A successful compromise?

It is now claimed that Bush and the three rebel Senators, McCain, Warner, and Graham, have reached a successful compromise on the torture bill. I would still like to know how you can compromise on torture. It seems to me that either we respect the Geneva Convention or we don't. So what does this compromise consist of? Are they going to tell us just what procedures are admissible and which are not? Did they actually work out the semantics of torture vs "different interrogation techniques" or whatever euphemism they are employing at the moment? Does the CIA now know positively what they can do and what they cannot do? Do you think after all these years of doing what they damn please they are going to pay any attention to this recent folderol? The CIA has assassinated and tortured for years. They are not going to stop now no matter what compromise was reached. But it does make for good press. What bullshit.

A judge in California has now ruled that Bush's overruling of the Clinton Roadless Act was illegal. It apparently did not consider any environmental rules or laws and is therefore inoperative. Did this deter our temporary governor Risch? Of course not. He said he will go ahead with Idaho's plan anyway. So there you have it. Another case of Republicans simply ignoring the law. If there are laws or rules that Republicans don't like they just ignore them. In the case of Bush they use a "signing statement" that announces they will not accept that particular law. What a great system. You don't like a law. The hell with it. It's the Republican way.

I know I will probably get a lot of flack for this but I cannot tell a lie. Hugo Chavez made an absolutely marvelous speech at the U.N. in which he "told it like it is." I believe everything he said was true. Bush is the devil. The U.S. has tried to dominate the world. We have been exploitive and unfair to other countries. The U.N. has been too much under the control of the U.S. and so on. All true. All too true. If Chavez manages to live much longer he will become a genuine hero. If they manage to kill him he will become a great martyr. The world has finally become completely aware of what has been going on all these years, the U.S. and international corporations ripping off the poor, exploiting every country they could, grabbing the lion's share of the world's resources, and returning mostly nothing to the local populations. This has to change and Chavez is leading the rest of the world in trying to remedy this terrible imbalance. South America is awake! If Chavez has his way the rest of the world will also awake. Unregulated, unfettered, exploitive capitalism will have to give way to a more democratic and equitable system. So hooray for Chavez. Wish him well and good health. Perhaps, just perhaps, justice will ultimately prevail.