Meanwhile, Back In The States

Here’s one you might have missed. Like a poker player who
just can’t keep from tipping his hand, the Bush administration has
decided to float the suggestion -in the face of whatever one might
want to call the current economic situation- that the poor are not
toting enough of the load.

In a Washington Post article dated December 16, Jonathan
Weisman reports that the Treasury Department and the White
House Council of Economic Advisers are set to publish findings that 5% of Americans pay 56-59% of income taxes and 41% of all federal taxes collected by the government.

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Same As It Ever Was

To the vast multitudes who have joined the war on terrorism, you who are steadfast in your certainty that death must immediately befall those who would threaten the lives of innocents anywhere (especially should those innocents be fortunate citizens of the greatest, most powerful, noble, and benevolent nation to ever grace the pages of human history): here, my plea.

I do not purport to speak as a pacifist, nor as an apologist for the acts of terrorist fanatics, upon whom death must assuredly be visited if Civilization is to be spared the scourge of their insanity. I speak not as a congregant of any religion, nor as a citizen of any nation; not as a member of any community, nor even as the head of my own family. I speak only for myself, as one voice among the billions whose might be raised in supplication to the Power that Be; hear my plea:

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