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That's why the prisoners in Guantanamo aren't covered by the Geneva Convention

WTF? Then why was Donald Rumsfeld crying on TV about the fact that Iraq better damn well be following the Geneva conventions when after capturing Jessica's unit, they were relatively harmlessly (in retrospect) asking them their names in front of a TV camera? WTF was that about then? And some wonder why the world considers the US a bunch of fat, selfish hypocrites.

BTW, a reporter brought up a good point at that time, that many US military operatives in Iraq were not "wearing uniforms or insignia" as the Bush administration was arguing for their reason for denying Taliban members Geneva rights.

bad road to start down
lots of combant definitions
lots of war related treaties we signed

Yes, because as we all know, Halliburton is in Iraq to establish a better way of life for Iraqis, not because of the huge no-bid contracts that were coordinated by ex-CEO and now Vice Predident Dick Cheney.

Pardon me if I fail to see the humanitarian intentions of an oil company with close - possibly criminal - ties to the administration.

The Real Domestic TerroristsThis guy was arrested, put in jail for a year, his wife and kids deported, then found innocent and set free.

It's gotten pretty widespread press this week. Democracy Now | Jury Acquits Idaho Webmaster Charged With Terrorism For Hosting Anti-American Websites

Well, the Bush campaign (according to the biased liberal Wall Street Journal) did fly down Republican staffers to stand outside the room where the Miami-Dade canvassing board was counting votes and scream and shout. Nobody died, but it is a a bit of a brown shirt tactic.

It's unfortunate that this article appears in the New York Times because of their role in promoting the invasion of Iraq based on lies (everyone from Judith Miller up the chain of power through Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. at the head of the Times organization should be fired or resign). Thousands and thousands of Iraqis died because of this war based on lies, hundreds of American servicepeople died because of this war based on lies and the Times was a big conveyor of the lies. As a result, all of their articles (even ones which call for reasonable measures like this article does) will be thought of as less than what it could have been.

Listen to the last segment of Democracy Now! today or read this chapter of "The Exception To the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them" and you'll hear an argument for putting a social stamp of reduced value on the New York Times. I would rather people judge all articles in all publications ad-hoc, in a case-by-case basis and then promote those that call for reasonable things (like this article promoting electronic machine source code mostly does) and dismiss those that are lies (like Miller's articles promoting war against Iraq). But I doubt people will somehow become so independant.

It was proper to fire Jayson Blair and his superiors for his lies, but nobody died because of those lies. The Times apology is half-baked and there largely for political sake. At the Times, Sulzberger Jr., Miller, and everyone in between them at the Times still have jobs and the Times is still seen as the imprimateur of high quality journalism. It should be obvious to everyone now that that is shameful and inappropriate.

Terrorists blow things up and kill about 1/10th the number of Americans who die in highway deaths each year, but in doing do they stiffen our resolve and so never get anywhere near to changing our fundamental America values.

But dissidents and domestic trouble-makers can cause real problems for a regime that calls questioning its mistakes tantamount to aiding America's enemies.

Today is Memorial Day. I hope that all Americans will take time today to reflect on the costs of freedom and the American men and women in our armed forces who have paid for our freedoms with their service, their wounds, and their lives.

On this Memorial Day, let's really support our troops by following the advice of so many retired officers and men by insisting that "Robert S." Rumsfeld and his band of incompetent chicken-hawks resign -- or be fired.

If your doctor has been telling you drink 8 glasses a day, get a different doctor. It's a myth. But apparently a lot of people actually follow this extreme regimen.. Just look at how big corp.s can sell bottled tap water.

Cleansing Time Magazine

As paper libraries and archives give way to electronic data collections, history is becoming ever more frail. A composition instructor at the University of California at Irvine got a disturbing email from a friend who was searching Time magazine's digital archives looking for a certain article written by George Bush Senior and his Defense Secretary, Brent Scowcroft. In that article, the two men purportedly explained why they decided not to occupy Iraq in 1991. Their reason was that such an action would have exceeded the UN's mandate to remove Iraq from Kuwait , and would have destroyed the precedent of an international response to aggression. They went on to argue, in the March 2, 1998 article, had they chosen to occupy Iraq in 1991, the US would probably still be occupying a bitterly hostile land.

