He Said, She Said: An Inconvenient Truth

When two sides have differing stories, the usual reliable method is to look and see who has the most to gain from distorting the facts.

In this water-boarding case though, do we believe a professional disinformation agency trying to justify their actions? Or do we believe a professional politician who takes pleasure in trashing the previous administration who approved the interrogation techniques in question?

The CIA has records which may confirm their story while Nancy Pelosi only has her word.

CIA says Pelosi knew about waterboarding; she says no - CNN.com

Morons Commit the Crime, Walmart Pays the Fine

One of my pet peeves (in case you hadn't noticed) is that people don't take responsibilities for their actions. It is easier to just blame everyone else.

More and more lately, we've seen the public at large turn into a mob at a sale. (I posted a bit ago how the average IQ is inverse to the size of the crowd.) It seems like every time some "hot" new toy comes out, morons will stand in line for hours/days to get it. PS3, iPhone, xBox all come to mind.

Last year on the day after Thanksgiving, thousands of people massed outside of a Walmart in New York, all eager to get in on the so called door-buster sales. Well, with thousands in the mob, you can figure out that the average IQ must have been lower than the number of times a year that Paris Hilton remembers to wear panties in public.

Anyway, the Walmart doors opened and the herd of cattle, err I mean mob of shoppers, stampeded injuring a number of people and trampling a Walmart employee to death.

Now it'd be difficult, but not impossible to identify those idiots from the various security tapes.

Instead, however, the county prosecutor took the easy way out and went after Walmart. They've settled and Walmart is now going to pay for the actions of the moronic mass of shoppers.

Walmart screwed up by not having better crowd-control. Nevertheless, they DID at least try to have crowd-control. Though, from the sounds of things they really needed the NYPD Riot Squad.

Wal-Mart to pay $2 million after employee's death - CNN.com: ""

Roland Says: "Man up and be a real dad" - I say "Amen!"

Roland S. Martin's commentaries on CNN.COM are usually very interesting reading, even if I rarely agree with him. Then again, if I always agreed with him and others... Then it'd mean that we think alike and if we all though alike, this country would be in a lot better shape (assuming we all thought MY way. LOL)

Today though, Mr. Martin has posted a very good column that I totally agree with.

There's an old saying. "Any male can be a father, it takes someone special to be a Daddy."

And buddy, that's the truth.

There are far too many children growing up without the benefit of a Daddy. There are far too many men, or rather males who wanted the fun of procreation without taking the responsibility for the created.

My first wife and I tried to have children, but it wasn't meant to be. They all failed in miscarriages. Many years later I was fortunate enough to get involved in the lives of a wonderful divorced woman and her then twelve year old son. A young man who never knew his father and had been raised to that point by his grandmother and mother, with some influence from his late grandfather.

Luckily for him, his grandmother and mother had done a great job protecting and raising him, but at twelve, he was entering those rebellious years of teen-hood. The age where he needed a firm male hand and role model in his life. I say I was fortunate, and I was in that both, he and his mother accepted my willingness to fill that role. I didn't to do a lot, just be there for him, talk with him and try to guide him through the turmoil of his teen years. My reward was having a son to be proud of and watching him grown into a man to be proud of. Now almost 17 years later, his mother and I look at him with great pride and a feeling of accomplishment. Is he perfect? Nope and neither are we. However, we have a man who is loving, a hard working professional and who will be a good provider. A man who hasn't ruined his life with crime, drugs or booze.

Sadly, for many children, their fathers can't be around to provide that role. Even sadder are those cases where the fathers COULD be around but aren't. The worst though is where the fathers ARE around but negligent. It is primarily to THOSE fathers that Mr. Martin is addressing when he tells them to "Man up and be a real dad".

To which I say, "Hear, hear!" and "Amen!"

Please read Mr. Martin's column and pass it on to a father who could use a kick in the pants.

Also, with Father's Day coming up, please at least shake the hands of any Daddy's you know. Men who have done or are doing their jobs and taking care of their responsibilities.

Commentary: Man up and be a real dad - CNN.com: ""

Jacqui Assumes Too Much

In a grand but merely symbolic gesture, Britain's Home Office Secretary Jacqui Smith and the Home Office have published a list of people not welcome to come to Britain. That is assuming that the people on the list ever even thought of visiting Britain, which in considering the backgrounds of many on the list is probably not the case.

As for me, I love Britain. I lived in England for several years back in the 70s courtesy of Uncle Sam's Air Force. The people were wonderful and the laid-back rural lifestyle was a real treat, much like I think it'd be if we could roll the calendar back 30 years here in the States. I've often stated in public that the way things are going, I'd like to move to Canada or back to Great Britain as if I'm going to live in a Socialist country, I want to do it in a country with lots of experience at it.

For what it is worth, I recognize several on the list, especially the "Reverend" Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church and wouldn't want them visiting me either. We still have some freedom of speech in the United States, so I'll defend his right to his opinions. Just keep them away from funerals and me.

UK publishes list of 'least wanted' people - CNN.com: ""

(Via .)

Ex-Secretary of State Wears Rose Colored Glasses

Condoleezza Rice may be "a professor, diplomat, author and national security expert" according to Wikipedia, but she has a BIG blind spot when it comes to George W. Bush.

I've read many comments from family members, neighbors and friends of a person suspected of a major crime "But he'd NEVER do anything like that!"

Ms. Rice's comments today echo the same symptoms of disbelief and hero worship about her ex-boss:

Rice: Bush wouldn't approve illegal interrogations - CNN.com: ""

"He was also very clear that we would do nothing -- nothing -- that was against the law or against our obligations internationally"

"was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country"

"Even under those most difficult circumstances, the president was not prepared to do something illegal."

(Via CNN.)

Has she forgotten the illegal wiretaps by the NSA which President Bush authorized? Despite an almost white-wash by Congress, the facts were clear:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1980 allowed the President to spy without a warrant for up to a year, UNLESS someone in the U. S. legally was involved. If someone from the U. S. was involved in the wiretap, the Feds had three days to obtain a warrant from a secret court. In 26 years, the secret FISA courts approved 22,985 of the 22,990 warrant applications.

But that wasn't good enough for Ex-President Bush. He chose to go outside of the law and order the NSA to start secretly intercepting cell phone and other phone conversations without a warrant and against folks who would certainly cause the wiretap to require a FISA search warrant.

Even Congress admits that the President violated the law, through their response to give the president more power yet tighten the controls. If he hadn't broken the law, then the changes in 2006, 2007 and 2008 at the height of the bad publicity wouldn't have been needed.

So President Bush certainly broke the law in that case, why should we believe that he was incapable of breaking the law in regard to torture?