Category Archives: News and politics

We managed to obtain this series of outtakes from the Pope’s Sunday Address.  It sounds like it was a recording off the talkback line between the recording technician and the Pope. 

TECH:

Papal Address for Sunday, Take 1 in three, two one

POPE:

Brothers and Sisters, those fucking towel-headed carpet jockeys are messin’ shit up.

TECH:

Cut!  Your Holiness, you can’t use language like that.  Come on, Your Holiness, we’ve had this talk before….

POPE:

Sorry Greg, I forgot… Let’s take it again.

TECH:

Papal Address for Sunday, Take 2 in three, two one

POPE: 

Brothers and Sisters, I speak to you today about the threat of radical Islamic fundamentalism.  Those who embrace a universal view of God know that Mohammed was a putz.

TECH:

Cut! Your Holiness, you can’t call Mohammed a putz. 

POPE:

Why not?  He was a putz.  So was his brother Mike.

TECH:

Your Holiness, putz is a Yiddish term, meaning prick.  You really want to call Mohammed a putz?  I mean, dude, you’re annoying Jews and Muslims in one sentence, can’t you come up with something a little softer?

POPE:

Oh.  OK…Lemme see….OK.  I think I’ve got it.  Roll it

TECH:

Papal Address for Sunday Take 3 in three, two one

POPE:

Brothers and Sisters, I speak to you today about the threat of radical Islamic fundamentalism.  Those who embrace a universal view of God know that God wants his flock to use the peaceful means that He has given his children to reconcile their differences.  Look at the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  Over our thousands of years of existence we’ve only slaughtered a few hundred thousand unbelievers in the Crusades, the Inquisition and, of course, Northern Ireland.

TECH:

Cut! Your Holiness, are you sure you want to mention the Crusades, the Inquisition and Ireland in the same sentence?  I mean, these are not the best examples of Catholic and Christian tolerance are they?

POPE:

Hey are you the Pope or am I?  Dammit Greg, you want me to talk about tolerance and peace when these shitpokes are blowing up stuff all over the place?  I mean, really man.  You’re stomping on my creativity here.

TECH:

Sorry Your Holiness.  It’s just that all the stuff you brought up at that University address in Regensberg is causing all kinds of mad shit with the Muslims.  They are some pissed at you and that means they’re pissed at me, man.  Can’t you do something to chill’em out?

POPE:

Whaddya want me to do to chill them out?  We tried that in 1938 in Poland and see what that got us?  Bunch of fuckers…worse than goddam Presbyterians with a wild hair up their ass…

TECH:

I don’t know, Your Holiness…um…how about an apology?

POPE: 

I am the fucking Pope you asshole!  I am infallible for shitsakes.  The Pope doesn’t apologize to nobody for nothing and don’t you forget it or you’ll be recording sermons for the Jesuits in Tierra del Fuego next week.

TECH:

Sorry.

POPE:

You should be.

TECH:

It’s just, well, you know, tolerance.  I mean we’re all talking about the same God right?

POPE:

Yeah, yeah, yeah…there is but one God and so and so is his prophet.  We bicker over who speaks for God but there is only one God.

TECH:

What I mean is, it kinda doesn’t matter which prophet you use, Mohammed, Luke, Mark, John, or the crazy guy on the street corner right?

POPE:

I’m following.  Go on…

TECH:

Well if it doesn’t matter which particular spokesman you believe in, the really important thing is believing in the whole thing.  Like Bono said to me once, “You gotta believe in the whole album, not all the songs in the album”

POPE:

OK I get it.  Like on their Atomic Bomb album, that cut, Original of the Species, sucks shit, but the album is really sharp.  Some good chops in there….

TECH:

Yeah…that`s it.  The album, meaning God, as a whole, is great.  A true iTunes bullet.  But some of the individual tracks, like oh, Mormons, blow monkeys on Sundays. 

POPE:

Yeah!  That`s a great way to put it man.

TECH:

So what you gotta do is be like Bono and say that, hey, man, sorry, the album is a killer but this one track, the Muslims, isn`t as good as we wanted it to be. 

