Slashdot Mirror

Government report says is was a dry run:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/010096.php

When you've got roaches on the floor of your hospital, you just might not have world class medical care:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004070.php

Take a look at the photos of the hospital El Presidente calls "one of the most modern and best ones in the capital". The evidence is plain to anyone who cares to look that Cuba is just lying outright, like the USSR before it, and their official statistics (and the UN and NGO reports which are based, ultimately, on the Cuban government statistics) are just a fiction, buttressed by non-representative sampling of a few good clinics they make available to health tourists who can pay in hard currency.

The Democrats are in control of the Senate and House. They are the ones that set the day-to-day agenda, have majorities on subcommittees and can block voting on bills. The Republicans can only block a vote by filibustering. Read the following articles and you will see exactly why I blame the Democrats for blocking the bill: Because the Democrats are blocking the bill. It isn't up for debate; it is a verifiable fact.

http://www.user-groups.net/safenet/internet_tax.html [user-groups.net] http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/014895.php [captainsquartersblog.com] http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002605139.html [cq.com] http://www.congress.org/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=10412161 [congress.org]

http://www.user-groups.net/safenet/internet_tax.html http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/014895.php http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002605139.html http://www.congress.org/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=10412161 Even if you RTFA you can tell it's the Democrats that are blocking. 'The Senate, which must act next on the legislation, has "in many ways made it clear that a permanent moratorium would be dead on arrival,"' The Democrats hold the House and the Senate.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/ca t_silence_of_the_cheese.php

Talks about Wisconsin Democrat voter fraud

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/10/19/8533 1.shtml

Talks about using crack to register voters.

Some bloggers have been looking at the Iraq documents all along and have found very interesting things that have been ignored by the NYT and other MSM outlets. One of the documents turned out to be from an Iraqi general discussing suicide attacks against US interests.

Take look for your self:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/00 8423.php

But he is in it up to his neck for the same reason Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are: he's an oil man. Nothing more and nothing less. Oil and oil shares are the only things he cares about and he's as happy as the rest of them to kill a few hundred or thousands (especially if they are foreigners) to get them.

Actually, I was referring to some of the same day registration irregularities that many of the right wing blogs points out, along with other oddities that made for a more interesting study in voter fraud than Ohio. Do I think fraud happened in either Ohio or Wisconsin? Eh, I dunno, I certainly haven't seen anything I would call conclusive. I do think that the fact that Ohio was so carefully scrutinized and Wisconsin was practically ignored, even though the margins and evidence were much more glaring in Wisconsin, says something about our national press and politics.

--trb

The president of Diebold said he would deliver the votes to Bush. And he did.

Fortunately, today comes more bad news for the Democrats. Their long awaited investigation into voter fraud found no evidence of voter fraud by the GOP and their deranged poster boy, Dean was forced into a humilating admission.

A five-month study for the Democratic National Committee found that more than one in four Ohio voters experienced problems at the polls last fall, but the study did not find evidence of widespread election fraud that might have contributed to President Bush's narrow victory there.

In a stinging reply to the report, Mr. Mehlman agreed that there were numerous election abuses that took place in Ohio last year, but said they were perpetrated by Democrats or their political allies. In one instance, he said, "Democrat allies attempted to disenfranchise Ohio voters by submitting registration cards for Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Michael Jordan."

...

"Overwhelmingly," this report said, "these problems were reportedly traced primarily" to four Democratic political allies who supported Mr. Kerry: ACORN, America Coming Together, the AFL-CIO and the NAACP National Voter Fund.

Yeah, sure you are.

"Considering how the attack on science by religious conservatives has reached a fever pitch, I am not surprised that fewer people are entering the hard sciences as a career."

