We don't have time! You're just going to have to trust me!

So Mark Danner is all up in arms about US torture. I've been thinking a lot about torture lately as it's a really entertaining part of my weekly TV viewing. Whether it's Jack Bauer holding a stun gun to some one's neck, Sayid having fun with a pair of pliers or Admiral Adama flushing someone out an airlock, it all adds up to exciting times. So what's Danner's beef? Oh right. Human rights. Geneva convention. Seems so quaint, doesn't it? Remember when our foes had nice discernible armies and their tendency to want to commit genocide made them the guys you loved to hate? Ah the good old days...

To further blur things, I started to think about things I consider torture. I consider being put in prison pretty torturous. Other forms of light torture include being behind someone driving 50 in the fast lane and having neighbors walk their dogs in front of your house and not pick up after their pets. Oddly my dog likes the smell of these presents, though she seems to hate her own when it's bagged up and in danger of getting near her. Some might consider being forced to eat a pulled pork sandwich torture, yet I consider it one of god's greatest gifts. Being put in a pile of naked men would make me tell the location of a bomb even if I didn't know where it was, but I have friends who go to clubs to freely engage in such behavior for fun. Having buildings that were a part of my world destroyed for no reason by airliners sent me into torturous panic attacks for quite some time and I didn't even lose anyone I knew in the attacks. Other people thought these attacks were a fun good idea.

So if torture is so subjective how do you define it? I guess when I'm king I'm going to have to define it case by case. Like if we found a child's body buried in your back yard and the kid across the street is missing and there's bits of his hair in your house, I think a great idea to pull out the dental instruments and have at it. I'm going to say they'll like it because I know people who do like similar stuff. They pay to go into crazy clubs where all sorts of shenanigans go on! How can something be considered torture if perfectly reasonable people like it? OK, in my version you might end up missing bits and you won't be dressed in black vinyl, but it's all good!

Then there are those who ask, "What if the information you get from the child killer isn't good?" I don't really care. I hope it's good, but in the end I want to create some information of my own. That information is pretty simple. Fuck with my kingdom and the people in it and the gloves will come off. It will happen in broad daylight. Now, I'm not talking about situations where "We suspect" a person did it. Of course all of those situations will have actual investigations and will play out more like an episode of Law and Order. I'm talking about those special times when you're caught red handed and getting a little extra info out of you will actually serve to save lives.

Now, about what happens in war situations? I think we're really ignorant to think that torture ever stopped because of some treaty. I think it's going on right now and will continue. I hear people say it doesn't yield usable info... but then why are they still doing it? It can't be all that fun... could it? I think that no matter what Obama tells his generals and what the generals tell the people below them, if it seems necessary they're just going to do it. Think about this. A guy is seen running away from a car. He's caught. The car explodes blowing your friend's legs off. What happens next? A civil conversation with the guy and his legal council? We're just forcing them to keep it deeper in the dark, that's all. I'd love to believe we'd never do it, but as long as people do fucked up things, other people will step up and do fucked up things back.

I think the U.S. is having a nice time pretending this is behind us, but when I'm king I'll always have Jack Bauer's phone number in my back pocket for when the shit hits the fan. I won't be able to tell you why because we won't have the time and you're just going to have to trust him.

(note: I would never have started a conflict in Iraq and instead I would have spent every dime on funding Compressed Natural Gas, Nuclear, hydroelectric, wind and other OPEC fuel alternatives.)

So depressing...

OK, I'm calling it: It's officially a depression and I'm depressed. Today a good friend of mine got let go because a giant corporation decided to tighten it's belt a bit. The fact that the thing he's working on had nothing to do with that deal, and even that deal was not going to actually produce a product for at least a couple of years was meaningless.  He's not the only one.  A third of the company got the heave ho.  I've worked with these people and they're amazingly talented, bright and some of the hardest working mother-fuckers you'll ever meet.  Monday they'll have no work to do. 