The article, in today's light, seems like a clear rebuff to junior's invasion. But the article is gone. It's no longer in Time's digital archives - as if it never existed. The Irvine instructor decided to charge her students with the task of verifying the existence or nonexistence of the article. As it turned out, the article was in fact real, and was still archived by a number of subscription-accessed library research databases - but it was no longer in the Time archives. Interestingly, none of her digital-age students thought to look for the paper copy of the magazine in the library. The instructor did, finding not only the missing article, but also finding that editors changed the titles on many of the articles remaining in the Time archives.

Time's post-facto editing is especially disturbing since it shakes the very foundation of library sciences. An archive is a collection of past works. By definition it must be left intact. Archive managers have no right to edit history. In this case, Time blew their chance to censor this story in 1998.

fuck you California. These sorts of idiotic issues are why you guys are are drowning in debt. Why don't you tackle some real problems, instead of things like what kind of coffee you make people buy (Berkeley City Council), or banning the words "master" and "slave" from computer hardware (Office of Affirmative Action)?

However, it is interesting to read the thoughts of a real expert (as opposed to us armchair idiots:) on the topic.

Scott Ritter, the former US Marine officer and UN Weapons Inspector whose controversial (to the Bush regime at least) views on Iraqi WMD were proven correct by the war, has this to say about the recent sarin artillery shell which was found.

That's what I get for trying to grab a quick article to summarize a complex point. :-)

First, the person in question was an American citizen. He has unalienable rights including all the protections of the Bill of Rights. The enemy combatant label was invented by Lincoln and has no basis (or at best, a weak basis) in American law as pass by an elected Congress. While Lincoln's actions may have been understandable, in my view they were -- like his closing of newspapers -- blatantly unconstitutional. We are supposed to be a society based on the rule of law. We have a law against treason. The person in question should be told what he is accused of and entitled to a lawyer and the protections we give American citizens. After a trial, if found guilty, he should be punished.

The one incident mentioned in the Boston Globe editorial is but one incident. There have been thousands of other people (admittedly, mostly non-US citizens) snatched off from American streets and put in prison without charges and without access to a lawyer or families. How many? We don't know -- the gov't refuses to say.

Another example is an Intel engineer, Maher Mofied 'Mike' Hawash. Maher was snatched off the street in Oregon and held without charges.

At the time, Intel VP Stephen McGeady wrote, "I think many of your readers would be surprised to learn that our government can detain indefinitely a U.S. citizen, especially one with a wife, three children, a job and deep roots in our community....Americans are taught that the Constitution protects us against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and that our freedom and these constitutional liberties are what we are fighting for in Iraq and elsewhere, yet one of our neighbors can be taken from his home or office and held without charge for weeks or months."

After months of imprisonment, Maher plead guilty in a plea bargain.

Guilt or innocence isn't the top priority -- the process is. Hitler executed a lot of guilty people in his concentration camps; what's the difference between his methods and the Texas death penalty today -- it's the legal process. It's following the rules of law and our laws give citizens certain rights, including a presumption of innocence, the right to a lawyer, to face your accuser, etc. Violation of these rights is LITERALLY un-American.

And this is what the Bush administration is currently doing. In the most literal sense, the people doing these violations are undermining our Constitution. Are these so-called "patriots" committing acts of treason?

Besides the previously mentioned Common Dreams site, another useful source on this issue is the ACLU's Patriot Act site and in particular, its Summary of the USA PATRIOT Act and Other Government Acts. A close examination of those sites will show the rights to a lawyer, fair trial, search & seizure, assembly and other essential rights in our Bill of Rights have been severely curtailed in the name of the failing war on terrorism. What's worse, this violation of civil liberties by Attorney General Ashcroft and Bush has resulted in 0 (zero!) terrorists being convicted!

