Which Charlie?

 

OK, here's a fun game: I'll list a series of quotes. You tell me which Charlie, Manson or Sheen, said them.

 

1)  "Everyone's God and if we don't wake up to that there's going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we're doing bad things to the atmosphere."

 

2)  "You have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me. Boom. That's the whole movie. That's life."

 

3)  "I'm in the bullring. I run in the bullring with the heart of the world."

 

4)  "'We are all martyrs. Love is a martyr... I am a martyr. But I am also a victim. And I'm a performer. And a dam. I'm both. I am everything. I am nothing."

 

5)   "If you're a part of my family, I will love you violently."

 

6)   "I'm too bad. I'm a mean guy. I'm an outlaw. I'm a criminal. I'm everything bad."

 

Answers:

 

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Nobody Asked Me, But...

Royal Wedding Edition

 

I'm going to deviate from the usual format of my weekly whip-around of news you may have missed this week, to talk about news you couldn't possibly have missed this week: the wedding of William & Kate.

 

I know, I know...vestige of a past age, really anachronistic, why are we wasting so much attention on such an irrelevant atrophied system, there's a boatload of starving people who could use the millions spent on the wedding, look at what we're missing in Libya, or Morocco, or Uganda.

 

All very legitimate points. All pretty irrelevant to a large number of people.

 

But I'm not here to defend the wedding's newsworthiness or the interest of large swaths of people in it.

 

It struck me this morning...well, two things struck me, the first being how much Prince William resembles me, but I digress...it struck me this morning as William, Kate and Harry were lined up at the altar, that we caught a glimpse of England's future.

 

And it could be a future of greatness. Truly, William could be the king to restore England to its role of primacy in world affairs, moving it out of America's lap and into it's own yard.

 

I know, the last sixty years have seen the royals become pretty much irrelevant to Britain's governance. Power rests with Parliament and power in Parliament rests in the hands of the Prime Minister. Much like America, the Queen exists as an executive branch, the Parliament holds legislative and advisory powers.

 

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has had a long and storied reign over England, overseeing the final vestiges of the British Empire and slowly letting pieces break away. She was pretty much thrown into the position back in 1952, and as a woman, has had a long and difficult fight to be taken as seriously as any king might.

 

She has been scrupulously silent on matters political for the bulk of her reign and tends not to exercise what political power she can. And her public image, although recently softened, has been one of removal from passion for her subjects, and a very steady and sober demeanor (even if she has on occasion allowed photographs of her smiling to be taken). Of course, rumours of being an enthusiastic Wii player have helped make her appear more modern.

 

By contrast, William and now Kate seem to have been embraced by the British and to have embraced them back. They are clearly comfortable in the spotlight, something I do not think Her Highness has ever really found.

 

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge seem comfortable with communicating directly with the people, too, but more from a friendly "status update" posture than a royal edict or television address.

 

It is this last that I'm struck by. They come off as a highly approachable pair, which would be one step further than William's parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Charles and Diana. In that couple, she was truly the "People's Princess," but he took after his mother, and tended to treat the media like a live wire to be handled gingerly.

 

It is conceivable that William, should he become King, would be quite able to meld this quality of demonstrance with an actual plan of governance. It would restore to the Crown a true "unitary executive" power without bullying or cudgeling the loyal opposition, something that the President of the United States has on occasion tried and failed miserably to achieve, usually ruling by edict and fiat and then having his citizens resent and reject him.

 

A powerful and charismatic English king would go a long way towards unifying the European Union, I think, and create an entity that could have more influence than China or even the United States on the world stage.

 

This could be an elegant start to a very exciting time for England.

Facebook Defriended

 

Investors pulling out

Not Content With Getting Obama's Burp Certiferkit

 

Donald Trumpet slips the press the Mets mickey.

NO!

 

No! No no no! No! No no no no no! N---oh for crissake! Not that too?!?!?! 

Atheism = Fundamentalist Christianity?

 

Who knew?

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA??????????

 

Bristol Palin bans mom from her home for being "too conservative"?

 

Y'know, in 2008, I had nothing but sympathy for Bristol Palin for living under the same roof with her mom, and spent a moment or two trying to imagine what the moment was like when Bristol announced her pregnancy in the middle of a Presidential campaign.

 

And then I lost a little respect for her when she let herself get wheedled (and wheeled out) anytime Gov. Palin needed a human shield to protect her from the media.

 

And now, I got a lot more respect!

 

Errrr, if this is true, of course.