POPE:

So you want me to apologize for the Muslims for being a shit track, is that what you`re saying…

TECH:

Naw, it`s a little more subtle than that.  Like, what you want to do is to say you`re sorry for saying that one or two tracks ain`t so good.

POPE:

So I`m not really saying I`m sorry at all that one track or two is fucked up, more like I`m saying I`m sorry for saying it out loud.  Is that it…

TECH:

Yeah.  Yeah that`s it!

POPE:

Fuck.  That I can do without wearing a funny hat.  Roll`em Greggy Boy.  We can knock this out in one take.

TECH:

Papal Address for Sunday Take 4 in three, two one

POPE:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The pastoral visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today.

I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this pastoral visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday’s general audience.

At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims.

These in fact were a quotation from a Medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.

Yesterday, the Cardinal Secretary of State published a statement in this regard in which he explained the true meaning of my words. I hope that this serves to appease hearts and to clarify the true meaning of my address, which in its totality was and is an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect.  Thank You.

TECH:

We`re clear…good one!

POPE:

Yeah, that ought to hold the fuckers.  Well, I`m done for the day.  Later Greg.

TECH:

Later Your Holiness. 

The Ford Motor Company has said today that they’re going to fire about 30% of their salaried workforce and 75,000 union workers worldwide.  To save the patient, Ford will now cut off a leg and a hand, is the short form.

On the same webpage (www.ctv.ca) there was a link to another automotive story.  Toyota is hiring 2,000 workers over the next couple of years to work at their Woodstock and Cambridge plants, building the Matrix, RAV4, Corolla and a Lexus SUV here in Ontario.

One automaker is hiring, another firing.  This tells me more than first might appear.  I am sorry that anyone is getting the axe, as it hurts individuals, families and communities with the strain that losing the income puts on people.  I’m even a bit pro-union in this situation, as the Canadian Auto Workers have cut good, rational, business driven deals with the automakers over the years.  CAW is one of those sensible unions who go out of their way to protect their people and still be realistic about their demands. 

Given a choice I am a Ford Guy, as I have a lick of sense, unlike Chevy owners or those who have gone over to the Insane Clowns and drive Dodge or Chrysler products.  Remember, Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Chevys. 

Having said that, the last car I bought was a Nissan Sentra.  When I moved to Toronto, I knew that my driving was going to be primarily urban and mostly downtown.  Ideally I wanted a Toyota Prius or a Honda Civic Hybrid, as I prefer to leave as small a carbon footprint as I can.  An automatic was mandatory, as there is no way in hell I will drive a stick in stop and go traffic.  No hybrids from any manufacturer were available at a price I could afford, in the timeline I had.  So, the Sentra is as fuel efficient as I can get but has A/C, a radio and an automatic trans. 

Ford has a hybrid:  A hulking Expedition SUV that comes loaded with all options including the latte maker, for $35,000.  No thanks.  Ford has small cars too, except the quality on them is so bad as to make one long for the Yugo or the Lada.  Ford’s small cars last about three years.   When the gas tank is empty or the ashtray is full, throw them away.  Ford pickups and performance cars?  Great pieces of go-fast and haul-lots.

Which explains why Ford is laying off that many people:  The products suck.  Someone in the big building in Dearborn made very, very, bad choices despite having all kinds of expensive market intelligence to hand. 

The best type of market intelligence I’ve seen for cars, is to go to a Wal-Mart and walk around the parking lot looking at brands that people have actually put money on the counter to buy.  If your brand isn’t there in proportion to your market share, then your product mix is wrong.  It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to figure that one out. 

The sorry part of it is that the executives responsible for Ford abandoning the small and medium sized car market will have their jobs in 2008.  They’ll probably even get a big bonus and more plush carpets in the office as the company is now profitable. 

The poor yob in Windsor working at the Essex Engine Plant who gets laid off next month with two weeks’ severance and a ‘thanks for your nineteen years of service’ will be working at Wal-Mart in 2008 for $6.95 an hour.  I doubt he or she will buy another Ford.  Ever.  He or She will probably go out of their way to tell all their friends and relations to never buy another Ford and I can’t say I blame them. 

