Slashdot Mirror

Be careful about the Slashdot story. It does not say what you might imagine it says. Below are quotes from a video of a CBS newscast, CBS Panel's Conclusions:

"The story wasn't ready." "The panel did not conclude the documents were forgeries." "We didn't find any actual [political] bias." "Mary Mapes said she still believes the documents were well corroborated."

NOTE: CBS has recently begun offering videos of its most important newscasts online, mostly without commercials. The videos display only in Internet Explorer, not the latest versions of Mozilla or Firefox. CBS uses Javascript in poor ways, there are problems with its video servers, and some videos have been edited incorrectly for transmission. I get different results at different times. I complained to CBS about this about two weeks ago in connection with another story, and did not receive a reply. They seem to be working on the problems, since delivery has changed and improved in the last two weeks. Ignore messages that say, "Could not connect to remote server." I could not play the videos with the latest version of Opera, which is quite compatible with IE-specific coding, but that may have been because of my specific installation.

Note that the quotes from the CBS newscast don't say that CBS has decided the story was false. CBS only fully accepts its responsibility for sloppiness in the preparation of the story.

Also, the CBS focus was misleading. The real story was that George W. Bush disappeared from Air National Guard records in exactly the same month that the ANG instituted drug testing.

Lt. Bush's reported behavior was consistent with the known behavior of alcoholics, and Bush has admitted to being an alcoholic. Alcoholics often use other drugs to heighten the desired effects of alcohol and to try to diminish the undesired effects.

I served in the U.S. Air Force in the years around the time that Lt. Bush served, and I was stationed at a base that had the aircraft he flew. The CBS documents were consistent with the operation of the Air Force at that time, which was remarkably tolerant of alcoholism. The entire U.S. culture at the time was tolerant of alcoholism, but the USAF as I experienced it was even more so.

I have specific, detailed knowledge that the Air Force was far more corrupt than has been reported in stories I've seen. For example, F-106 aircraft, the successors to the F-102 aircraft that Lt. Bush flew, had severe defects in their inertial guidance systems that meant that F-106s were often not available to perform their mission. This was not a conscious conspiracy; they could not get the systems to work properly, and apparently all USAF departments tended to cover up failures rather than report them sufficiently. Remember that this was a time when people had far less technical knowledge than people generally have today.

At the time, no one would have found it remarkable that a pilot was an alcoholic, or that someone received special treatment because of political pressure. That was just the way things worked. This is so important that maybe I should repeat it: That's just the way things worked back then. Back then few adults had parents who had attended college. The accepted educational level was far less in a way that cannot be measured by the number of college years someone had.

I know about the failure in F-106s because I fixed the problem. I found that some of the amplifiers used in the inertial guidance system had parasitic oscillations because of solder joints of amazingly poor quality. At the time, I was familiar with all base operations that involved electronics repair, and I very much doubt there was anyone else on base who had enough technical knowledge to know what parasitic oscillations were. Mostly they just kept replacing things until they found that the symptom of the problem had gone away. We Slashdot readers take technical knowledge for granted, but widespread te

Those pirates aren't selling only to people in their own country... they are being imported in various ways and being sold in the US and all over the world. Check out the article done by 60 minutes for more info about it.

I'd like to see more seasoned journalists do news analysis, rather than people on all sides with their minds decided before they collect the facts to back their opinions up.

Actually, governments in several states can legally seize property under eminent domain for use by the private sector.

See 60 Minutes story:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/60minute s/main575343.shtml/

Or this group, chartered to fight such abuse:
http://www.castlecoalition.org/

The grand prize is a green card. If the Green Card didn't confer real benefits(i.e. access to social services), interest it it would be much more minimal. Now, you can wish the US was a libertarian utopia-but it isn't-and no such country has sustained itself for long.

Not as big as I thought, but still big. 10 Bil

>And let's all speculate aimlessly until we know which.

If we do this, then we are no better than the interceptor missiles, which also speculate and fly aimlessly.