Whether one agrees with all the ACLU's points or not, one should remember that there is a small difference between fascism and liberal democracy. While it may be melodramatic, one should remember that pre-WWII Germany lead the world in many ways. It only took a failed war and some economic chaos to pave the way for the election of Hitler and the rise of fascism.

And one should also remember Ben Franklin's words of wisdom, "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

(And with that said, climbing off from this soapbox is going to be a helluva job...:-)

Okay, I'm in the mood for a good troll... :-) Maybe you're one of the millions that haven't heard that key portions of the Bill of Rights have been revoked.

The answer: Why right here in the good ol' land of the free, the USA!

This editorial from the Boston Globe should illustrate the point.

FWIW, I'd also highly recommend that Common Dreams web site, if you're inclined to learn more. It is a site run by some Yankees in Maine which features tons of mainstream news articles from the US, Canada, and the UK, along with a smattering of leftish/non-mainstream articles. It's done in the concept of informing people and "speaking truth to power." A few searches on that site will turn up dozens of articles supporting the above statement.

Okay, I'm in the mood for a good troll... :-) Maybe you're one of the millions that haven't heard that key portions of the Bill of Rights have been revoked.

The answer: Why right here in the good ol' land of the free, the USA!

This editorial from the Boston Globe should illustrate the point.

FWIW, I'd also highly recommend that Common Dreams web site, if you're inclined to learn more. It is a site run by some Yankees in Maine which features tons of mainstream news articles from the US, Canada, and the UK, along with a smattering of leftish/non-mainstream articles. It's done in the concept of informing people and "speaking truth to power." A few searches on that site will turn up dozens of articles supporting the above statement.

So you're claiming that conservatives never bash conservatives? That's one funky world you live in. O'Reilly is bashing Dubya because he was forced to apologize (or as close as he'll ever get). George Will is bashing this administration. Plenty of conservatives are beginning to so. Do you know why?

Because this unimaginably inept administration is causing the conservative movement irreparable damage. Conservative Republicans are supposed to be "small government, fiscally responsible, personal freedom". That's the EXACT opposite of what this administration has done. What a tragic joke. And it will haunt the GOP with a taint for many years to come.

Even Robert Novak is now finding himself criticizing Dubya and crew. Because Dubya and crew are doing THAT MUCH damage to the conservative movement.

Fox News is extremely conservative, to the point of farce. How bad must if be if even THEY are beginning to raise questions?

I don't mean to attract flamebaiting or troll mod points - just take a look at these with a fairly open mind.
An aggressively liberal and unfortunately, anti-Bush viewpoint It still manages to raise interesting points.

Basic Education about the concept of Hubbert's Peak

A Dim View of what this change will mean

There is little doubt that life just two generations removed from ours will bear scant resemblance to the rich lifestyle we currently enjoy. Sobering but as true as tomorrow's sunrise, IMHO.

Oops, try this instead: Common Dreams

Lots of other locations are carrying a related story, Is 'global dimming' under way? By Robert S. Boyd.

...That way, some uneducated terrorists from The Great Wherever won't get new ideas using Google keyword searches like "explosives", "bombs", "nukes"...

What? You mean like Al Qaeda getting caught trying to reproduce something from the Journal of Irreproducible Results?

You're an idiot. You take a section of his post as though it's comical.

Rand was a bitch and not one I take seriously. Friedman, OTOH, has more economic clue in one of his dick-hairs than you have in your whole body.

Show me a successful command economy. Is there one? Prove it.

Here's a list you can research, some better than others:
USSR
Russia
China
North Korea
Vietnam
Argentina
Sweden
Denmark
Norway
Finland
India, 1948-1990
Cuba
Brazil
East Germany
Yugoslavia

Go look them up in the CIA World Factbook. Compare those still-existing nations to the United States or Canada or Switzerland. Pay particular attention to per-capita GDP.

