THE CONSEQUENCES OF FLUNKING HISTORY

WASHINGTON -- We thought we had put it all behind us -- the archaic reversion to torture, with the grotesque wordings that remind one more of a 16th-century Inquisition than of 21st-century America. Now here it is, back again.

Even the language returns, in the memos released last week by the Obama administration, to taunt us in this haunted house of our perversions: "enhanced interrogation ... conscience-shocking ... learned helplessness ... alien combatants ... extraordinary rendition."

The one phrase that has not been used, at least by the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld team, is the great Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil." Perhaps because they end up being so pitifully banal -- so commonplace in their evil -- themselves.

But the worst part is not that the Bush administration corrupted their advisory legal "minds" to justify tortures that were used by every sadist and thug from the Spanish Inquisition and the Manchurian candidates of the North Koreans to Pol Pot and his museum of human skulls. The most sadly telling part of this American scandal was recently revealed in a lengthy front-page article in The New York Times:

The Americans who approved these practices did not even know where such practices had come from! They had no idea of the gruesome history of methods such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and slapping, isolating and sexually humiliating the enemy.

As innocent as babes, apparently, our "interrogators" and even politicians took many of these methods from an American military training program called SERE, created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the abhorrent torture methods of the Asian communists -- in short, to warn American troops against the sadists of the world who would employ such methods against them.

The Times reported that "no one involved -- not the top two CIA officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees -- investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate."

Moreover, the top officials that CIA Director George Tenet briefed "did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia."

And in the final insult to injury, they did not know that some veteran trainers from the SERE program (it stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) had even warned, as have most analysts who have studied the results of torture, that, morality quite aside, the methods were ineffective! The article quotes one former CIA official describing the process as "a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm."

In many ways, this journey of ignorance and choosing-not-to-know reminds me of our "preparation" for 9/11. Every warning was there, too, for us to KNOW that something like that heinous attack would surely occur; it had even had a run-through in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade buildings. Any good analyst could see the Islamic radical fundamentalists prepping and preparing in the corners of the globe to get even with us after we abandoned them once the Soviet threat was over in Afghanistan in 1989.

It all reminds me of going to our embassies in foreign countries many times, asking the perfectly capable officers why we hadn't KNOWN about something that seemed utterly obvious. Always the answer was the same, whether in Nicaragua or Uganda or Burma: "We don't have any files on that -- we don't have any institutional memory."

And so now, once again, the history that we so frivolously ignored has had the last word and has come back to smite and insult us.

If this is true -- and all the indicators are, indeed, that the men and women in charge of interrogations brought little, if any, historical memory to their dark tasks -- then the problem is quite other than what is generally assumed. It is NOT simply a question of whether to reveal documents or pictures, or even to hold certain people accountable; it is the monumental question of how to educate Americans, and particularly our political and military classes, in our true civic culture.

It is surely no accident that civics and geography have been virtually removed from our public school systems, or that Americans emerge even from supposedly "world-class" universities with little understanding of our history or of the principles that informed, graced and gave spirit to that history.

It is equally no accident that the majority of these Americans who wrote the legal advisory opinions saying that these methods were acceptable, and that the men and women who carried out the methods, never apparently thought to fit them into the true meaning of American history (one has to suppose, too, that many of them simply liked overseeing torture). As the Financial Times wrote, these advisories "emptied the law of meaning."

President Obama, visiting the CIA recently, massaged whatever guilty feelings that might still be lying about by saying: "Don't be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we've made some mistakes. That's how we learn."

Excuse me, Mr. President, but if this is not to happen again, we're going to have to go way, way back and "learn" a lot earlier than we have been. Training American children in civics, history, geography and American philosophical principles -- THAT'S how we learn.

The US should cut military spending in half

Washington – Hawks depicted the cuts that Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently proposed for the Pentagon's weapons programs as a savage assault on the military industrial complex. They insisted that Secretary Gates would leave us prostrate before future rivals.

Counterinsurgency enthusiasts, meanwhile cheered Mr. Gates's willingness to swap high-tech platforms for capabilities suited to the unconventional conflicts we are fighting.

The truth is that the Gates proposal is both too cautious and inadequate. After all, Gates isn't cutting non-war-related military spending; he's raising it slightly, to a whopping $534 billion.

If he has his druthers, the next military budget will look much like this one: It will still serve excessive objectives. We will still defend allies that can defend themselves, fight in other people's civil wars in a vain effort to "fix" their states, and burn tax dollars to serve the hubristic notion that US military hegemony is what keeps the world safe.

To really keep us safe, we should slash defense spending. Americans should prepare for fewer wars, not different ones. Far from providing our defense, our military posture endangers us. It drags us into others' conflicts, provokes animosity, and wastes resources. We need a defense budget worthy of the name. We need military restraint. And that would allow us to cut defense spending roughly in half.

Two points demonstrate how unambitious the Gates proposal is.

First, he would just replace most canceled programs. Gates suggested ending production of the Air Force's premier fighter, the F-22. But he wants to accelerate the Joint Strike Fighter program and to buy more F-18s. He would delay the Navy's procurement of cruisers and its next carrier, but only slightly. He would end the Navy's DDG-1000 destroyer program, but buy more of the Navy's older Arleigh Burke class destroyer, and keep buying the Navy's littoral combat ship.

He proposes breaking up the Army's modernization program, the Future Combat Systems, and canceling some of the vehicles – but they will be replaced with others. All told, spending on a national missile defense program would be cut by only about 15 percent.

Second, the military's size will barely budge under this plan. Yes, the Army would grow to only 45 brigade combat teams rather than 48, as was planned. But the people who were to fill out the 48 would be stuffed into 45 – the units will have higher readiness. The Navy is likely to shrink to 10 carrier battle groups instead of 11, but the decline will take decades. The Air Force will shrink only slightly. Gates wants to halt personnel reductions in the Air Force and Navy and continue to expand the Army and Marines by 90,000 servicemen.

