[oddone]

The oil price will go up, until China has filled every available oil tanker, barrel and orifice, paid with their stocks of USD. Same goes for iron ore, gold, corn, and any other commodity that can be had for anyone with USD reserves. Once every storage space is full, the USD will plummet - as will commodities, or not? Maybe they will have no direction, unless you have the right barter.
The swine flu is threatening if not mankind, possibly the travel industry. But then again, dire predictions say it will come back with a new genetic code this fall, possibly killing most of us.
Mexican oil production drops 18%.
Stock markets are on the edge again, after all that good money (USD 2 trill?) now appear unable to keep up the steam pressure.
Japans exports are down 25% yoy, its car, electronics and engineering industry idling.
The US car industry is in its death throes - its electronics and engineering industries are outsourced to chindia and does not really excist anymore anyway, so less headaches there!
The housing bubble is continuning its deflation.
Only a few food exporting countries remain on the world market, as financing, fertilizer prices, drought and politics make this form of "Global Economy" and JIT fail spectacularly.
UK credit rating may drop from AAA.
Jobless numbers in countries with reasonable statistics are increasing at an unprecedented rate.

The Talking Heads and PPT's do their best to mitigate, and reassure in soothing tones that we have business as usual, all systems are working, we have green sprouts everywhere.
Regardless, people are getting worried it is all coming to an end, but there is one more evasion opportunity: WATERBOARDING!

Yes, the last weeks has been saturated with Dick Cheney, torture, DC, "enhanced interrogation techniques", DC, national security, DC, saving American lives, etc etc. DC, after being silent for 8 years, finally comes out of his shell, talking endlessly about the only subject he ever cared about; torture light, and the firm belief that the lack thereof will bring the American sivilization down!
Well, conveniently it steals the headlines from all of the aforementioned that very well may just do that after so many years of mismanagement.
In my view this whole excercise qualifies as a Giant Red Herring.

[Schmuto]

Norwegian oil not doing so well either, aaay?

It is odd to me that Cheney is so much back in the news. When has a VP had so much after taste without the potential to run for Prez?

Christ, you barely heard of Mondale when he was IN office.

[ian807]

I agree. Cheney, waterboarding, et. al. is the Democrats version of "social" issues. It's meant to distract from real problems of economic failure, oil depletion, nuclear weapons sold on the black market, and other issues that can really hurt us.

Media distractions also keep everyone from asking why the guys at Lehmans and others aren't being perp-walked into life sentences or worse. *That* is its main purpose.

[Fishman]

Yes, the last weeks has been saturated with Nancy Pelosi "they tortured, I knew nothing, the CIA lied to me, either I'm incompetent at my job or I'm lying" NP, "enhanced interrogation techniques I knew nothing about", NP national security, NP "I was there , but had no idea what the h'll was going on". NP an idiot all her life, finally comes out of her husk, talking endlessly about the a subject that was part and parcel of her job, but had no idea what was going on.

Correction

So who cares what Cheney says, he's an old hasbeen, unless of course, in frank contrast to Obs, he speaks logic, not polish, truth in an ugly package, vs crap with a winning smile.

[ian807]

... he speaks logic, not polish, truth in an ugly package, vs crap with a winning smile.

Well, if you mean "remarkably flawed logic," then I suppose you're correct.

Cheney frequently repeats the argument (I'll paraphrase here), "We haven't had another 9/11 or other terrorism event since 2001 so our (Bush administration) policies must have worked."

When I was a kid, my Dad used to fire guns at midnight on New Years. When I asked him why, he said, "To scare away evil spirits." When I opined that I thought he was being silly, he asked "Have you *seen* any evil spirits since last year?" I said, "No."

"Must have worked then," he'd say with a grin.

It was a great illustration of a bad argument. I could see that at nine. Cheney, or the audience he's talking to apparently doesn't have the reasoning power to see through that one.

Before you get all fussed, I'm aware that terrorists are real, and a threat. What I would dispute is the effectiveness of method. Torture is crude and ineffective. There are better ways to get the bad guys to spill the beans. TSA is a joke. Our immigration policies are no better than fantasy and the NSA and CIA are merely human. They can't keep tabs on everyone. What you can do, as galling as this is, is adopt policies that make other countries and religious groups hate you less.

Typically this is called, "aid and diplomacy." Not as satisfying as kicking ass, but still probably the best of a bunch of lousy solutions.

[PrestonSturges]

I'm not really sure the GOP wants to be the "pro-torture party," but they seem to be on their way to becoming a one issue party.

It seems to matter to them more than any other issue (abortion, immigration, the economy).

And if it works so well, then why don't we just torture EVERYONE? Isn't it irresponsible to not torture on an industrial scale?

With robotics and automation, we could ramp up to a factory scale. Shackle people to an assembly line that takes them through the cold water showers, dunk them in sewage, have rotating drums like a car wash that has wire flails instead of soapy brushes, blast them with sound, drag them over an electrified floor, throw in some fun house scares like lowering them towards an industrial grinder only to snatch them back at the last second, Heck we could even recycle the welding robots from the closed auto factories to sexually violate the prisoners.

How can we NOT do this? We have to be safe and the ends always justify the means. There is no middle ground! Think of the children!

Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

[AlexdeLarge]

So who cares what Cheney says, he's an old hasbeen, unless of course, in frank contrast to Obs, he speaks logic, not polish, truth in an ugly package, vs crap with a winning smile.

+1000

[Keith_McClary]

Before you get all fussed, I'm aware that terrorists are real, and a threat.

How do you know that, exactly? Wikipedia is a Pile of Crap, but it is useful in one respect: they claim to give sources for everything.

So check out their articles on 9/11 and related topics and look at the sources. Almost everything is from the Bush appointed commission or anonymous leaks by Bush flunkies to gullible or compliant news media. Can you find any independent sources?

Maybe there will be an independent source for trivia like "Mohammed Whosis rented a red Ford whatsis on such-and-such a date".