Just a few quick comments to top up your tank for the trip into 2006. Have a safe journey!
The Bush administration, in another of its now standard responses to real world events, is having the Department of Justice investigate the illegal leak informing us about the illegal wiretaps the President was using to ... Well, I'm not really sure what he was using them for. In general, the 'security agencies' attract a large percentage of paranoid psychotics - those who think doing secret stuff is neato. Much like the all-male 'celibate' Catholic priesthood is attractive to men who feel dirty about their sexuality. Don't hold your breath waiting for the DOJ to investigate the real crime. I wouldn't wait for the Congress to do much either.
In a parallel activity, someone outed the NSA regarding their illegal tracing of visitors to their website by way of cookies. The NSA responded by saying it was all a mistake. Apparently they'd rather be thought of as bozos than as crooks. I once had a sort of NSA-related job, and I'm quite ready to believe in their bozo-dom. They're still engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy, though. It's the nature of the beast (see paragraph 1 above).
Bill Frist is running for President. I guess I should have included him here
Just to let you know that corrupt politics isn't restricted to any single continent, here's what happened last week in S.E. Asia:
The effects of the Boxing Day Tsunami here in Thailand are where the rich Bangkokians are forcing out the survivors. Redefining land ownership so there'll be places to build new 5-star hotels where there used to be bamboo shacks. Put up seawalls to protect this area, thus wiping out the beach in that area. The actual people who lived in Phang Na, and the people who went there to help, had a memorial on the 25th, because they couldn't go to the festivities on the actual anniversary, where the politicians and the businessmen were showing off the newer bigger better tourist area to tourists. Lots of nice (read expensive) hotel rooms, lots of fine (read expensive) restaurants, lots of stylish (read expensive) shops. There was no room at the memorial. A fitting Christmas story.
Again, have a safe journey into 2006, and watch out for icebergs.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
The President Keeps Making News
I have so many other things to write about, but I keep getting intercepted by the most incredible news from the White House.
The latest, though so closely interwoven with the past as to seem an inevitable outgrowth: "Then came The New York Times report Friday that said Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to intercept overseas phone calls and e-mails from people in the United States. Bush's actions, which he maintains are justified under his powers as commander in chief, nonetheless violated a 1978 act of Congress and set the stage for a full-scale power struggle between the executive and legislative branches.
" (Boston Globe, Dec. 18).
Or, as Bradford Berenson, the President's associate counsel between 2001 and 2003 put it "After 9/11, the president felt it was incumbent on him to use every ounce of authority available to him to protect the American people,..."
Now, I completeley agree that the primary job of the President, indeed of the government, is to protect the people. This however is so evocative of the classical question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, that I now ask, who is seeing to it that the people are being protected from the President?
This is so close to the concept of destroying the village in order to save it that it almost seems that the President was in fact paying attention to the Vietnam War, only it looks like he got every lesson backwards-to.
George - You Aren't Supposed To Destroy The Village (the United States in this case) In Order To Save It! Bad!
While I'm in the neighborhood, so to speak; George - Torture! Bad! Also, the incredibly bogus argument about the hidden nuclear bomb that we can only find if we are just permitted to torture twice the usual suspects, just a teensy little bit - get real! If you're willing to argue that you have failed to prevent such a situation, why are we supposed to presume you can find the right person to torture, and why do we think you can get the truth by torture, famously a way to get the answers you want rather than the truth; also famously a way to make yourself feel powerful as hell.
Christmas approaches, so I'll try to find something Christmassy to say next time.
The latest, though so closely interwoven with the past as to seem an inevitable outgrowth: "Then came The New York Times report Friday that said Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to intercept overseas phone calls and e-mails from people in the United States. Bush's actions, which he maintains are justified under his powers as commander in chief, nonetheless violated a 1978 act of Congress and set the stage for a full-scale power struggle between the executive and legislative branches.
" (Boston Globe, Dec. 18).
Or, as Bradford Berenson, the President's associate counsel between 2001 and 2003 put it "After 9/11, the president felt it was incumbent on him to use every ounce of authority available to him to protect the American people,..."Now, I completeley agree that the primary job of the President, indeed of the government, is to protect the people. This however is so evocative of the classical question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, that I now ask, who is seeing to it that the people are being protected from the President?