Who's paying for this delay in government progress toward freedom from terrorist-loving oil producers? The US taxpayer, that's who. In the mean time, GM and DMC have gotten with the program and decided to produce hybrid drivetrains, and most if not all hybrid systems can be adapted to become partially grid-powered plug-in hybrids with the addition of bigger batteries, different energy-management algorithms and a charging system. Such cars would not require wiring beyond a standard extension cord until their all-electric range got upwards of 30 miles, while even short all-electric range could eliminate an enormous fraction of motor fuel consumption.

In other words, industry is about to do incrementally what the current administration appears to be trying to prevent by demanding all-or-nothing leaps.

Of course, they risk someone else either patenting or disclosing their improvements, and losing out entirely.

The drug issue should be dealt with not by patents but by the FDA giving monopoly licensing on drugs - anyone can use them in research, but selling them is controlled (as it already is). Allow other companies to be licensed, but only after they've done significant additional clinical trials. This gets additional testing done on the safety and efficacy of the drug, and still protects the original company for quite some time.

Besides, the stats I've heard indicate that pharmaceutical companies spend at least twice as much on marketing as on R&D (discovering new drugs, clinical trials). They're also some of the most profitable companies.

And of course if the device/service can tell speed, it can tell position, how long at each stop, etc., and it need not be limited to teenagers, as this article describes:
http://boortz.com/nuze/200306/06092003.html

Another thing Neal Boortz has done (it may have been a couple years ago, I haven't heard about it lately) was help write and get a bill introduced into the Georgia legislature that (recalling only generally the gist of the bill) any crime commited by a teenager driving a car that results in someone's death, that teen cannot be tried as a juvenile, but must be tried as an adult. If a teen wants the adult privelege of driving a car, he or she most take the adult respolsibilities as well. There has been at least one teen vehicular homicide case where the teen was being tried as a juvenile.
Boortz has also been in favor of raising the minimum age to get a driver's license, due to the high rate of deaths among teenage drivers (see from the article under the the "related stories and links" section, Teen Driving Death Rate Soaring, and has often criticized parents of teens for buying them cars.

Other(s) commented on the ease of getting a driver's license in the USA. I've heard how some other (European) countries have much stricter driving tests, costing (the US equivalent of) hundreds of dollars, and taking hours (not counting the time standing in line, historically one of the biggest parts of getting a US license), much of which is driving on real roads in real, stressful situations such as rush hour traffic on freeways.
Is there talk about strengthening what it takes to get a driver's license in the US? Not that I've heard, in fact I've heard just the opposite, that some in California want to give licenses to illegal aliens.

For a longer and healthy, injury-free life, one's best bet is to stay off the public roads. Meanwhile, lobby to demand higher standards among the driving population.

Or perhaps the murder of dozens of prisoners during torture at Abu Gharib:

But it's different for Christian religious zealots. Jesus is on our side!

For those that don't know what GOP stands for off-hand:

Grand-Old-Party = republican party

Linky for a blurb about what GOP means on cbsnews.com

"While out on the campaign trail covering candidates, my own network's political unit would not even give me exit poll information on election days because it was thought to be too tricky for a common reporter to comprehend. If you are standing in the main election night studio when your network's polling experts start discussing the significance of a particular state poll, you the reporter will hear about three words out of one hundred that you will understand. These polls occur in the realm of statistics and probability. They require PhD-style expertise to understand. The people who analyze them for news organizations, like the legendary Warren Mitofsky and Martin Plissner at CBS News -- have trade associations like doctors do to certify their work.

"When you the humble reporter are writing a story based on the polls you need one of these gurus standing over your shoulder interpreting what they mean or you almost certainly will screw it up. There is a word for this kind of teamwork and expertise. It's called 'journalism'."

The writer concludes:

"...the chances of the bloggers replacing mainstream journalism are about as good as the parasite replacing the dog it fastens on."

Of course, this is a retired journalist writing this. While I have nothing but respect for career journalists, it makes sense that they would be the first to lash out against bloggers. Plus, let's face it, older generations often look down on new forms of media... just look at resistance to hiphop music and the SMS-style of writing for further examples.

