Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Yes, We Did!

President Obama. I STILL think it sounds cool! I got to watch the whole inauguration ceremony live, and except for that sanctimonious hypocrite Rick Warren it was a wonderful experience. Aretha was in fine voice and as one of my co-workers said, "There are only a few places you can wear a hat like that.", but she pulled it off with style. I still think she should have sung "Respect", but tradition must be served. Perhaps in four years?

Our new President is about to sign an executive order to close the gulag at Guantanamo. That's a great first step, but I think that more needs to happen. In the unlikely event that someone with the ear of President Obama reads this, my advice as an American that longs to see his country regain the moral high ground is this: Please order Attorney General-Designate Holder (Still Designate thanks to partisan Republican bullcrap) to investigate the illegal wiretapping, eavesdropping, no-bid contracts and, most of all, the use of torutre by the Bush administration. If sufficient evidence is found, those responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If that means that the former President and Vice-President go to jail, so be it.

I am not advocating a "witch-hunt". Merely following the evidence wherever it leads, even if (and especially if) it leads all the way to the top. The U.N. Special Investigator on Torture, Manfred Noack said today that, "The American government has a clear obligation to prosecute members of the Bush administration for war crimes" as a signatory to the U.N. Convention on Torture. Mr. Noack specifically named Donald Rumsfield and former President Bush. In fact, under those conventions, the U.N. might be able to start prosecution on its' own!

Wouldn't it be better for us to clean our own house than to let the rest of the world do it for us?

Monday, January 5, 2009

Feeling vile...

Why is it that a simple cold will turn the average human being into a quivering shell. I've come down with one and I feel like a mass of barely-congealed bat crap. Of course it has to show up while I'm in my probation period in my new job so I can't take the time to get over it. We can have people live in outer space, connect the entire world to one another and have pills to cause erections and grow hair but we can't cure a simple bloody rhinovirus? SIGH!