To understand why that is conservative, consider how much we spend on defense relative to both our purported rivals and our past. Our defense budget is almost half the world's, even leaving out nuclear weapons, the wars, veterans, and homeland security. It is also more than we spent at any point during the cold war. When that struggle ended, we simply gave back the Reagan buildup and kept spending at average cold war levels. Then we began another buildup in 1998 that nearly doubled nonwar defense spending.

There are no enemies to justify such spending. Invasion and civil war are unthinkable here. North Korea, Syria, and Iran trouble their citizens and neighbors, but with small economies, shoddy militaries, and a desire to survive, they pose little threat to us. Their combined military spending is one-sixtieth of ours.

Russia and China are incapable of territorial expansion that should pose any worry, unless we put our troops on their borders. China's defense spending is less than one-fifth of ours. We spend more researching and developing new weapons than Russia spends on its military. And with an economy larger than ours, the European Union can protect itself. Our biggest security problem, terrorism, is chiefly an intelligence problem arising from a Muslim civil war. Our military has little to do with it.

We should embrace this geopolitical fortune, not look for trouble. If we decided to avoid Iraq-style occupations and fight only to defend ourselves or important allies, we could cut our ground forces in half.

If we admitted that we are not going to fight a war with China anytime soon, we could retire chunks of the Air Force and Navy that are justified by that mission. Even with a far smaller defense budget, ours will remain the world's most powerful military by a large margin. The recently enacted GI Bill, which gives veterans a subsidized or free college education, offers a vehicle for transitioning military personnel into the civilian economy.

Of course, powerful interests benefit from heavy defense spending, and cutting the military budget would be a tough sell. Both political parties believe that American primacy is the route to safety. But they're wrong.

A more restrained approach to defense is what would make us safer.

The "Beautiful Kidnapper" and Other Simple Responses to Torture Arguments

The ticking time bomb. We've been hearing about it for years, but it's never actually happened. Yet its constantly being brought up - to justify torture in thousands of situations where there is no ticking time bomb. What kind of sense does that make?

Here's an analogy: It's possible to imagine a scenario where the only way to free kidnapped children is by having sex with the beautiful woman who is holding them hostage. (Call it the 'beautiful kidnapper' scenario.) What we're seeing now is the moral equivalent of a roomful of cheating husbands, all citing the 'beautiful kidnapper' scenario - to justify their affairs with women they picked up in a bar.

The next time somebody mentions the 'ticking time bomb' scenario, hit 'em with 'the beautiful kidnapper' - then ask them if they believe in marriage and the family. Here are some other handy responses in case you, like so many other Americans, find yourself in a debate about torture policy:

Torture advocates say they're being more 'realistic' than torture opponents. Oh, really? Then why do the experts - the generals, the FBI, law enforcement officials - all say that torture is a bad idea? Short answer: The amateurs like torture. The professionals are against it.

Oh -- and a follow-up response: Why do you suppose all these amateurs are so excited about the torture scenario? Some psychological self-evaluation may be in order.

People who object to torture want to be 'nice to terrorists.' The people who make this argument are usually the same people who don't want you to even mention right-wing terrorism, much less use 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on far-right suspects. Remember, many of the people caught up in our Middle Eastern dragnets weren't terrorists. Some were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or were turned in out of personal vendettas or for bounty money. How would these American torture advocates respond if we started picking up right-wing militia types in the same sort of dragnets and using torture techniques on them?

What if there's a 'ticking time bomb' and (insert large number here) of children will die unless we find it? If there ever is a ticking time bomb scenario, torture is even more likely to yield bad information. The experts say people give false leads and bad information when they're tortured. In a 'ticking time bomb' situation, they'd only need to stall for 60 minutes, or six hours, or whatever's been set on the timer. We're more likely to rescue those children by using the techniques our military and intelligence experts tell us really work.

It's not really "torture." It's just 'getting wet,' or 'playing mind games,' or whatever else you'd like to say it is. Here's a simple thought experiment: Picture it happening to Americans. Does it seem like torture now? Right. That's one of the reasons the generals oppose it.

Obama's national security guy says torture works sometimes. Actually, what Dennis Blair said was far more parsed and wordsmithed than that. He said: "High value information came from interrogations in which [torture] w[as] used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization ..." He's dancing around the subject, perhaps to appease the intelligence community. But he's not exactly saying that torture worked. And he was contradicted by an FBI interrogator who explained why torture doesn't work.

We got good intelligence at least once from torture. This is a variation on the Blair argument. Presumably it's true, too, although we don't know for sure. But the issue is probability. We're far more likely to get good intelligence from other techniques. I may drive drunk and get home safely, but that's not a defense for driving drunk. With torture we're more likely to get bad information than good -- and we're destroying our reputation, subjecting our citizens to greater risk, and lowering ourselves morally.

Oh, and we're breaking the law -- if anybody cares.

It's a "hard left" vendetta. First of all, there is no "hard left" in this country. I haven't seen any Trotskyites in the halls of Congress lately, much less Stalinists. Jon Meacham - and anyone else who uses that phrase - has tipped their hand with his choice of words. They're smearing people with whom they disagree, probably because they recognize the fundamental weakness of their argument.

Jon Meacham et al: Since when is obedience to the law "extreme"? And are those Army and Marine generals cited above members of the "hard left"?

An investigation would be Democratic partisanship. It's odd. A few months ago a bipartisan panel agreed that the Bush Administration's torture policies "redefined the law to create the appearance of (torture's) legality" and "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." Not a single Republican Senator objected. Now that investigations could begin - investigations that might embarrass the GOP - Republicans and their media allies are blocking it.

That sounds like Republican partisanship, doesn't it?

Jay Bybee and the other attorneys shouldn't be punished for holding different opinions than their peers. It's not about a difference of opinion. Bybee and the others had constitutional and professional responsibilities. If they deliberately wrote opinions they knew to be false just to create a legal-looking cover for illegal activities, they could be subject to disbarment and possible criminal proceedings. That's why we need an investigation.

I still say that torture works. Did we mention that the experts say that it doesn't?

