Spinning Yarns

As you probably have noticed, I’ve revamped the web site a bit; as with rearranging furniture, this is something I like to do now and then, just to keep you on your toes. You will find that the new look relies somewhat more heavily on cascading style sheets than the previous edition.

I’ve only tested this with a couple of browsers, so if you see something that looks really awful, please let me know, and I will do my best to fix it up. I know for sure it will not look very good under Netscape 4.x, where stylesheet support is weak at best. If you are using such a browser, I recommend you simply disable stylesheets entirely.

Filed by Michael at 15:21 under Miscellaneous
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On October 26, 2001, President G. W. Bush signed into law a bill which has become known as the “USA Patriot Act“. This law represents one of the biggest blows to freedom that has ever been struck — granting sweeping new powers to law enforcement, defining broad new areas of criminal behaviour, and undermining a vast array of Constitutionally protected rights that citizens of the United States have come to take for granted.

In my opinion, this law has as much to do with patriotism as Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” had to do with factual information: That is to say, nothing whatsoever.

However, I was pleased to read that on Tuesday, June 3, 2003, President Bush made the following statement at the Mideast Peace Summit, held at Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt:

“We must not allow a few people, a few killers, a few terrorists, to destroy the dreams and hopes of the many.”

Mr. Bush, I agree completely with this statement. It is more than just killers and terrorists who represent a threat to the dreams and hopes of the many. It is also people like Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, whose lies, manipulation, and deceit contravene everything a democracy should stand for. It is legislation like the USA Patriot Act, which takes away the people’s rights in the name of “national security,” without granting any security in return.

It is cutting taxes while spending untold and unbudgeted billions to make open war upon a nation whose threat to our own security still has not been adequately demonstrated. It is spilling the blood of our dedicated young men and women in the military for a so-called “war on terror,” which is neither a person nor a State, so that we have no way to know what it means to “win” or “lose”. It is using the label of “terrorism” to justify military tribunals, secret detentions, and unprecedented invasions of the privacy of ordinary citizens. It is all of these things, and more, Mr. President.

Yes, it is true, we must not allow any few people to destroy the dreams and hopes of the many. And that includes you, Mr. Bush. That also includes you.

Filed by Michael at 15:19 under Diatribe, Political
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