Various rants

Oh, that torture thing just won't go away.
Dick "the dick" Cheney is going all over the place (North Dakota! He really wants all 156 people who still live there on his side.) (Yes, I know more than 156 people live in North Dakota. There are probably several hundred in Fargo, alone. Really alone.)

Though he doesn't mention this specifically, he's still maintaining that waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times led to important information. More than if they'd only tortured him, say, 97 times. Must be one tough somabitch to last 183 waterboardings before spilling his guts.
Me, I would have implicated my sister, nephews and nieces and minister and best friends after, oh, maybe fifty or so.
More likely three or so.
And Abu Zubayduh, 83 times.
Ol' Khalid and Abu are not exemplarary human beings by any measure—unless you think planning the deaths of thousands is exemplarary. But is what we have been doing really the way we want to act as Americans? And as the Conservatives maintain, a "Christian" nation. Christian indeed.
I guess it's a good thing for those money-changers in the temple that Jesus didn't know about waterboarding, or they would really have been in for a world of hurt.

Which, incidentally, brings me to Dan Choi, an Iraq vet, West Point graduate Arabic speaking soldier and platoon leader, who is being kicked out of the Army Nat'l. Guard because he spoke up about being gay. Maybe no one asked, but he told.
Gasp.
The man clearly has the qualifications needed to be one of the best soldiers and officers that can be, yet he is being kicked out for being open about his sexual identity. We have so many Arabic speaking soldiers I guess we can lose a few.
Quote of the day, yesterday, from Jon Stewart, speaking of how Dan Choi, one of 54 Arabic speaking gay service people, was kicked out of the service—"It was okay to waterboard someone over 80 times but God forbid the guy who could understand what that prick was saying should have a boyfriend."

What else?—the Pope went to the middle east to promote peace. Still waiting to see if it worked. I suspect he's found out that no matter what you do there you're doing something wrong. What a mess that place is, and the West has had a big hand in contributing to mess, with it's colonialism and anti-Semitism (which extended to all Semites, not just the Jewish ones.) Jerusalem— three major religions have a claim on the place and none of them want to let the others have any. I'd like to clear everyone out and turn it over to the Buddhists. Or maybe level it and let the Disney people build a theme park on the site. It would be the first time in centuries the place brought happiness to people.
Shallow happiness, but still…

Speaking of religion, NOT. "Angels and Demons" is in the theaters. I haven't seen it yet. I like what A.O. Scott said in the New York Times about "The Da Vinci Code" offending his faith—in the English language. I'm not the only one who thinks Dan Brown is an execrable writer. I only read the "Code" all the way thru to see how he was going to wrap up that mess he started, wincing on every page at the quality (not) of his writing. Anyway Scott said he enjoyed "Angels and Demons" more because he hadn't read the book. Still, it isn't that good, except as mindless entertainment.
But so much of our manufactured life is mindless entertainment.

Whoops. Started to inflict some pop-philosophy on you there. Sorry.
Guess it's time to log off.
Go be useful somewhere.