Former Vice President Dick Cheney piped up in my reading of The New York Times this morning, asking on Fox News that the CIA “declassify reports documenting intelligence gained” from harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects under the Bush administration. “Harsh interrogations” is the Times’ code words for torture.

Some Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, accused the administration of endangering the country by disclosing national secrets. Cheney went on the Fox News Channel to announce that he had asked the C.I.A. to declassify reports documenting the intelligence gained from the interrogations. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former C.I.A. director, has also condemned the release of the memorandums and said the harsh questioning had value.

I have a couple of criticisms here, the first being that Cheney managed to stonewall the release of information requested by the people of the United States (his then-employer) for nearly a decade. My response to his current request? When you release the full transcripts and all documents related to your Energy Task Force, we, the people, will be happy to consider declassifying the CIA records you mentioned. Until then, forget it.

But second, and more importantly, Cheney misses the point. It doesn’t matter that intelligence was obtained through torture. His authorization and the subsequent exercise of torture violated national and international law. His argument is a lot like that of a thief saying, “Yeah, we broke the rules, but we made a lot of money.” Imagine Bernard Madoff using that defense; the state of New York would crucify him.

Dick Cheney condoned and abetted breaking the law. Worse, in a very real sense he reduced American civilization to the methods of its enemy and has left nations around the world asking, “How is the United States any different?” Among the reasons given for the removal of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist government was their use of torture. How can the United States demand that Cuba protect the human rights of its political prisoners when we are violating those of men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay?

By his own admission, Cheney deserves a long prison term. No wonder he and his cronies are trying to shift the argument away from their felonies to the effectiveness of torture.

This New York Times op-ed caught me completely off guard: Tom Wilson, CEO of Allstate, is calling for federal regulation of insurance companies — and his argument is pretty sound.

Unlike banks or investment houses, insurance companies are not regulated by the federal government. Instead, they are regulated by individual states, which lack the expertise to properly oversee rapid innovation or systemic risks. Business leaders must work with the government to create a new regulatory structure. All companies that create risk for the financial markets need to be in “the pool” of federal regulation, including companies like Allstate. A good start would be for Congress to eliminate the hodgepodge of state regulatory systems by establishing a federal regulator for national insurance companies.

Here’s a regulation that could be used across the board: Let businesses behave as they should, with insurance companies indemnifying loss and banks lending money to qualified applicants at interest, and all making a fair profit — and stop playing keno with investors’ money. Pretty damned simple if you ask me.

The implication of the BBC News story, “‘First camel clone’ born in Dubai” is obvious: Sooner or later, we’re going to clone a human. It’s inevitable. The only question is, “Which society will do it first?”

This 52-second spot by Rachel Maddow may be the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. Note to anti-gay marriage groups: You might want to be hip before adopting hip lingo.

They call this an old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” I have no idea about its origins or whether it was, indeed, a curse; but the longer I live the more I wish I did not live in times as interesting as these.

Why isn’t the nearly 20-year-old United States Rewards for Justice program working in Pakistan? BBC News security correspondent Frank Gardner sums it up in a single word: “pashtunwali.” Gardner explains, “Anyone caught betraying a fellow Muslim risks finding their family dishonored for generations.”

Consider Osama bin Laden, who has been the subject of numerous “wanted posters.” As Mike Scheuer, a former CIA officer explains, “He’s been in Afghanistan since 9/11. It’s the third poorest place on the planet. We have $200 million of reward money outstanding, including $50 million for Osama and no one has come forward to take a cent. I think we need in the West to grow up a little bit. Everything doesn’t pivot on money.”

During the public relations buildup to the war on Afghanistan (a war I reluctantly supported, by the way) one of the things touted by the Bush administration as a reason to end the Taliban regime was its dismal record on women’s rights. A new government would allow the education and empowerment of women, we were told.

So much for that [expletive deleted].

The Iraq War vet sitting parallel to me across the aisle at lunch was missing his right eye and his right leg just below the knee. He spoke earnestly in a measured voice with his hawkish companion about the need to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, insisting the United States would eventually be morally and fiscally bankrupted by an opponent whose culture it did not understand.

His companion was adamant: “We have to teach the Taliban a lesson,” he insisted. “We cannot allow them to attack Washington D.C.”

I am certain he was talking about the recent threat from Baitullah Mahsud, who claimed responsibility for a school shooting near Lahore and said, “Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world.”

“Then we should be defending Washington,” the vet responded. “Not wasting our energy in Afghanistan. If we extend our mission every time some idiot threatens us, we’ll be there forever.”

For human rights advocates seeking a full investigation into torture under George W. Bush’s administration, hope may come not from U.S. President Barack Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder, but from Baltasar Garzón, the crusading judge who took on Augusto Pinochet in Spain. According to The New York Times, a high-level Spanish court is opening a criminal investigation against six officials of the Bush administration “on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic framework to justify the use of torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

The move represents a step toward ascertaining the legal accountability of top Bush administration officials for allegations of torture and mistreatment of prisoners in the campaign against terrorism. But some American experts said that even if warrants were issued their significance could be more symbolic than practical, and that it was a near certainty that the warrants would not lead to arrests if the officials did not leave the United States.

