flapping through the flak

One member of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), said Tuesday that Mukasey did not go far enough in condemning torture, and that he would vote against the nomination. “We cannot have a United States attorney general who will equivocate and dissemble on this matter,” said Biden, a presidential candidate.[Link]

I’m disappointed. I was hoping it was possible that the Bush administration could nominate a law abiding AG. Turns out this guy’s just a Halloween joke. Bush won’t have professionals, so long as he can have minions – flying monkeys.

Was it the Freedom Fries?

Our old nemesis, Donald “Vee haf vays of making you talk” Rumsfeld has really pissed off the French.

Hey Don, make for the Chunnel, and watch out for the Musketeers, you amoral, sadistic old sonofabitch.

Very amusing.

Your 15 Minutes Are Up … And Then Some

So I was driving along in my pickup truck today, minding my own business, and I turned on the radio. I found the BBC news. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, was talking about the many fires burning in my part of the world, to the south and southeast of my home. He said pretty much what you’d expect him to say, which was fine. Then there was a pause, and the next words out of my radio were something like, “Palestinian Authorities are still self-righteously pissed off at the Israelis for …” And I turned the radio off.

Nope, sorry, but I’m not buying this bullcrap anymore. The Jews and their enemies need to sit down now, and for a long time, and just shut up. I’m not listening to their sad tales of hatred and woe. I’ve had it right up to my ass with all of them. The whole bunch are like spoiled children who sit there squalling, demanding our attention for years upon years. They sit there bawling, and throwing their own poop at each other and everyone who comes in range.

Do they not realize that we might have other things on our minds? And isn’t it time to let someone else be center of attention? I’m thinking maybe Iceland. There must be something going on in Reykjavik that we could all ponder for a while. It’s only fair.

So from today, and for at least the next few years, I’m not going to listen to, or watch or read, anything with the words Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Beirut, West Bank, etc. And maybe, just maybe, if we stop giving them the international equivilent of Britney Lindsay media attention — perhaps if they realize they are being ignored – there will be some some hope that they will learn to coexist and relieve the rest of the world of this meaningless, onanistic anxiety.

Inshallah … Shalom.

Pigs

What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.

-Henry David Thoreau

It must be like drowning

Canadian Victim Testifies About US Extraordinary Rendition:

While they also offered apologies, Republicans Trent Franks and Dana Rohrabacher nevertheless defended the U.S. rendition program as an effective anti-terrorism tool.“I sincerely believe that the story of Mr. Arar will ultimately not be shown to be a failure of U.S. rendition policy, but instead an anomalous failure in the particular circumstances caused by false intelligence and information from Canada,” Franks said.

“An error in a program does not mean that program in and of itself is a wrong program,” said Rohrabacher.

In dramatic testimony, Arar described torture he was subjected to in a Syrian prison, treatment he says left him with permanent emotional scars.

Yes, Mr. Rohrabacher, yes it does. That’s exactly what it means. It means the practice of rendition is inherently immoral.

I can’t imagine much that would be worse than being accused wrongly of a crime. To be torn away from one’s family and freedom, from the simple comforts of shelter and society, to be dragged wrongly into the digestive tract of an indifferent and hostile, monolithic system. Except that’s how I would imagine being arrested and tried here in the US, with due process of law. Rendition is far worse: it’s kidnapping and torture, with no hope of trial, without resort to even the basest compassion of society.

It must be like drowning, and no one to call out to for help.

We are supposed to be a nation of law. And our law says that we afford those who stand accused a few basic rights, such as a trial. There is no circumstance, no conceivable threat to any or all of us, that merits circumvention of something so crucial to humanity.

Men like Franks and Rohrabacher are simply afraid; so much so that it is unmanly, shameful, and sad. Such men should stay at home, and let others – men and women with at least some clarity and moral fiber – lead.