My wife has a foolproof test for assessing a politician’s true nature.Try this at home. Turn off the volume on the TV when the politician in question is speaking and look at their face for a few minutes. It’s an unerring test of whether at bottom they’re a “happy warrior” or not. Whether they’re someone […]

The Bush administration has gone too far with its detention of an American citizen accused of being a terrorist and the questionable treatment of prisoners.A federal appeals court ruled last week that Jose Padilla, who has been held without access to a lawyer and denied contact with his family since May 2002, is being illegally […]

New York has spoken on Las Vegas businessman Shawn Scott. We’re awaiting word from Maine.Scott and his partners have been trying to qualify to run a harness track in both states. On Dec. 12, New York denied their licenses.“Your experience, character and general fitness is such that your participation in racing or related activities would […]

An excerpt from the Gospel according to St. Luke, revised and updated for the 21st century:“And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and […]

Bangor Daily News, Dec. 18 If the senior management at the Department of Human Services didn’t hear things clearly enough from Gov. Baldacci before, a recent news story spoke loudly. It is clear the governor has lost confidence in DHS officials and will no longer defend the agency.Given the many problems there, this is not […]

Howard Dean and the boys might have just lost one of their favorite anti-Bush lines on the stump – “He can’t even find Saddam Hussein” – but not to worry. Dean still has another biting criticism of Bush national-security policy echoed by other Democratic candidates as well – that President Bush has supposedly slashed veterans […]

If Maine’s attempts to cut through the garbage clogging e-mail in boxes is any indication, beleaguered computer users shouldn’t expect relief from legislation signed Tuesday by President Bush.The new federal law prohibits spammers from disguising their identities, using false return addresses and using misleading subject lines. It also outlaws a practice that allows sophisticated solicitors […]

Passenger vehicles cause most of the accidents between cars and large trucks. A loud, smoke-belching, ground-shaking semi relentlessly pursues a lone motorist through the deserts of the Southwest. No matter what the frantic motorist does, he cannot shake the pursuing behemoth, which seemingly will not rest until the motorist is crushed beneath its wheels.Is there […]

Kathleen Newman resigned Tuesday from the state liquor and lottery commission. On her way out the door, she blasted Gov. John Baldacci and others for cheap political tricks.Newman does work for Capital Seven LLC, the Shawn Scott company trying to bring slot machines to Bangor Historic Raceway. Questions had been raised about whether that work […]

The capture of Saddam Hussein will have a crucial psychological impact – on Iraqis and on the Arab world.This doesn’t mean the insurgency will end. Clearly, this bedraggled man inside a hole without a cell phone wasn’t organizing the attacks on Iraqis and U.S. troops. Those attacks may even increase in the near term, as […]