Which Charlie?

 

OK, here's a fun game: I'll list a series of quotes. You tell me which Charlie, Manson or Sheen, said them.

 

1)  “Everyone’s God and if we don’t wake up to that there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere.”

 

2)  “You have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me. Boom. That’s the whole movie. That’s life.”

 

3)  “I’m in the bullring. I run in the bullring with the heart of the world.”

 

4)  “‘We are all martyrs. Love is a martyr... I am a martyr. But I am also a victim. And I’m a performer. And a dam. I’m both. I am everything. I am nothing.”

 

5)   "If you’re a part of my family, I will love you violently."

 

6)   “I’m too bad. I’m a mean guy. I’m an outlaw. I’m a criminal. I’m everything bad.”

 

Answers tomorrow. Unless you're #winning

 

Pandering Pays

 

The other day, I wrote about narcissism in popular culture (specifically music-- which in another incident of unintended consequences opened a can of worms-- but also in other cultural forms.)

 

Well, here's the counterargument and, if you play on its ballfield, it trumps all.

The Bride-To-Be Wore Orange

 

I LOVE this!

Blowback

This is going to be a trope that ought to last a long time

There was no "sorry" or "my bad" or "apologies for dragging your name and our nation through the mud by encouraging unhinged birther conspiracy theories."

Instead, Donald Trump declared "I'm very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that no one else has been able to accomplish"-and, just in case anybody missed the self-congratulation, " I really did a great job." This is the political equivalent of lighting a house on fire, calling 911 and then expecting a medal.

Which is almost an apt analogy. A more tailored analogy would be "...the political equivalent of double parking your car in front of the fire hydrant, moving it, and then expecting a medal." But I digress...

Donald Trump is really just a minor figure in the birther comedy, a person who grabbed a spotlight at precisely the right moment to get caught in the glare. His celebrity, to be sure, forced the question to the surface, but had it not been for the real asshats in this farce, the Orly Taitzes and John Corsis of the world, Trump would have been politely escorted off the stage.

After all, there had to be a base of support for the ridiculous and regularly-debunked notion that somehow President Obama was not American nor qualified to be President.

Which is why you need to read the rest of that article I linked to.

 

This Week On.....

 

Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicks! Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

That Word, "Need"...

...I do not think it means what you think it means:

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia needs to pump at least 9 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude for the next few years and is considering boosting capacity to meet rising demand, Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW) said in a report citing Saudi sources this week.

[...]

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Sunday the kingdom's April oil output may rise from March, when it pumped 8.292 million bpd. Output was above 9 million bpd as recently as February, when the kingdom produced 9.125 million bpd to plug the gap left by Libya, where civil war cut exports.

Libyan output disruption, the threat of more supply cuts stemming from political tumult across the Middle East and North Africa, and strong growth in fuel demand helped push oil prices to 2.5-year highs this year. Brent crude rose to $127.02 a barrel earlier this month, the highest since August 2008, while U.S. crude rose to $113.46.

It sounds to me more like the House of Saud sees an opportunity for enormous profits.

And therein lies the tale.

 

You may recall that, yesterday, I briefly discussed the looming cold war between the Saudis and Iranians. The Saudis have been stockpiling weapons. While there is no question this has been a drain on the coffers of the King, undoubtedly a few days worth of profit has probably paid many times over for the armaments.

 

But...there's a flip side. Another thing to consider when looking at this cold war is the unmistakable stench of American policy and hegemony. It is not unlikely, now that Obama has genuflected in the directions of the Saudis, right down to toning down his criticism of Israeli cross-border aggression against the Shi'ite-backed Lebanese and Palestinians (Shi'ite, in this case, being Syria and Iran), that there's a tit-for-tat deal working here, where Obama gets to influence Saudi oil pumping decisions.

 

Remember that cold war: who's supplying the Saudis with weapons if not us? Well, I mean, us, France and Britain, of course. The Sauds are the seventh largest buyer of armaments in the world. There's a lot of money to be made there, much of which filters its way back to the US.

 

It is, in effect, an enormous transfer of wealth from the working and middle classes at the gas pump, back up to the rich and elite who supply the weapons technology, many but not all of whom also maintain a vested interest in higher energy prices.

 

Which means the Sauds have to walk a tightrope in terms of the strike price on their oil deliveries. Too low, and they'll piss off the speculators. Too high, and they'll piss off the adminstration and defense contractors.

 

So if they can bank a high profit margin at the same time, then things are golden for them.

