Thursday, May 14, 2009

News In Brief (And The Usual Opinionated Commentary)

Here are some of the things making the rounds in the news and the talk shows:



One Quarter Of Overseas Votes Go Uncounted

Not surprising. Logistics make it hard sometimes, when troops are moving. But there really has to be a better way to coordinate this in the information age. E-mails, text messages and faxes are all real time communications, it seems ridiculous that this is even an issue.

Not that this would have made a lot of difference in the Presidential race, but may have had some effect on some congressional races.



Obama Opposes Photo Release

In a reversal, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would fight the release of dozens of photographs showing the abuse of terrorism suspects, over concern the images could ignite a backlash against U.S. troops.


Unlike the Bush Derangement Syndromers did with Bush, I said when Obama took office that I would give him credit when he did something right. In this case he did. The BDS crowd can just move on and find something else to harp on, it's a done deal. Nothing good can come from releasing these pictures now. Maybe in 20 years they will, but not now.



Providence Mayor Wants To Tax Students

The mayor of Providence wants to slap a $150-per-semester tax on the 25,000 full-time students at Brown University and three other private colleges in the city, saying they use resources and should help ease the burden on struggling taxpayers.


That's about $7.5 million per year that can be raised. But that's not the ironic part. If you read the entire article, you will see that is doesn't set well with students. These are people who generally want the federal government to tax rich people inordinately, for expensive social programs hatched up in some university, which generally do not work.


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