This is so close to the concept of destroying the village in order to save it that it almost seems that the President was in fact paying attention to the Vietnam War, only it looks like he got every lesson backwards-to.
George - You Aren't Supposed To Destroy The Village (the United States in this case) In Order To Save It! Bad!
While I'm in the neighborhood, so to speak; George - Torture! Bad! Also, the incredibly bogus argument about the hidden nuclear bomb that we can only find if we are just permitted to torture twice the usual suspects, just a teensy little bit - get real! If you're willing to argue that you have failed to prevent such a situation, why are we supposed to presume you can find the right person to torture, and why do we think you can get the truth by torture, famously a way to get the answers you want rather than the truth; also famously a way to make yourself feel powerful as hell.
Christmas approaches, so I'll try to find something Christmassy to say next time.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Lets Wring Our Hands
...about...
...No...
Not about the United States operating secret torture facilities.
Lets protest about
(US Secretary of State Condoleeza) Rice asking for clarification about some 80 flights by CIA planes that have passed through the UK. European politicians and human rights groups claim the flights and use of a network of secret jails breach international law." (The Observer (UK), December 4, 2005). OH! NO! Flying prisoners over our airspace! Go ahead, bust 'em; torture 'em; kill 'em. Just don't involve US! We here in the UK (and elsewhere) have to maintain "plausible deniability" after all, or the voters will just do terrible things to us.
How weenie is that? Don't concern yourself with what's real, just what people can see. Very British. "Just don't do it in the street; it might frighten the horses."
Apparently, Ms. Rice is planning to tell the frightened europols to pound sand. Remind them they are co-conspirators now, and we (the current administration in Washington DC) have the goods on them. If they try to back out now, they'll be shifted from the Friend-O-Bush list to The Not-With-Us-Against-Us list. We'll fire their asses.
Knowing this lady's propensity for hyperbole (mushroom cloud; remember?), I would guess she'd be whispering in their ears about their own little lapses in the strictest upholding of human rights. And I hope, for the multiple billions we spend in intelligence activities, and considering we didn't have the goods on Iraq, we surely must have some interesting intel on the UK, and other "Coalition of the Willing" countries. Probably have stuff on France and Germany, too, but since they made the decision not to throw in with the bellicose G.W Bush, they can consider themselves well out of it.
Speaking of the President - I wonder if he still has this banner. If so, when does he plan to fly it above the podium again? Oh, that's right; when Iraq is a peaceful democratic country - or when pigs fly. Whichever comes first.
...No...
Not about the United States operating secret torture facilities.
Lets protest about
(US Secretary of State Condoleeza) Rice asking for clarification about some 80 flights by CIA planes that have passed through the UK. European politicians and human rights groups claim the flights and use of a network of secret jails breach international law." (The Observer (UK), December 4, 2005). OH! NO! Flying prisoners over our airspace! Go ahead, bust 'em; torture 'em; kill 'em. Just don't involve US! We here in the UK (and elsewhere) have to maintain "plausible deniability" after all, or the voters will just do terrible things to us.How weenie is that? Don't concern yourself with what's real, just what people can see. Very British. "Just don't do it in the street; it might frighten the horses."
Apparently, Ms. Rice is planning to tell the frightened europols to pound sand. Remind them they are co-conspirators now, and we (the current administration in Washington DC) have the goods on them. If they try to back out now, they'll be shifted from the Friend-O-Bush list to The Not-With-Us-Against-Us list. We'll fire their asses.
Knowing this lady's propensity for hyperbole (mushroom cloud; remember?), I would guess she'd be whispering in their ears about their own little lapses in the strictest upholding of human rights. And I hope, for the multiple billions we spend in intelligence activities, and considering we didn't have the goods on Iraq, we surely must have some interesting intel on the UK, and other "Coalition of the Willing" countries. Probably have stuff on France and Germany, too, but since they made the decision not to throw in with the bellicose G.W Bush, they can consider themselves well out of it.
Speaking of the President - I wonder if he still has this banner. If so, when does he plan to fly it above the podium again? Oh, that's right; when Iraq is a peaceful democratic country - or when pigs fly. Whichever comes first.
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