I think the politico's are all stuffed-up on Burger King and frito-lay.

They's be better leaders if they get good and laid and go home to drop dead. I say.

And who stole the post-toasties I tried to relay earlier today?

Ya's think, o,

maybe the nsa?

It takes talent to be an effective advocatus diavoli. Shooter's intellectual defense of torture, and of bad acts generally, reminds me of things a four year old will think to say when caught with his hand in a forbidden cookie jar.

Still, he does perform a genuine service here despite his limitations. We can't compel judge Mukasey or the Bush administration generally to say what it is that's driving them; we can only look at the evidence of their deeds to date and draw our own conclusions. Shooter's graceless efforts to interpret what they aren't actually saying doesn't leave us any wiser about their motives, but it does make clear who he is. Mission accomplished. Heh.

Blaise Pascal-

It is dangerous to make humanity see too clearly his equality with the brutes,

without showing him/her their potential greatness. It is also dangerous to make humanity see their greatness too clearly, apart from their vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave a person in ignorance of both. To be ignorant of both sides of their nature a person must know both. Gads, and next the right-wing will be quoting John Donne to help dig their own grave? I guess. Ask YKW.

apologies to Donne,

and to Baise Pascal.

*

Zeus- a blaise to a pile of hay is what you plan to unleash?

O, but ya's know what? Them neo-cons run there for cover in a thunder-bolt storm. Be careful. There ain't no place that's safe. Ya's can run,

but you no cah hide.

Zeus, I just gonna

play peek-a-boo-too.

I can't hardly believe YKW is mentioning John Donne. Maybe somewhere on the web-spider net is the sermon he preached at the funeral of Sir William Cokayne, Knight, Alderman of London. Dec 12th, 1626.

I'm trying to be apolitical. But Donne did speak in his day to remind politics who kill and prey upon others, a human withers, and must decay, must languish, must perish....So in part, if we espouse a right-wing ideology, not a particular theology (secular/spirtual- same-same? in the final analysis),our foundation is never permanent or ever gonna save or protect us from decay and dissolution, and putrefaction...

...so- Stay in tune with Nature...That's the best bet and wisest Wager: so-said, Blase Pascal.

Timberman is a good former military brat.

I lost a earlier-post and I'm real cranky, William.

So waterboarding, like providing telecom customer data and leaking a CIA operative's identity should all be legal as long as it took place safely in the past.

I'm glad the Washington Post is so clear on the subject. I expect it will now come out in favor of legalizing murder as long as the victim is already safely buried.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/03/AR2007110300886.html

I agree, bebop. I didn't lose an earlier post, but I did discard one which I thought was becoming too cutesy. There was one thought in it, though, which I wish I'd been able to use. Maybe this would be a good place to resurrect it.

If a metaphor is driven beyond its true ground, it becomes gibberish, and the person wielding it will be shunned, much as the academic postmoderns have been. And what is the true ground of metaphor? Bebop's pepper patch.

As I said, cutesy. You made the point better, I think. It's our nature to be abstract; that's our great virtue as a species, and also our great vice. Nature, if it's taken to be human nature alone, is consequently not much of a guide to truth. Shooter is a perfect example of what can happen to you if you follow that path. The rest of nature, though, from which we sprang and in which we all are still embedded despite our pretensions to the contrary, is a truer guide.

This isn't a genuine duality, any more than the beast/angel metaphor for human beings is. It's all one thing, and seeing it as such is probably the true wisdom. (I say probably because there's still considerable doubt whether I'll ever attain such widom myself :-)

...bring along to the Mitre Tavern.

I'll bet Martha and Mary are there?

I know Paul and Silas need a kiss.

There has got to be lips that taste,

sweet as wine somewhere? I need rest.

*

I googled and saw a article: findarticles.com about the financial times back then. I know you read that complicated financial stuff. You remind be of a 'ole duff goat with a cloak that has no pockets in your ragged winter dusty coat.

P.S. Donne was a good 'sinner' and never gloated a pride.

W.T.- You got women?

You lucky and corny.

Disobedient fingers. Also chores to do. Clever doesn't help much when you've got a mop in your hands. Penance.

What is the formal process for filing charges of war crimes in the International Court? It seems quite clear to me from the information that has been posted by ondelette and others in this thread that we now have confirmation by the Bush Administration that it engages in waterboarding. There is simply no escaping that this constitutes a war crime.

I would like to see the "law firm" of Fein, Comey, Goldsmith, Greenwald and Dodd (would we dare include Specter?) come together to write and submit the appropriate brief.

Defendants: Bush, Cheney, Addington, Yoo, Gonzales, Lieberman, Feinstein and Schumer (in somewhat descending order of guilt).

How do we make this happen? And yes, I am serious and not just venting. From the list of defendants (and the attorneys I propose) it is clear that both the crime and any effort to overcome it are truly bipartisan.

A favorite pencil sketch I love to look at has a old person like you with a mop, a scrub bucket, and a mop. Seriously.

So much pulls at us every day. The nourishing activities are endless. Yet underneath, when we quiet down to split wood (not Timberman), stack a big pile for winter, we quiet down and come to our senses.

I'm being strongly pulled to do some necessary chores too. What we most love calls us forward. Thanks ya's all, and "what we really love" is to touch our deeper calm interior, and then desire to reach out and touch others so to be more warm, awake, reflective, and more silent. Well, I'm enjoying the interchange. It's said, I believe it is true, that every person ever born,

Is actually speaking a soliloquy, and longing for a human ear to hear us, break bread with, share thoughts, in private, we can sip juices, and be able to share our common blessed and best humanity.

To bring forth aspects of our shared human nature, and we all long to be at peace with each other.