We've got to have convictions

Colonel Morris Davis has been one of the chief developers of the new court system for Guantanamo detainees that don't really fully follow any civilian law or military law. You know- those guys that Junior says we can lock up for as long as we like without a trial.

Anyhow, he has recently resigned and stepped away from the whole process because he knows the whole thing is rigged. He alleges that in an interview with his boss, William Haynes, Haynes, remarked, "Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals in our cases. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off?" As soon as this came to light, Haynes has decided he needs to spend more time with his family (this really has become a very popular euphemism.)

The point is this is theater, not justice. This is showmanship, not integrity. Morris isn't done making waves yet. He's volunteered to testify on behalf of some of the "defendants". Good for him.

Not just Elmo anymore.

My kid is the only one at daycare who doesn't know who Elmo is. It would be nice to believe that its only because she just hasn't been exposed to the crass commercial world of Sesame Street yet, but Elmo is on about half her diapers. (Some blue cookie addict is on the others) Maybe it's because we don't have the "Tickle Me" variety in the house.

I've been musing that a lot of people have hit on the Einstein name to promote their products to anxious parents. You've got your Baby Einstein line. I don't get their videos but the books and flash cards have been a hit. And you've got the Little Einsteins which are a bunch of musical tots with a rocketship that I usually want to strangle. I wonder how the father of relativity theory, the actual theory would feel knowing that his name was being used to overhype toys. Because you know, if you don't buy this stuff, you're kid's got no chance to be the world's biggest brain.

Stuck at home.

I went to bed last night and woke up this morning without the certainty of my normal routine. The little one pulled a fever of about 103 yesterday morning and I spent the whole day at home. Last night offered some hints that she was improving. Not real snotty and her fever came down. I held out some hope that I'd be able to go into work this morning. And when she and I both got up, it seemed like she would be okay, but she's actually been sneezing a lot this morning and her fever isn't entirely gone. I don't see how I can go in today. Bummer.

I'll have to get back to work and I'll pay for this. Unfortunately, the baby being the way she is, I can't really get much done at home. And I can't quit work yet. I only got 3 numbers right on my last lottery ticket.

I'm home today because the little one is sick. I guess there's never a good time for anyone to be sick. It's always an inconvenience, but I was far enough behind at work that I was never going to catch up anyway. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

For the last two years Best American Nonrequired reading has featured the Edge Foundation (www.edge.org). This foundation asks leading scientist interesting questions and collects them in a book. The question this year was "What is your Dangerous Idea?"

The answers are varied and facsinating.
One guy argues that in the next few years we'll be able to increase human longevity a lot. He also argues that over population won't be a problem because we'll have solved the energy issue by then. We only to need to capture one percent of one percent of sunglight to meet all our needs.

Another explains Fermi's Paradox with runaway consumerism. Fermi's paradox essentially says- okay so if there are a hundred billion stars out there and life evolved pretty quickly on Earth then there should be lots of intelligent life out there, where are they? An evolutionary biologist argues that we've gotten sidetracked on space exploration and development because we've become addicted to computer games. Colonizing the galaxy is much harder than pretending to have done it by watching Star Wars. We've got too many distractions these days. Most of our latest inventions involve virtual reality rather than phyiscal reality.

There are a bunch of interesting concepts you really aren't going to see anywhere else. So check it out.

Things I'm wondering today....

1. Are Rush and Ann Coulter being disengenuous? I'm thinking that they've been attacking McCain just to make him more appealing to the independent electorate. There's a portion of people out there who are probably saying, "Hey, if Rush hate's this guy, he can't be all bad." People should never listen to any of the crap that comes out of Coulter's mouth.

2. Did McCain and Junior make a quid pro quo? Some have suggested that McCain stopped attacking Junior on the war and in large part backed him in surguing in return for two things. 1. Canning incompetent Rummy and 2. Junior not interfering with McCain's run this year. I've got nothing to substantiate this, but it was an interesting idea.

3. Why is Rocket on the Hill a partisan issue? Wow. Witch hunt on the hill and no one comes out pretty. From the testimony it became pretty clear that republiskunks went after Mcnamee and demosquids went after Clemens? Why the party divide? Are we to infer that republiskunks think all steroid dealers are demosquids? I don't get it. Fascinating legal maneuver today by Mcnamee's attorney to suggest Rocket could lie with impunity because he had a pardon in his back pocket. Junior has demonstrated he isn't too shameful to do something like that. He'd probably call Rocket a hero. And let me just point out again. Bonds isn't getting pardoned. On some level it's still a racial thing.

4. Does anyone have any doubt that our phone companies are completely guilty of violating their own privacy policies and providing the government with our personal information without warrants? If they weren't guilty, why would this immunity deal Junior's pushing be necessary. Any of your Congress folks who let this go are cowards of the worse kind. They're selling you down the river.

Taking Democracy for Granted

With one of the craziest elections ever making daily headlines, it may seem that democracy has never been stronger, but there's more to a strong democracy than voting. Voting is important, but lots of facist states hold elections too. Nazis, facists, anybody can hold a vote. But say if that vote can be ignore, or overruled by some one like a supreme court, what does it really mean?

I just finished a book titled, THE END OF AMERICA by Naomi Wolf. As the title might hint, she's a little screechy and militant, but she makes some good points about how it's easy for democracies to fall into a fascist state without even realizing it, something she calls a facist shift. She cites history (Hitler, Stalin Mussolini)to demonstrate that there are really 10 steps by which democracy shuts down and Junior has made facist advances in all these areas. Right now, I'm thinking back to Animal Farm by Orwell to mentalize how these steps work, but it's not hard to come up with several impeachable offenses from Junior that work as well.

The 10 Steps
1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat
2. Establish Secret Prisons
3. Develop a Paramilitary Force
4. Surveil Ordinary Citizens
5. Inflitate Citizens Groups
6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens
7. Target Key Individuals
8. Restrict the Press
9. Cast Criticism as "Espionage" and Dissent as "Treason.
10. Subvert the Rule of Law

Primary Day

After poking and prodding the candidates thoroughly, I can honestly say I would be satisfied by either of the two democratic party candidates. Yes, they have their weaknesses and there are more issues than either of them could fix as President, but it's a start. They actually have brains and some fresh ideas. Not like the guys on the other side. They've been saying some pretty funny things lately about how we need war no matter what and how they can guide the economy with more of the same. So I know who I'm voting for, but just not saying.

After some thought, I'm also voting against thet term limit changes in California.