Well, it works on '24.' 24 is a show with a partisan right-wing ideology. Imagine how people would react if a West Point general had gone to "The West Wing" or "The Daily Show," told them their program was endangering our troops, and asked them to stop - and had been blown off. Well, that's what 24 did to Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan after he asked them to tone down the torture porn. Too bad the show's producers aren't patriotic Americans who want to support our troops ...

___________

I saw an old friend last week who's a World Trade Center survivor. He told me that he doesn't object to 'a little rough treatment' of the people who carried out that attack. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who had nothing to do with it. And this 'rough treatment' is helping Al Qaeda recruit thousands of new people willing to carry out just those kinds of attacks.

And we're not even getting good information out of it. The fact is, nobody's defending these torture policies except the amateurs. And the partisans. And those who don't want lawbreakers brought to justice.

Who's "tough on crime" now?

The danger of an Israeli strike on Iran

Oakton, Va. – The new Israeli prime minister recently appeared to give President Obama a blunt ultimatum: Stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – or we will.

Benjamin Netanyahu's challenge (intimated in an interview he gave to The Atlantic magazine) smacks of unrealistic bravado and, worse, it appears to be a crude attempt to bully an American president into bombing Iran's nuclear installations.

The world should hope it's a hollow threat.

The consequences of a unilateral Israeli strike would be enormous if not disastrous. Mr. Obama cannot allow himself to be intimidated by Mr. Netanyahu, nor can he wink if the Israeli air force bombs Iran's nuclear facilities.

Israel has acted unilaterally to squash a perceived nuclear threat before. In 1981, Prime Minister Menachem Begin sent fighter jets to knock out Iraq's "Osirak" nuclear reactor. Israel claimed that Saddam Hussein was on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons and that it had no choice but to bomb it out of existence. In 2007, Israel bombed a facility in Syria it claimed was a nuclear reactor.

Any strike on Iranian reactors would be a different matter entirely. Osirak was a lone, poorly guarded, and inoperative nuclear plant that had a year earlier been damaged by an Iranian airstrike. The Iranians have taken considerable precautions to build their facilities on something more solid than desert sand. At present there is but one facility, Bushehr I, but Tehran is gearing up to build an entire network of nuclear plants. Israel would be bombing until the Shah comes home to merely delay what is an unstoppable Iranian nuclear program.

The fallout from Israel's strike on Osirak was serious but limited. But a preemptive strike on Iranian soil would border on catastrophic. Consider:

•Iran has signaled that if attacked, it would close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil flows. This would plunge the world into economic calamity.

•Hezbollah, Iran's proxy army in Lebanon, is believed to have more than 42,000 missiles, according to Defense Minister Ehud Barak – enough to make Israeli cities such as Haifa and Tel Aviv burn like London did during the Nazis' Blitz. Hezbollah is believed to have terror cells in Europe and North America. It has struck in South America, and many terrorism experts believe it is potentially even more dangerous than Al Qaeda. Iran, using this proxy force, would probably unleash it on the world if Netanyahu were to bomb the Bushehr I reactor.

•It would trigger a tsunami of anti-Semitism that would inevitably translate into violence against Jews worldwide.

•Such a strike would be perceived as further evidence of a US-Israeli global war on Islam. Islamist fighters from Marrakesh, Marseille, London, Cairo, Karachi, and Tehran would enlist overnight by the thousands and march to Iraq and Afghanistan to wage jihad against the American troops there.

Netanyahu is no fool. He is keenly aware of these global implications. He knows that a unilateral Israeli strike would not only accelerate Iran's nuclear ambitions but also legitimize them. He also knows that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threat to wipe Israel off the map is bombast. It is the country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who commands the armed forces and national security apparatus, not the populist president.

Domestic Israeli politics may have been a factor motivating Netanyahu's warnings. Talking tough soothes anxieties at home. Equally likely, Netanyahu was prodding the new Obama government. And in that sense he may feel the recent US-led invitation to Tehran to meet with Washington and five other major powers to discuss the disputed nuclear program was a result of his threat. Iran has agreed to "constructive dialogue," although it may be delusional for the Israeli prime minister – or any other Western leader – to believe that political or economic pressure can sway Iran's ruling clerics.

What's worrying is that Netanyahu had a record of bad judgment in his previous term as prime minister from 1996 to 1999. Not without cause did The Economist run a cover photo of "Bibi" in October 1997 under the headline "Israel's Serial Bungler." It described his governance of the Jewish state as a "calamity" for the peace process.

Iran has no need to nuke Israel. Its ruling clerics, whom Netanyahu described as a "messianic apocalyptic cult," believe time, history, and Allah are on their side. They believe the Jewish state, starting across the border in Lebanon, can be nibbled to death over the next century just as the Arabs did to the Crusader kingdoms 600 years ago.

It should surprise no one that Iran's mullahs want nuclear weapons. They live in a nuclear neighborhood: Pakistan, India, Russia, China, and Israel, which is estimated to have 200 nuclear bombs ready to use if it were attacked. The ayatollahs also remember Mr. Hussein's 1991 folly of going to war with the US without nuclear weapons.

Obama needs to do Netanyahu a favor and tell the Israelis: "No first strike." Keep the F-15s and F-16s at home. A messianic vision such as Mr. Ahmadinejad's is rife in much of the Islamic world. Bellicose rhetoric most often serves as an excuse for inaction. It does not denote suicidal inclinations on the part of Iran's more pragmatic leaders.

Yesterday...

Is the day I would rather soon *forget*.

I went in to see Dr. Chen and he had me go back to a room where he could remove the stent inside me.

It isn't something I will soon forget. He threaded the scope inside me--after numbing the area with a local anesthetic--and removed the stent in under 5 minutes.

The last thing he told me was, "Take a deep breath: This might hurt."--

AND PULLED.

My god...! The feeling of nausea was indescribable. As was the sensation of something getting yanked out through the tip was as well.

But I groaned in pain afterwards--and it soon went away; even if the numbing sensation *didn't*.

I started feeling loads better by the time I went home and logged onto my MIL's computer to do some much needed surfing.

