18:25 Minutes

I don't have a television, so I'm subject to my friends'--and whatever ends up streaming on the ol' interweb. Given that proclivity, I thought I'd link to Obama's recent interview on 60 Minutes:

The section with Michelle was less interesting, so I selected the shorter interview segment above out of respect for your time, dear viewer. I had no such veto powers, unfortunately, regarding the embedded Viagra commercials within the above clip. To be sure, the President-elect quietly freaked--in that noble political way--when he saw who was sponsoring the airtime. As would I.

Poor taste, CBS. That kind of sponsorship made sense during the last 8 years. But now it is time to get more...intelligent, respectful. You know--more mental...

less entitled/uneducated guttural.

Pardon Me!?

This is a good petition to sign to help deter Bush from pardoning himself and his Administration from their illegal abuses of power during the their tenure in the White House.

After all, we wouldn't want them to just get away with murder, would we?

Shoot! What'd I Miss?

This must be what I get for not having a television.
I somehow missed this Bush State of the Union address below:

Taxi to the Dark Side

A few days ago, "anonymous" posted a comment to my blog entry about closing Guantanamo.

I responded to the comment with a comment. But having just finished watching Taxi to the Dark Side, I felt compelled to provide a few more reasons newly known to me about why we should close these detention camps--where incentives to turn people in as terrorists (even when they are not) are combined with the expectation to produce intelligence at any cost. Throw in the permissible use of harsh interrogation techniques (which, when combined, constitute torture) and a presidential self-pardon for war crimes, and what do you get?

Dead/destroyed innocent lives, ruined American soldiers who were set up to take the fall.

What else did I learn?

• Only 7% of detainees were picked up by U.S. or Allied Forces.
• 90% were picked up/turned in by Pakistanis or Afghan warlords in exchange for bounties and cash payments. As it turns out, the film's primary subject, an Afghan civilian who died in U.S. custody, his death declared by U.S. coroner to be a "homicide," was just an innocent taxi driver who was pulled over and turned in by an actual terrorist, who the U.S. learned later had been turning in innocent civilians to cover his own tracks. Add in Bush's elimination of habeus corpus, and you have a recipe for innocent civilians being incarcerated, subject to torture, and without knowledge of why they are being held and having no access to a trial.
• Oh yeah...and only 8% of detainees turn out to have any actual connections to Al Qaeda.
• Having lots of people in custody is an excellent pr stunt that gives the appearance that the U.S. is actually winning the war on terror. (Except we are really just creating reasons for more Arabs to mistrust, and in some cases, hate the U.S.)
  

So my dear anonymous, this is why we must close Guantanamo, and any other such prison where such atrocities and injustices are perpetuated. They are fundamentally un-American, and they are also against international law.

Bush may have pardoned himself and his people from U.S. law, but they should be tried by the international community and locked up. At some point, we all, individually, have to become the bigger person. So incarcerate, but you know...stop short of torturing them. Like I said, I'm working on becoming a bigger person. ;-)

War Crimes: America's Unfinished Business

You Know How I Feel

I'm Feeling Good

Yes, We Can!

Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States of America. This is...unprecedented to say the least.

There is so much difficult work to do ahead, and it will require sacrifice on the part of every single one of us. But I believe the rewards will be forthcoming, and worth it.

Yes. I am--finally!--feeling optimistic that we stand poised to tackle the incredibly great immediate and impending challenges that we face. I believe that we are hard working people who aspire to what is right, and good.

I believe that today we have chosen a President-elect who truly has the country's best interest at heart. A man who will lead by, and for, the people--not just the special interests.

Bush and his cronies can start to burn the damning evidence of their corrupt Administration.
Despite the great lost of lives due to greed and criminal "ignorance" (as I believe they were), the damage of this Administration is nothing that we, collectively, cannot overcome.

So let's DO IT, together...
Let's go get our country back.

Barack the Vote!

If logic alone isn't proving to be a successful method of persuading your friends and family to make the "right" decisions on election day, try humor:

Sarah Silverman Wants Jews (or anyone else) to bribe their Floridian elders to vote for Obama:

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.


Heather Gold wants Californians to vote NO on Prop 8.

The Great Hack from The Great Hack on Vimeo.


And really...don't we all?