 

Need? No. Greed, is more like it.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

 

I wonder...do you think Obama did Boener a solid here?

Obama has potentially released Republicans from a trap: The birther issue had been splitting the party and turning the GOP presidential race into a circus. In a briefing preceding Obama’s statement, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, accompanied by the White House counsel and press secretary, allowed that it was in Obama’s “long-term political interests to allow this birther debate to dominate discussion in the Republican Party.” But, Pfeiffer said, Obama “thought it was bad for the country.”

For Only Your Close Friends

 

You can have your own zombie-proof house.

Attention Vodka Makers!

 

 

Look, I was fine with straight vodka. I really liked the old school potato vodkas. I enjoy the occasional flavoring of mango vodka. Lemon vodka makes a nice addition to a Long Island Iced Tea. I was intrigued by the vodka from Brooklyn which apparently included water from the next Superfund site, the Gowanus Canal.

 

This?

 

Do. Not. Want.

Walking The Dinosaur Back

 

Well, you don't have to worry about losing sleep anymore. Things turned out normally. Sadly.

Here's A Factoid For You

 

Undocumented workers paid $11.2B more in taxes to America last year than General Electric AND kept jobs IN America!

Question Of The Day

 

Independent voters: Clueless, or cluelessest?

Republicans Maul Ryan's Dope

 

This ought to be interesting, but just remember....

BREAKING!

 

CNN practices actual journalism!

Just. Go. Away.

 

Donald Trump  is apparently a jack-off all trades.

Aw, Fuck Me!

 

Guess who was blonde?

It's Not Like This Is Anything Important

 

Merely our place in the universe...

The Next World War?

Largely unnoticed by the mass media has been a growing undercurrent in the Arabic/Muslim world:

Afghanistan has been something of a forgotten war in recent months because of the world's preoccupation with Libya and Egypt and the wave of antigovernment protests spreading throughout the Middle East. That will soon change, now that the Obama Administration is stepping up talks with the Taliban in an effort to come up with some peaceable endgame to the half-trillion-dollar war. Part of the plan is to involve nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the talks — the U.S. has recognized that there can be no lasting solution in Afghanistan without regional buy-in. But the likelihood of getting those nations' help is slim, thanks to a new war: the cold one between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The growing tensions between Shi'ite Iran and Saudi Arabia's Sunni regime indeed may turn out to be a threat not only to peace in Afghanistan but also to an Arab Spring. For some time now, Arab governments have been boosting their military spending in anticipation of this regional conflict. The Saudis in particular are feeling surrounded: in addition to a Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad, Syria is a key ally of Iran's (Tehran may be helping squelch pro-democratic protests in Syria), as is Lebanon's Hizballah-controlled government and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. There are also Shi'ite rebels in Yemen, which shares a long border with Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday, I speculated about incremental World War. What I couldn't get my head around was why?

Sure, there are plenty of domestic reasons for Obama to urge a world war on the planet, not least of which is how successful world wars at jump-start a lagging economy. It would shut up conservatives, as well, as they would be hard pressed to be loyally opposed to a war they supported for so long in the first place...even tho they'd try really hard.

But now, there's a reason that makes a lot more sense than Obama abandoning his senses.

If you ascribe to the belief that the Sauds and Iranians are having a mini-Cold War for hegemony over the Middle East, then the choose up game of Global Domination begins to take form. Iran would enlist Russia and China. The Sauds would get us and NATO (and don't we feel stupid now for opposing Russia's application to NATO...)

A game of Risk but with real pieces and real, well, risks.

 

When A Baby Cries...

 

....sometimes it's best to just stick a bottle in his mouth and tell him to "Suck it".

 

This was actually beautifully orchestrated, if a little silly. Personally, I would have loved the chance to watch Birfers and their Teabaggy compatriots get all googly-eyed with frustration in 2012, but if Obama was going to release the birth certificate, he might as well take a pound of flesh in exchange. He was graciously insulting in his comments and frankly, he got in some digs at Boener for not controlling his minions as well as Boener might have wanted to.

Obama said he realized the release of the certificate would not satisfy everyone, but said the political discourse could not be helped by “sideshows” and “carnival barkers” continuing to talk about the issue.

If only he would be as frank with us about issues that matter.

 

*Free* Markets?

In all the hoopla about returning the issue of healthcare to the "free" market, conservatives and Teabaggers have neatly sidestepped the one major sticking point to that scenario.