But within *minutes* of sitting down, I started to feel some incredible, hot--swollen--pain in my bladder. It was so excruciating, it left me unable to answer more than a *few* questions on Yahoo! Answers--over a three hour period of time.

The pain rightly incapacitated me soundly and I was screaming, groaning, grunting, everything under the sun--because it felt like my bladder had turned into this tightly woven ball of rubber and liquid pain.

Then--it got *worse*.

The pain started out in my right kidney--and I started having such PAIN in me, I was all over the floor of my in-laws house; hugging what pillows I could get at, and using their small rocking stool as an outlet for my agony.

I couldn't stand, let alone walk around much. I thought I was going to *die* from this experience. Everything inside me told me, "your passing another stone."--but it wasn't that.

From 3 o'clock until a little after six that evening, I was in the living room...crippled by an endless sea of agony.

Something I wouldn't wish on *anyone*--even my worse enemies.

But as the three-hour painfest ended, I slumped back into the couch and passed out--exhausted from my ordeal.

I slept for about a half hour before my FIL came in and complained about the pillows on the floor and me being on the couch. I remember waking up to his grumbling--telling me that I was ruining his couch by being on it and I was thinking, "Do you have *any* compassion or idea what I just went through?"

My MIL scolded me for the whole ordeal and I was just at a loss for words. They were more concerned about their furniture than they were for me--after what I went through.

April tried to explain, but they both didn't want to hear it. Later, I got a lecture about my health and why stones aren't "hereditary".

I told my MIL this morning that what I went through was the end result of three large blood clots passing through my narrow ureter.

My diet is so spartan right now, I don't eat a load of fried foods or greasy, fattening ones--because of my blood-thinners.

I told her that I had to *literary* change my diet because of it. So I cut back on a lot of things, started exercising and walking more, and taking an active role in my own health--even if what I went through was just a part of that experience.

Tea Parties: 'Calling All Racists!'

Creators Syndicate – Did you know that only racists turned out for the recent nationwide "tea parties"?!

"Let's be very honest about what this is about," actress/comedian Janeane Garofalo said on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show. "It's not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about. They don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks."

Oh.

A few days after Garofalo's analysis of why many Americans took to the streets in protest of the Obama administration's borrowing, spending and upcoming tax hikes, I sat in the chair at my barber's shop. A black customer came in, sat down and asked me whether I watched the coverage on the tea parties.

"Some," I said.

"Well," he responded, "it looked like a Klan meeting."

"Excuse me?"

"I looked at my television," he said. "I saw a bunch of white folks. It looked like a Klan meeting."

"Tell me you're kidding."

"No, it was nothing but white people. Looked like a Klan meeting."

"Really? I sometimes go to West Angeles (a large inner-city church with a predominately black congregation). Suppose a white guy walked into a Sunday service there and said, 'Looks like a bunch of Bloods and Crips to me.'"

"That's not the same."

"Isn't it? A bunch of people — some blacks included — came together in protest over this bailout stuff. But because most of them were white, you compared it to the Klan. News flash, my friend — not all white folks belong to the Klan."

"OK, maybe you got a point."

"Maybe?" I asked. "What would you say if white people said that given President Barack Obama's 20-year relationship with his whack-job pastor, Obama is the one who's racist?"

"What? Are you calling Obama racist?"

"No, I said one could make a stronger argument about that than your argument about the 'racist' tea parties."

"But Obama's a really smart guy. He didn't know about those things Rev. Wright said."

"Oh, no? When Obama announced his candidacy for president in Springfield, Ill., Rev. Wright was supposed to deliver the invocation. At the last moment, Obama called Wright and canceled him. But Obama didn't know that his pastor was controversial?"

No response.

"And after the cancellation, Wright said something to the effect of, 'Well, once people find out what I've done, the Jews could cause Obama some problems.'"

"That still doesn't mean Obama knew about the reverend's views."

"Did you read Obama's book? The first one?"

"No."

"Obama wrote about attending the sermon where Wright talks about the 'audacity of hope.' The reverend talked about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities America bombed to end World War II. My dad, a Marine, was stationed on the island of Guam when we assumed Japan would have to be invaded. Instead, we ended the war by dropping those bombs — saving probably a million Japanese and American lives. Wright compared this to what happened in South Africa in 1960 in a place called Sharpeville. Do you know about Sharpeville?"

"No."

"Over 250 innocent black men, women and children were killed or wounded when the apartheid government opened fire on unarmed protestors — a lot of them shot in the back. Now, Obama attended that sermon and had no problem with Wright comparing Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Sharpeville . Outrageous! And Obama used 'The Audacity of Hope' as the title of his second book and as a slogan when he ran for president. You want it both ways. Obama is so bright, but he was clueless about the stupid ideas of his pastor."

"Well, he isn't responsible for what his reverend says or believes."

"Never said he was. We're talking about whether Obama knew that Wright thought 9/11 was about the 'chickens coming home to roost' and that Wright implied that government was behind the drug epidemic by supplying the drugs."

Again, nothing.

"Suppose John McCain attended a church whose pastor — a man he referred to as his spiritual adviser — made racist comments about blacks and other people. The press would have been all over it, and McCain wouldn't have gotten his party's nomination. And if it came out too late for that, he would have been slaughtered in the election."

"You know," he conceded, "I guess when you like somebody, you tend to make excuses for them."

"That's what I'm saying. One more point. Nobody, by the way, stopped you, as a black man, from going to one of those tea parties. You didn't have to flash a secret sign. There was no registration fee. Nobody posted guards, stopping people at the gate. You try walking into a Klan meeting."

He laughed. As I got up to leave, we shook hands.

"One small step for man," I told him. "One giant leap for mankind."

"You take care," he said.

Reagan (and Nixon) Greeted Despots, Too

Creators Syndicate – Few aspects of American politics are as ridiculous and dangerous as the right-wing urge to substitute macho posturing for foreign policy. That irrepressible habit surfaces constantly now that President Obama is in the Oval Office, most recently when he shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, a smiling moment that provoked calls for impeachment among the most deranged conservatives.

