Posted in Life on December 23, 2005 | No Comments »
I watched a boy dance with the wind this morning.
He didn’t know I was watching from my second-story window as he played alone in the gusty 40 mph wind. He was perhaps 12 years old and, on this unseasonably warm day, wore a bright yellow T-shirt and shorts. His tan baseball cap was turned backward [...]
Posted in George Bush, Law, Politics, Privacy, tagged Constitution, Gestapo, wiretapping on December 21, 2005 | No Comments »
In the wake of 9/11, President Bush ordered the secret wiretapping of American citizens without obtaining the legally mandated court orders. Remarkably, brazenly, he has even admitted it, citing his sworn duty to protect us. Apparently he has some notion that as president of the United States, he is not bound by the same law [...]
Posted in Law, Politics, Privacy, tagged Patriot Act, Privacy, terrorism on December 16, 2005 | No Comments »
The U.S. Senate voted today not to extend the Patriot Act beyond the end of the year, when its sunset provisions kick in.
The act has been controversial since its inception soon after 9/11. Its provisions were designed to give law enforcement and investigative agencies more power to gather information on Americans suspected of having terrorist [...]
Posted in Language, Media, tagged grammar, troop on December 15, 2005 | No Comments »
I have a lot of gripes about the grammar used (or misused) by reporters. This one even drew Andy Rooney’s ire a few weeks ago:
Troop: A troop is a group of solders, like a company or a division. It is not just one soldier. Therefore it is incorrect to say “Three American troops died today” [...]
Other words
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