Defending the Indefensible

Cheney and Rove want to defend the indefensible. They feel that what was learned by torture was worthwhile.

This is false. The same information that was learned from tortured prisoners, was learned from sources without torture.

They defend the use of torture from the US Armed Forces lessons from the program where troops were subjected to torture to help them resist it in the field in event of capture. Troops were water boarded a few times, as I know at least two former soldiers that were treated to such. They weren't water boarded six times a day as one of the prisoners was. The key element that is missing is knowing when and how much. The second element is knowing who is doing the act.

One memo suggests that sleep deprivation of up to weeks leads to no harm and alleges support based on a quoted university researcher. That researcher has stepped forward to note his dismay at the misuse and abuse of his work. After even a few days of sleep deprivation in conjunction with the threat of repeated interrogation leads to only gibberish. Once the subject reaches the point of the inability to concentrate, the information becomes useless. This point will be reached earlier with the pressure or stress of interrogation.

When given the opportunity to participate, the FBI chose to opt out of the information by torture. They felt their methods of non-torture were superior through years of experience with suspects in all areas of crime. The CIA was specialists in espionage, the gathering of information without the subject's knowledge. The Bush administration chose to let the CIA lead, because they favored and supported the torture of prisoners.

Torture was used in the hope to find the crucial link between Hussein and Al-Quada. There was none, but they eventually got the prisoners to admit this. They could never find other support for the conjecture. Because it didn't exist. The two were were based on two waring factions of the Muslim religion. They didn't understand the culture enough to know that their cooperation was highly unlikely.

Their defense of torture has changed many times. When discovered while Bush, Cheney and Rove were in operation, it was blamed on a few bad apples at Abu Ghaib. They prosecuted a few to show they meant business.

Later Bush himself denied torture was being used. We now know from released records that it was based on the flawed (see above on sleep deprivation) legal documents that declared specific methods as "not torture." Specific details in those documents were exceeded (like water boarding an average of 6 times a day for 30 days) invalidating its application. It wasn't a few bad apples unless you specify the trio leading the country at that time.

Last now, Cheney wants the release of only two specific memorandum to show the extent of what we learned from these unethical methods. This is the "end justifies the means" argument. It only rarely works. At this time we still haven't isolated or captured Osama Bin Laden, so all the torture implemented failed. Much of what was learned was only valuable in a political sense to a man who's deathly afraid of virtually everything.

I'm speaking to you Dick Cheney. Undisclosed location. You are the most paranoid person to ever have been a heartbeat away from the Presidency. You are the one man in our great history that has no defense.

How the rest of the country view US

See that failure with a Captain Kangaroo mustache John Bolton hear what the rest of the world thinks of his administration and the US. From a program on the BBC.

Bumper Stickers for Today

Like many of you, I get humor sent to me from friends and relatives. Most I've told that its cool, go ahead and send. Even when I know they are conservative as hell and I couldn't find common ground if it was still raining on the 39th day, Noah was in his ark and the two of us were standing on the last patch of dry land. Sometimes they do manage to send me something somewhat fresh and even funny. I don't know why some of these struck me as so funny, but they did. Hope you enjoy a few too.

1. Bush: End of an Error

2. That's OK, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway

3. Let's Fix Democracy in this Country First

4. If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran

5. Bush. Like a Rock - Only Dumber.

6. If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President

7. Of Course It Hurts: You're Getting Screwed by an Elephant

8. Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?

9. George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight

10. Impeachment: It's Not Just for B**w Jobs Anymore

11. America: One Nation, Under Surveillance

12. They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It

13. Jail to the Chief

14. No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade Iraq ?

15. Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full of Crap

16. Bad President! No Banana.

17. We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language

18. We're making Enemies Faster than We Can Kill Them

19. Is It Vietnam Yet?

20. Bush Doesn't Care About White People, Either

21. Where Are We Going? And Why Are We in This Hand basket?

22. You elected him. You Deserve Him.

23. Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too

24. When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46

25. The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century

26. One Nation under Clod

27. At Least Nixon Resigned

Watch Out

Holy smokes I've been reading web based things late in the evening again and my head is aching with anarchy.
Where to start? How about the Shrub?
Today, one of the Shrub's press swine stated that on January 10, the Shrub gave the public what we clamored for in the 2006 elections, change in the Iraq war. January 10, January 10, you mean the surge? The increase in troop levels? The more of the same old shit? This is what we voted (yes I voted, thank you) last November? Good grief that man is more demented than previously thought. If there is a guy that truly can pervert anything into supporting his wacky ideals, this is the man. Gosh, listening to NPR report on presidential candidates for the next 18 months is sounding so much better than it did an hour ago.

Don Imus. Don't like him. Didn't like his show. Thought Howard Stern was more original and funny. Depressed when he left the Minnesota market and got quoted in the St. Paul PP as calling Minnesotans idiots or dolts or something for continuing to listen to that white bread bully Tom Bernard at KQ. Jeebus, how many partners has he had in the last 25 years?

Imus' quote about Gwen Ifill was bad enough and the statement about the Rutgers basketball squad was racist. In his position suspension isn't good enough. It was obscene, so why does the FCC fine Stern and let Imus fly? I don't know, but I believe that Stern has a bigger audience. Nobody made a movie about Imus' career have they? Would it be as popular as Private Parts? I bet not.

