Where does the mind of George Bush end and that of Fox News begin? (It’s a trick question – implying that either is in possesion of one – or, to be fair, is using the one they possess)

Get your Bush Countdown Clock and count the days

Character is much easier kept than recovered.
-Thomas Paine

Good ol’ Thomas Paine is always ready with a good quote, and this one comes to mind when considering the recent bruha-ha over Canada’s manual for diplomats-in-training –
What do Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Syria have in common with the USA?

Torture, baby.

I know from my jury experience, when I helped decide the fate of a man who cut-up and killed his father with a dull kitchen knife (and I’m going easy on the details), defining torture isn’t always easy or as it would seem. I have no doubt that what Jan did to his dad was indeed tortuous, but not legally torture. So the jury acquitted him of the charge of torture, opting instead for murder. It’s about intent. Jan intended to kill his father, not torture him.

It may be apples and oranges, comparing penal law with international law.   But what if actions do, in fact, satisfy the legal definition – and intent – for torture? Dick and George may commit their own personal torture on the language in their attempts to justify those actions and nullify the law, but they cannot change the essence of what it means to torture someone.

On the other hand, does the US really belong on the same list with all those other countries so well known for their skill in torture? Say, for instance, the same countries to which send “detainees” in a process mysteriously called extraordinary rendition?

Well, there is that. At least one poor guy was innocent – and Canadian.

So after we’re done being indignant and outraged, it might be a good idea to check the arrogance and reflect a bit on what, if any, our own actions have in the situation we now find ourselves…

And then I woke up: Dick Cheney and George Bush were still president and Canada said it was sorry.

Seven years ago today, December 12, 2000, the Supreme Court saw fit to forgo the continuation of the recount and probable tampering of the vote in Florida, handing the presidency to George W. Bush.

Al Gore had won popular election, and forever will remain serious questions regarding voter caging and suppression in Florida (and elsewhere).

Seven years ago – it seems like decades – George Bush said he’d be a “uniter, not a divider”.

Things went downhill from there:

In an effort to justify his government’s use of torture and spying on its own citizens, George Bush spoke of terror plots that have been thwarted through use of these techniques.

Included in the list was a plot to fly a plane into “Library Tower” in Los Angeles (gosh, that word is tough, it’s actually liberty. It’s an especially tough word, apparently, for George Bush, for whom the irony is completely lost), and “flying buildings into London”

Oh my God, Al Qaeda is now using flying buildings to terrorize us.

Quick, let’s go torture someone.

He then asks which of the named terrorist plots for which the government had “intelligence” his critics would have had him not stop.

As Keith Olbermann pointed out and to which I agree, the plot I’d have had the government stop wasn’t on the list. The one on September 11th, 2001.  

Quick, let’s go torture someone.

Bush has successfully made this nation one that apparently operates on fear. For me, I am most afraid that before the next 14 months are finished, George Bush will have sent us into another war, further censored science in order to ignore pending environmental hardship (to say the least), and so thoroughly damaged this country that generations will pass before the spiral begins to reverse.

On the plus side, I have learned to laugh and cry at the same time.

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And if all that weren’t enough, Fox News reported that there was “intelligence” that the wildfires in southern California may have been set by Al Qaeda. The report was based on a blog post from June 25^th – of 2003. Ooops. (Note to Fox News: when researching the blogoshere for current events coverage, check the date of the blog post… No problem, glad I could help.)

Here’s my theory based on current evidence: Fox News is actually run and staffed by Al Qaeda operatives in an attempt to foist upon us George Bush’s agenda, one that  supports an unreasonable fear of everything and everyone and allows (they hope) the American people to accept the slow decay and absolute abandonment of the very principals upon which this country is based. Eating away from the inside, as it were.

All I’m sayin’ is that we need to be vigilant. There are flying buildings out there coming to get us.

God help us.