What do you call this?

Or this?

Or this?

Beyond that, the point is that a president does *have the power* to instate a draft, and it seems worth having a president who understands the full implications of that power.

In any case, I find it strange that you call Bush and Kerry children during Vietnam, but yet our all-volunteer military is mostly composed of persons the same age. If today's 18 year-olds are adult enough to make such a binding decision, wasn't Bush old enough not to make a "childish" decision during Vietnam?

How many terrorist incidents have there been in the US since 9/11? The Macy's Parade looked pretty calm to me.

eh? Acts of terrorism are stable if not on the rise. So, we haven't been bombed on American soil in 4 years? That's not something to brag about.

Story 1 -- global terrorism rose in 2002
Story 2 -- global terrorism sucks. US may be as safe as we were since 9/11 but reelection may prompt new acts
Story 3 -- Rise in terrorism in 2003 over 2002. (Note in the first article 2002's numbers were understated though.
Story 4 -- Lebanese, people who actually know something about terrorim, see 100% rise due to foreign policy.
...

It's all google-able. And if we count those 'insurgents' as terrorist, which we're fond of doing when it serves our purposes, terrorism is astronomical.

Here's a link google turned up, I dunno how reliable you consider the source though.

83 cell phones have exploded or caught fire--but there are millions that haven't, so it is not a big deal.

Hmmm... How well did that logic work against Ephedra or Firestone Wilderness AT tires?

Rational people calcate risk with math.

Ephedra: 1% of all dietary suppliment sales, yet 64% of all adverse reactions. With an analysis of the data available at the time, there was enough indication of serious risks (heart attacks, strokes) that starting a clinical study to analyze the risks would have been unethical. Meta-analysis of the data available revealed that risk of serious side effects was 1 in 1000.

Firestone Wilderness AT tires: 174 deaths, 700 injuries reported, out of roughly 20 million tires recalled. Roughly about one serious event in 20 thousand or so, and this is not counting blowouts that did not lead to bodily harm.

Cellphones: From the above story -- 83 have exploded or caught fire. Injuries? A few. Number of cell phones in use? 164 million phones were sold in the second quarter alone of 2004. Lets be generous and say that most people replace their phones once every 6 months. That's 83 injuries out of 300 million, or one out of ever 3.6 million.

So, to review:

Ephedra risk: 1 out of 1000. Firestone tires risk: 1 out of 20,000. Cell phone risk: 1 out of 3,600,000.

See the problem?

Now, if these were all the same brand of cellphones, I'd suggest a recall. There has been a few recalls of a few possible problem designs, but most of the cases seem to be bootleg batteries.

So what should we recall?

Speaking of risk, perhaps this old post to sci.environment would be helpful, even if some of the information is probably out of date.

You have a 1 in a million risk of dying from cancer if you live in a brick building for 2 months -- that is over 3x the risk of a cell battery exploding. You have roughly the same risk (1 in a million) from dying in your bathtub -- time to outlaw tubs, hope you like showers. 40 tablespoons of peanut butter also gives you a one-in-a-million risk, due to low levels of carcigens. There are a lot of deadly things out there.

CNN's exit polls do correlate very well with the final results. However this is because CNN changed their model as the day went on. The percentages you see are not the actual percent of respondents as you might imagine. To arrive at a proper exit poll one has to take the percentages and then weight them by the number of people from that area who showed up to vote.
So if you have 1 worker in Cleveland, and one in rule ohio then you dont say 90/100 votes for Kerry in Cleveland and 10/50 for Kerry in Rural farmland = 100/150 for Kerry overall if there are 10 Cleveland polling locations and 100 rural voting locations. Once you know that you say there are 900/1000 for Kerry in Cleveland and 1000/5000 for Kerry in farmcountry so there are 1900/6000 for Kerry overall.