Such emotional excesses arise from deep insecurities, of course, and almost always involve bouts of amnesia, hypocrisy or both. For if the wingers could be honest for even a moment, they would have to admit that all of their complaints about Obama's diplomatic style could have been lodged just as easily against his Republican predecessors.

To take the most obvious example, commentators on the right experienced a collective seizure when the American president appeared to bow to the Saudi king last month at the G-20 summit in London. Although the White House spokesman denied that Obama had actually bowed before Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud, the video indicated a dip lower than necessary to shake the monarch's hand. For any American president — and indeed, any American — to bow to a monarch under any circumstances is an affront to the founders.

But if Obama showed too much deference to that despot, so did George W. Bush. Back when Abdullah was still the crown prince and Bush was president, the Texan planted a kiss on the Arab leader's lips, and then held his hand publicly. This incident occurred only seven months after 9/11, when Saudi complicity in terrorism was a matter of the gravest concern. (A few conservatives complained, but nobody was calling for impeachment of the man whom many Republicans were then comparing with Churchill.)

Then came the Chavez handshake, which pitched numerous right-wing pundits and politicians into full-scale political seizures, notably including Patrick Buchanan, who shrieked that Obama "went down there and virtually groveled to these characters. … I mean what is the matter with people!" Echoing Buchanan's ire was Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and would-be presidential aspirant. "Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and being with the president as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he's acceptable," he complained. "How do you mend relationships with somebody who hates your country, who actively calls for the destruction of your country, and who wants to undermine you. … We didn't rush over, smile and greet Russian dictators."

Now, Gingrich was once an adjunct professor of history somewhere, so he ought to have a firmer grasp of the realities of the past. His hero Ronald Reagan certainly did rush over, smile and warmly greet the Russian dictator Mikhail Gorbachev more than once during his second term as president, much to the irritation of critics on the right (even if many of them pretend to forget those instances now). Eager to achieve landmark arms-control agreements with the Soviet leader, Reagan wisely ignored the carping of conservatives like Howard Phillips, who denounced him passionately as a "useful idiot fronting for Soviet propaganda."

But then Reagan's peace offensive only followed the pattern set by Buchanan's old boss, Richard M. Nixon, whose most lasting achievement as president was to establish official relations with the People's Republic of China. Was Nixon too friendly when he met with the rulers of the most blood-soaked communist dictatorship on earth? Search Google for "Nixon China," and you will immediately find a nice old black-and-white photo of him gripping and grinning with Mao Zedong, an enemy of Western democracy and a remorseless executioner of the innocent. No doubt many conservatives watched that tableau in fury and astonishment, having spent decades in ideological battle against the Chicoms.

So it is permissible to yawn when the likes of Buchanan, Gingrich and the howling bloggers of the right claim that the president's polite behavior toward any leader he encounters is a betrayal of America. He represents a nation sufficiently secure in its values to greet the world with malice toward none. His policy will be tested in practice, not bar-brawl theatrics.

Even If It Works, US Shouldn't Torture

There are three aspects to the debate over torture, two empirical and one normative, or moral. Empirically, does torture work? Can accurate, worthwhile information be extracted through torture? This question is hotly debated, but many current and former military personnel-including America's most famous POW, John McCain-emphatically say no.

In 2005, Senator McCain sponsored an anti-torture amendment to the defense appropriations bill in the Senate. A victim of torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese, he put it this way: "subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop." Some people in the intelligence community argue otherwise, and the debate on this point continues.

The second empirical question is, has the United States in fact committed acts of torture against some al-Qaida suspects? Is the technique of waterboarding, which American personnel have performed numerous times, a form of torture? The following statement is a detailed description of waterboarding:

"A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also to the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession."

The above passage is not a description from one of the controversial "torture memos" or from a Red Cross report on Guantanamo. Rather, it is from testimony given at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials held by the Allies after the Second World War. The victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies and the perpetrators were Japanese soldiers. It was deemed at the time that waterboarding was torture. The Japanese soldiers were convicted of war crimes.

This leads to the third, normative aspect of the torture debate. Even if torture does work under some circumstances and does elicit high-value information from suspected terrorists-as former Vice President Dick Cheney argues happened at Guantanamo--should its use nevertheless be prohibited because it is wrong?

According to international law, torture is never allowable, not even in an extreme emergency. The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment--which was negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the US Senate--is clear on this. "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

The Bush administration argued that the war on terror justified its use of extreme interrogation techniques. The two democracies that have faced the most terrorism within their own borders are Great Britain and Israel. The UK had to deal for decades with IRA attacks and more recently with Islamist terror cells. Israel has faced terrorist attacks on its civilians on-and-off for over 60 years. What do these countries have to say about torture? Rulings by their independent judiciaries are instructive.

Torture has long been illegal in Britain, even against terrorists. A few years ago the Law Lords, Britain's highest court, went further and declared that any evidence obtained through torture in a foreign country, via "rendition," is inadmissible in British courts. As one of the Lords declared, "Statements obtained by torture are unacceptable. To rely on them is inconsistent with the notion of justice as administered by our courts."

In Israel in the late 1980s, the security services declared that mild forms of torture, what they called "moderate physical pressure," were permitted when it was believed that a detainee had knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack. This was known as the "ticking bomb scenario." But this changed with a landmark ruling by Israel's High Court of Justice in 1999. The court declared that torture techniques were illegal, even under extreme circumstances.

Ultimately, the "pro-torture" argument comes down to the assertion that "the ends justify the means." Cheney makes this argument with his demand that CIA documents demonstrating positive results from torture be declassified and released to the public.

Knowing to what extent waterboarding or other controversial techniques actually worked might be useful to the empirical debate over the utility of torture. But it adds little to the moral debate. It is ironic that some prominent conservatives, who would normally assert that basic values are immutable, are arguing instead for situational ethics and moral relativism when it comes to torture. But no matter how hard one tries, one cannot credibly argue that, while waterboarding was a crime when committed by the Japanese in World War II, it is not a crime when committed by the United States in the 21st Century.