Considering how the liberal left wastes all of their time nagging on the "religious" right for having morals and consciences and actually trying to make the world a better place, I'm not surprised that they've lost their majority in the federal government, and are starting to lose at the state level as well. http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/00 3019.php

You know, there is at least one other possible explanation for the increase in malnutrition. The pdf you link to from the UN has Cuba's proportion of undernourished going from 3% to 19% in measured period 1990-92 and 95-97. Could the increase have anything to do with Cuba's patron state (USSR) collapsing at the end of 91?

Doesn't really matter to me. I don't like the embargo, I actually think Cuba is small and close enough to be liberated through trade and contact rather than sanctions. I would like nothing better, in fact, than to see thousands of americans go to cuba and pass out books, radios, dollars, etc to the black underclass of Cuba. This would probably piss off (and weaken) Castro more than the sanctions.

It gets to the real problem I have with Cuba, however, which is that it is a totalitarian state. Ok, Cuba has free health care (though the health care offered to non-privileged (ie black and not politically connected) is not the sort of health care you or I would want. See the pics at http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/00 4070.php).
In Cuba, however, you can be arrested for having a n opinion, imprisoned for being homosexual, and executed because you wish to escape.

You said "If they weren't anti-castro/anti-communist, they wouldn't have fled to the US". That seems to imply that people came here because they didn't like Castro. Sort of. People had to flee because they would be killed! That's like saying (notice how I am carefully avoiding Godwin's law) that you shouldn't take East German refugees seriously because they only left because they didn't like the government. Fleeing to avoid the execution of your family strikes me as a pretty reasonable motive for carrying a grudge. That may be selection bias, but the selecting is being done by castro.

Sgrena lied from the beginning, and she knows the US can prove it. Why do you think she hasn't made a peep recently?

"All that's going on is he doesn't want the media to publish it" They may prefer to introduce these issues through the standard main stream media channels, than let it be introduced to the public through blogger leaks. Either way, it will be introduced to the public. The dispersal of information can no longer be controlled. And I do believe this Adscam story has already been leaked

The links to the Martin government were made clearer today: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

However, Brault's testimony does appear to indicate that those links do exist.

Brault was invited to join a consultative committee for Rogers Cantel - a Canadian mobile phone company, chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister and key Martin ally Francis Fox. (Fox later served as Martin's Principal Secretary when Martin became Prime Minister). At one of the Cantel lunches, another former Liberal minister and Martin organizer Jacques Olivier told Brault that he should "Stick to Corriveau. He will open doors for you." (Olivier was referring to key Chrétien ally Jacques Corriveau, who Brault brought in as a subcontractor on advertising contracts.) This shows that two of Martin's key Quebec organizers knew what was happening with government contracting and sponsorships.

Another connection is through Liberal organizer - and former assistant to Fox - Yvon Desrochers. When Brault was asked about direct political interference in the awarding of sponsorships, he mentioned that Desrochers and Corriveau pushed hard for approval of federal money for the renovation of the Corona Theatre in the riding of Liberal cabinet minister Lucienne Robillard (who still sits in Paul Martin's cabinet as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs), even though there were indications of construction problems. The person responsible for transferring the funds was told to "cut the check and don't ask questions."

Close ties link Fox, Olivier, Desrochers, Martin fundraiser and former hockey star Serge Savard, and another one of the Adscam firms - Claude Boulay's Groupe Everest - and all are connected with the Martin, not Chrétien, wing of the Liberal Party in Quebec. (Desrochers later committed suicide after the collapse of the Montreal International Aquatic Games, in which millions of dollars went missing.)

Brault testified to other links to people identified with the Martin regime. Among the people Brault put on his payroll (while in fact working for the Liberals) were Georges Farrah - who later served as a Parliamentary Secretary under Paul Martin - and John Welch - who is now Chief of Staff to Martin's current Heritage Minister, Liza Frulla. (He was urged to hire Welch by Denis Paradis, a Liberal MP who also served as one of Martin's Parliamentary Secretary.)