As the day progressed and CNN and the networks got better estimates of turnout at their representative polling locations they changed their estimates. You can see this by comparing the exit polls at CNN to those of say CBS (This is the same poll different models) say for the state of Ohio:
CNN (updated 2:06pm) 2,020 Respondents
Male (47%) Bush 52% Kerry 47%
Female (53%) Bush 50% Kerry 50%


To CBS: Sample Size: 2020 Last Polled: 01:01 AM
Kerry Bush
Male 45 48
Female 55 52
CBS
CNN

Look at the facts:

Vice President Dick Cheney was a vocal critic of trade embargoes while he headed Halliburton, a Houston-based oil services conglomerate, from 1995 to 2000. Under Mr. Cheney, Halliburton expanded its trade with Iran through an offshore subsidiary. That arrangement is being investigated by a federal grand jury.

Nineteen executives or directors of companies fined by OFAC for dealing with state sponsors of terrorism were top campaign fund-raisers for Mr. Bush.

Also:

Federal authorities also are investigating whether Halliburton broke the law by using a subsidiary to do business in Iran and whether it was involved in an alleged $180 million bribery scheme in Nigeria. The company admitted in 2003 that it improperly paid $2.4 million to a Nigerian tax official.

So, in reality, Haliburton may have been trading with the "axis of evil" Just like Prescott Bush did!

--jeff

The 48% that voted for the folks that have no problem with this?

Unfortuately that link doesn't seem to come out and say it explicitly so here is a link that does.

My point was not that I had one specfic link debunking his, but that it is easy to find MANY links which back this up.

Here is the relevant quote:
At 2:16 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Fox became the first network to call Florida for Bush. Minutes later, CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN made the same call.

Hey, I messed up that first time around, but at least I frickin ATTEMPTED to provide evidence.

Electronic voting, while a neat idea to speed up the vote counting process, seems to have run into a number of glitches (over 1100 nationwide) this November 2nd. In addition to seemingly random problems in Florida [1, 2], Ohio [1], and North Carolina [1], there are allegations of systematic fraud based on statistical comparison of exit polls to final results in precincts with audit trails and those without. It is also interesting that in Florida, the voting patterns do not match the voter registration patterns as they do nationwide. This has attracted the attention of numerous civil rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation that has filed at least two lawsuits since election day, and BlackboxVoting.org that has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain computer logs and documents from 3000 counties and districts across the US. Equally disturbing is the fact that CNN has (since Nov 2) changed its exit polling results to reflect the actual results. This has attracted the attention of Congressmen John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida who have jointly requested that the GAO immediately investigate the efficacy of e-voting machines.

In case you are thinking that this is just sour grapes from Democrats who lost the election, think again. BlackboxVoting.org has been investigating e-voting fraud for years. Likewise, the CEO of Diebold, one of the e-voting machine manufacturers has been quoted as saying "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." And if that's not conflict of interest enough for you, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel (now resigned) is an owner of the largest e-voting machine company ES&S.

Other numerous problems have been found with the machines from nearly every company in the past [1, 2, 3]. Avi Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, has been investigating such machines on his own and has found a number of security issues. Swarthmore students stood up to Diebold in November of 2003 after discovering

I think this hits it on the head - Images isn't updated very often. Check out, for example, pictures of the toddler who was rescued from a well a week ago. A regular Google search for Jermere McMillan photo returns 117 results, the first of which has a picture. An image search for Jermere McMillan returns no result. Although it's hard to imagine what the Bush administration's angle is on supressing that picture.

Even more clearly that this is not a sinister Bush /Rove plot: Ashley Faulkner is a girl whose mother died on September 11, 2001. There is a recently famous picture of George Bush giving Ashley a hug that a Bush-friendly 527 made into a political ad. This picture has been known about for some time; the picture was taken at the beginning of May and was reported on at the time. It's certainly had time to propagate through the net: A google search for Ashley Faulkner Bush photo returns 4290 results, the first few of which all include the picture. A Google image search for Ashley Faulkner Bush returns no images. Explain to me again how propagating this image would be "Politcally Undesirable" for the Bush administration.

