Book 'em Danno!

Murder one.
-Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-0


While I was ill I spent a lot of my time watching TV. One thing about watching TV when you are sick is that stuff that would normally annoy the hell out of you when your are well kind of lose their annoyance factor. This is how I ended up watching CSI Miami repeats every day for almost two weeks. Usually I can not stand CSI-M because two of the actors in this show drive me crazy.

The actor who irritates me the most is David Caruso as Horatio H. Caine. This guy has a serious Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O vibe going on. Both of these guys take themselves and their acting way to serious. Being intense all the time is not acting. Plus I always wonder what kind of accident hurt Caruso in such a way as to not let him hold his head up and face a person straight on when he is talking to them. He always stands sideways when talking to someone and keeps his head down and at the same time turned toward the person he is talking to. That has got to hurt after a few takes.

Today I watched an episode from 2003, Blood Brothers, which told the story of a man who commits murder but cannot be arrested because he has diplomatic immunity. Why does he have immunity? Because the United States had made a deal with his father, the leader of some small country in the middle east, to allow this country (USA) to send suspected terrorists to his country to have them tortured to get information that our government (USA) needs in their war against terrorism. Sound familiar? I will point out again that this was first broadcast in 2003.

Now, we have a president who has insisted in the past (2005) that we (USA) do not torture people. He must have forgotten about this. As Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune pointed out in his column yesterday , Bush's statement that we (Americans) do not torture is ... the most convincing declaration by a president since Bill Clinton told the nation, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

Then there is his attempt to get around the Geneva Conventions rules against torture. Today he was stopped, sort of. The American government would comply with the rules under the Geneva Conventions but the CIA would not be prosecuted for any illegal tactics they did use before today at those secret detention sites they don't have overseas. So, in the end, Bush got what he wanted and this f'ing farce know as the Bush administration keeps on playing.