Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Your Morning News 2.5.08
Posted by Josh in Budgets that will never get passed, Election 2008, Guantanamo Bay, President Bush, Soulja Boy, Super Tuesday, Your Morning News
Super Tuesday is finally here. I know all of you sprung out of bed with barely concealed democratic fervor. For Super Tuesday coverage, all of the papers have finally decided to answer basic questions about it. Took them long enough. The New York Times has an interesting and extremely readable breakdown of everything they have been saying in newspaperese for the past week. The BBC has an interactive map, because the internet CAN! the Los Angeles Times goes with a Q&A style article. Overall these are good reads that should give you a solid understanding of everything involved in the primary. If you really can’t deal with reading, then just take my word for it that the whole primary process is a mess.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Generation Y lives ungody depressing lives but we see voting as a vehicle of change. Apparently, the Times thinks all it takes to win our votes is rappers, blogging, and making government “cool” again. Vote Soulja Boy!
You should go vote. If you don’t know where to vote, just google, “Where do I vote (name of your state)” and that should bring up a web site that clues you in.
The rest of the news after the jump…
So apparently, the President still has to do stuff and junk. Yesterday President Bush unveiled budgets for 2008 AND 2009. LOLZ Mr. President, you won’t be President in 2009 and your approval rating will be so low you wont be able to get tours of the White House, let alone help set the budget. Because of the elections, office chatter today probably won’t mention the budget, but if it comes up just say that the President has little chance of passing his proposals with an opposition-controlled Congress in an election year. The New York Times editorial page doesn’t much care for the President’s budget and their grim rebuke is a good summary of the budget’s major areas. Finally, in a development so absurd it makes me violate our strict “one photo per Morning News” convention, the budget was apparently unveiled via ebook.
Today’s must-read is a longish feature on Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, the first prisoner to die of natural causes in Guantanamo Bay. Hekmati passed away from cancer last December. Apparently, he was a war hero in Afghanistan who fought the Soviets and the Taliban (both enemies of the United States). He was arrested and thrown in jail because of accusations by personal enemies that were later rebutted by other detainees. Like all detainees there, he was not allowed to present evidence in his defense and when several high-ranking officials in the Afghan government appealed on his behalf they were ignored.