The 'Stones, Saddam, and the use of torture

I just had my fourth, I think fourth, session. I'm going to have to change times soon, because my class in the B session, which goes from the start of July to mid-August, was cancelled, and I've been placed in a similar class downtown. This means I won't have to drive after the 4th, except for when I'm going home. In my session we talked a lot about my family, and about my abhorrence for confrontation.

A lot of people have been talking about where the Pistons go from here, or where they rank. I feel like they will probably be the New Jersey Devils of the NBA, they will always be there, and they will probably will a few titles, but probably not be considered a Dynasty. If you look at the Pistons, the easy comparisons are to the teams that won titles in the 70's, sort of cvollections of talented but underrated players who play together. Will they be the greatest dynasty ever? No, but that doesn't matter. The team, and the title are still incredibly special, especially when you consider the state the franchise was in only a few years ago.

I remember about a year ago, when we couldn't find the WMD's, that some thought that e had found them, but that the announcement would wait until before the election. Obviously, this has proven not to be the case. Now the administration is doing something similar with the Saddam/Bin Laden link. They are now saying there were contacts, which the 9/11 commission says there were, but not nearly the kind of contacts that they said existed. They implied the Saddam was one of the principal backers of Al-Qaeda and that the two were almost married to each other. Obviously, if anyone knows the facts about the two, this is not the case. Bin Laden saw Iraq, a secular state and enemy of theocratic Iran, as a bad thing, the kind of government that would be toppled when Radical Islam took hold across the Mid East. Saddam feared Al Qaeda, in fact the meetings that operatives had didn't lead anywhere because the two sides could not get along.

The memo stories are just getting worse. It's obvious that higher-up's were trying to find ways to get around international treaties banning torture, this is really making me, and should make everyone who cares about our standing in the world, sick.

John is off to BR for the weekend, I hope you have a good time John, and say hi to everyone for me.

I'll post again tomorrow, promise.