As Americans debate the merits of torture in an age of terrorism, the words of the Israeli high court from 1999 are worthy of consideration:

"This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual's liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and allow it to overcome its difficulties."

McCain too is quite eloquent on the question of the ethics and morality of torture: it's not about them, it's about us. "The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights," he said in 2005. "They don't deserve our sympathy. But this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies, and we can never, never allow our enemies to take those values away."

Stocks lost ground again today (83 points to fall to 7886) as bank stocks started to fall--unraveling an earlier rally.

Morgan Stanley and Capital One posted lackluster profits--leaving investors to worry about the rising levels of souring debt on the banks' balance sheets. (It's also started a round of questions on whether or not this bank bailout--begun by Bush--is having any real effect on arresting fallen home values, bank loan practices, and stalled interest rates.)

Other companies like AT&T, McDonalds, and Boeing showed some promising results in their quarterly sales reports--but all it does it offer a *glimmer*. There still isn't enough traction to say whether or not this recession is finally hitting bottom or still has a long ways to go.

Or when a recovery might be underway.

Get a grip on Obama's handshake

President Obama's recent grip-and-grin with Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chávez has sparked a barrage of criticism on the Internet and in Washington. So did Mr. Obama's apparent bow before the Saudi king at the Group of 20 meeting. And then there was his admission in Europe that the US has sometimes shown "arrogance" toward its allies.

What's the matter with these gestures? They portray the president as an apologist and naive, and the United States as weak, say critics. They undermine the democratic and leadership values – the moral fiber – that give America its strength.

Get a grip. Those who are racing to challenge Mr. Obama's new tone – some prominent Republicans but also a few Democrats – are overreaching. The Chávez handshake does not amount to a strategic give. Besides, it is far too early to assess whether the president's soft diplomacy will turn the US into a Pillsbury dough boy.

The tonal shift is necessary to reinforce ties with allies and take a new tack with difficult or dangerous countries. Indeed, this shift was already underway during the second term of President Bush, and Mr. Bush practiced his own personal diplomacy with leaders such as Vladimir Putin.

If deferential gestures and keeping the door open to its foes fail to further US interests abroad, the world will have to admit that at least Washington tried. That could galvanize support for the US in the long run. It could, for instance, make it easier to take tougher measures against Iran.

And speaking of the long run, the strategic sands are shifting from under America. Other powers such as China are rising. The US can exert leadership, but it can't solve global problems alone or always throw its weight around. A "geotherapist" president may be exactly what's needed for a new reality in geopolitics – to an extent.

The problem with this foreign-policy debate – soft vs. tough or realism vs. moralism – is that it leaves no room for using one or the other in different circumstances, which is what's required in diplomacy, regardless of the era. The challenge lies in finding the right mix.

It's a matter of emphasis, and the administration's emphasis on "courtesy" – as Obama puts it – is already showing some benefits.

Vice President Biden's suggestion that Russia and the US press the "reset" button helped improve the atmosphere so that both countries could work on nuclear arms control.

Since last week's controversial handshake, Venezuela's Chávez has offered to send a new ambassador back to Washington (Venezuela expelled the US ambassador in Caracas last year; the US then followed suit).

And is Iran responding to a new US openness to talks when it hints that it may commute the sham sentencing of an American-Iranian journalist? When Jordan's King Abdullah met with Obama in the Oval Office this week, he said that many Arabs and Muslims have had "an outstanding response" to the president's outreach to Muslims.

This is early applause for an overture to a drama whose acts and scenes have yet to unfold. Will direct diplomacy with Iran inspire it to give up its nuclear ambitions? Obama is reserving tough measures in case it does not. Will negotiating with less-rigid factions of the Taliban, as Obama has hinted, end the conflict in Afghanistan more quickly?

Seemingly intractable problems such as the Middle East, North Korea, Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe, and Russia's occupation of parts of Georgia, show the limits of American power – be it hard, soft, or in-between. Americans need to remember that other countries often hold the keys to a problem, such as China, in the case of its missile-firing neighbor.

As an opener, Obama is setting a constructive tone in foreign policy. But he must be careful not to bestow a message of legitimacy on certain leaders, nor to give Americans the impression that some countries are harmless.

Humility and strength can live together.

I'm in a grouchy mood this week--stemming from the pain I'm still in to the stupid questions April and I have to field from government agencies regarding my disability status.

Not to mention all the *grief* we get as a married couple--in particular...? Who has final authority over matters of personal and medical needs.

Despite all my past attempts to get Social Security to *recognize* that my wife has the full authority to act on my behalf--when either of us goes to get some copies of my medical records and so forth--they still treat her as a complete stranger and someone whom shouldn't be doing this without me.

The thing is...?

I've handed them many a written notes and signed statements (from them) that April can act freely without my consent--because we are married and doesn't need my John Hancock every time to do something.

The other thing that is bugging me is how housing could've lost my original paperwork where it points out my disabilities since I was *born*.

Now...?

They want a "doctor's note" to say that I am disabled.

No doctor I *know* will do that. It takes a field of specialists and career-minded psychologists to determine if I am disabled or not--both medically, emotionally, and physically.

And so far, I haven't been able to get that for myself. I wouldn't know where to start.

Hence my grouchy mood. Of course, this stent in me isn't improving things much either. It's like someone shoved a sharp stick up inside me and left it there to fester.

The Vicadin's been my best friend since Friday's craziness began--I just hope that this thing can be removed without injury. I'm now more worried about my health than I was before.

Just how screwed up am I inside? Narrow ureters, underdeveloped organs, oversized optic cups, prematurely developed circulatory pathways...?

I feel like a walking laboratory--just waiting for the next thing to fall into my lap.

Today, I am taking it easy, but I am also blandly frustrated that I can't take care of myself without having to rely on someone like my wife most of the time.

Part of the time, I act like a child--even though I'm struggling to maintain my hold on my adult sanity. I just feel like I'm losing the battle here and I don't like it.

Begin By Impeaching The Torture Judge

The Nation -- There has been much rhetoric with regard to the memorandums prepared by President Bush's Justice Department regarding how -- not if but how -- prisoners of the United States would be tortured.

