It is a measure of the Prime Minister’s commitment to national security that with the economy slowing and the country suffering increased unemployment and the effects of international financial crises, he should so specifically recommit to real growth in the defence budget of 3 per cent a year for the next decade.
Judge Robert Patterson of the Manhattan District Court said that US publisher RDR Books would violate copyright in publishing Steve Vander Ark’s ‘Harry Potter Lexicon’. His ruling said that RDR Books “failed to establish an affirmative defense of fair use,” the court clerk told AFP.
Growth rose, but so did unemployment. Productivity surged, but wages fell. Growth was fueled by reckless lending and borrowing, it created an illusion of wealth even as many Americans lost ground. Fixing that disconnect is the central economic challenge for the next president.
The conviction by the American left that the right is stupid is one of the defining and least attractive characteristics of contemporary politics. But it is true that to small-town Republicans the world is not a complicated place, because they have seen so little of it.
Labor’s policy on Afghanistan has consistently been that Australia’s presence there, rather than Iraq, represents our commitment to fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban at “the coalface”. But the promises Labor made while in Opposition are forcing our troops into a long fight that will test even the might of the United States.
Attention, reality-TV programmers: “I’m From Sky Mall” and “Hangover CSI” — you’re gonna love them! If you really want to push this medium, then, as they say on the shows, you better step up your game.
Jack Abramoff, who came to symbolize an out-of-control, even brazen style of courting government officials, told the judge he had since realized how far he had stepped over the bounds of what was permissible. Wearing plain clothes and a Jewish skullcap, he apologized profusely and said he was begging for mercy.
That judicial statement of the obvious from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which said the Department of Homeland Security committed no big foul in using a site editable by anyone with a computer to decide the fate of a woman named Lamilem Badasa.
The Bush administration must keep up the pressure on Russia to withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia and permit deployment of neutral peacekeepers. At the same time, the administration — which allowed this crisis to get out of hand — must be careful not to incite more conflict or give the Kremlin any more excuses.
The aid — along with Vice President Dick Cheney’s high-profile visit to a region the Russians call “the near abroad” — is sure to inflame tensions further. Russia’s leaders have openly accused the United States of having provoked the conflict by arming the Georgia military while encouraging its aspirations to join the NATO alliance.