Rob just speculating this is government malfeasance is ridiculous. There is no evidence to support his positiona and no evidence to even suggest it. Slashdot should post a conspicious retraction to this groundless acusation. The story here isn't "Bush represses Google," it's "Google's image index isn't updated very often." Stick to reporting the news, please, not your tired conspiracy theories!

In the Democratic Primary in NH, early exit polls showed Howard Dean and John Kerry in a dead heat. Yet when the votes were actually counted, Kerry won by a wide margin.

1. Exit polls (as we all remember) showed a dead heat
2. Actual results showed Kerry winning by a wide margin
3. The exit polls were retroactively adjusted to match the actuals (just like last tuesday).
4. Some people noticed that Kerry's lead over Dean was highly correlated with how the votes were counted:

   VotingTech......Margin
   Diebold..........58.1%
   ES&S.............35.0%
   Hand..............4.7%

5. When the dust settled Kerry won by (IIRC) 1.5%--close to the exit poll's "dead heat", but by then he'd been spiked by a microphone and no one cared.

-- Markus

There's a lot of economists that tend to believe Kerry would be awful for the economy. Six of them are nobel laureates.

Kerry was endorsed by 10 nobel prize winners in economics. )And 38 more in the other nobel disciplines.) It may be true that "a lot" of economists were against Kerry, what "most" of them did was another story.

The American people voted for a president that presided over an economy that produced a record current account deficit, a record trade deficit, a record budget deficit and a national debt of such proportions that the IMF says they threaten the world economy.

Who ever said all that Americans ever care about is money?

I am disappointed that the younger crowd (18-25 age group), who bitched the loudest, ended up with the piss poor voting record as usual. I'm also disappointed that Kerry was foolish enough to court that group of voters while Bush was busy courting older voters which proven record of voting and won.

So if any of you out there (of legal voting age) who bitched but didn't vote, please stop bitching, as some other foolish candidate in the future may end up running supporting your cause thinking that you may actually vote.

Has not Kerry been said to completely decimate Bush in the under-30 demographic?

While that's true, the problem is that 18-25 age group has piss poor voting record in the past, and it seems that it's also true for this election. While Kerry was courting the younger voters, Bush courted the older voters and it paid off big time.

The lession learned? The younger crowd bitches and moans the loudest, but they don't walk the talk by voting. In the future, Democrats should stop wasting their time courting the young crowd and focus on the older folks.

This explanation is available at the bottom of the page you referenced.

FWIW, there's a good analysis coming from the Brits...

This explanation is available at the bottom of the page you referenced.

FWIW, there's a good analysis coming from the Brits...

CBS News Link

"According to the lawsuit, a columnist writing under the byline Naeem Abd Muhalhal described bin Laden thinking "seriously, with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert, about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House."

The columnist also allegedly wrote that bin Laden was "insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting," a possible reference to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. "

Slashdot is slashdotted, so I can't tell if this was posted correctly before:

Facts you should know before you vote:

If you truly love your country, you will not just enjoy the advantages, you will be there for your country when there are problems.

100 Facts and 1 Opinion -- The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration

See The CIA trained Osama bin Laden and other Arabs in the techniques of terrorism.

Government data compares Democrat and Republican economics.

Most media exists to make money. Advertisers are understandably careful not to alienate anyone. It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion of government activities only by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one policy over another. Books are the major media that are not ad-supported. Here are reviews of 3 movies and 35 books that discuss the corruption of the Bush administration: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Bush's education improvements were at least partly fraud.

I recommend a new book, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty. Don't expect any author to be perfect. However, this book is an excellent overview of the Bush family, and the best book by this author. Here is a quote which shows just one more fact about the chronic lying of George Herbert Walker Bush and his son George W. Bush: "The official family tree provided by the Bush archivists does not include the two mentally retarded daughters of John M. Walker, and lists only two of James Smith Bush's wives, not all four of them; one of Ray Walker's two wives is omitted, and George Herbert Walker III is listed with only two, instead of three, wives."