The argument that Ford, or any of the Big Three, can’t build profitable small and medium cars is complete nonsense.  Toyota and Honda, both in Ontario, do a very good job at building small and medium sized cars.  Toyota and Honda compensate comparably to CAW rates, including benefits.  Toyota and Honda still pay for electricity and water and taxes, just like Ford, or GM or Chrysler.  Toyota and Honda buy subsystems from Magna, Lear-Siegler, Dana, Goodyear and the rest, just like Ford, GM and Chrysler. 

Where Toyota and Honda excel is in the engineering, design and marketing.  Ford, GM and Daimler-Chrysler don’t.  Toyota and Honda both turn a nice profit. 

Perhaps if the product planners would spend a few hours walking around in a parking lot, that would change.  I’m not holding my breath. 

I  was just taking off in an American Airlines flight to Chicago from Ottawa on that morning.  As we reached cruising altitude near Kingston the aircraft started a 180 degree turn.  The pilot came on and said we were going back to Ottawa, landing and unloading.  There was nothing wrong with the plane, don’t worry. 

I called Marylou on the airphone and was greeted by a stream of tears.  An airliner had crashed into the World Trade Centre.  Nobody on the plane knew the actual reason we were being returned to Ottawa.  All the flight crew got was a message to take it back to Ottawa, land it, unload and wait further instructions.  I became the source, repeating news from the phone to the passengers and cabin crew near me.  We were all dumbstruck.  As we neared Ottawa the connection was dropped for some reason.  I tried to connect again but was unable to get a dial tone. 

Since we had cleared US Customs in Ottawa, we were an embargoed flight and technically had to clear Canadian Customs.  We landed then held short of the gate, so I turned on my cellphone and called home to more tears from Marylou.  Things had gone from bad to worse.  There were rumours that more flights were crashing out of sky and my sudden disconnection had dropped Marylou into a puddle of tears, as she assumed that my flight was in flames somewhere. 

After calming each other down there was a gasp in her voice.  The second flight had just slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre, live on every television channel.  Our flight trundled up to the gate and we were unloaded into the airport without going through customs.  The message from American Airlines was terse:  Get your bags and go home. 

I have never and hope I never again hear, 3,000 people making no sound whatsoever.  We all stood there, mouths agape watching the playback again and again.  There would be an occasional sob.  A younger couple from Seattle were standing next to me, trying frantically to get a dial tone on their cellphone, with no success.  I fired my phone up, got a dial tone and handed it to them; they protested it would cost me minutes.   “Call your family, let them know you’re ok.  Don’t worry about it, just do it.” I said.  They called, briefly told their family what was happening and handed my phone back.  They murmured thanks and walked away with that slow shuffling walk of people who are in a state of mental overload. 

Marylou arrived at the airport and hugged me tighter than I have ever been hugged.  We rushed home.  We parked on the sofa for the next three days trying to follow the events. 

I saw the towers fall, live on TV.  I still can’t process the logic that 220 floors of structure, offices and people was pulverized into elemental dust.

I saw the cloud of dust hang like a grisly apostrophe over the New York City skyline. 

I heard the reporters, notably Paula Zahn and Aaron Brown, try to wrap their reportorial minds around what they were seeing. 

I saw the shaky video of the scene at the Pentagon, some kind of huge blast tearing a flaming slice out of the building. 

I saw the images of people running away from the danger:  Panic and tears distorting faces into wet masks of fear.

To this day I still cannot imagine that day, or those emotions, without weeping.

Since that ghastly day, we have learned much about what went on, the timelines, the people, the mistakes and the heroic efforts.  None of it brings back the nearly 3,000 people killed on that day, or restores the families and lives that have been irreparably damaged. 

Nothing anyone can do will put things back to the way things were on September 10^th, 2001.  I’m sorry for that.

Michael Schumacher, 37, is retiring at the end of this Formula One season.  So says Michael in the press room at Monza after he won the end of the today’s F1 event.

Some of you don’t follow motorsport, so let me fill in the blanks.  Schumacher is the Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Russ Howard and Peyton Manning of Formula One racing.  Since his first race in the Big Show in 1991 he has won 7 World Driving Championships, 90 wins, 68 pole positions and 153 podium finishes, records all.

