Sunday, 26 April 2009

A Short Torture Discussion

So here is the imaginary scenario:

We go through various investigations and questions over interrogation and torture....then we come up with a list of six Bush-administration folks to try in court....compliments of the Attorney General.

In the midst of this court case....a 9-11 occurs. Two thousand people die on "X" day. A day later, another 700 people die in a 9-11-plus. The President goes into a quick "we will seek them out to the ends of the Earth" mode.

Nine days go by and then the CIA finds this guy in Italy who was a major part of this plan. Rather than play by the old rules and take him off to Gitmo....we bring him straight into the US. He smiles at the CIA handier. The only thing he will that there is more planned shortly, then he shuts up.

Five days later, this comment comes out in the press. As the president is standing there at a major press conference....someone asks him....what we do to get this information. The response? "Everything is being done that we possibly can do".....end of statement.

Five days pass. Another press conference. This time....a formerly friendly reporter to the president happens to ask if we are going to use extreme measures to get the information necessary.

The President looks stern at the if he was not to ask that question in public. He repeats what he said five days ago.

The White House is now scratching its head and butt at the same time. They can't order the CIA to torture anyone because the CIA interrogation folks will refuse to take such orders unless they are totally in the public and announced via congress.

At this point...every hour of every day....the President is sitting with a huge amount of stress and pressure. If anything happens now....without the torture applied to the prisoner....he gets the blame by the American public. If nothing happens....the public has doubts over the future. He loses in every case. So his only wish right now this 9-11 repeat.

Meanwhile....we can't even be sure that prisoner of ours....knows a damn thing. So you might torture him months before you realize he's wasting your time.

So you got the choice of running a flea market in Ardmore, Tenn or being president....sounds like being the flea market boss is a better job and less stressful.

Unless We Forget

So after our idiot Homeland Security chief (Napolitano) got into this chit-chat about 9/11 hijackers entering the United States from Canada, then here was Senator John McCain doing the same trick.

Its been a hard week for the Canada government crowd...having to call around Homeland Security and then Senator McCain...then do TV appearances....all to correct some stupid concepts which are incorrect.

McCain sat there and told Fox News...Ms. Napolitano was "accurate when she suggested the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington crossed into the U.S. across the Canadian border". "Well, some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada, as you know," Mr. McCain said when asked if he was worried Ms. Napolitano was misinformed.

So I'm left with two visions here.

First, all of these idiots are spoon-fed daily topics to discuss and both Napolitano and McCain might be on some subscription with some operation which gives them neat stuff to chat about in public. You have to remember....most DC political figures are idiots and can't think for themselves. So I'm willing to believe that both got the same message and talked the same talk.

But then I come to point two. The American public may be forgetting its history...even recent history.

In six months....five million Americans will repeat this idea that 9-11 dudes came via Canada into the US. In five years....maybe thirty million Americans will believe this is a fact.

So I've decided the best way to counter massive bogus information. So I'm passing this out, and expect it to become "fact" and legend within thirty days:

1. Three of the 9-11 guys were transvestites and were wearing dresses at the time of the crashes.

2. One of the 9-11 guys was offered a NFL contract to play professional football with the Packers.

3. One of the 9-11 guys had a nickname of "Skippy" and actually tried to open up a Bar-B-Q shack in Waco, Texas.

4. One of the 9-11 guys wrote a passionate love play, which was produced in London last year.

5. All of the 9-11 guys were left-handed.

6. One of the 9-11 guys constantly tried to make it big with the babes by saying he was a Latino singer from Mexico City.

7. Three of the 9-11 guys lived across the street from President Obama in Chicago for month.

8. Ms. Napolitano actually got campaign funding from one of the 9-11 guys.

9. Senator McCain hired one of the 9-11 dudes to haul office furniture for his staff.

10. Finally....all of the 9-11 guys had a large pizza before their flights...and used various out-dated coupons which were accepted by the delivery folks.

In a year, most of these will be viewed as "fact", and thats the sad thing about this world of ours...we are forgetting everything.

Swine Flu: From Zero to Sixty

On Friday...this story of Swine Flu was just starting to gather steam and be a front-page item. is front-page and starting to become worrisome.

There are several things going here, if you aren't catching all of the hints.

First, the bulk of this may be in Mexico presently...but its already shown itself in the US and appears to be doubling up each day. This doesn't mean much if we are talking about 100 cases on Friday, 200 cases on Saturday, etc. But you have to look at the 1918 flu epidemic and see that as each day went grew on stronger and stronger. Of a hundred that might get it...even with the best drugs would appear like that five might not make it. The worst group? Those already sickly, the older folks, and the very young.

Now, stand back and examine the 1918 event. Same story. Although we didn't have the drugs, and it was likely to be ten to twenty who died. The 1918 event had lots of curves. The President never declared a nation-wide'd never been done before and Wilson himself likely had the Flu (rather than the stroke).

There were entire neighborhoods that were simply wiped out with vast portions of the population disappearing.

I read a book on this topic last year...The Great Influenza. If you have it in the local library...pick it up. From a historical prospective, it really lays out all of the issues.

One example cited in the book revolves around the father of one family coming home from work and feeling pretty sick. He went straight to bed. Sometime after the kids left for school the next morning....he died. The wife didn't realize the speed of this. By the time he died, she was apparently already having the sweats and problems. By the time that the kids got home...they found both father and mother dead in the house. Around that neighborhood, the problem continued on.

What starts to make this issue in Mexico that one of the first cases occurred with the President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City (16 Apr). President Obama went over and viewed some historical stuff at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist. Felipe died in less than twenty-four hours after meeting the president. The symptoms given by the press so far....match up to the flu. How many Secret Service guys hung around the day prior? Could members of the Presidential staff gotten a dose of this?

What you should expect by Monday? A serious discussion over airline operations and travel will start up. If the case balloon to 5,000 in the US...I think a national shutdown will occur...which might happen by Friday of next week. How long? My guess is that they could do this for seven days at best. Is it too late? guess is that it will continue to spread....perhaps at a slower pace. We gain days and maybe a few weeks by this option.

I would expect the National Guard and Reserve to be activated by next weekend...and you begin seeing tent-city medical operations in large portions of the US. Drugs? It'll be a national shortage and the companies will be forced into some type of government demand to produce at maximum capacity.

If this were to run the same way as 1918...expectations? This is difficult. A number of folks disagree with the death total of 1918...saying it was more, and some suggest less. Out of a 300-million population...if it were to repeat at the same'd likely see a group of twenty million folks who don't make a minimum. In today's high medical guess is five million just might not make it.

Your options? Once you know it's hit your town or region...I'd limit going out and use a surgical mask whenever possible. The problem will be that folks get this...and no one wants to help them through the flu...with fluids and care. Fear will grip our society. More will die because we are afraid to help the sick. The biggest that the moment you start displaying might have twenty-four hours before you are in the final stages of survival or death. This is the unique part about this won't have time to really do much...except to pray and hope.