To make matters worse, last night I accidentally got sucked into watching Rob Lowe have a heart attack and boy did it make Ally McBeal and the Flying Nun sad. Perhaps someone stronger than I could hold back tears when the Flying Nun is crying, but I'm not that guy. On top of all that, I'm pretty much constantly bombarded with news telling me reasons I should be depressed. Gloom and doom galore seems to be stomping on Obama's audacious hope. I'm sick of it and it's really pissing me off!

GET A GRIP PEOPLE. These news outlets are the same people who told us to duct tape our windows closed in case of gas attacks. Rob Lowe is far to good looking for god to take from us and next weekend the Watchmen movie is coming out! There's lots to look forward to! Life isn't all that bad. What about not having anything to fear but fear itself do we not get? I know years of Jose and the Pussy Cats and Space Ghost rotted out brains a bit, but surely we can understand this, can't we?

The media loves drama and so do a lot of us, but I'm OK with cutting it off with a remote control. This doom and gloom stuff has got to stop, because it's pissing me off. I'm not hoping for a return to the granite boardroom table dotcom times, but we all might feel a bit better after a game of foosball. We're all sitting here on a huge chunk of land that's chock full of cool stuff. Dirt with all kinds of useful plants growing in it, flamable gas just pouring out of the ground, people who can type little words on a keyboard and have it turn into Killzone 2 or Blogspot.com.  Can you imagine a world without Youtube?  I don't want to live in that world.

So what the fuck is the problem? We've got raw materials, stuff and smart people who can do stuff. When I'm king I'll connect these three things to make sure that all the people who can do stuff have a chance to do it to stuff. Why the hell are we waiting for banks? I'm going to nationalize the bank system because I don't like the idea of an organization being able to make money from people who don't have much money just by having money. It even sounds dangerous and I guess we're finding out that it is. When your job is making money by having money then you're not really doing anything.  Citibank, you're broke after taking $2 from everyone who took $20 our of their own bank account by using one of your little cash machines? Where the hell is that money? Judging by the tie of the teller in your branch, it's not going to employees.

So houses got built. Loans were made. People got that money, right?  Where is that money? I know many people paid more than their homes were worth because the banks artificially inflated housing costs by telling everyone they could buy a house. But someone got paid. We need someone to find where the hell all that money went and get it back.  Most of all, we need to remember that, in the end, money is just bits of paper and data in a data bank.  The real worth of my kingdom is you, my loyal subjects.  Now go and make the flying nun proud.  She'll be so happy if you like her.  I mean really like her. 

Photograph,,, I don't want your...

On the way to work this morning I heard something that made my little cold heart melt. Obama lifted the ban on publishing photographs of those killed in war.

This is exactly why I said, and still say, that when I'm king Obama will still be president. It might seem a minor thing, but this kind of transparency is what this little country is supposed to be based on. Let freedom fucking ring. I don't think we should know everything about matters of national security. That would stymie any law enforcement. Just look at all the crap Jack Bauer has to go though in a single day. But Bush's ban on telling the public anything that did not support his tyranny is not how I'll run things WHEN I AM KING. Good job, B.O. Just for that you get an automatic pardon for your first sexual transgression while president. Just try and keep it on the D.L.

This type of reporting will be especially important in the future. Even now we've got guys with XBOX controllers piloting drones with the firepower of The Battlestar Galactica. We're so far removed from war that it's becoming like a friendly session of Call of Duty. I've never been hit with a bullet, but I imagine it hurts a lot more than the XBOX's rumble feedback and the penalty isn't you just end up slightly earlier in time. I bet it sucks hard.

So not only will families of those killed in battle get extra compensation for allowing their loved ones to be photographed for news purposes, wounded will also get extra compensation for this type of open communication about the suckiness of war. Your king's web page will feature those photographs prominently on the home page each day a conflict goes on. Not only so we can see what's happening to our people, but so that everyone can see what happens when you use a laser guided missile to remove people who are seriously considering weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, I know I may have one hell of an ugly web page, but isn't that a little incentive?

P.S. during times of peace the official king's web page will depict baby bunnies and videos from this web page.

