Vaporware

So, Moussari got life without martyrdom. The Government expended millions of your dollars on an Al Qaida wannabe and in the end, citizens saw through the sham. Meanwhile we hold one of the masterminds of 9/11 abroad, unable to bring him to trial because the information tortured out of him wouldn't stand up in court and the interrogation techniques used would be an embarassment to an embarassing administration. So, the conviction of Zacharias Moussari stands as another Bush administration failure, another attempt to use smoke and mirrors rather than substance, another spin gone horribly wrong.

In the software world, vaporware is software that hasn't been developed. The Congress, in a Snow job of Rumsfeldian proportions, approved port screening with vaporware. Now screenings at our ports will be just as useful as screenings at our airports. I suppose the members, both Dumbocrat and Repugnican, who voted for the proposal thought they were getting tough on terrorism. It must be an election year. Speaking of which, the Republicans brought up their tired, old wedge issue, flag burning, again today. Restricting free speech is important, energy dependence, the President's crimes, ethics reform, tangential. Just keep people from burning that piece of cloth! It has been done maybe twice in the past year. Wait, it's the Republican greenhouse gas control measure! See, we're stopping flag burning and reducing emissions, all in one! Brilliant!

Someone must have told Bush that Hamas has no oil nor will it allow American captives to be tortured in their jails. He now refuses to deal with them until they recognize Israel, something ninety percent of our "no child left behind" victims couldn't do given a map of the world. Bush failed to realize that democracy is a funny thing, that citizens of a democracy don't always vote in their own best interests, something he should know well given his own election. In support of immigration reform, he celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Quatro de Mayo. Apparently he's just as confused with dates as he is with the results of elections in a radical Islamist state. Will he now celebrate American independence am dritten Juli?

This as a posse of 100 good conservative Arizonans get out the good old vigilante system and start hunting them down. Ken Mehlman (German for flour man) is on damage control for the Gullible Old Pessimists, saying we need both a "temporary worker program" and "consequences for illegal aliens." The Germans from whom he gets his name (or were there Native American Germans?) also tried a guest worker program. They learned that if you let them in, you have to keep them. They also denied the guest workers a right to citizenship, claiming it would dilute their Germanness. Well, they're still there, still not citizens, still not integrating themselves into German society and I'd rather eat a Doner (Turkish gyro) than a schnitzel. If you let them in, you keep them.

We are a nation of prayer, Bush claims and I agree. I pray we survive the incompetence of his administration and at the same time, I pray he stays healthy. The thought of President Cheney is too much for me to bear. Now prayer might be a bit more effective at safeguarding our ports than the vaporware proposed by the House. Hmmmm.

Next time a Conservative talks smack about all our oil coming from trouble spots, here are some facts for them. Canada is the top exporter of oil to the U.S., accounting for 17% of its imports. It has the world's second largest proven oil reserves at 179 billion barrels.