Brault said that Gagliano crony Joe Morselli told him he could "solve potential problems" and "talk to Denis" - meaning Liberal cabinet minister Denis Coderre, who also served under Martin.

So links have emerged in Brault's testimony to many of the people that Martin kept on as ministers or Parliamentary secretaries - even though Martin assured Canadians that he had thoroughly questioned all of his ministers and ensured that none of them had any involvement in the Adscam controversy.

Also, the 4 major parties are preparing for a spring election if the government's budget is defeated. The Bloc Quebecois have asked for tenders for printing, buses, etc., and identified 90% of the office locations they are going to need. The NDP has stated they have more financing lined up than the $14 million they had for the last campaign. The Conservatives have said that, should an election be called, they are ready. And this morning, it turns out that the Liberals have been making preparations as well "just in case", though they privately acknowledge they may end up losing - but not as bad as if they delay it.

If we're going to have an election, we at least deserve to know the same facts that all the people in government are privy to.

There's more (newer) stuff if you look around :-)

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/00 4225.php

Canadian bloggers may face charges for posting links to captainsquartersblog.com's article. That to me seems to validate most of what he posted. Bear in mind what happens in that court is public record, people just aren't allowed to publish it.

Currently at least one Canadian blog is in trouble for posting a LINK to captainsquartersblog.com.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/00 4225.php

Appears that an outfit calling itself "Business Barn LLC" has been trying this with high-ranking weblogs, too.

"The company offered to pay me $300/month for the use of a subdomain off of my "sayanythingblog.com" domain. I would point the subdomain to a page of advertising hosted on their servers and they'd send me the money via Pay Pal. I checked out the advertising and there was no porn or anything involved so I agreed. Seemed like a good deal to me and with hosting costs rising as this page gets more and more popular I'm not much inclined to turn down opportunities to make money from this page." --here [if you must]

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia, I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."
-John Kerry, March 1986, Senate Floor

Doug Brinkley's original text has him 50 miles from cambodia that day. And it devotes 100 pages to Vietnam and none of that deals with Cambodia. Nixon wasn't president at the time (as he is implying) and Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia didn't even ally himself with the Khmer Roughe till 1970. It is entirely possible his recollection was wrong about the time, place, people and president, and that this false image is seared in his mind, but I doubt that.

And since you are evidently a Republican

What makes me obviously a republican? My dislike of Kerry, well if there are only two options the Kerry Party or the Republican Party then I'm out of luck.

and don't match Navy records

Here is a good review of the Navy Doc that contradicts Kerry and agrees with the SBVT. The Docs are here

Any more?

• Kerry's story about how Nixon sent him to Cambodia during Christmas, and how this was "seared, seared" in his memory. Only now we find out that he was never in Cambodia, and Nixon wasn't even president then anyways.

Wrong on several counts; he never said Nixon sent him -- here's an anti-kerry blog with a compendium of Kerry's Cambodia quotes here's another -- show me a "Nixon sent" quote or you'll have to retract. Sure, Kerry mentions Nixon, but he never says what you claim. Next, on June 16, 1971 O'Neill told Nixon that "I was in Cambodia, sir." This was recorded by Nixon's secret taping system. That story even made it to freepers, so you have no excuse for missing it!

What we have is, in the 1970's both Kerry and O'Neill agreeing they were in Cambodia, and in 2004 O'Neill changing his story. To you this is proof Kerry lied? A number of vets have come out against O'Neill's group's claims. Read about it here. According to this article, Kerry's boat was very near the border; how can you prove he wasn't on the Cambodian side?

• It was also seared in his memory about when he was in Vietnam when he heard MLK Jr. was shot. Only MLK Jr. was shot months before Kerry went to Vietnam.

Correct, Kerry is in error here, although Kerry never uses the word "seared" regarding that memory. Kerry was on the USS Gridley, mostly in the Gulf of Tonkin. Exactly how far is that from Vietnamese territorial waters?