The memos detail violations of treaties to which the United States is a party. Thus, they point to violations of U.S. law.

But they also detail assaults on the 8th amendment to the Constitution, which bars cruel and usual treatment of those confined by U.S. authorities.

The rhetoric runs the gamut from the frustratingly inappropriate -- President Obama's line that "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past" -- to the refreshing -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's response to Obama: "Mr. President, you are wrong. What you describe would be not "spent energy" but catharsis."

But the question remains: What happens when we move beyond rhetoric to action?

What, then, should be done?

Let's begin with the basic premise that action is necessary.

As Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, says: "The details made public in these memos paint a horrifying picture and reveal how the Bush administration's lawyers and top officials were complicit in torture. The so-called enhanced interrogation program was a violation of our core principles as a nation and those responsible should be held accountable."

There are so many abuses that demand a response -- up to and including those of former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney -- that some ask: Where should we begin?

To that question, there is an easy and appropriate answer.

Key memos on torture techniques were prepared in 2002 by Jay Bybee, who then served as assistant Attorney General. Indeed, as the PBS program "Frontline" noted in its review of the abuses at the Department of Bush: "The most notorious document among the memos drafted by President Bush's legal advisers as they analyzed how far the U.S. could go to extract intelligence from those captured in the war on terror is known as the 'Bybee memo.'"

The Senate Armed Services Committee report on the torture memos also points to Bybee: "The other OLC opinion issued on August 1, 2002 is known commonly as the Second Bybee memo. That opinion, which responded to a request from the CIA, addressed the legality of specific interrogation tactics. While the full list of techniques remains classified, a publicly released CIA document indicates that waterboarding was among those analyzed and approved."

Now that the materials have been declassified, thanks to the work of the American Civil Liberties Union. we know that waterboarding was just one of many torture techniques approved and encouraged by the lawyer for the dark side.

But, of course, Bybee no longer serves as a government lawyer.

He is no longer an assistant Attorney General.

Bybee is now a judge serving on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

His is a lifetime appointment, from which he cannot be fired.

But Bybee can be impeached.

Strike that.

Bybee must be impeached -- not as a conclusion to an accountability moment but as a beginning.

Activists have begun a campaign to Impeach Bybee.

Learn about the campaign at ww.impeachbybee.org

Progressive Democrats of America is urging Americans to contact Congress with the message:

Former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee was the primary author of "legal" memos purporting to justify torture, including memos long known to the public and two memos recently released by the Department of Justice from March 13, 2002, and June 8, 2002. The June 8th memo claims to justify depriving an American citizen of the right to a trial, claiming the power to imprison him without charge on the grounds that he was already guilty in the eyes of the memo's author, Jay Bybee.

We have learned, through a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross and other sources, of the brutal torture techniques employed in our name over the last several years. Bybee's signature is on the August 1, 2002, memo listing the supposedly "legal" illegal techniques.

He is now serving as a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. A man who abuses his power to facilitate violation of laws and treaties banning torture has no business reversing the decisions of honest judges and juries.

Please introduce right away either articles of impeachment or a bill requiring the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation into Jay Bybee.

Impeaching Bybee is a good place to begin.

This author of the unconstitutional and immoral torture memo has no place on the federal bench.

But those who contact Congress might want to add an appeal:

Impeaching Bybee is the right start. But it is just a start. All of the torture advocates can and must be held to account -- not merely by the courts but by Congress.

The weeekend...I spent...*sleeping* and running to the john than anything else.

The pain pills have me so loopy at the momemnt,I'm barely able to think.

I don't know if I can *write* at this point--even though every part of me is screaming to.

I just don't feel up to it.

The doctor isn't going to remove the stent until this Friday, which means I have to wait some more--and I don't even want to *think* about what this is going to mean.

I'm just hoping that I can get something to knock me out before I start screaming like a little girl.

So I'm conserving as much energy as I can at the moment.

Walking has helped me get things going a little, but I'm going turtle-speed for the time being.

The time spent by myself has been in reading books and sleeping.

Sorry, I'm rambling again. I'm just not with the program right now.

Edited by author 04-18-2009 06:49 PM
I don't know where to begin...

I'm so doped up on painkillers right now.

The only thing I can say is that the stone isn't coming out--it's in the wrong place.

So the doctors inserted a stent and I spent last night recuperating. But I am in so much pain at the moment.

I don't know if the doctors are going to go back in and take it out.

My ureter was much narrowere than they expected and it took them longer to take pictures and insert the stent.

My blood-pressure spiked to 200 over 110 by the time I went in--they had to give me meds to lower it.

I wasn't stressed out over the surgery--I don't know--but it was odd how it went from high to a low 121 over 67 in under six hours.

I don't remember much of yesterday. Everything is in fragments. Bits and pieces really.

People were helping me, nurses were doing their thing, and April was by my side the entire night.

She slept soundly for the first time in a long time. Me? I was passing out every couple of hours. I was so dying for some food.

I'm going to be taking it easy for the time being. No weights. Very little walking.

But the pain I went through and had gone through--I wouldn't *wish* on even my worst enemy. Nobody should have to go through what I did.

The odd thing was...? It was done and over before I could *blink*.

Even after 3 days of not being on my Coumadin, I'm still able to bleed freely like a stuck pig.

It came down to using the needles last night and this morning--I had to use another band-aid to stem the flow.

Last night was fun though. :0)

The latest news on the economic front isn't all that promising; indicating that this recession is FAR from over. (Don't we wish that we could tell Uncle Ben Bernanke this?)

Home housing construction plunged to its second lowest on record in 50 years--to 10.8%-- while 6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits; a record first time since records were kept dating back to 1967.

Foreclosures surged yet again--signaling that the crisis still has yet to hit rock bottom and the credit crunch still has yet to thaw itself out.

Analysts expect the labor market to remain weak for the rest of the year, while employers will remain reluctant to start adding new workers to their thinning out payrolls.

Despite some small silver linings to the economic recovery, the number of filings for unemployment benefits ended at 610,000 for the month of March--well below the high marked adjustment of 655,000 recorded in January.

