The real test of Americans' political maturity is not so much whether the Democrats select a black man ahead of a white woman for their candidacy, but more so whether the country can vote for a black man for president.

Interesting times.

Peter1610 suggested that the American gun issue will never go away because it is entrenched in their beliefs and I believe this also. What desperately needs to happen though, is the limitation to the type of weaponry that is available. This is what is really frightening to contemplate when such weapons as automatic and semi-automatic guns and rifles are so easily acquired. 

Mind you, who has what in the way of nuclear weaponry on the international scene may be of greater importance and potentially more dangerous. 

Has it occured to anyone else that these two cartoon characters are strikingly similar?

and it isn't just the looks.

After five years the United States, saviour of democracy has finally announced that David Hicks is to go to trial by the middle of the year. Never mind that the charges simply do not exist in international law. Never mind that Australia has had its own laws dealing with the issue of it's citizens who choose to do what Hicks allegedly did (or planned to do). 

Washington files charges against Hicks
2nd March 2007, 6:15 WST

The United States has filed charges of "providing material support for terrorism" against Australian David Hicks, the first terrorism-war era detainee to be charged under the new law for military commissions.

Prime Minister John Howard had demanded Hicks be charged by the end of February and pressed Washington for a speedy trial.

Hicks, 31, will be notified of the charges this week, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Once notified, Hicks will be arraigned within 30 days and then a military judge will have 120 days to form the military commission.

So the scene is finally set. An unauthorised detention of an Australian citizen by a foreign government and charged by it for offences that don't exist. All played out in front of a military court with ne'er a sign of twelve good men and true to offer some level of impartiality to the process.

Now all we need to do is try to get him a fair trial, and the only place that could legally happen is right here - in Australia.

2. google
3. decider
4. war
5. insurgent
6. terrorism
7. vendetta
8. sectarian
9. quagmire
10. corruption

Do we see a pattern here? Ain't that the truthiness!