Schumacher earns a reputed $80 million US a year from his racing, endorsements and personal appearances.

To say that he is an extraordinary driver is like saying Michelangelo’s La Pieta is a not-too-bad piece of sculpture, Chuck Yeager was an OK pilot and Iggy Pop is a touch odd.

Schumacher is lucky, in that he isn’t dead, as his chosen career does tend to claim a few lives.  He is also as skilled as can be imagined in the rain, in the dry and with a less than perfect car.  So far, no details on what he’s going to do, aside from lock himself in the basement and count the money. 

Formula One is a sport of thousands of a second, thousands of an inch and thousands of wannabes.  Schumacher was one of a very few who conquered those thousands of thousands.

It seems that arrests and apologies dominate this week.

RADAR Online (Jeff Bercovici) NEW YORK  50 Cent is being held at New York’s Midtown South precinct house on West 35th Street after being pulled over for a traffic violation. An officer on the scene told Radar the rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, had been charged with a section 509 violation, driving without a license or with a suspended license.

A crowd of at least 75 people gathered around the precinct house, taking photos of Fiddy’s vehicle, a chrome-finished Lamborghini Murcielago with dealer license plates reading "Unique Auto Sport." Unique’s website features a photo of the rapper posing with the car, worth an estimated $466,000. Officers were trying to keep the traffic-snarling crowds on the opposite side of the street, but one did pause long enough to provide Radar with some color on the arrest:

"He was being an asshole, speeding or some shit. They stopped him and he wouldn’t give up his license. He kept saying, ‘You know who I am. I know you know who I am,’ so they had to lock him up." The officer then turned to a colleague and said, "You believe this mook?"

At least they didn’t Taser him first, like the LA Cops do.

-30-

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Celebrity Paris Hilton was arrested in Hollywood early on Thursday for suspected drunk driving, but she said the incident had been blown out of proportion and that she may have been speeding to get a late-night burger.

Hilton, 25, the heiress to the Hilton hotel dynasty known for her hard-partying lifestyle, was pulled over by police in Hollywood around 1 a.m. for driving erratically.

She told KIIS-FM radio in an interview on Thursday morning that she had been to a charity fund-raiser party after a long day shooting a music video and had just one margarita.

"I had one margarita (and) was starving because I had not eaten all day," she said. "Maybe I was speeding a little bit and I got pulled over. I was just really hungry and I wanted to have an In-N-Out Burger and get my famous face all over the media as my career is tanking by the hour.  I might have to do another night-vision porno.”

-30-

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger apologized on Friday for calling a Latina state lawmaker "very hot" in private remarks obtained by a newspaper — although the legislator herself said she wasn’t offended.

Schwarzenegger made the comment about Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia during a closed-door meeting with members of his staff last spring. A tape recording of the informal session was obtained by the Los Angeles Times, which printed them on its front page.

"I mean, they are all very hot," the governor said of Cubans and Puerto Ricans, according to the paper. "They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them and together that makes it."

According to the Times, the film star-turned politician was referring to the fiery personalities of Cubans and Puerto Ricans in general and of Garcia in particular.

"Anyone out there that feels offended by those comments, I just want to say I’m sorry," Schwarzenegger said during a news conference. "I apologize because that was not the intention. The fact is that if I would hear those kind of comments in my house, by my kids, I would be upset."

Gov. Schwarenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver, said that “He should talk about hot, he’s got a schvantz on him like a baby’s arm holding an apple in its fist.  But he also knows I’ll cut it off and shove it up his ass if he wants to dip his wick anywhere but my tight little Cape Cod Cooch.”

-30-

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA scrubbed Friday’s launch of the space shuttle Atlantis again, this time because of a problem that has bedeviled the space agency before: a faulty fuel tank sensor.

The launch was rescheduled for 11:15 a.m. EDT on Saturday, when NASA will try a fifth time to get Atlantis off the ground and send it to the international space station to resume construction on the orbiting outpost, which has been on hold since the Columbia tragedy 3 1/2 years ago.