I bought the premise of that movie. That Stern was a jerk on the radio, but loved his wife and kids. Sort of like De Niro in the King of Comedy which was go to an extreme he believed in, instead of just being a schmuck for life. Much to everyone's surprise, he's successful just being himself. He actually made fun of himself ("I'm hung like a second grader"), he was loyal to his friends (Robin, Fred, Bababooey), that he was an entertainer like any other, but his "real" life wasn't necessarily like that.

Then he showed his real colors and divorced his wife. Maybe she got tired of him. I don't know who started it, I know it didn't seem public and I want to believe he treated her fairly. That he takes care of his kids. I just no longer believe its all an act. Heroes fall from their pedestals at some point.

But I digress. Not really. My point is that if Stern was more of a jerk in real life, then Imus was a racist in reality. Stern tended to make fun of adults, and I don't consider the freshman dominated basketball team Imus called "hos" to yet be adults. They were living the American dream, they reached the pinnacle of their sport; against the reigning perennial no less, that juggernaut the Tennessee Vols. They lost yes, which had to be a crushing defeat, but did they express any of the traits we hate in our Cinderellas, or athletes we root for?

Okay, some of them sported tattoos. So does the grandmother three houses over. BFD. Has any of them been arrested for public intoxication, speeding, urination, chemically impaired driving, or firearms or drugs in their possession? No. Fact is as a whole, womens college athletics are exemplary for their off the field performance and behavior. To me that is the worst crime here. He picked on someone that wasn't expected to be in that game, in a sport that behaves better than any of the male professional sport members. One example: in the past week two NFL players were suspended for behavior and Warren Moon former ViQueen QB and hall of fame (shame?) member was arrested for speeding and impaired driving of such a nature that his vehicle was impounded. Those are just two reports that I can remember this week in one sport! May Imus go rot in anonymity at his ranch the wrinkled slug.

I've been playing all week with something called the Google home page. You can have six tabs and add one of a gazillion "gadgets" to any of those six pages. You can even make a new tab, choose a name of say "bicycling", and it will populate it with up to a dozen individual news sources ready for you to customize. You can have little "to do" lists you can read from work or home. And just all kids of greasy nerd stuff. I don't know how long its existed, but it is so cool I just about peed my pants. No wonder Google will rule the world. FU Microsoft.

I've managed to get my TV working well enough to watch the "Simpsons" on Sunday. Thank you lord for giving me some brains. So it was a repeat with Lisa inventing a Indian tribe the "Hitachi" she created from the name brand on their toaster. I couldn't make shit like that up in a million years. And the beauty, is she ends up confession her sins in front of an enormous meeting of the descendants of the real American Indians. Some good old plot lines still work so well. Kid tells lie, ends up telling bigger lies to cover original lie with, gets traumatized by guilt, ends up telling truth in embarrassing position, gets mildly rewarded for finally having the courage to admit their error and the truth. Don't you wish the Shrub had watched that episode? Dang, I am. Think he's understand it? Or laugh? Understand the "Hi-tachi" bit? No, I don't either.

You know, as a displaced Yooper, I love snow. Hell, I was born in November and it always snowed for my birthday. By that time each year I'd had my first cold as a kid, which meant my first shot of penicillin from Dr. Hauge. The good old days. Like a Rockwell painting. "Climb up on that stool and have a look at my diploma, good, drop yer trousers", alcohol swab and stab with the needle. None of that "this won't hurt a bit" or "you'll feel a little pressure" or "try to relax". You knew it was coming, he didn't sugar coat it, and he got it over quick and gave you a cheap sucker for it.

I've always loved to rib the wussies natives about snow and cold. I take perverse pleasure when they whine and moan about cruddy weather. I lived in Texsucks and I knew what it was like to not have seasons. To have boring weather with a capital bloody B followed by H for hot. I knew what 400 inches of snow in a season felt like.

This year, I'm tired of the snow. I did grin like a lunatic (sorry Ray) on my way to and from the bus stop this morning in the snow. Yet the truth is, I'd prefer it quit and warm up a little for some better cycling weather. Bloody hell, is resistance futile? Am I becoming a feared and dreaded Minnesotan? Grody Grief Charlie "St. Paul" Brown! I gotta go visit the UP soon and get this shit out of my system. Maybe I will go see P.J. Olsson in Houghton after all this weekend for that gig in his hometown?

In case you haven't heard, Walter Reed hospital was reported internally to be a hell hole by injured soldiers in 2004. It wasn't a secret what a dump it was for the less than privileged. So I personally accuse the Shrub of lack of support for his beloved troops. Take that you dink. I think the GOP congress was more worried about that Terry Schivo junk right about then. You know, paying attention to the crucial national problems and challenges.

A journalist by the name of Gary Kamiya accuses the national media to have been asleep on the job in the post 9/11 era. Specifically there wasn't a single major outlet questioning the Shrub and his minions like Faux news and their march to remove Iraq's leader. Funny how the national media don't see him as a "real" journalist because he writes a blog, and they completely disagree with his premise. That they were not asleep but being prudent and checking their facts and such highly journalistic ideals he just doesn't observe nor understand. One this is almost always true, when those at the top of the heap are accused by those perceived as of a "lower" caste or status they go on the defense, get angry, and get personal. They don't do their own job on themselves and check the facts. The national media helped lead us into the war into Iraq. There were no WMDs there. No anthrax, no moving labs, no moving missile trailers, and no stockpiles. There was lone voices in the wind saying how there was no "yellow cake" from Africa tale. They patriotically supported the smoke, mirrors, and lies and exacerbated the effect with their reporting.