• Kerry has admitted that his first Purple Heart "may have" been self-inflicted (by accident). This is mainly because Kerry's journal from the time stated that they hadn't been attacked yet.

False. Kerry admitted no such thing. The "self inflicted" claim comes from this line of logic: Kerry was first wounded Dec 2, then wrote in his journal Dec 11 "A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky,". Kerry-haters, reading this journal entry, have claimed the wound must have been self-inflicted, but Kerry said no such thing.

• Kerry said he got an honorable discharge before schmoozing with the North Vietnamese, but in fact he was still an officer.

False. Kerry never said he was discharged when he met with the North Vietnamese in Paris. The error is in an AP timeline; not in Kerry materials. You can read about it here. Show me where Kerry claims he was discharged before Paris, or retract.

• He now claims that he requested and signed up for the most dangerous job in the Vietnam War, but in actuality he tried to sign up for the safest. (After failing to get a deferment.) How do we know this? Not only because of records (swift boats were changed from easy coastal patrols to dangerous river missions after Kerry signed up). But we also have Kerry's own admission of this fact a few years ago.

False. Show me where Kerry claims he "requested" the "most dangerous job." Kerry explains he volunteered for the Swift Boats so he could be near the action but not in it. Here's a direct quote: "They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing." It is a measure of K

• http://www.polipundit.com/
• http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/
• http://www.powerlineblog.com/
• http://oxblog.blogspot.com/
• http://www.instapundit.com/
• and of course, http://drudgereport.com/

Drudge.. the original proto-bloger..
National Review's The Corner. http://nationalreview.com/thecorner/corner.asp
Captains Quarters http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
Instapundit http://instapundit.com/
Powerline http://www.powerlineblog.com/
Tim Blair http://timblair.spleenville.com/
BerkeleySquareBlog http://www.berkeleysquarejazz.com/blog/

Dailykos & Atrios for "opposition" research....

Not to criticize js7a--he gave you fair warning--but his list leans to the left. I don't know if I have the definitive right-leaning counterexample, but here's a list of guys who are biased right but seem to be fair in their analysis...
mainstream media:
Best of the Web Today
Andrew Sullivan
The Corner
blogs:
Instapundit
oxblog
JustOneMinute
Daniel Drezner
Captains Quarters
cartoons:
Cox and Forkum
Day by Day

All are blogs and/or openly opinionated. They are generally right wing. This is in no way a complete list, and should not even be considered the "best of", since I haven't spent a lot of time exploring. YMMV.

I'd actually be interested in hearing from people who knew of right-leaning blogs not on this list that they recommended. I am not trying to start a flame war about who's better or why Instapundit/Daily Kos is a snooty liar.

Ted could drink about as much as any man and still appear relatively sober. That was the most dangerous of gifts. But something was different now, and this trip brought him back to thoughts of death and dying. "They're going to shoot my ass off the way they shot Bobby's," he said as the reporters listened and took their private notes. Wanting only to pop a few more drinks, he did not eat at the airport in Fairbanks on the way home. He got on the plane and asked the flight attendant for a drink, and then another. He swaggered up and down the aisle, bouncing a pillow on the head of one of his aides, shouting for him to wake up, and then weaving along shouting, "Eskimo power! Eskimo power!" The journalists listened and noted Ted's sad state, but none of them wrote about it in their publications when they got home.
Sons Of Camelot: The Fate Of An American Dynasty, by Laurence Leamer

Chanting political slogans and assaulting passengers? Okay, it was 1972, but we pay TSA to stay vigilant against anyone with a history of unstable political activity, don't we?

Democrats suure do love freedom. That's why they don't want Nader on the ballot. After all, if we don't want to vote for Bush, but also don't want to vote for Kerry, we should be forced to vote for Kerry!

Oh, let's also talk about keeping American jobs in America, then pay foreigners to aide our political sabotage.

Really can't hold the dems responsible for the actions of these terrorists without a little more proof though.