Saturday is the last time NASA has to launch Atlantis before it has to go to the back of the line, behind a Russian Soyuz capsule that is slated for liftoff Sept. 18 on a flight to the space station. Both Atlantis and the Soyuz cannot be at the space station at the same time.

ISS Astronauts are now down to one can of Ocean Spray Cranberry Jelly, two boxes of Kraft Dinner and a partially eaten box of Wasa Crispbreads.  Astronaut Michail Bitchakokoff, in a NASA two-way radio interview said he was “So goddam pissed that jets of steam are coming out of my freakin’ head.  Over.”

-30-

I wish I could make this stuff up.

The chief of NATO, General James Jones, says the next few weeks could be decisive for the alliance in the fight against the insurgents in Afghanistan.  Big surprise that, as the Taliban funfest has been heating up from beyond a peace making operation to a balls-out war for the past six months.  Canada is up to its armpits in Afghanistan, with a few thousand boots on the ground getting shot at, killed and wounded.  The most recent casualties were several injured and one killed in a friendly fire incident near Panjwaii.

The call for reinforcements overlooks an elemental feature of the whole Afghanistan/Iraq battle zone:  You can’t hold ground unless you have people on the ground.  This is Tactics 101 and has been true since Roman times.  Unless you have troops in the location, you cannot hold the location. 

This was never more true than in Viet Nam.  The Viet Cong could control vast areas of the south, using the wonderfully effective tool of terror.  The Viet Cong could hold ground with a lightly armed company as the non-combatant civilians were utterly cowed.  The US would get annoyed by this and send in a couple of thousand troops by helicopter.  The troops would patrol aggressively, shooting up everything in sight.  Lines would be drawn on maps in various colour grease pencils, press conferences would be held, body counts taken and more rounds fired off.  A week later, the US troops would helicopter out feeling all victorious.  By the afternoon, the Viet Cong were back in control of the area. 

Afghanistan and Iraq are exactly the same.  You cannot hold ground with an absentee landlord. 

There are two ways to get a population to accept your position.  The first is to terrorize them beyond all possible sense.  Ask any former Soviet-bloc country, like Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Yugoslavia or Poland:  Terror works just fine. 

The second is to have a lot of well-armed troops, visible, all over the place.  Again, ask any former Soviet-bloc country.  Knowing that there were a couple of dozen divisions of armoured troops just the other side of the border with Russia, tends to adjust your attitude as a country.

Since NATO has decided not to pursue Option #1, (thank heavens) that leaves Option #2. 

NATO and the US in their other conflicts have tried to use air power as a way to hold ground.  It didn’t work 1963 through to 1972 until Nixon turned the B-52’s loose and used them as a terror weapon to bomb the snot out of anything that moved.  Total destruction of whole swaths of Ha Noi convinced the North Viet Nam government to come back to the bargaining table.  Only by using air power as a terror weapon can you change anything except narrow areas of landscaping.  Ask Israel about using air power as a terror weapon:  They can explain it just fine. 

Boots on the ground are the only way to bring about change in a vaguely humanitarian way.  The problem is NATO and the US do not have enough boots on the ground.  To paraphrase Rumsfeld, you fight with the army you have, not the army you want.  Except Rumsfeld has had nearly three years to get the army wanted over there and working to adjust some attitudes.

The only way to close down the insurgency in Afghanistan and stop the civil war in Iraq is to put a lot of troops into the area.  We’re talking about units on most street corners, ready and willing to bring all kinds of hell down on anyone dumb enough to fire at them.  This would require, according to some estimates, close to 500,000 troops.  There aren’t enough troops available to do it in Iraq or Afghanistan, which explains General James Jones’ comments.

The US might be able to muster some more if they bring back Selective Service and draft about 100,000 able-bodied citizens.  There is the other issue of how to pay for it, but Dubya and Rumsfeld have proven that they have no shame about racking up the biggest federal deficit ever.  What’s another trillion, right?  Especially when their buddies get a big slice of that pie, those two would do it.