 

The "free market" ain't:

A robust market is a wonderful thing. The prices of televisions, cell phones, clothes, fast food, computers and major appliances have declined over time, in part because consumers are rational creatures who are pretty good at figuring the value proposition being offered by the sellers. We can drive a hard bargain.

But the game doesn't work in our favor all the time. The airline industry is crazy competitive, right? Except that fares have increased nine times since mid-December. Gasoline is approaching $4 per gal. in many places. You may notice that having four service stations within two blocks of one another hasn't noticeably lowered the price at the pump. Cable- and satellite-television providers are constantly attacking each other in their advertising. Has your cable bill retreated over the past five years?[...]

Health insurance too defies conventional pricing inputs. It has experienced double-digit inflation for a decade. (Would you rather run a hospital or be the health insurer that collects premiums and pays the hospital?) The industry has enjoyed pricing power that ought to be pulling companies into the business. Instead, there's been consolidation, which is one of the reasons prices have gone up.

The author, Bill Saporito, goes on the make the case that the obstacle to competition in health insurance is something he calls "substitutability." That is, you can compare the price and features of cars and make a judgement on the best value for you, but you can't easily compare insurance policies, since so much is contingent on the network of physicians you'd have available, and it's hard to shop for an orthopedist when your legbone is sticking out of your skin.

A valid point, but the real problem goes deeper than that.

Japan has a private insurance market. Japan also has universal healthcare, mandated by the government, run by private industry.

The industry is profitable enough that there are over 2,000 private health insurance companies! The per capita medical cost in Japan is roughly half of the US ($3500 v. $7400). In the US, there are three dozen listed insurance companies.

In truth, there are really only a dozen or so companies that provide health insurance (the reason more are listed has to do with a curious construct in America: states regulate insurers and so many companies can't or won't write policies in every state.)

There is a concept in economics called "monopoly profit." Essentially, because competition is limited or non-existent, a company can pretty much set whatever price it damn well pleases for its product and make boatloads of money. True competition would force those prices to come down.

This is what the American health insurance industry is all about and why they can get away with denying coverage to a sick person while the CEO buys yet another boat. It is also why healthcare costs have skyrocketed over the past three decades. The lack of competition allows insurers to set whatever premium will make them the most profit with little fear of losing customers. This also explains why a full fifth of the nation has no health insurance. Rather than run to a non-existent competitor, people simply opt out of coverage. It's too expensive? Take it or leave it.

What we have here is an oligopoly, a market controlled by a small number of players, with enormous barriers to entry for competitors. It's also why former Congressman and current tool of the industry Billy Tauzin introduced and passed a piece of legislation specifically forcing Medicare to not bargain with hospitals and doctors to lower costs of medical care. Since insurers can simply raise premiums to cover their premium profits, there's no incentive in the industry to negotiate with healthcare providers, and indeed, higher costs can be passed along in totality PLUS ADDITIONAL PROFIT MARGINS to their customers.

So when Teabaggers talk about a "free market solution," remind them that in most industries we've had "market solutions" but because of the greed of the corporatocracy and the capitulation of the Republicans (and now Democrats to a lesser degree), there are no "free" markets.

Freedom just ain't free anymore.

 

If This Doesn't Give You Insomnia...

 

Republicans amenable to taking subsidies back from oil companies.

 

Of course, the phrase "Our work here is done" sort of rings in my ear...

Republican Mantra

 

"We had to destroy the village to save the banks"

Pentagon To Congress

 

"Please stop showering us with money! There's a budget crisis going on!"

World War By Increment

 

I wonder...not every war starts out big. Some start out as two neighbors pissing on each other's lawns, and next thing you know, the entire neighborhood is on fire.

It's Awful Windy Out There

 

It's going to get worse.

A Piece of Financial Advice

 

Tear out your plumbing, now.

Oh NewsMAX!

 

How dull my days would be without you to ridicule...

 

Me and Jay Carney...we're not laughing at you, we're laughing at the clown who took your place.

The Best Argument Against The Ryan "Budget"

 

You'll end up dead.

Why Obama Cannot Lose In 2012

 

Two words: Mun. Knee.

 

No matter how you slice it, the only Republican with either the personal resources (Mitt Romney) or access to donor lists (errrrrrrrrrr, no one?) to raise enough money to make a serious run at a candidate with a billion dollar war chest is, um, Mitt.

 

And he ran already. And lost. And spent an awful lot of his fortune doing it. If I was his kids, I'd be pretty pissed right now.