Before, Saddam was killing. Now, the U.S. government is killing and destabilizing, and you pay. Improvement?

15 of the nineteen 9/11 attackers were Saudis. Many don't like the U.S. Gov. influence on their country.

Did you see the network footage of George W. Bush holding hands with a Saudi man the Bush family knows as "Bandar Bush"? Since it was Saudis who attacked on 9/11, why did Bush invade Iraq? Was it a smokescreen to get attention away from the Saudis?

Bush borrows money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 billion. When Saudis attack, invade Iraq?

Is Bush drinking NOW?

George W. Bush's brother was shown in a lawsuit deposition on 20/20 talking about his prostitutes and using government influence to make money. Family values? Neil Bush is different from other relatives of presidents like Billy Carter; he is heavily involved with government corruption and he does his corruption with the help of his family.

The U.S. government has fought 24 wars since World War II. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.

Facts you should know before you vote:

If you truly love your country, you will not just enjoy the advantages, you will be there for your country when there are problems.

100 Facts and 1 Opinion -- The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration

See The CIA trained Osama bin Laden and other Arabs in the techniques of terrorism.

Government data compares Democrat and Republican economics.

Most media exists to make money. Advertisers are understandably careful not to alienate anyone. It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion of government activities only by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one policy over another. Books are the major media that are not ad-supported. Here are reviews of 3 movies and 35 books that discuss the corruption of the Bush administration: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Bush's education improvements were at least partly fraud.

I recommend a new book, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty. Don't expect any author to be perfect. However, this book is an excellent overview of the Bush family, and the best book by this author. Here is a quote which shows just one more fact about the chronic lying of George Herbert Walker Bush and his son George W. Bush: "The official family tree provided by the Bush archivists does not include the two mentally retarded daughters of John M. Walker, and lists only two of James Smith Bush's wives, not all four of them; one of Ray Walker's two wives is omitted, and George Herbert Walker III is listed with only two, instead of three, wives."

Before, Saddam was killing. Now, the U.S. government is killing and destabilizing, and you pay. Improvement?

15 of the nineteen 9/11 attackers were Saudis. Many don't like the U.S. Gov. influence on their country.

Did you see the network footage of George W. Bush holding hands with a Saudi man the Bush family knows as "Bandar Bush"? Since it was Saudis who attacked on 9/11, why did Bush invade Iraq? Was it a smokescreen to get attention away from the Saudis?

Bush borrows money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 billion. When Saudis attack, invade Iraq?

George W. Bush's brother was shown in a lawsuit deposition on 20/20 talking about his prostitutes and using government influence to make money. Family values? Neil Bush is different from other relatives of presidents like Billy Carter; he is heavily involved with government corruption and he does his corruption with the help of his family.

The U.S. government has fought 24 wars since World War II. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.

In your little theory, you are missing the fact that Katherine Harris served as a co-chair of Bush's campaign in Florida. GOP could expect nothing but full co-operation from her.

Link for proof that Kerry voted against first gulf war
link

Links proving we are still hunting Osama
link link link link

You call me insane? We are fighting Terrorism all over the world. We are trying to find Osama. We are destroying his terror network. I would say there's no disputing it, but people who don't like GWBs religious beliefs will argue anything no matter how crazy. Whose insane if you think you can't find any evidence that there are mass graves? Whose insane if you think terrorism didn't exist or doesn't exist in Iraq? Whose insane if you don't think fighting the war in Iraq doesn't help in the war on Terror? What rock have you been hiding under? Maybe its the CBS, CNN, NY Times, LA Times, ABC News, or USA Today rock. Hmm.. That can't be it.. I used some of those links in my proofs above.

Or perhaps, you live in one of the countries of our "allies" and have this information suppressed so you don't support this war.