The other contentious issue is the political will to reestablish the Selective Service draft and then actually draft a lot of people into the military.  Wrap it up in the “War on Terror” and that sandwich would be swallowed by the Conservative Right with a big glass of milk.  Needless to say the bulk of draftees wouldn’t be the children of the Republican base, as the college deferment would pop up instantly.  There would also be a draft deferment based on owning more than one cell phone and having five pieces of Abercrombie and Fitch apparel in your closet.  Oh, and being white, wealthy, lazy and from Texas. 

I dare not suggest that mandatory Selective Service for all undocumented aliens wanting citizenship is a solution.  Those swine in DC like Cheney and Rove are vile enough to figure they could make it fly, especially if Halliburton and KBR do the selecting and the initial training for a fee.  I don’t want my name anywhere near that idea and I feel guilty for even having the concept come to mind.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.

Could the US and NATO win in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Nope.  Not with the way things are today.  There are not enough feet in the dirt.  It hasn’t worked in the past.  It won’t work now, even with the most high-tech of high-tech weapons.  Ground is held by armed troops, not computer screens and consultants.  And you can’t improve the current situation until you hold the ground. 

By the way, I define “win” as having the local population confident enough to run their own affairs.  The lights have to be on, the water has to work and there has to be some kind of infrastructure for security that will keep the local market operating so people can buy, sell and grow food.  The rest of it (Full Jeffersonian Democracy bowing to Washington five times a day) is immaterial and will never happen if the people don’t have food, water and a little bit of security.

So, the options in front of us change. 

The first is to put as many feet as possible over there and try to control things long enough for change to happen.  This could take another year or two of deaths, horrific injuries, shattered lives and destruction beyond all sense for everyone involved.  It might even mean a massive military mobilization on a scale we haven’t seen since World War II.  Run by who?  The UN?  Please don’t make me laugh that hard; my lips are chapped and my leg hurts.

The second option is to pack it up and go home.  Pull up the tents, pack up the tanks and say “Thank you for playing.  Good Bye.  Whoever is left alive in six months’ time can call us.”  This means making a difficult moral decision to look at our responsibilities for causing a lot of the madness in the area.

My personal thought is that we may be responsible for half of the insanity.  Remember that Saddam was a US ally, funded and CIA-supported when he was fighting Iran.  The Taliban were our allies, funded and CIA-supported when they were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, so the US and by extension the Western World, does have some blame to shoulder. 

I could bring up a lot of oil and politics jiggery-pokery about Hamid Karzi being a former Unocal fixer, Halliburton having their fingers up the arse of  the Iraq State Oil Company as well as ARAMCO from Saudi Arabia and the whole House of Saud being propped up by Big Oil.  But I won’t, as it is too long a post as it also includes monomaniacal American support for Israel and some other stuff that is too disturbing to contemplate or explain.

Iraq and Afghanistan also have to smarten up a goodly bit.  Stop behaving like tribal assholes and remember that you are part of the whole world.  Otherwise the West is going to have to cut you loose to kill each other and live with our guilt over causing it.    

Today Dubya has finally admitted that the Central Intelligence Agency has some high value prisoners in custody at various places around the world.  In an afternoon press conference a fartcatcher for Dubya said that he will announce that high-value detainees now being held at secret CIA prisons will be transferred to the Department of Defense and granted protections under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.  It has been rumoured that the CIA was operating what they call “rendition” flights using private aircraft to ship captured Al Qaeda prisoners around the world in a global shell game.

The reason for the off shore jails are simple enough.  If the captured folks, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, were put in American or Department of Defense prisons, the CIA would be forced to play by the commonly accepted rules of international behavior.  Off shore, the CIA can use the rules of “whatever works” to get confessions and information from the persons in question, or the local legal rules, whichever is harsher. 

As an example, Romania has a simple human rights charter:  You Ain’t Got None, Now Shut Up. Consequently the CIA folks could start their questioning with simple concepts like:  “How many of your fingers will I have to cut off with these here bolt cutters before you tell me everything I want to know?” or “Would you like 90 volts or 120 volts applied to your balls in the next 30 seconds?  Concepts like evidence, innocent until proven guilty, rights to legal counsel and the right to not self-incriminate go out the window.  However, Khallid Sheikh Mohammed never gave the people in the World Trade Centre or in the airplanes that crashed into it, a warning that bad things were about to happen, so I am of two minds here.