One Down

 

Haley Barbour quits the GOP 2012 race

 

I guess the racist cracker vote isn't as extensive as it used to be.

Lest We Forget

 

It's been 25 years since Chernobyl.

 

You'd think we'd be better at it.

I Can Give 'Em To You Wholesale

 

Apparently, Gitmo gives you a volume discount

Trumped

 

There's a school of thought that says that Donald Trump is not serious about running for President but is serious about making money.

 

I'd say this is the first time FOX Business has been on the right side of a story.

This May Not Seem Like Much

 

But if you value your privacy, you'll keep an eye on this decision

Another Visit From Captain Obvious

Song lyrics are becoming more and more narcissistic

Now, after a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs, Dr. DeWall and other psychologists report finding what they were looking for: a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. As they hypothesized, the words “I” and “me” appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there’s been a corresponding decline in “we” and “us” and the expression of positive emotions.

“Late adolescents and college students love themselves more today than ever before,” Dr. DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, says. His study covered song lyrics from 1980 to 2007 and controlled for genre to prevent the results from being skewed by the growing popularity of, say, rap and hip-hop.

Defining the personality of a generation with song lyrics may seem a bit of a reach, but Dr. DeWall points to research done by his co-authors that showed people of the same age scoring higher in measures of narcissism on some personality tests. The extent and meaning of this trend have been hotly debated by psychologists, some of whom question the tests’ usefulness and say that young people today aren’t any more self-centered than those of earlier generations. The new study of song lyrics certainly won’t end the debate, but it does offer another way to gauge self-absorption: the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The researchers find that hit songs in the 1980s were more likely to emphasize happy togetherness, like the racial harmony sought by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder in “Ebony and Ivory” and the group exuberance promoted by Kool & the Gang: “Let’s all celebrate and have a good time.” Diana Ross and Lionel Richie sang of “two hearts that beat as one,” and John Lennon’s “(Just Like) Starting Over” emphasized the preciousness of “our life together.”

Now, all this has to be placed in the context of a culture in which Andy Warhol's "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes" seems surprisingly less of a throw-off absurdity and more of a piquant observation.

Think about it: you're reading my blog, which I'm writing because I have a lot to say and all of the Internet to say it in. I get a couple of hundred hits a day. If I was forced to go out and find a publisher, I might sell a couple of hundred books in a lifetime, after getting laughed out of nearly every publisher in town. I'd probably be humiliated into silence (altho knowing me, I'd never shut up, but I digress...) 

I get to be narcissistic, in other words, because it's available. Similarly, I can display my limited photographic talents on Flickr and Qoop (see sidebar) or my even more limited talents on YouTube. I'm planning on rolling out a radio station sometime this year...errrr, that's supposed to be a secret between you and I, K? I may even record an album.

None of which will be commercially viable. It's all a vanity project (except my book but that's a different column.) It's all designed to leave a mark on the culture, however dim and distant it may be.

In a world where 16 year old girls debase themselves and embarass their families and get pregnant just to have a season on television, where parents will pimp their toddler children out for beauty contests, or subject their brood to the scrutiny of reality television, it's no wonder that song lyrics have become more narcissistic.

It's what sells. It's what creates role models. Ask William Hung, who managed to squeeze a minor sensation out of being a horrible singer of a song that was carefully focus grouped and overproduced for another factory-made "artist". Or the cast of Jersey Shore, who don't seem to get the fact that the joke is not near them, but is them.

Yes, plenty of great songs are about narcissism, usually in the context of a relationship. I think of The Beatles In My Life, an overview of a surprisingly mature songwriter who is trying to tell a woman, "Listen, I've gotten laid a lot, but baby, you're the greatest!" Or Leslie Gore's You Don't Own Me, perhaps the original I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar.

And perhaps this trend is part of why music sucks lately. Certainly, it feeds into the mass culture of "I got mine, Jack" that gave rise to the Teabaggers (thank a lot, emo!) If we can't have a great anthem to mass participation like All We Are Saying (Is Give Peace A Chance) because we're writing songs about "Fuck you, you're losing me," then how in the hell can we gather around a movement and progress?

 

SOAK THE RICH!

 

Finally, it might actually happen...

The Liberal Deficit-Cuttin', Budget-Balancin' Plan

 

Wait...what???

File This Under "Just Sticking A Thumb Up My Ass, Hoping To Pull A Plum Out"

 

It's come down to desperation for the GOP in Congress.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

 

There's an huge con job being foisted on conservatives who are too stupid to think.

