Bush's world just got smaller

This is the best news I've read in a long time.

It's really nice to know that there are those out there who refuse to take the United States position of "looking forward and not backward."

According to the article,

Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on Feb. 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.

So Mr. "Heh-heh-heh" decided it might not be prudent to take a luxury trip to visit the Swiss.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.

The reasoning behind the move toward legal action according to Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch,

"President Bush has admitted he ordered waterboarding which everyone considers to be a form of torture under international law. Under the Convention against Torture, authorities would have been obliged to open an investigation and either prosecute or extradite George Bush."

My favorite quote from the post is also from Mr. Brody, "He's avoiding the handcuffs." Brody goes on to say,

"I think George Bush's world is a very small place at the moment...He may enjoy some kind of impunity in the United States, but other countries will not treat him so indulgently."

I sincerely hope with the bottom of my heart that the world will continue shrinking for this person. I hope that he and his cronies will somehow, somewhere be held accountable for their actions, which among other things cost the lives of thousands of Americans and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans.

A bridge (name) too far

There is some noise being made about renaming the famed Coronado Bridge in San Diego to the “Ronald Reagan Bridge.” I live about 60 miles east of San Diego and am still within San Diego County. I really can’t believe that The Powers That Be would even consider such a thing.

Over at Firedoglake, David Glenn Cox rants about the new Time magazine cover which has a photoshopped picture of Ronald Reagan and President Obama arm in arm. He is quite amazed by the fact that a Democratic President would allow such a thing to happen without a hint of squawk. His very nice overview of Reagan is very apropos of why I feel Reagan should not have his name replace the Coronado Bridge.

Forget that the Reagan administration was corrupt up to its eyeballs. Let’s forget that the Reagan administration generated wars that killed thousands of innocent civilians in Central America. Let’s forget that the Reagan administration sold the chemical weapons to Saddam that were used to gas the Kurds. Let’s forget that the Reagan administration traded arms for hostages and sent birthday cakes to the ayatollah.

After we’ve forgotten all of that, we are left with the administration that shifted the tax burden from America’s wealthy to America’s working class. An administration which declared ketchup a vegetable to skirt Federal law on providing school lunches. An administration that bought plastic Air Force bombers for three quarters of a billion dollars a copy. Plastic dreadnoughts, too expensive to risk and too expensive to throw away.

I have said in the past that as far as I'm concerned, both the Democratic and Republican parties are essentially made of the same cloth. So it's really not surprising to me that the Time cover would demonstrate that notion. Or as Bill Hicks once said:

I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'

All in all, I can’t understand why Ronald Reagan is so revered in this country. Now that his 100th birthday is this Sunday, I'm sure we're going to get tons of accolades about him, perhaps all the frakkin' year. Yeesh!

Browsers on the wrong track

The Mozilla Corporation has announced that it will add a "do-not-track" feature on its Firefox web browser. This is in response to the Federal Trade Commission's request for web browsers to employ a feature to help maintain users' privacy.

There is a problem with this feature, though.

For Firefox's tool to work, however, tracking companies would need to agree to not monitor users who enable the do-not-track feature. So far, no companies have publicly agreed to participate in the system, but Mozilla urged them to join in.

Huh? I really hate to break this to Mozilla, but asking companies to honor a do-not-track request is about as reliable as asking a financial institution not to create credit default swaps. I think the corporation will have to do better than that. Let's look at it this way:

Last month, however, Microsoft said it would revive a powerful privacy feature in its Internet Explorer 9 that would let users stop certain websites and tracking companies from monitoring them.

The Wall Street Journal reported in a front-page article last year that Microsoft removed similar features from Internet Explorer 8 after online advertisers expressed concerns about the impact on their business.

Hmmm... "...concerns about the impact on their business." So I'm wondering what has changed that Microsoft can get away with the privacy feature on IE9? Have these "concerns" gone away in just one year? I'm surprised that Mozilla thinks that these companies and their "concerns" are going to honor the corporations request. I wouldn't hold my breath...

Google is also tinkering with a tracking feature. The problem with both Microsoft and Google is that it's just not as easy as checking a box to enable the feature:

...these tools still aren't easy to use. Microsoft's feature requires users to create a list of tracking companies they want to block. The Google tool is not embedded in its Chrome Web browser. Instead, users will need to download software onto their computer, according to the person familiar with the tool.

For Firefox, one does just need to check a box.

Once users enable the feature, Firefox would broadcast a do-not-track message to each website a user visits, and to the many tracking companies that are hosted on that website.

Mozilla is asking those who receive the do-not-track request to stop collecting data about the user and stop using that data for marketing purposes. That is one step further than most opt-outs that tracking companies offer, which prevent data usage but don't prevent data collection.

Obviously, in this 21st century technology, it should be no problem to keep anyone from tracking you with the simple click of a button. The 500-pound gorillas just choose not to. I'm sure it makes the corporate images look good with their gyrations.

FRAP? No - CR*P!

Friday, on Rachel Maddow, one of her segments compared her pet dog's idiosyncrasy as a puppy to the U.S. Senate. She said that a puppy affliction known as "Frenetic Random Activity Period," or "FRAP," is also the Senate's problem.

