Civil Liberties? Say what?

One of my daily activities is checking the blog of Global Americana Institute President Juan Cole. www.juancole.com/ Normally his blog centres on Iraq and American domestic politics. Most of the time I prefer to read the parts on Iraq. Today though, the domestic is what caught my eye and made me want to throw things and come up with a Bush assassination plan.
Get this...
Bush and a supine, cowardly Congress shredded the US Constitution on Tuesday, abolishing the right of a court review (habeas corpus) for some classes of suspect. Suspect, mind you, not proven criminal.

In other words, we have to be confident that George W. Bush is so competent, all-knowing, and inherently just that we can just trust him. If he says someone is an enemy combatant, then he or she is. No need to check with a judge about why he or she is being held. And then Bush can have the suspect tortured to make him confess, and can convict him on the basis of the coerced confession, all in secret.

This law creates two classes of persons inside the United States, citizens with rights and non-citizens (12 million persons? Equivalent to the entire state of Michigan!) without rights.

And I thought that this war was supposed to be about liberty and freedom for the American people...right? Right.
Seems like another Bush administration lie to me. The sad thing about this one is that it is not being reported at all. The media are way more interested in various scandals occurring than the idea that habeas corpus is being obliterated. Looks like long-standing traditions of law are not good enough for Bush & Co.

I'm happy I'm Canadian at this moment.
But hey...we need to be careful too....

Don't Complicate My Peace of Mind

Interesting couple of weeks.
I have been relearning grammar, visiting long lost friends, losing a dear pet, and almost having my laptop stolen!
To start with, writing for my honours seminar prof is a huge challenge. The man is making me re-learn grammar. Or, perhaps, learn it in the first place. Should be a good challenge. Apparently I am not the only one, half the class faces this problem.
Onto to other more exciting things. Last weekend was an unofficial ex-band girlfriend day, which Heather did a fine job covering. Even managed to talk about post-modernism with Texan Matt. Good times. Seeing Kristin, Janelle and Heather made me realize how much I, myself, have changed even since leaving vancouver. Perhaps I am finally learning to like Victoria? or, at least accept where I am. After a few whirlwind days, spending quality time with the parents and brother over birthday/thanksgiving dinner, i returned home (if it can be called that!)Wednesday Dave showed up from Portland for a few days. Thursday morning. 7:30. I wake up to the gate crashing shut and assume my roomate left for school. Not so, I heard her voice a couple minutes later and thought she had returned home for something. Something made me get out of bed, and I found a note saying that someone was trying to get the window open to reach in and steal my laptop. My heroine, Julia, saved the day with her early wake-up skills.
Today, after having a long day at school, I returned home to find that Dave had done the dishes..and attempted to clean my fish bowl...something I did not ask him to do, but he was trying to be a good houseguest i suppose. I asked him how his day was, and his reply was "uuh...I killed your fish". Sure enough, floating at the bottom of the bowl, was my lovely, lively, exuberant 6-month-old betta fish. I immediately started to cry and made Dave flush him down the toilet.
I loved that fish. He would dance to music and follow your finger. I think it may be a long time before I can replace him, if ever.
Rest in Peace Zissou. I'm sorry.