In a Time of Universal Deceit, Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
Saturday, March 25, 2023

Day: February 2, 2008

They’re not just pets, are they? An Ode to Oberon

February 2, 2008

There are some in this world who still believe that animals have no personality, cannot reason, and do not have definite feelings. I’ve even heard some say that dog are a waste and unnecessary. Obviously, they have never been close to one. Or in some cases, been owned by excess felines. Dogs truly are man’s best friend. They silently put up with your foibles, idiosyncratic behavior, your whims, and your ways. They react to nice attention like a magnifying mirror, returning it three times as powerfully.

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‘The sun is about to shine at Guantánamo’

February 2, 2008

A federal court has, once again, slapped down the Bush Administration over its military torture chamber at Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

In a landmark ruling Friday, a federal appeals court ordered the Bush Administration to turn over virtually all its information on detainees at the prison where thousands have been held in cognito and without the due process accorded prisoners under our justice system.

The decision is another stunning defeat of the Bush Administration’s policies of ignoring the basic rights of the Constitution and the rights of those accused of crimes.

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Our big-spender President

February 2, 2008

President Bush’s budget for fiscal year 2009, which goes to Congress, carries an alarming distinction: For the first time in the history of the republic, annual federal spending will cross the $3 trillion mark.

And federal spending got there early. That figure had been anticipated but not until next year when the new president would have been saddled with that honor.

Bush was also in office when the government crossed the $2 trillion mark in 2002 and the budget, thanks to the president’s free spending Republican allies in Congress, sank into deficit after four years of surpluses.

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Let’s focus on foreign policy

February 2, 2008

In 2008, presidential candidates are not giving sustained emphasis to foreign policy, but those concerns are present and candidates do make regular references to the wider world. In the Democratic debate in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, Hillary Rodham Clinton took a swipe at Barack Obama’s declared willingness to meet with dictators.

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The tax man is always waiting

February 2, 2008

Welcome home.

Whenever I see those words scrawled across the banners draped like bunting across highway overpasses for returning servicemen and women these days, I have to smile.

I smile because they make me think of my father when he was a young man, 31, coming back to Rhode Island after nearly four years in the Navy.

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Losing the endorsement game

February 2, 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton lost another big endorsement besides that of Caroline and Ted Kennedy this past week. The Clinton team had tried to cultivate young Ilana Wexler, 15, who four years ago got an ovation at the Democratic National Convention when she called in her speech for Vice President Dick Cheney to take a “timeout” for using an obscenity during a fit of pique with a Senate Democrat.

Alas, the Oakland, Calif., teen chose to endorse Barack Obama, saying she was attracted by his hopeful message and influenced by her peers, who liked him best, too.

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