Today at Sandhill

Sandhill. That is what I have decided to call our "estate" (house plus garage and couple of outbuildings) here in North Idaho. A more accurate description would be sand pile. But sand pile just does not have the same connotation of gentility and English upper classness that Sandhill does. You know, like Yasna Polanyi, Sandhurst, Windsor, etc. Of course we have no servants, peons, peasants, slaves or stuff like that. But Sandhill will have to do. So what went on today at Sandhill?

First, my wife, for some reason known only to the supernaturals that deal with females, bought a bar of soap so large that you have to hold it with both hands. Have you ever tried to shower with a bar of soap that has to be held in both hands?Then our dryer gave up the ghost (so to speak). Actually, she just wore it out what with 24 hour usage every day. It cost me forty bucks to be told it didn't work and we would need a new one. Sigh. Then the deer were in the garden (happily they can't do much damage this time of year). Haven't seen our flock of wild turkeys for the past couple of days. Maybe too cold for them. At least they aren't pooping on our deck at the moment.

But moving on to more national problems and developments. A man in Georgia (I think Atlanta) was having trouble getting subway (or bus) tokens out of the token machine. A man standing there offered to help by giving him a token. The recipient of the token, being a decent sort, paid him the $1.75 the token was worth, at which point the good samaritan was arrested (apparently individuals can't sell tokens). Not only was he arrested, he was brought to trial. I do not know what the outcome was. But the prosecutor apparently said, "the law is the law."

In another development, it appears that a father has his two year old daughter here in the U.S. with him and wants to keep her here. This is apparently not against the law in the sense that he has illegal custody or something. The problem is, she was not born in the U.S. and therefore they are going to deport her (even though the father wants to keep her). Apparently they believe she may be a threat to the U.S. Remember, the law is the law. Bureacracy knows no common sense.

Then it was announced that the U.S. mint is going to bring out new one dollar coins with the likenesses of past presidents. Having brought out dollar coins twice before that failed miserably they are going to try again. But like before they are not going to stop printing one dollar bills which insures the new coins, like the others, will fail to be used. Canada, of course, being light years ahead of the U.S. in common sense, stopped printing one dollar bills when they introduced the one dollar coins and voila, they are used successfully in Canada (along with the perfectly sensible two dollar coins). I suspect the U.S. does this on purpose as it has the effect of taking money out of circulation to be saved in piggy banks instead.

Now, on the more important matters. John McCain, as you know, has introduced a bill to ban torture and degrading treatment of prisoners anywhere at anytime. He wants to insure that the military, FBI, CIA, and everyone else has to follow the Army Military Code on such matters. Cheney and the White House are opposed to his bill and have done everything they can to defeat it, including the threat of a completely unprecedented veto. But now they have come up with a easier solution - they have rewritten the Army Manual! Clever, no? McCain is not going to like this. Stay tuned.

The best for last. In his fourth speech on Iraq Bush has announced that he is responsible to declaring "war" on Iraq as a result of bad intelligence. This has produced oohs and aahs all over the place. Wow! Bush has admitted he declared war because of faulty intelligence. To me this represents a confession of war crimes. The Intelligence was not faulty, at least not all of it. They knew, for example, that the Niger yellowcake claim was not true. They also knew the aluminum tubes were not for nuclear projects. They knew Sadam was not a threat to the U.S. as they had inspectors right there on the ground telling us there were no WMD's. They also knew that after 12 years of constant overflights and sanctions Iraq could not possibly have been a threat. They had virtually the entire world telling them not to go to "war" because it was not necessary. But Bush wanted to prove he was a "War President," and began this totally illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and unnecessary war anyway. It doesn't even matter whether the intelligence was wrong or not. The pre-emptive attack on a sovereign nation that was no threat to us was a war crime, plain and simple. The intelligence was indeed "fixed" to bring about the desired result. Bush/Cheney, of course, deny they exaggerated or lied about the intelligence. What else would you expect? The enormity of this criminal activity seems to escape the Republican Party that continues to protect them. Shame!!

Tomorrow the Iraqis vote for the first time for a "democratic" administration. A vote under the supervision of the U.S., an occupying power, with control over the candidates and the election. What do you think will happen if the new Iraq administration asks the U.S. to leave and give up their idea of permanent bases there? It should prove to be most interesting.

Even better! According to Robert Novak (granted a comple jerk), Bush must know who the leaker was. Novak seems pretty certain of this. Now, if Bush does indeed know the identity of the leaker why does he not come forward and say so. Why does he not fire the individual? Why did he lie when he said he didn't know, but wanted to, and would punish whoever it was? My guess is Bush knew from the very first who the leaker was. He claimed he didn't and went on to say he didn't think anyone would ever know, etc. He lied. Big time. Am I the only one who thinks this is really important? Is this miserable excuse for a President never going to be held accountable for anything? Even his consistent, persistent, even pathological lying? Has the U.S. gone completely mad? I fear so.