Sweden is going to probably be your best pro-socialist argument.

But even there, they are trying market-oriented ideas that even America is afraid of, such as a school voucher system.

For almost every leftist, there is a corresponding ignorance of economics and even of fundamental recent world history. I know, because I used to be a leftist myself...

But look at the list I've presented above. Every one of those nations has a lower per-capita GDP than market-oriented countries. This is not a coincidence.

Milton Friedman wrote in "Free to Choose" that the starkest example of the problems of command economies could be seen by comparing West Germany and East Germany (the book was written in 1980, 9 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall). West Germany was a thriving market economy, where people were free to do generally as they please and sell what the please. East Germany was a wasteland with buildings which hadn't been rebuilt since their destruction in WWII.

Why else would the East Germans have been so happy to see the wall torn down? Why else would they be the ones tearing it down? If command economies work so well, why are people so unhappy in them?

Don't be an idiot. Go read works besides those on statist websites like Commondreams and the World Socialist Web Site.

• In 2002, 49.5% of all American households.
  
• Nearly half of all American households participate in the stock market. Some manage their own portfolios. Some hold stock through 401(k) plans, or other tax-advantaged accounts. Only 32 percent of households owned stocks in 1989.

Miami Herald, Jan. 23, 2002, Hundreds cast votes illegally in Broward: "The irregularities in Broward cast further doubt on the hotly contested Nov. 7 presidential election and amplify similar findings of illegal voting in Miami-Dade."

Palm Beach Post, May 27, 2002, Felon Purge Sacrificed Innocent Voters .

Silly boy! Try to use the big-boy voice when you're talking to grown-ups.

Theocracy: the belief in government by divine guidance.

• Bush proclaimed June 10 as the official Texas state's "Jesus Day."
• Bush funds churches using state money under his thinly-veiled "Faith-based initiatives."
• Bush declares Jan 21 as a National Day of prayer and thanksgiving
• Ashcroft holds daily prayer meetings in government buildings during hours. And, like King David, was anointed with cooking oil.
• etc.

Democrats made a number of mistakes in 2000; the first was running Al Gore as their candidate, but the second was in how they pursued the Florida issue. They should have demanded a recount of the entire state; it would have reeked less of Gerrymandering, and it would have resulted in a win. The NYT was right in saying that the mistakes were more wide-spread than just the counties that the Democrats picked out.

However, if you poke around even a little bit, you find numerous articles talking about this issue. Sure, it is always "BUSH WOULD HAVE WON IF GORE'S RECOUNT HAD BET ALLOWED!!!! (but he might have lost if they'd have recounted the entire state)", but the studies are still there saying that he probably (which is the same as "maybe" if you don't like the results) would have lost.

I have a little more faith that people will read the content, not just the headlines.

By the way, you didn't "dig" at all, much less "any further". Four links down from the headline you chose to focus on was a link to the consortium study that showed that Gore won. Just so you don't miss it again here are some more links to various sources. Much of that is raw data of the research, but some of the links I originally provided reported the results of the research. At least one of the links provide a number of different interpretations of the data, all of which show that Al Gore would have won.

Aw, what the heck... since some people are incapable of following links more than one deep:

• Slate
• Washington Post
• Common Dreams

International observers *are* going to be monitoring a few counties in Florida this year.

You are an idiot. Environmentalists are not only concerned about the heavy metals emitted by nuclear plants, but about the catastrophic effects of an accident at a power plant.

Have you heard of Chernobyl? Well, if that's too far away for you, maybe you would like to look into the missing fuel rods at this Vernmont nuke plant

A pencil size rod is missing and it is enough to make a dirty bomb and kill thousands. Even if it isn't used in a terrorist act, it will be fatal to anyone who comes into contact with it without being properly shielded. Considering that no one knows where it is, we don't know how many people have already died.

