On March 21 President Bush awoke from his slumber to sign the “Palm Sunday Compromise,” an unnecessary bill by Congress to step into the Terri Schiavo fiasco. Bush effectively voted in favor of keeping Schiavo alive, which he has the right to do, but it turns out he’s flip-flopping on the issue. In 1999, as governor of Texas, he signed a bill with the opposite effect: it gave the spouse (or next of kin) full rights on pull-the-plug situations. Seems to me that he made a rational decision in ‘99 but is now caught up in the emotional wave of the right to save Schiavo from a non-life of incoherence and unawareness of the world around her. Also remember that Bush saw 150 executions during his term as governor; clearly his views on life and death are clouded.
Source: Kansas City Star
This is a collection of every mundane detail of our trip to Paris on March 13/14-18, 2005, for future reference. There will not be any mention of what we did in Paris or anything fun at all.
Overview
We flew on United Airlines, coach class:
• Albany [ALB] > Washington (Dulles) [IAD] (322 miles, 1hr 35mn, seats assigned at booking)
• Washington > Paris (Charles de Gaulle/Roissy) [CDG] (3845 miles, 7hr 20mn, seats assigned at booking)
Arrived early on the morning of the 14th
• Paris > Chicago (O’Hare) [ORD] (4142 miles, 9hr 40mn, seats assigned upon check-in)
• Chicago > Albany (715, 2hr 6mn, seats assigned at booking)
Arrived around 9pm the evening of the 18th
€1 = $1.33, or $1.50 in tourist areas
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Thanks to a still-undisclosed bill signed quickly after 9/11, the CIA has the power to secretly take terror suspects abroad on normal commercial airlines to countries where they can torture the subjects without worrying about U.S. policy. Guess this is what they have to resort to since Attorney General Gonzalez’s encouragement of torture was uncovered.
The Bush administration’s secret program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries for interrogation has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed it to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice Departments, according to current and former government officials.
The unusually expansive authority for the C.I.A. to operate independently was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.
The process, known as rendition, has been central in the government’s efforts to disrupt terrorism, but has been bitterly criticized by human rights groups on grounds that the practice has violated the Bush administration’s public pledge to provide safeguards against torture.
Source: NY Times, March 6, 2005
The more I read about life in other countries, the more I realize how not-so-well we have it here, despite what was pounded into our heads as children. This editorial sums it up nicely.
No. 1?
By Michael Ventura
No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is “No. 1,” “the greatest.” Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name “America Is No. 1.” Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled “un-American.” We’re an “empire,” ain’t we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We’re No. 1. Well … this is the country you really live in:
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