I'm so sorry!

Wow. A few days into Obamatime and already he's apologizing. I'm talking about his apology for nominating Tom Daschle as health and human services secretary.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/03/obama.daschle/index.html

Pretty amazing, eh? Well, that's one thing you won't have to worry about when I'm king. Apologizing. Yeah, I'll change my mind as my mood suits me, but beyond the occasional "oops" you're not going to hear a lot of sorrys out of me... well, perhaps if I screw things up a lot I may do a mia culpa tour, possibly even appear on Oprah. I don't want a revolt or anything.

Here's how I'd handle the Tom Daschle thing. I'd walk right up to him during his appointment ceremony and say, "What the fuck?" I'd remove one of my gloves and whap him right on the face with it. A light smattering of tar and feathers and out the door he'd go. Have at him public.

His punishment wouldn't be for the false reporting of charitable income. What-ever. Tell me one of you never actually put down that your old hoodies and chipped coffee mugs dropped off at the Salvation Army were worth $500. So he borrowed a car and driver for a bit. Big deal. I don't even think the senate should have to pay to get to and from their homes and DC (note: I'm moving the capital). The bitch slap wouldn't even be for failing to report $80,000 worth of lobbying income. It would be for making money for lobbying AT ALL. My decree of the day is this: WHEN I AM KING ALL THE LOBBYISTS WILL BE EXILED TO ELIZABETH NJ. Not a stiff enough punishment? Go there for a weekend and get back to me. Oh, and no, they would not be able to promote books on The Daily Show.

I understand that in 1780 farmers had to pay someone to hitch up a team of horses and make their way across the great plains to tell their elected officials how things were going and what might be good ideas for making sure things went well in the heartland. But hello people. It's the future. Welcome to the information age! Obama's got a Blackberry. I bet Daschle had an iPhone or two. Regardless, I'm sure our lawmakers have about a billion different ways to get information on how to legislate without having to have a single lobbyist buy them a seventeen thousand dollar dinner or a Swiss watch with a small chalet around it. Enough of it! Why are we pretending that the lobby system is anything other than state sanctioned corruption?

None of this will really matter, as I'll make sure my people are well taken care of and... well as king I'd be beyond corruption anyway. Don't worry, I hate gold and diamonds and aside from an exotic car or two, I'll probably be a bargain as rulers go. That whapping glove? I'll reuse it. No need to waste money every time I need to administer a good whap, and frankly, the feel of a broken in whapping glove.... mmmm. Like buttah.

OHBAMA!

Boy oh boy, it's a big weekend. Battlestar Galactica starts up again and we get a president that to the naked eye appears to be smart, honorable and an awesome public speaker. I'm hoping that it's such a stark comparison to the jerky, smarmy, weasleface mushmouth he's replacing that the nation is bathed in a warm golden glow and we all act like dot com employees on Ecstasy at a rave for the whole weekend.

This is exactly why when I'm KING Obama will be appointed president.

"What what what?" you may say. "Why bother with a president when you're king?!" Well, I don't plan on being a tyrannical king. I'm hoping to actually improve things and part of my vast wisdom is that I'm sure I'm going to come across a lot of crap that I won't know how to deal with. I'll probably mostly ignore his pleas to dismantle the public stockades and other humiliation punishments I'll be enacting, but I feel it would be nice to have an opposing opinion from time to time. You know, someone to say, "Do you really think that running a tube from Chaney's butt into GW's mouth and from GW's mouth back into Chaney's mouth creating a mobius loop of excrement is a fair punishment for their war crimes?" (I'm thinking that may be a little light of a sentence)

Also, Obama seems like a dude I'd like to hang with from time to time. He and his family are really personable and good looking and let's face it, I'm going to probably want to avoid the public a lot and I know my subjects are going to want to see Obama and his cute kids picking out dogs, getting reprimanded for hosting keggers in the White House (in a few years, of course) and doing things that make the masses feel like everything is going to be all right while destracting them from me.