Those are the real concerns of the environmentalists that you ridicule. If you were to fairly criticize them, you would do the honorable thing, which is to fully articulate the position of those that you critique, so that others can really weigh out the arguments.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Bush rolled back ergonomic safety regulations and trivialized the nature of RSI.

It used to be possible to get your employeer to repair poor ergonomic conditions by law. It used to be easier to get compensiation and medical costs covered for these types of injuries. No longer. Thanks George!

Tell me, oh Johnny Carson, with a towel wrapped around your head and holding an envelope up to your forehead...are you considering just the non-exsistent WMD that Iraq didn't have or the WMD that the U.S. is now busy planting in Iraq ???

Transporter

...that you haven't visited the United States.

At least in Britain, Dasani is tap water. Another article goes on to say that if the bottle doesn't say "source" or "spring", its probably tap water.

Now Dasani is not the same as Dannon. Coke struck a deal with France's Groupe Danone to distribute Dannon brand water. That's probably tap water. This is easier to read and shows Coke markets Evian as its premium water, Dasani in the middle, and Dannon at the bottom which sells for less than the market average.

I don't like San Diego water. I hate Los Angeles water, even though both are canal water from the concrete aqueduct. I don't care for Fremont, CA water either. Yet 25 miles north in Berkeley and Oakland, the water is great. Probably because that's where I grew up and lived until recently. San Francisco can keep its Hetch Hetchy water to itself as its also not very good.

But there is a fact about Kerry's past that brings him closer to Bush than any of the other candidates. Both Bush and Kerry are members of a secretive society dating back to their respective days at Yale University - Skull and Bones. This fact has not been widely reported but when Kerry's campaign spokesperson was asked about it, she said, "John Kerry has absolutely nothing to say on that subject. Sorry."

You ask us to review why we are so hated but fail to question why we are so loved.

Certainly not for your foreign policies, maybe for pop culture? Those terrorist attacks have not occurred because the US is so loved, so your argument is moot. If you want to know why these terrorists are targetting the US you need to understand why they have their reasons to hate you. Is that so hard to grasp?

ALL governments have an agenda to gain more and at an efficient rate and obtain as much as they can when they can.

Yup, and that's why Portugal was admitted to the EU, because they were so rich and would pay lots of taxes to Brussels. And also why Estland, Letland, Lithouania, Poland, Slovenia and others are being addmitted into the EU right now, because the other countries can rob them of all their resources. NOT! Admitting those new member countries will cost the 'old' member countries loads of cash. We're trying to make the world a better place here. Please do not confuse US foreign policy with the foreign policies of EU member states. In the future (and no, that is not next year, but probably > 10 years from now) this will prove to turn out for the best for all european citizens, and hopefully for all people in the world. So, no, not all governments are out to obtain as much as they can. The US governments certainly seem to operate in that way.

You seem like an intelligent person, please use that intelligence to try and look further than what you are being shown.

Lets see: I give lots of arguments, you wipe them away with an unfounded "answers to wrong questions", you fail to make any point at all and then use my own quote against me, again without any substance to support the use of that quote?

*sigh*. yup. See this .

This became a rubber stamp court, with only one request out of over 7,500 since its inception being rejected by the judges. Of course, the people are unaware of it because the proceedings of the court are secret, and the defendents are usually unaware of the evidence being used against them.

The existence of the court is not secret though, as it was created by a law passed in the 80s, and the quantity of searches granted by the court is public. Indeed, the US government was accused of abusing this court recently to broaden its purpose, before the Patriot Act was "clarified" to permit such abuse by the US prosecutors, FBI and intelligence agencies. One of the judges on the panel scolded the US government for being deceptive in the types of cases it was bringing, indicating that the US government does try to bring people before FISA that are not spies, but instead ordinary criminals. The US appealed a decision to legally obtain a broading of the courts purpose, originally without legislation.

If I remember correctly, congress passed a law to "clarify" that the Patriot Act extended this to cover those suspects of "terrorism". Hasn't it occurred to anyone that none of the trials of suspected terrorists are public?

