And so the G8 group of rich, industrialized nation, at a meeting in Britain, in an announcement made by Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (and next PM) Gordon Brown, agreed to forgive billions of dollars in debt owed to the rich nations by poor, overwhelmingly sub-Saharan African nations, which would amount to a savings estimated at $1.5 billion per year. This, at least, appears to be something new and something for real, as opposed to our President’s pronouncements in recent days of impressive sounding aid programs to Africa that amount to nice-sounding-restatements of… existing programs. And it may make some...

The United States Senate completed the Democratic sellout/implosion associated with the now-proven-to-be-totally-hollow threat of ongoing judicial filibusters against “extremist” conservative judges, by approving the nomination of California State Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown (56-43) to a for-life seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, widely viewed as the second most important court in the nation and a frequent springboard to the Supreme Court itself. There are those of us of the view that most who don the black robe of a federal judge recognize the limitations of their judicial office: the principle of...

Once again, it’s looking like the United States Army’s unfortunate choice of advertising slogans is a reflection of it’s intended force levels, as it looks like May’s Army recruiting goals were off by either 25% if you believe the “revised” numbers, or over 37% if you believe the actual numbers (the Grey Lady’s piece notes that there will be skepticism caused by the self-serving revision… to coin a phrase… ya’ think?) This is all part of a growing trend: our military’s largest (and coolest) branches, the Navy and Air Force, which, by and large, do not have heavy contingents on...

Your talking dog has been on what we’ll call an involuntary blogging hiatus, a hiatus during which we’ve posted a couple of things such as the interviews with Staff Sergeant Shanona Gregozek and Attorney Joshua Dratel, but generally, otherwise, pretty much… a hiatus. Fortunately, my spiffy new computer has finally arrived from our friends at Dell, and hopefully, I’ll soon figure out its manifest thousand and one uses (including “blogging”)… but I’ll say this (no, I’m not writing this at home, nor am I writing it at work… ). When one’s obsession is neglected for long enough, it becomes less…...

Your talking dog has been quieter than usual thanks to his ongoing computer problems (which translate to: “I haven’t gotten round to replacing the dearly departed ex-computer”) and am on a… borrowed terminal! In other hobby news, your talking dog ran down and back to complete the Delaware Marathon , which cooperated with unseasonably warm and humid weather for the fourth such marathon in a row (note to self: consider carefully before running such event in region of large glaciers without packing scuba gear…) So, how ’bout Newsweek and its story of Guantanamo Bay Gulag Guards flushing the Koran down...

Your talking dog has been having some computer problems of late explaining the lighter than usual free ice cream. Brother Rabid Dog assures me that its most likely a hopeless hard-drive situation, so… we’ll have to do something. We’re pleased to borrow brother rab’s set-up for this brief mention that nothing succeeds in British politics like success. Despite leading Labour to an unprecedented third straight term, many if not most British Labour MP’s want to see Mr. Blair go sooner rather than later in favour of heir apparent Exchequer Chancellor Gordon Brown. This seems consistent with some of my opinions:...

In this case, that would be our friend, West Virginia’s own reservist and designated fall-gal Pfc. Lynndie England, who just caught possibly the break of her life, or at least the next eleven years of it, as Army Col. Pohl, the judge advocate in charge of the kangaroo court set up to bring scapegoats of our empire to some perverse notion of justice whereby those responsible escape punishment in favor of the peons they order around, Col. Pohl declared a mistrial and Pfc. England withdrew her guilty plea. The reason was something I have been hinting at for quite a...

Henry Schuster gives us this CNN column entitled “Where’s Osama?” The simple answer for OBL’s reticence the last few months could have several explanations. One suggestion is that Al Qaeda hasn’t had any thing it can point to as a ‘success” in the last few months. Another is he simply has nothing to say. Schuster opines in general that the no news might be good news. As this compendium from a case brought to trial in 2001 in new York entitled United States v. Osama bin Laden, nothing could be further from the truth. Al Qaeda is.. get this… patient....