Sunday Morning Open Thread

Well, I'm still in Chicago. It's pretty much a guarantee that if you see me on your plane within 3 days of Christmas, run away fast. Like clockwork, my flight after Christmas gets canceled every freaking year. Yes, it's out of O'Hare. Anyway, so I get another night with the-dog-formerly-known-as-Angel. Mom and dad finally relented. The dog's new name is Koukla. Thank god. Koukla, in Greek, means "doll" - as in a child's doll. But it also is a term of endearment that means something akin to "sweetey" or "honey." My grandmother called me koukla. My mom still does. So, mom decided that the little white ball of fur was a koukla, so that's going to be her name. And she is a koukla, except when she begins each day by spontaneously barking at 5am for no apparent reason.

In other news, Newsweek is talking War Crimes. Okay, they got my attention. I'm having an awful hard time believing that Bush won't pardon everyone with a vowel in their name, but Newsweek suggests that even with a pardon, civil suits could be had. In the end, do I think Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest should be investigated? Yes, I do. I think crimes may have been committed, including violations of international law, and - silly me - I actually believe all the propaganda about America being better (as more than one foreigner has said to me over the years, "we don't hate America, we're mad at America because we expect this kind of behavior from our own corrupt governments, but we thought you were better.") Perhaps it's time we proved we are. Having said that, good luck. Obama and the congressional Democrats will have zero stomach for anything dealing with investigating the excesses of the Bush administration. All we can count on is the courts. And even they give far too much deference to the commander in chief during wartime, even when the war is one that could theoretically never end.