This is such a sad demise of the US Constitution and American liberty. To me, I'd be willing to die like our forefathers did to preserve American freedom and create the Bill of Rights. I just wish we weren't so willing to discard it today under the illusion that our life-spans will be longer. When I was a child, being willing to die to perserve American freedom was a common notion. Now, being willing to give up freedom to avoid the remotest chance of dying, no matter how statistically improbable, has become a de facto notion. To suggest otherwise, well, that would be unpatriotic! Or would it be terrorist?

Unfortunately, without the ability for the press or the people to attend trials of suspected terrorists, it's unlikely that this will ever be overturned. We'd have to prove that the system as used unjustly, but the Patriot Act has removed all accountability, so that it is nearly impossible to prove the injustice.

The question is, if it was "spies" yesterday, and now includes those labeled as "terrorist" or "threats to national security" by the investigators and prosecutors today, then what label is next? Or, are the current labels broad enough to permit US prosecutors to throw anyone in prison for life that they see fit? It's hard to discern when our government is no longer accountable to the people it's supposed to represent.

Is there anyway to determine what cases the government has filed to prevent public accountability under the Patriot Act? I'd like to follow up on this to at least try to estimate how many cases there are today. If at all possible, I'd like to know if it even remotely possible to discover any injustices occurring. Justice is, after all, the purpose of all this. Right?

Links:

THE SECRET FISA COURT: RUBBER STAMPING ON RIGHTS
Secret court meets to consider Justice Department appeal
Secret court gives U.S. gov't wiretap powers
Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft
Secret court may limit government power to spy on domestic terror

These links aren't in chronological order, and I obtained them using a simple

SCO never killed people nor caused children to be born with birth defects. Monsanto is far, far more irresponsible with their power. They created Agent Orange, Bovine Growth Hormone, and PCBs and have covered up known health problems caused by them for decades until exposed by whisteblowers. They created Terminator Seeds which destroy the ability of developing nations to maintain sustainable crops, and they've created a whole slew of "Roundup Ready" crops that are genetically engineered to withstand having pesticides dumped all over them (which are suspected to cause cancer). The sue small farmers whose crops are contaminated by pollen containing their patented seeds and financially ruin them.

I don't like to toss the word Evil around casually like some people, but Monsanto is Satan's Flaming, Spike-Studded Cockring.

One of my favorite quotes:
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) job."
-- Phil Angell, Director of Corporate Communications, Monsanto

Tipper was against music. John had a problem with a statue at the Justice Department.

Ah yes, they "knew the risk and accepted it"--good to see you have a solid grasp of class issues. More like: really needed the money and joined before Sept. 11th with the pretty justifiable assumption that the US wouldn't be going to war any time soon.

Or something

But since you, obviously, are wealthy enough to have avoided military service, I guess you can't ask them how they feel about being in Iraq.

Or alternatively for those that don't want to register at NYT.

Amidst the rise of viability of auditable electronic voting, Athan Gibbs, the pioneer of paper-trail machines, is dead in a suspicious car accident.

COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

The rest of the story here

"I'm still not convinced on global warming so how can I condemn another man who also isn't convinced."

Ok. That shows you're as ignorant as Bush. The difference is that you don't have to make decisions that can change the world, so you're excused to be ignorant. Even though Bush is dumb, he has specialists to help. And all these specialists, including those from Pentagon, are warning him about this. And he doesn't care. I strongly suggest you read this this

I love how you just say he lied to a whole nation in order to get support for the war. What did he say or even insinuate that was a lie?

You must been brain-washed if you din't notice the lies. He tried to picture Saddam as a threat to the US. But Saddam, althought being a son-of-a-bitch crazy loon, was harmless to the world at that point. His army was almost dismanteled, specially if compared to what it was some years ago. He didn't have any missile able to reach the continental US. He didn't have any WMD (in fact I am surprised the US didn't plant any WMD in Iraq, to be found). He was not affiliated with Al-Qaeda. And all reports Bush received indicated all this. But he tried to supress and change these reports and fabricate others, that would incriminate Saddam.

