Now This Makes Me Angry

Democratic leaders were briefed on "aggressive interrogation techniques" - read torture - in 2002. The briefing included a tour of one of their "black" prisions, those extraordinary rendition centers overseas and therefore exempt from U. S. law. Our Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, was one of those on the tour.

Waterboarding was described. No objections were raised. What that bit of passive-voice dodgery means is that Ms. Pelosi tacitly approved the facility and the practice. Now I'll grant this was a year after 9/11 but still, were we so scared then that our very principles could be sacrificed to expediency? Instructional is the statement that only after public outrage began do grow were objections raised AMONG DEMOCRATIC LEADERS. Some names (I'll leave out the GOPers - they automatically approve):

Nancy Pelosi
Jane Harman
John Rockefeller
Bob Graham

No objections raised. They can hide behind the classification of the project but still it remains fact: Our Democratic leadership was party to torture becoming a part of U. S. tactics in wartime. Perhaps now we understand why impeachment was off the table.

California should recall Pelosi.

Isn't This Called Obstruction of Justice?

Destruction of evidence by anyone - obstruction of justice. Or are stormtroopers exempted?

It's Time to Go

Obviously the Iraqis don't need us any more. If they have time for another month off, it's time for our troops to stop dying for them.

And in a Follow-Up...

...Bush is demanding the Iranians come clean about their nucular (sic) program. That's a favorite tactic of liars - when caught in a lie, try to divert attention by demanding someone prove they aren't lying. Aside from being logically impossible, it's a pretty sad state of affairs whey you try to cover a lie by demanding someone else prove they're truthful.

Bush Wants Five-Year Interest Rate Freeze...

...for adjustable-rate mortgages. Aside from being insulting to all of us who didn't overbuy, speculate, use our homes as ATMs or flat-out shouldn't have been given a mortgage, the five-year freeze on ARM rates does one important thing for the Bush Administration. It delays the crash until someone else's watch. A five-year moratorium would put the impending end of cheap interest firmly in successor's second term.

And since his successor will most likely be a Democrat and Americans' memories generally run into microseconds, the second round of the subprime crisis, delayed by freezing interest rates, will be blamed on Democrats.

Is Rove back at work at the White House? This seems to clever for the Chimp to have figured out on his own.

Another Bad Republican Idea

Let me put my indignation aside, first. When I bought my house, I got a 30-year conventional mortgage. When I refinanced to pay off my ex-wife, I got a 30-year conventional mortgage. I could have lived high for a couple years, waiting for the rate to balloon. Of course, even then, my house isn't more than I could pay for. Offered the ARM, I thought, why would the bank loan me money at a loss? Armed with that thought, I knew they would extract the same amount, if not more money from me if I took an upfront decrease in payment, in other words, that my payment would balloon at some time in the future to make up for lost money.

Now Bush and his financial advisors are floating the idea of a bailout. I don't know the details but I believe it to be a bad idea. Here's why: Competition. Not all banks and finance companies participated in the subprime madness, just as I didn't participate in the ARM. Those who did so should suffer the wrath of the free market, both institutions and those who took the poisonous loans. The only bailout I'd give a homeowner is a chance, one-time, to walk away from the deal with no damage to their credit rating. Finance companies could not have been so naive to believe that markets would always rise and if they were, let them suffer the just punishment they've earned. And if we lose a few, so be it.

The S&L bailout was a bad precedent. All bailouts have led to is weak organizations and bad managers surviving. In this case, the best solution is the ruthless Darwinism of the market: The smart survive, the stupid do not. And the bailout is being engineered by the Bush financial team. That enough should lead one to mistrust it.

There are 3 Kinds of Liars:

Liars, damned liars and George W. Bush. Given the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (the person who released this report deserves a Medal of Freedom, by the way) and Bush's presser this morning, not to mention his past assertions that Iran was busily developing nuclear weapons despite knowing damned well they weren't, how can anyone believe him again. It appears WWIII, Armageddon or whatever you want to call it is on hold. Gog and Magog aren't cooperating. So unless Bush contrives to sink one of our carriers and foists blame on Ahmedinijad, the Big One is off for now.

Liar, unfortunately, isn't the best word for Bush given this turn of events. He beat the drum of war, knowing for months that the drum was hollow. His attempt to start a second war on false pretenses leave only one word to describe Bush and his cabal:

Warmonger.

Some People Just Need a Life

While that could be said about me, this article proves that God really provided some people with too much free time.

It's "The Golden Compass" and it's a movie, people! Entertainment. Imagining that evil is represented by a church, well hey, you demonize Islam and I can't imagine that Christ would approve of the Inquisition. Churches are perhaps institutions designed to do God's work but they are institutions of Man, therefore subject to Man's failings. And more evil than the fundamentalists protesting this movie, well, I would imagine it would be hard to find someone less in line with Jesus's teachings than a Southern Baptist bigot.

Catholics are objecting, too. Remember your Inquisition, folks? You should really welcome the opportunity to reflect on your past and see how your institution can be perverted. But it's easier to pretend the Inquisition - how many tortured and killed in God's name - never happened or was somehow sanctified and to condemn A MOVIE. As to witchcraft, come on, people. Didn't you wear that one out with the Harry Potter movies?

Kicker to the entire brouhaha, some reviews say it's not even that good of a movie. Can't show a thumb either way at this time, will probably wait for the DVD. Popcorn, anyone?

Sunday Night Rant

It's bad when I can't get motivated to go skiing. Part of it is the La Nina fall - little precipitation leads to few runs being open and a high chance of running into someone who shouldn't be on the same run I'm on. Sounds like elitism, it isn't. But I digress.

A few nights ago I wrote about the Disgust-O-Meter being on zero. It's there because it's burnt out. I have enough outrage in one scan of HuffPo to write for a month, problem is I can't decide any more what outrages me more. Is it not enough for us that we accept that our Government believes it has the right to kidnap foreign citizens? That Presidential advisers lie to the point where even Fox News calls them on it? That Larry Craig's sexuality is even an issue? That Paul Wolfowitz has a job anywhere, much less one in Government?

Franklin offered us a republic, if we can keep it. On good days I imagine this is a normal part of the cycle, that things sometime have to get bad for us to try to make them good again. As we slide farther toward gilded-age society, a hyper-rich elite and a dirt poor populace, I wonder if we haven't been brainwashed into believing that's the way it should be. After all, thousands of years of human civilization have shown exactly that pattern. Didn't we rebel against this? But in that day, being a radical liberal was rather popular in the New World.

I suppose this will pass, that I will focus on some issue and begin to write again. For now, I imagine I'll keep putting these pathetic posts up for the few who read them and look to increase my indignation as the Christmas season progresses.