Employers have cut 5.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, as they try to slash costs while consumers and businesses spend less. The Department of Labor said earlier this month that companies cut a net total of 663,000 jobs in March, sending the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent, the highest in 25 years.

The Federal Reserve expects the unemployment rate will probably "rise more steeply into early next year before flattening out at a high level over the rest of the year," according to minutes from the central bank's March meeting released earlier this month. Many private economists expect the rate will hit 10 percent by year's end.

Among the states, Michigan saw the largest jump in claims for the week ending April 4, an increase of more than 5,400 due to layoffs in the auto industry. Missouri, Texas, New Jersey and Pennsylvania reported the next largest increases.

California had the biggest drop in recipients of more than 4,700, which it said was due to a shorter work week and fewer layoffs in the trade and manufacturing industries. Ohio, Alabama, Florida and Wisconsin had the next largest drops.

More job losses were announced this week. UBS AG, Switzerland's largest bank, said it expects a first-quarter loss of about $1.75 billion and will cut 8,700 jobs worldwide by the end of next year. ArcelorMittal SA, the world's largest steel maker, said it will idle a plant in Indiana and lay off about 400 workers. Credit card company Discover Financial Services said it plans to cut 500 jobs next month, or 4 percent of its work force.

A Nation of Moochers

Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 014, Issue 29 - 4/13/2009 – As April 15 rolls around let us take a moment to recall why we Americans pay taxes: Because some of our country's good-for-nothing bums are too chicken to rob us at gunpoint. That would be members of Congress and the executive branch. How come we keep electing politicians who will tax the bejeezus out of us? Especially Democrats? At least Republicans are smart enough to lie about it.

We keep electing them because taxes are a pretty good deal. The American government will spend $3.6 trillion this year. There are 306 million of us Americans. We each get $11,765. Sure, we get it mostly in transportation pork projects, agricultural price supports, GM charitable contributions, the Marine Corps, and interest payments on Chinese T-bills when we'd rather get it in cash. But, still, $11,765 isn't bad. Let's say you're a family of five: a dad, a mom and three lovely, high-scoring kids participating in enough community service programs to pad their college applications. You're the kind of family we conservatives endorse. And you're getting $58,825. Even Republicans are on the dole. Dad (conservative women are proud to be stay-at-home moms) will have to make a pile of money to pay $59K in taxes so you can each get $11,765 from the government.

Although it is unclear just how big a pile of money Dad will have to make to ensure that he's feeding, housing, and grooming America for the future rather than sucking her teat.

For one thing there's the possibility that President Obama will make all income greater than the 2009 Madoff investor average return subject to punitive capitation. Also U.S. income taxes are so complex that even Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner can't understand them. Plus we all cheat on our taxes (except for Timothy Geithner who can't understand his). Furthermore, personal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare exactions account for only 75 percent of federal receipts. Corporate taxes provide 13 percent, 6 percent is borrowed, and 6 percent comes from that $9 pack of Marlboros you just bought because April 15 is stressing you out.

Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union did some complicated mathematics and says, "By my reckoning, somewhere between 85 and 95 million households out of 115 million total have a smaller tax liability than the per-capita spending burden." The breadwinners for 18 to 26 percent of our households are shoveling coal in the engine rooms of the ship of state, while everybody else is a stowaway, necking with Kate Winslet like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.

Pete Sepp goes on to note that those breadwinners doing all the work are also less likely to be on welfare or receiving other government largesse and are more likely to have their Social Security benefits taxed. "If we were to compensate for this," he says, "I imagine that more like 100 million households have a smaller liability than the per-capita spending burden." One hundred out of 115 is 87 percent. Our nation is 87 percent mooch, 87 percent leech, 87 percent "Spare (hope and) change, man?"

It may be even worse than that or--depending on how greedily liberal you are--better. Let's abandon the complicated mathematics of taxation. We don't understand complicated mathematics. We were liberal arts majors. If we understood complicated mathematics we'd be wealthy hedge managers in jail today. Let's go to arithmetic. The U.S. gross domestic product for 2008 has been calculated by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis as $14.2 trillion. Say the recession keeps recessing and GDP shrinks a bit in 2009. We'll round down to $14 trillion. The federal budget, being $3.6 trillion, is 25.7 percent of the gross domestic product. The government makes off with 25.7 percent of our goods and services. This is our real rate of national taxation. Then the government gives us an $11,765 kickback. If we figure out what $11,765 is 25.7 percent of, we see that before you can call yourself a taxpayer instead of a tax vampire you have to earn $45,778 if you're single, and $228,890 if you're supporting that family of five.

How many households have this kind of income? The president's does, and with only two kids. The president is taxing himself. Good. But all the rest of the U.S. government's operating expenses are being paid by AIG bonus recipients, the ten or a dozen hedge fund managers who aren't in jail yet, a couple of "debt restructuring" scam artists advertising at 3 A.M. on the Food Channel, and Bill Gates.

America's grossly unfair tax system won't lead to class war. Or, if it does, the war will be brief. There are millions upon millions of us Sponge Bobs and relatively few of the sucker fish we're soaking. On the other hand, young people--with no dependents except their Twitter followers--need to earn only double their age to be ladling gravy to Uncle. These are the devotees of the multi-culti who most adore super-diverse Barack, and they're being "bled white," as it were. They could turn on the president if they started thinking about this--or anything else.

The rest of us are in clover. True, we have to "give" 25.7 percent of our work week to the IRS. That's 10 hours, 16 minutes, and 48 seconds. Call it all of Wednesday and most of Thursday morning. But nothing gets done on Monday or Friday. Tuesday we had to go get our kid from school because a peanut was discovered in the food dish of the 5th grade's gerbil and the whole building had to be hypo-allergenicized. On Thursday, after an early lunch, we left the computer on in our cubicle, draped our suit jacket over the back of our chair, and went and caught a Nationals game. So we shouldn't worry that out-of-control government spending or an insane tax structure will destroy the American economy--because we have government jobs.