I suggest you read this excelent explanation, this and this. Please tell me what you think after reading these links.

The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

article here

Does anyone else find it weird that the maker of the horribly insecure "paperless" Diebold voting machines is a massive Bush Campaign contributor?

In Ohio [he] told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

[Link to the story quoted above]

Oops, answered my own question. Hope those kids like to play in the sand. One wonders what all those middle-eastern linguists - most of whom I'd presume will be middle-eastern themselves - will think of their new jobs.

They did it in 2000, with convention means of just not letting folks who disagreed with them vote. This year, they'll be able to do it by simply changing the numbers. Does this article not strike fear into any patriotic heart?

Pax Christi USA to bring International Election Monitos

I think that refining the internal combustion engines exhaust system to filter out C02 is the solution. Electric cars?
No way. Just more problems - battery disposal for one.

Honda'sZLEV is going for -0- emmissions gas cars. So, if would figure that if we could find a way to filter out the C02 from the exhaust then we are on our way to solving the greenhouse emissions problem.

Also, we got ourselves into this mess by using non-renewable sources of hydrocarbons - millions of year old oil from the ground. If we used a renewable source (e.g., hemp-oil/whatever) then the C02 emissions would be balanced with the C02 'locking' that occurs when a plant uses C02 from the air to grow. Burn a gallon of oil plant a crop that uses C02 to grow -- LAW::Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It is conserved.

As we now know the ultimate solution will only occur within a balance of use and renewability. No idea introduced today is going to work for a very, very long time and by then it might be too late to do anything anyway -- Ocean Coveyor Belt

"Twenty-two states in the United States have introduced legislation. VT, HI, ND, MT, MN, IL, VA, NM, CA, AR, KY, MD, WV have passed legislation for support, research, or cultivation." -- Here

Oh, by the way the Whitehouse wants your oil. -SB

Do you know what's the biggest cause of cancer in humans due to chemicals? Salt.

You forgot to mention the most dangerous chemical of all, dihydro monoxide. Why worry about mercury, when you have all that H2O around ...

No, the biggest environmental threat to humans isn't either radiation or chemicals, it's ignorance, stupidity, and paranoia.

It is a good thing then that we have Bush in the White House, to fight for more arsenic and lead in the water and more mercury in the air. These stupid environmental laws are just in the way when fighting against ignorance and stupidity.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1006-11.htm

Granted, the closed-minded Bush fanatics will dismiss this with hand-wave. But for those against Bush or who simply aren't sure, check it out.

Do I smell another visit to the DoJ?

I love the Department of Justice smell of Crisco and calico cat repellant in the morning!

(At the DoJ morning Bible Study, of course, not in Vietnam where you love the smell of napalm in the morning -- John Ashcroft, and George Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Trent Lott, Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and Russ Limbaugh, were all eligible to serve in Vietnam, but somehow never did.)

Look, I'ma War President [smirk]. Since 9/11, we realized we can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We need to act now. Al Queda operatives are trying to destroy America. Saddam was a dangerous evil dictator. By hurting big business, the terrorists will win. Democrats want to let the terrorists win, tax corporations and put "Queer Eye" reruns on C-Span. These are things we know.

Now, I don't know about you, but that last election? Where people say I didn't win [lip curl], even though the U.S. Supreme Court had run out the clock to make sure I did [grin]? Well, I felt bad when I heard those poor old, octogenarian Jews in Palm Beach County get all confused over the Butterfly ballots.

Now, with those electric voting machines? We can just flip a switch and turn those confused votes into the proper votes. We don't have time to wait around for the machines to be modified to keep paper records. At least not until after the re-election [smirk].

I have been assured by all the electric voting systems companies, all great supporters of the Republican Party, that their machines are in perfect working order and don't need audits or a paper trail to mess things up. Don't let the terrorists win!