Link for proof that Kerry voted against first gulf war
link

Links proving we are still hunting Osama
link link link link

You call me insane? We are fighting Terrorism all over the world. We are trying to find Osama. We are destroying his terror network. I would say there's no disputing it, but people who don't like GWBs religious beliefs will argue anything no matter how crazy. Whose insane if you think you can't find any evidence that there are mass graves? Whose insane if you think terrorism didn't exist or doesn't exist in Iraq? Whose insane if you don't think fighting the war in Iraq doesn't help in the war on Terror? What rock have you been hiding under? Maybe its the CBS, CNN, NY Times, LA Times, ABC News, or USA Today rock. Hmm.. That can't be it.. I used some of those links in my proofs above.

Or perhaps, you live in one of the countries of our "allies" and have this information suppressed so you don't support this war.

"... an invasion (too many to list), a kidnapping (Panama), an assassination (Cuba), or a fake coup (Guatemala), you supported it."

You are exactly right, but very, very few Americans understand this.

Anyhow, here is a short list: The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries since the Second World War.

--
Bush's education improvements were partly fraud

As I imagine the replies to this post will mostly be drooling fawning over Andrew Tanenbaum, much like the Jon Stewart/Crossfire article, I'd like to actually ask some meaningful questions. (And please note that I have great respect for Tanenbaum, but don't understand a couple of his central points, described below.)

Why does running a statistical analysis website that gathers information on polls and aggregates them into something quasi-meaningful "support" the Democratic candidate?

Yes, yes, I'm well aware that while incognito he had said on numerous occasions that he was a Kerry supporter, and a Democrat. But he himself says:

Why Did You Do This?

In a nutshell, because I want to be proud of America again.

Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.

He then goes on, at length, describing/proving that the world "hates" Bush/the administration/etc. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons. That's a serious question, but I doubt I'll get any serious answers. And this is an important question, because the fact that so many abroad "hate" Bush, and somehow getting more Americans to understand that, is central to Tanenbaum's multitude of statements on the topic. Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong? (I will concede that a leader of a nation being hated probably makes it vastly more difficult to do diplomatic work, but that is somewhat tangential to my core question.)

The rest of this post amounts to what are essentially footnotes on this topic, but I believe are critical to the discussion of the belief that Kerry can somehow to a better job.

So let's address these things. The world "hates" Bush, and Kerry can somehow not only fight terrorism more effectively, but will also bring respect back to the US.

Sen McCain said it best yesterday on Face the Nation:

"I also believe that President Bush has a vision and a view that the war on terror is not going to be over until we have some democracy in the Middle East, and I don't think he means by imposing that at the point of a bayonet. But I do believe that he's correct that the issue of radical Islamic extremism is not going away until those countries have some kind of freedom and democracy, and I think that's his long-term goal."

Now, before you start spitting and sputtering about why the US is in "Iraq", then, well, reread that last statement. I'm not going to beat around the bush, as it were, any more: the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons. But the prime one is that it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts. This strategy will make things worse in the meantime. Possibly a lot worse. People will hate us. Including some people who will ultimately be protected by our actions (i.e., Europe).

Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own

"A federal judge in New York City on Wednesday found Iraq among those liable for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and awarded nearly $104 million to the families of two men who died in the World Trade Center."

USATODAY: Lawsuit ruling finds Iraq partly responsible for 9/11

CBS NEWS: Lawsuit: Iraq Involved In 9/11 Conspiracy

It wasn't the T-shirt, it was the interrupting of the president's speech. From the CBS News article: "she said she had a ticket and asked why she was being arrested. She was told by police she had entered a private event and had refused to leave... Niederer was later charged with defiant trespass and released."

You can't refuse to leave a private event because you want to shout at the featured speaker, ticket or not. You may stand outside and shout all you want. You may even wear a "Bush killed my son" shirt. You can apparently even wear such a shirt inside such a private event, so long as you're not stupid enough to try to shout down the freakin' president.

Untrue. Did you hear about the Madrid bombing? The Bali bombing? The three hundred and fifty people killed in Beslan, Russia? And how many major terrorist attacks have there been on U.S. soil since 9/11?

In fact, terrorist attacks last year hit a 35-year low, at least until Powell realised this was bad for business and had the official figures heavily revised.