Among those named in the complaint are former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, former Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo, and Douglas J. Feith, the former under secretary of defense for policy.

My hope is Spain will shame the United States into opening its own investigation. As President Obama told the nation, Eric Holder will be the people’s attorney — perhaps we should pressure him to do his job.

If the Bush administration was justified in its actions, we need to know it. If not, those who condoned and enabled torture should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

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Nancy Goldstein at Salon’s “Broadsheet” blog pegs it: Whatever the uberwealthy McCains are paying daughter Meghan’s publicist, it isn’t enough:

It’s hard to say how much of the Kool-aid McCain has drunk, or what, exactly, she’s trying to serve her readers. Despite gushing to Rachel Maddow that she “loves to be open” and “loves telling people about my experiences,” her transparency doesn’t go beyond telling her readers that she loves the Republican Party in the same breath that she admits to loving American Apparel tube socks and the song “Phenomena” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The whole experience of reading McCain’s blog or her Twitter page is eerily reminiscent of the segment on advertising that many of us had in our first year of college, in which we learned why the real product is rarely pictured: Because what advertising sells us is the image of the rugged cowboys we’ll be if we smoke the stuff. Similarly, there’s no talk in McCain’s world about the economy, or judicial nominees, or what should be done with John Yoo and other Bush-era figures that may have committed war crimes. Just the implied promise that you can be a young Republican and still have “Live Free or Die” emblazoned on your Twitter page with red, white and blue skulls. And say “badass” just a few lines down from where you say, “God, I love this country!”

I’m beginning to believe there’s good reason God allows despair about the state of the world as one declines into old age. It’s to make the death transition painless. Hippies made it easy for the Class of ‘44. Meghan and the McCain Youth are doing it for Yippies.

Thanks, y’all.

Matt Taibbi’s latest invective for Rolling Stone is entitled “The Big Takeover,” but it might as well be called “Welcome to the American Plutocracy.”

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they’re not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — “our partners in the government,” as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The only place I disagree with Taibbi is when he insists the public should be more angry than it is. The plutocracy is nothing new. It has been a part of the American system since our founders initially extended voting rights only the landed gentry.

Which is why I feel a measure of shame over my disappointment in the Obama administration’s handling of Wall Street. Why should it surprise me that Timothy Geithner — an insider among financial insiders — was tapped for treasury secretary, or that, for all the rhetoric to the contrary, administration policies still favor the hyperwealthy? After more than fifty years living in the belly of the beast, one might think I couldn’t be fooled by words like “hope” and “change,” but there it is. Chairman Mao was right: Hope and change will only come from the barrel of a gun, and I’m too old, too complacent, and too lazy to advocate armed revolution, Lincoln to the contrary.

Besides, there are no Utopias. Though I might insist that, ideally, good government is the collective means of protecting society’s weakest individuals from being unduly exploited by its strongest, I find in practice it is nothing of the sort. In the case of AIG, for example, government has become the abettor of exploitation.

Sorry, Matt. This isn’t the “big takeover.” It’s simply business as usual.

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I’m Dying

by Jim McCormick on 10 March 2009, 8:54 pm | Comment

“And so are you,” says my favorite author, Robert Fulghum, in his latest blog piece.

I intended to do an honest-to-goodness introduction of his essay which details his semi-annual review of his last will and testament, but it just didn’t work out that way. Mr. Fulghum’s essay does just what it intended: It had me looking into myself.

What do I want to happen to me and my things when I’m dead?

Unlike Mr. Fulghum, I don’t have a will. But if I did, it would be very short:
“When I die, give everything to my wife. She can make all the important decisions too, because no one is going to do what I want to do.”

You see, I don’t want to be embalmed. I don’t want a casket. I don’t want to be burned. What a waste.

I want to be buried under a Great Elm or Great Oak tree. I want some of that stuff that makes up Me to fertilize and feed that tree. I want that Great Tree to be my memorial. When my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren come to visit, they can sit under the cooling branches and say, “Dad’s in there.”

As far as my viewing — let me pause for a moment — I don’t like the term viewing. It’s a hideous term. I’m out there displayed for all to see. Dead. It’s embarrassing.

I want a good, old fashioned wake! A wake hearkens back to my ancestors when the held wonderful parties for their recently dead. They propped him in the corner and hoped he would wake up.

I want a party where I’m tied to a chair. I want my family and friends to tip a few glasses my way. With a wink, I want them to insult me. I want you to tell my stories and repeat my bad jokes. I don’t want you to mourn my death. I want you to celebrate that I lived.

And I want a clown — Yes! A clown!

And I want him to tie balloon animals. And hats. I want all of you sad sacks wearing balloon hats.

Throw in a slight-of-hand magician too. When things really start to get somber, he needs to step up his act. I hope he screws up too. I hope he can’t find your card. That’d be a hoot.

I’ve said this before too. I want a third-rate, washed-up actor to show up at my wake. He needs to come in unannounced and not talk to anyone. He must approach my body, kneel, weep quietly, and just as quietly leave.

