February 28, 2002
Hyper-electronic Eavesdropping
Wondering Aloud and About

     "Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke."
~Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1809 - 1894)

     OK. There is a need to control certain things in this post-Attack environment. There is report of consideration to issue a national identity card being weighed against a subdermal identification chip. We already know about Magic Lantern eavesdropping indiscriminately, now it is out of open court. The Department of Defense has abandoned Air Force Gen. Simon Worden, commander of Office of Strategic Information, or, maybe, sent him packing to another Pentagon station. On one hand, the darkness of political propaganda has shrunken in the light of exposure; while, in the meantime, every instance of emergency legislation is certainly proving to be knee-jerk reactionary and shortsighted. In fact, legislators today have found courage enough to call many present things 'plain stupid.' For the greater part, they are really stupid...and a gargantuan waste of money.
      Ever notice how conservatives harp on fiscal stinginess when liberals are in power, and spend like sailors on leave when in power themselves?

     The Shrub has made mention of breaking another possible election promise. About to go down in second handed lies of omission is the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. It is being opened to oil exploration and exploitation. There will be plausible excuse for this needless act; and later some backroom deals will be revealed, maybe, when Cheney is finally forced to reveal the information the GAO law suit seeks.
      Dubya follows that gem up with the statement that people on welfare must go to work in greater numbers. This in face of certain progress, reported that 50% are being successful in finding work, but, nonetheless, his call is to demand it be raised to 70%. Huh? Is there a recession or not?

     The latest smokescreen: Former Secretary Joe Califano?s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) has publicized that over a quarter of the booze sold in America is being sold to underage drunks. The federal government, when queried on this out-of-whack number, reports that the true figure is closer to 11%, a number far more believable. However, no mention of the developments in Columbia as reflected on our War on Drugs has come from the Administration. Coincidence?

     What is the national anthem of Mexico? Did you know?
      Skaters Derek Para and Jennifer Rodriguez proved that championship talent has no national heritage; they are the first Latino-Americans to win metals in the Winter Games.
      And...
      You probably remember Vonetta Flowers as the first African-American to earn gold in a Winter Olympics, but two days later Randy Jones and Garrett Hines won silver in the four-man bobsleigh, the first metals won by African-American men in a Winter Games. Who? What happened with them?

     Manuel Noriega, former murderous dictator and drug lord of Panama, sits in his own wing of a federal prison, wearing his laundered uniform; as result of a federal tribunal that ajudged he is a prisoner of war. In Cuba, unnamed and uncounted prisoners are being held without the same due process of law. Certain named French and British citizens have had lawyers file rit of haebias corpus actions to have them either charged or released.
Hundreds of other persons remain in jail, under a plethora of open charges, all whom remain unnamed as a stated policy of the Justice Department. Most are Arabs, of course, and no thought is being made in that regard. Perhaps they will just forget being held in concrete rooms?
      A $5,000,000 reward has been offered to find and "bring to justice" the killers of journalist Danny Pearl; while pressure is being put on Pakistan to release the suspects they have in custody for prosecution in this country.
      None of this makes any sense and does not add to understanding a common righteous justice. Of course, there is little, if any, discussion of this really weird law manipulation. Maybe later.

     NYTimes reporter Tom Freidman is said to have authored the initative presently being considered to end the killing in Israel and the occupied territories. Saudi interests have taken it forward and the European Union (EU) has endorsed it in principle. This kind of action is the only possible answer to the situation there. However, the Sharon government is playing the proposal close to the vest, calling for more detail before comment is given. (Typical. Expect impossible demands to follow.)

     200 Special Forces "advisors" have been sent to the former-Soviet nation of Georgia. It is said that that AlQuida "terrorist cells" have taken refuge in that nation. Shrub2 remarked that "we would have to be invited before going into a country like Georgia." Russian President Putin remarked that such a military move would only act to further destabilze that region. Well, duh.