, those were splashed everywhere on the internet so her brief moment of fame will be eternal and not of the kind that will make her folks proud. She'll forever be that blow job giving Idol contestant. As the Simon fellow said, 'I only wish you could sing.' What he was saying is that if she could sing he could and would have happily sold her and made her famous. You'll remember the nude pictures of Madonna and of the Miss America 1984 Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America, both of whom have continued in the entertainment industry and succeeded. For them the nudie pictures worked. The sad underbelly story in all of it was the huge number of racist slanders against the girl on forum posts around the net. Surprisingly I read a lot of posts about her being a 'guinea' - had to look that one up. And references to being hairy and whorish based on that level of racist slander. Must be a East Coast thing. 

The other interesting part is that it depends on whose nude pictures appear. I remember Dr. Laura, a conservative talk show host and rising star in that field, getting a national radio show.  A lot of hype and a lot of enemies protesting her viewpoint and her success. She was like Michael Savage with a degree and breasts. Old breasts at that. Old nude pictures of her from her college days 'appeared' and pretty much torpedoed her career. Poof - she was gone. A military woman here and there has nude pictures show up and she's discharged from the service never to heard from again. A policewoman sends semi nude pictures of herself to her boyfriend and they get out and she is fired. Big scandal, end of professional career. So entertainers can recover but professionals are cooked. The more distance someone puts between their wild younger days the more chance of those wild days catching up to them. I'm thinking that the guy who put that 'Girls Gone Wild' empire together has his consent forms filed and names crossfiled for later retrieval and reissue of Girls Gone Wild videos as "Where Are They Now?"with this or that now publically known ex eighteen year old boob shaking girl and now present day Congresswoman or possible American Idol contestant who makes it to the final 12. One thing is rock solid for certain, shocking nude pictures will emerge of someone and everyone who can make a dollar from it will be there feeding on the ruined lives or will chronicle the rise from the ashes.  The picture - did you get it? Wetlands Beaver? Too subtle?

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.