Another new definition

Not content to have creatively re-defined torture the Republicans have now re-defined compromise. In Republican speak compromise now means giving Bush whatever he wants (even though it violates both U.S. law and constitution as well as the Geneva Convention). This fake "compromise" being touted by McCain is nothing of the sort. Bush got what he wanted. The CIA is not to be constrained by the military code but can go beyond it, prisoners will not be allowed to see all the evidence against them, and so on. McCain, who claims the Geneva Convention has been saved is plain and simply, lying. He obviously will do anything, no matter how despicable, to get the Republican nomination in 2008. The only thing he hasn't done publicly yet is lick Bush's boots. Look for it.

The Republicans have been busy working on immigration reform. For example, they just passed a law making it a crime to tunnel into the U.S. I guess I just don't understand these things - you mean it wasn't against the law before to tunnel under our borders in order to bring in drugs and illegals? Now with this marvelous break-through compromise they say it will be possible to arrest, imprison, interrogate and try terrorists. Like, this wasn't possible before? Where have I been all of these years? They also voted overwhelmingly to build an additional 700 miles of fence to keep out illegals. This will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigrants but it will certainly keep the big corporations going for several years. No doubt they plan to hire cheap illegals to build this marvelous construction.

There was an interesting interview today on Democracy Now with Evo Morales, the President of Bolivia. Why can't we have an Evo Morales or a Hugo Chavez, who, whatever else they may or may not be, do have the interest of their citizens in mind rather than merely the interests of corporations? What a breath of fresh air they bring to politics. If you want to see the future look to South American because that's where it's at.

A drunk is sitting at the bar. He says to the bartender, "statistics show us that the average alligator lays hundreds of eggs."
The bartender says, "yeah, yeah, who cares."
The drunk then says, "and statistics tell us that of those hundreds of eggs only a few actually hatch."
The bartender says, ""yeah, so what?"
The drunk then says, "statistics also show us that of those few that hatch very few actually survive."
The bartender, fed up, says, "yeah, yeah, like who cares what statistics show us?"
The drunk replies, indignant, "hey, I'll have you know if it wasn't for statistics we'd all be up to our ass in alligators."

Sorry. But it strikes me the same thing is true of polls. Somewhere the other day I saw poll results that claimed Bush's ratings had gone back up to 45%. As I cannot see what on earth Bush has done in recent days to raise his poll numbers I have to suspect the polls themselves (and I know the polls can be manipulated every which way). I suspect if we leave it up to the polls we'll all but up to our butts in Bushit. And by the way, watch out for the October surprise.