The interesting part is that Dubya is now admitting that these kinds of things have gone on and are going on.  Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have kept the pressure on the US, resulting in the CIA closing down their little off shore hideaways in Poland and Romania back in December.  Now it is rumoured the detainees are treated to the hospitality of some small Pacific Rim countries and a resort or two in Afghanistan. 

The black-helicopter brigade are all a-twitter about it.  The general plot-line being if the CIA is now being caught at (well, let’s call it what it is) prisoner torture in 2006, how long has it really been going on?  Since the Bay of Pigs?  Since Watergate?  Since the Second World War?  I hate to fan the flames of the black-helicopter fires, but the kidnapping and torture of suspected spies, terrorists and assorted other bad guys has been going at least since the American Revolutionary War. 

My family originally lived in Brockton, Massachusetts and were prosperous textile merchants.  The Smiths were on the boat that followed the Mayflower.  One night a small group of armed and very angry men came to the house and invited the family to leave immediately or die in a horrible fire.  The family, having a lick of sense, packed up what they could carry and headed for Canada the next day, abandoning the textile mill and all their possessions that wouldn’t fit on a wagon.

This happened in 1775.  The original Smith clan were what were called Loyalists.  Upper Canada welcomed them with open arms and they settled in what is now Brockville, Ontario to become drunkards, gamblers, thieves and reprobates. 

During the Second World War, the Allies had a couple of facilities near Liverpool that obtained information from downed German airmen and any spies that were captured.  The methods were, um, effective.  The Germans did the same thing.  So did the Russians, the Japanese and the Americans.  For that matter Canada had a place near Oshawa that was used for all kinds of things including ‘special detention’ facilities.

At least Dubya has admitted it has been going on and now detainees will be treated ‘humanely’.  The out is the pronouncement only applies to those detainees in the custody of the Military.   CIA detainees are excluded and the real number in CIA custody is somewhere from a dozen to two dozen.  Fourteen have been admitted to by Dubya.  As for how many will survive long enough to be turned over to the military is anyone’s guess.  Oooopsie.  There was a terrible accident and, well, you know.  Business as Usual.      

There were two stories that got a vein on the side of my head to pulse today.  The first is a follow up to a RoadDave on the old website a few years ago.  In that old post, I pointed out that voting machines that do not provide for a paper backup record of my choices were evil little pieces of poo.  As our US neighbours go into mid-term elections, my attitude has not changed. 

Diebold, one of the two big names in e-voting machines, selling zillions of them, had their ‘secure’ e-voting machine physically hacked.  The work was performed by two middle-aged women with little or no skills except some understanding of ‘righty-tighty-lefty-loosey’ and an Allen key wrench.  Go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org if you want to see how it is done, as it is so simple as to make you fall over.  The most troubling problem with a physical hack is that the memory card that holds your ‘vote’ can be replaced without a trace. 

I wouldn’t suggest that the Republicans would do that, any more than I would suggest that a sitting President would lie to the American public about the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

The second vein-throbber for me was this one from ABC News correspondent Brian Ross’ blog: 

“Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a "peaceful life," Pakistani officials tell ABC News.

The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a "peace deal" with the Taliban.

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

So far, this week, we’ve lost seven Canadian soldiers fighting the Taliban who have cut a deal with the Pakistan Army.  To put a fine point on it, Pakistan is not interested in capturing Osama Bin Laden and bringing him to justice.  The Afghan Taliban have proven they don’t give a shit either. 

The US government is not serious about being in Afghanistan or Iraq, as demonstrated by their refusal to commit the number of troops needed to get the job done.  Too much of the budget needed to get an effective number of boots on the ground is being sucked up by Haliburton and the other contractors who look at these occasions as a payday.  They know that Dubya and Cheney will just stand up and say “war on terror, evil-doers, national security, axis of evil’ to distract anyone from looking too closely at the money.

Do remember that, my dear American friends, when you go to vote in a mid-term election on an electronic voting machine that can be fudged in four minutes or less.  The money to pay for the war on terror and that hackable voting machine came out of your pocket.