To me at least, the FRAP, the frenetic random activity period, is the most cogent explanation I can come up with for what‘s happening right now in the United States Senate. Things are happening really fast and furious right now in Washington. And we know why that‘s true for one side of Washington.

One of her examples is,

The nukes treaty with Russia, right? This has been on the docket for eight months now...

Republicans decided that they wanted amendments, that nothing could happen on this until they had no time for their very important amendments. They wanted to add amendments to the treaty.

But, OK, Democratic Senator John Kerry, who appeared on this show two nights ago, said essentially that even though that was kind of weird, if that‘s what Republicans needed in order to finally bring this thing to a vote, then, sure, you want to debate amendments? We can debate amendments...I got the floor time right now. Here‘s your time for amendments.

Republicans, it turned out, did not have any amendments. Nothing ready to go. Nothing written out, nothing to offer, nothing planned.

Ultimately, today, a day later, John McCain finally figured out an amendment that he might want to try. Republicans insisted this could not be voted on. They could not vote on this treaty until they had time to offer their many and very important amendments. So when they got the chance, kerplunk, one, and it took them a day to come up with it.

I'm sorry, Ms. Maddow, but this is an example of a horribly broken Senate - that's the "most cogent explanation." It has nothing to do with some "syndrome." These knuckleheads are solely out for their own interests and don't give a hang about the people they supposedly represent. It's all about making the other side look bad and give their side an edge.

In other words, they're full of CR*P, not FR*P. ;-)

Security Theater 101 (or the Keystone Kops revisited)

So...Are you feeling safe yet at airports? Hah!

A Houston man got a .40 caliber handgun by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport inspectors the other day. On top of that,

A person briefed on the latest tests tells ABC News the failure rate approaches 70 percent at some major airports. Two weeks ago, TSA's new director said every test gun, bomb part or knife got past screeners at some airports.

And don't you just love that those "dangerous" bottles greater than three ounces are tossed into bins right next to the authorities? I mean, if the bottles did hold explosive liquids, wouldn't you think that they would be taken to a safe place away from the TSA authorities? Just in case those big, bad bottles explode, you know. Maybe the TSA personnel are just really, really, really brave. Not!

Why is it that Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport, one of the most secure airports in the world, doesn't require passengers to remove their shoes?

Full body scanners? According to Ralph Nader,

The technology has already been challenged by recognized academic specialists on both safety and efficacy grounds. After six months of testing at four major airports, Italy is likely to drop these scanners, finding them ineffective and slow. The European Commission has also raised "several serious fundamental rights and health concerns" and recommends less-intrusive alternatives.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. The security system at our airports are nothing but "security theater" brought about by inducing fear into the citizenry, thus making them more docile for Big Brother to take away as much of our rights as they can.

Or to put it another way: "Keep 'em scared, keep 'em cowed."

The dumbing down of committees...

I see on the MSNBC news ticker this morning that soon-to-be Speaker of the House John Boehner has offered Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-MN) a seat on the Congressional Intelligence Committee.

I sense an oxymoron in there somewhere...

The Washington/Wall Street Circle Game continues

After leaving the Obama Adiminstration position as head of Office Management and Budget (OMB), Peter Orszag has been hired by Citicorp. And so the incestuous relationship between Wall Street and Federal Government continues. As Glenn Greenwald puts it,

Just think about how this works. People like Rubin, Summers and Gensler shuffle back and forth from the public to the private sector and back again, repeatedly switching places with their GOP counterparts in this endless public/private sector looting. When in government, they ensure that the laws and regulations are written to redound directly to the benefit of a handful of Wall St. firms, literally abolishing all safeguards and allowing them to pillage and steal.

Then, when out of government, they return to those very firms and collect millions upon millions of dollars, profits made possible by the laws and regulations they implemented when in government. Then, when their party returns to power, they return back to government, where they continue to use their influence to ensure that the oligarchical circle that rewards them so massively is protected and advanced. This corruption is so tawdry and transparent -- and it has fueled and continues to fuel a fraud so enormous and destructive as to be unprecedented in both size and audacity -- that it is mystifying that it is not provoking more mass public rage.

Get that? No one is at all concerned about this. No "provoking...mass public outrage." Even when it's blatantly stated that he is powerfully connected. No one seems to care that the Circle Game expertly pointed out by Mr. Greenwald boldly continues. As the Huffington Post article states,

Orszag, who had worked as director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, left the White House in July. He was one of the president's most prominent advisers and remains well-connected in U.S. political circles.

Now he will bring those connections to Citigroup -- although the bank said in a prepared statement that his role will not involve direct contact with federal government officials.

Oh, no... Of course his role will not involve direct contact with federal government officials (maybe indirect, hmmm?). They just hired him because he's an all-around nice guy and fun to be with! And I've got Florida swampland I want to sell you.

Last week, Carlos Gutierrez, Commerce Secretary under George Bush also got hired by Citicorp. So he will be making tons of money under the Citicorp umbrella until the next Republican President comes into power. Then watch as he goes back into government service to further enrich Wall Street. Looks like Citicorp is covering both Democratic and Republican bases. The more things change, the more they stay the same...