Of course non-U.S. terrorist attacks don't get as much media coverage (even outside the U.S.) but it doesn't mean that they don't occur.

I didn't recommend that he waste time on the black vote. I was pointing to the futility of this as reason to cast a suspicious eye on his florida strategy. In fact we're in agreement on this.

And what the hell do his black appointments have to do with this? I never claimed he was racist.

Lastly you can't point to one of his policies (vouchers) and a highly controversial one at that and say X is the friend of Y. You have to look at a president's total record which we are NOT doing here.

I'm simply saying that this development doesn't jive with good campaigning. While bush may possibly have an 18% black vote nationwide, in florida the story is different:

If the Democratic primaries are any indication, Kerry has little to worry about. In multiple states, he exceeded Mr. Clinton's turnout among blacks. In Florida alone, Kerry earned 81 percent of the black vote versus Mr. Clinton's 74 percent in 1992.

From This article where they interview a guy at hte organizaiton that created that number.

"George Bush will get a higher share of the black vote than he did in 2000 because he was at the total bottom," Bositis says. "The only people who voted for him were the most totally and completely hard-core black Republican voters."

So no, the Democrats aren't losing their appeal, the repubs are just sucking less.

Furthermore, the fact that the document contains the names of not just black, but also traditionally democratic areas makes me think that this is more than just a get out the bush message effort. If it were black voters alone, you'd have a point.

Ooops 1

Or how about the patriot missile battery that mistook an RAF Tornado for an enemy missile during the Gulf War last year?

Ooops 2

I think your confidence in putting artificial intelligence in killing machines is a little misplaced.

Sexual harassment involving a female boss is not necessarily far from reality. See this article. (Notice the responses that the man received from supervisors.)

According to CBS _60 Minutes_ and the IMF, Arafat diverted over L560M from 1995 to 2000 from the PA to his personal fortune, and over L176M has been documented in a single Swiss account. That diversion count was current half its lifetime ago, before Arafat completed his totalitarian control of the PA, before he became the central propaganda figure for the global jihad. And that's just the documented tip of the iceberg, a couple of successful investigations.

None of this is secret anymore - you can easily find out more of the easy answers for yourself. You might also question how it is that you aren't aware of these facts - your Swedish and British mediasphere is protecting you from them. It's an easy story to equate Sharon's tyranny and fearmongering with the Nazis, and up the ante to the Israeli nation as a whole. In fact, given recent developments in the US, it's easier (though not easy) to sympathize with the German people exploited by Nazi propaganda and tyranny, and see how it can be performed elsewhere. But you're doing yourself, truth, and the chances for peace a disservice by defending Arafat with only his propaganda machine to support.

That assertion comes from a former administration official, ironically the former head of ant-terrorism Richard Clark. In an interview he also states:

"Frankly," he said, "I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."

Clarke went on to say, "I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

In addition, I wonder what some of the formal economic advisers would say as well as other former administration officials who have been resigned (ie fired). Keep in mind that these formal officials were (and still are) highly qualified for the jobs they had, not just some random wackos.

Don't forget, the gyroscope-stabilization tech used in the Segway was originally developed for the iBot, an electric wheelchair. The iBot is nice because it raises you to a height where you're at eye level (trust me, you don't miss it 'till it's gone) and is able to climb stairs and curbs. The downside? It costs around $30,000 - and, as I mentioned in the parent, getting a car that it (or any other wheelchair) can be loaded in without help in is incredibly expensive.

The story on the iBOT from 1.5 yrs ago - for the extra cost I could see the iBOT as a godsend to someone who couldn't walk ... its operation is similar to the segway, but it has 2 retractable wheels that lower down to hit the stairs - very cool.

Found the CBS article, looks like slashdot munged the URL. I'll give it a try
Wal-Mart: No Bargain?

Interesting article, though I don't understand how this is only Walmart's problem. Seems like most entry-level, part-time jobs fall into this same category (McDonalds, waitstaff, entry-level factory rat).