You Know About The War On Christmas

 

Get ready for the War On Easter.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....

 

Next up: coals to Newcastle?

Note What Coburn Didn't Say

 

He didn't say "Let's raise taxes."

Whoomp! They It Is!

 

The Teabaggers are giving hell to Republicans back home.

 

"Keep your government paws off my Medicare!"

Some More Good News For Obama

 

New home sales spiked in March.

Botox: It's Not Just For Wrinkles

 

It may actually make you give less of a crap.

Interesting Reaction

 

A convicted incestual rapist who apparently committed a really heinous crime needs a heart transplant.

 

Surprisingly, the victim's family seems OK with it. At least partly.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about this. One the one hand, to leave his old heart in place would effectively be a death sentence. He's a rapist, not a murderer, so an eye for an eye is a non-starter argument. Too, he is a human being, however disgusted you may be from his behavior.

 

On the other hand, there are 49 other New Yorkers waiting for a heart, none of whom have committed a felony. Too, the $800,000 or so that the taxpayers would foot would go a long way to providing healthcare coverage for a couple hundred thousand poor New Yorkers, something that the budgeteers in Albany always seem to skirt.

 

What do you guys think?

 

 

"Reddit" Seemed Self-Evident

 

How many of your favorite websites got their names.

 

Simply Left Behind was pretty simple, if you've ever read the sub-heading.

What If...?

 

Fucking zombie brains...how do they work?

I'll Get The Popcorn!

 

This should be a barn-burner.

 

Question: would Beck have picked this fight, and the Huckster have responded so vigorously, if both were still employed by FOX?

Hey....

 

....Remember how Climategate made it OK to drive Hummers, burn baby seals and run the air conditioner all year long because simple scientists were exposed as one-world-government-commie-socialists by people who rose up and examined the evidence impartially and carefully?

 

Yea....about that...

Somebody Helped

 

I find it a little hard to believe that in this day and age, particularly with American military assistance (and equipment), this wasn't an inside job.

Just Wrong

It makes little sense to spread democracy around the globe if we are not going to practice democratic ideals.

The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America’s own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world’s most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.

[...]The files detail the background to the capture of each of the 780 people who have passed through the Guantanamo facility in Cuba, their medical condition and the information they have provided during interrogations.

Only about 220 of the people detained are assessed by the Americans to be dangerous international terrorists. A further 380 people are lower-level foot-soldiers, either members of the Taliban or extremists who travelled to Afghanistan whose presence at the military facility is questionable.

At least a further 150 people are innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs and drivers who were rounded up or even sold to US forces and transferred across the world. In the top-secret documents, senior US commanders conclude that in dozens of cases there is “no reason recorded for transfer”.

However, the documents do not detail the controversial techniques used to obtain information from detainees, such as water-boarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation, which are now widely regarded as tantamount to torture.

Now, let's see what the Framers had in mind with respect to "democracy".

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Words you and I, if you're American, had to learn by heart. This doesn't mean that some men who are not American do not have the same rights and privileges as Americans. It says that the Creator made all men equal, that all men are entitled to life and that all men are entitled to their personal freedom. It also says that even a Teabagger ought to recognize these rights, that it doesn't require deep thought or evidentiary hearings. All men are entitled to these rights. Period.

The Framers were smart enough to elucidate these points and outline these rights in a supporting document to this Declaration, our Constitution.

Right up top in the first Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights, the Framers delineated what is liberty. Liberty is the protection of the individual from the tyranny of the majority, that beautiful phrase of John Stuart Mill. That majority can take the form of mob or governance by mob rule.

It means that any man in the entire world should be free from the depredations of our exertion of American will and might over him. One can make the case that in war, these rules should be suspended, and perhaps there is a point to be made there but it seems to me that if you can't have a higher batting percentage than roughly .500 in the application of that suspension versus harming innocents, you have no business being in the business of war in the first place.

The willful negligence...and that's being overly polite...of the Bush and Obama administrations in the pursuit of the aims of their aggressions in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Libya will come back to haunt American citizens. How can it not? How can Americans expect to live a life of freedom in a world where freedom is a slogan and not a philosophy? How can we expect to continue to presume that what we own and what we enjoy cannot be taken from us at a moment's notice, not just by those who would do us harm, but also by those who wave the flag of "freedom" in our faces?

How can we in good conscience say we are bringing freedom to the world, but only to the part of the world that agrees with us? For if one man is not free, they I am not free. And if I am not free, then my fellow Americans are not free.