You’ll all whisper, “How the hell did Ralph Malph know Jim?”

And when everyone is gone, and only my wife, children, and closest friends remain, I want a man in a kilt with a wondrous beard to play the bagpipes for me. I want him to play that song that makes everyone cry. Know that that is when my Soul will finally move on. It will float away on his haunting melody accompanied by the tears of those who spent this life with me, and it will go to wherever it is that old Souls and broken hearts and no-longer-heard notes go.

He will leave the room just before my wife does. She will turn around, blow me a kiss, and in her heart she’ll hear me say,

“Turn the lights out, Baby. It was a good run. I love you — I always have, and I always will.

“And if there is another side, I’ll be waiting for you. You’ll see me, I’ll be wearing the balloon hat.”

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Michael Jackson memorial likely Tuesday

2 July 2009, 7:01 pm

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California turns to "IOUs" amid budget impasse

2 July 2009, 6:54 pm

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As California marked its second day of a new fiscal year without a budget agreement, the state government moved ahead on Thursday to issue billions of dollars in "IOUs" in order to avoid a cash crisis.

Honduras interim government says open to early election

2 July 2009, 6:36 pm

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduras' interim government said on Thursday it was open to holding early elections to resolve the impasse over ousted President Manuel Zelaya, as the Organization of American States readied a mission to Honduras to push for his reinstatement.

South Carolina governor did not misuse state funds: official

2 July 2009, 6:01 pm

ATLANTA (Reuters) - South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who faces growing calls to quit over his affair with an Argentine woman, did not misuse public funds in trips he made to see his mistress, the state's top police official said on Thursday.

U.S. Marines launch key operation in south Afghanistan

2 July 2009, 5:48 pm

SORKHDOZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed deep into Taliban territory in an Afghan valley on Thursday, marking the start of a major new effort by the Obama administration to regain the initiative in the war.

U.S. job losses spike in June, dampen recovery hopes

2 July 2009, 3:33 pm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers cut far more jobs than expected last month and the unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent, the highest in nearly 26 years, underscoring the likelihood of a long, slow recovery from recession.

Iran hardliners urge legal action against Mousavi

2 July 2009, 3:16 pm

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian hardliners pressed on Thursday for legal action against moderate leaders accused of inciting post-election turmoil that has dimmed Western hopes of engaging Tehran on its disputed nuclear program.

California turns to "IOUs" amid budget impasse

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South Carolina governor did not misuse state funds: official

2 July 2009, 6:01 pm

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Congressman Henry Waxman headed back to work

2 July 2009, 5:17 pm

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, hospitalized in Los Angeles for a fainting spell days after spearheading House passage of a landmark climate change bill, will be back at work on Capitol Hill next week, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Vice President Biden visits Baghdad

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Obama, Russia PM Putin may discuss reserve currencies

2 July 2009, 1:35 pm

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Obama says will take months to turn around economy

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday there were signs that the "economic storm" that has made millions jobless was waning, but warned that it would still take the United States many months to recover.

White House says expects jobless rate to climb

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MySpace suicide conviction tentatively dismissed

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Broadband industry group say U.S. rules go too far

2 July 2009, 3:31 pm

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Gamer steals from virtual world to pay real debts

2 July 2009, 12:06 pm

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Internet used to help young smokers quit

2 July 2009, 11:25 am

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Jay Leno wins cybersquatting case

2 July 2009, 10:25 am

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Web advertisers propose self-regulation principles

2 July 2009, 7:56 am

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China paper says Web filter only a matter of time

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BEIJING (Reuters) - It is only a matter of time before a controversial scheme to install Internet filtering software on all computers begins in China, a state newspaper said on Thursday, after the plan was abruptly delayed this week.

Airline crew bares all to get flyers' attention

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"Great Train Robber" is refused parole

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LONDON (Reuters) - "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs lost his long-running bid for early jail release on Wednesday after the British government said he should not be allowed out on parole because he was "wholly unrepentant."

Housewife first up for 100-day "live sculpture"

2 July 2009, 10:13 am

LONDON (Reuters) - A housewife from Sleaford in Lincolnshire will be the first of thousands of people to stand for one hour on top of a plinth in London's Trafalgar Square as part of a 100-day "live sculpture" exercise.

Guns and booze don't mix, lawsuit argues

2 July 2009, 10:10 am

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - A well-known restaurateur is fighting back against Tennessee's newly enacted law that allows gun owners to bring their weapons into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Russia bans all gambling and shuts casinos

1 July 2009, 1:52 pm

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia closed down its casinos overnight as gambling was banned nationwide, a move the industry says could throw a third of a million people out of work.

Fireworks spread terror in war weary town

1 July 2009, 12:47 pm

GOMA, Congo (Reuters) - Independence day fireworks sent terrified Congolese sprinting for cover on Tuesday in fear that war had broken out again in their eastern city.

Man had boss killed to save job?

30 June 2009, 2:46 pm

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested a man whom they suspect hired a contract killer to murder his boss in a desperate bid to avoid being laid off, newspaper El Pais reported on Tuesday.