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The military and secretive NSA operations do not care about you or your open source proxy software. Stop trying to make yourself feel special by writing convoluted conspiracy theories.

Effectively 'Rewritten' (that is to say, very 'creatively interpreted'), or openly disregarded, in many instances, yes.

The Bill of Rights was too inconvenient for the Shrubinator, so thanks to Patriot, and other absurdly dangerous legislation, they have systematically attempted to create a 'new, convenient, streamlined legislative environment' free of such cumbersome restrictions, all, they would have it, in the name of 'national security'.

To be very clear, I agree with the quote generally attributed to Benjamin Franklin:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Who's been paying attention? Let's take a quick inventory to see where we stand.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of speech, and the right to peaceably assemble
This now appears to apply only if you're in a 'designated free-speech *zone*' far away from the Shrub, or other government officials.

Similar aggressive tactics have been employed when confronted with any public opposition to administration positions. Steven Howards was arrested for simply voicing disagreement with Administration polices during a chance meeting with Cheney during a mall photo-op. Howards was taking his son to a piano lesson, and took the time to voice his opinion.

Another example is of the peaceful protesters ejected and threatened with arrest at the Ohio State commencement where Dubya spoke, simply because they attempted to peacfully and non-disruptively express disagreement with the Shrub and his his policies.

Still another is when two women, one the wife of a Congressman, were ejected from the Capitol building, simply for wearing T-Shirts with anti-Bush slogans into the Congressional Gallery. (The article references numerous other examples, as well.)

Freedom of the Press
Mostly, journalism from major news outlets in the US appears to be in significant danger from numerous sources. While it is still possible to find information if you dig for it, many of the significant stories never make major headlines, if they even see the light of day.

The Shrub has significantly reduced press events, and when holding them, has required journalists to submit questions in advance, selecting only those questions he chooses to answer, and calling only upon reporters who agree to 'stick to script'. Rather than challenge these policies, reporters have agreed to these stipulations, resulting in chilling effect, effectively self-censorship, rather than ask questions the President didn't like, at the risk of press room access.

Concurrently, starting in 2001, regulations limiting the scope of ownership of media outlets, designed to maintain diversity of opinion, so as to prevent control of too much of the media by a small number of individuals have been systematically attacked and dismantled. The result is that now most major media outlets in the US are owned by a small number of conservatives. (This has bee

I get so tired about hearing how wal-mart supposedly abuses their employees. Look, I know people who work there and they don't have any qualms.

Hm, you don't have to go to walmartsucks.org to realize that not everyone agrees with you or the people you know; a simple web search will do. You'll come across articles like this one, but it's probably just all lies...

This is not "Big Oil". This is Exxon Mobile. Exxon Mobile is clearly on the record denying global warming and fighting tooth and nail and dollar against anyone who says otherwise or who wants to do something.

Shell Oil and BP are just as firmly on the record saying that global warming is real and trying to help do something about it. You can argue about whether they are part of the problem or whether they are doing enough to help solve it, but they are not global warming deniers.

See this article for an overview of Big Oil and global warming.

Oil companies -- plural, eh? Which company besides ExxonMobil are you referring to? Most oil companies nowadays acknowledge global warming. Some are even publicly speaking out about it. Heck, when a news site like CommonDreams finds reason to commend them for their attitude toward global warming (CommonDreams is a liberal news site that makes The Nation read like FreeRepublic.com), perhaps you should stop lumping everyone into the same boat.

I'd like for everyone who still supports GWB for whatever reason to just consider the following few points and try to compose literate and thoughtful responses to justify his track record on any of these issues.

1. Political Appointments - The role of the president is to look out for the best interests of the 'People'. That means trying to represent the many varied interests of ALL the people. Now, Corporations are part of that group, as are members of Greenpeace and all us regular Joes who fall in the middle. The Bush administration has consistently biased most appointments in favor of corporate interests over all other interests. As detailed in the originally referenced article, "Cooney () was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before becoming chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality". How can he be expected to provide impartial leadership? This is just one of hundreds of obviously poor choices detailed here. I'm not saying that a former Greenpeace executive would be a better choice for any of these positions. The presidents job is to appoint knowledgeable people who have worked in the field and who are capable of weighing the needs and interests of all sides of an issue to provide decisions that balance those interests. Bush has always failed to do this

2. Personal Freedoms and Liberties - The documentation of the Bush administrations poor record on this topic is pretty extensive. Bush continually uses 9/11 as an excuse to chip away at the basic rights our country was founded on. Illegally tapping domestic phone calls, gathering huge databases of personal financial and travel information, and that small matter of imprisoning and torturing people for indefinite periods without regard for the basic civil liberties spelled out and defended by the constitution. All in the name of preventing another attack that may or may not be preventable. Millions of people die every year for millions of reasons. Tossing away the foundations of our country for a 2% improvement in the chances that you might learn something that could lead to a possible disruption of a plot that may or may not have been successful is not in the best interests of our nation and has been specifically warned against by just about every one of the founding fathers and other great American leaders since then, as seen here !

3. Iraq War - The decision to invade and occupy Iraq and the continued resistance to every sane voice begging for a change in policy will go down in history as the worst single piece of leadership in the history of our nation! Even if you ignore the fact that the American people were deliberately lied to in order to foster support for Saddam's removal, the disastrous planning, execution, and failure to learn from a single mistake or appropriately adjust policies or tactics based on past failures is mind-numbing.

4. Corporate Welfare - One of the few things GWB has done "For" the people is some tax cuts for middle America. Of course, this was done with gimmicks (mid year refund checks etc.) to mask the fact that the real tax breaks were going to huge corporations that were in no dire consequences before GWB came along. The Bush administration has taken every opportunity to push money back to corporate America in one form or another at the expense of many many programs to assist poor and

Don't forget that our president was elected based on a highly questionable election in 2000. Many people called it a bloodless coup! I have no explanation on how he was re-elected in 2004

U.S. Arms Sales to Israel End Up In China, Iraq: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0509-07.htm

You mean like NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, NPR, Various Publishing Houses

The New York Times and Washington Post have been reliably conservative on foreign policy. They're reliable supporters of Israel; they've were unquestioning of the Iraq war until recently (if they'd done their jobs and revealed Bush's bullshit before we were up to our necks in it, the war wouldn't have happened). The front section of the Post always has a bunch of ads for fighter planes and weapons systems, after all; a bit of war is good for their sponsors business. They feature conservative voices on their editorial pages, and their reporting on economic issues skews center-right.

I don't know so much about the LA Times. CNN is also full of conservative voices. NPR is not a for-profit corporation, but has a conservative bias in its sources. "Various Publishing Houses" is vague and meaningless.

The way I figure it, 1/2 is left wing, 1/2 is right wing, and 0 represent Libertarian position.

Libertarian capitalism - which is usually what's meant by "capital L" Libertarian, the position of the the Libertarian party, is a right-wing position. Properly speaking, left and right are economic positions, being in favor of labor and capital respectively.

(It is of course possible to be a leftist or socialist libertarian, but that's "little l" libertarian.)

The Wall Street Journal is often libertarian capitalist in its bias; certainly there are a number of smaller publications, such as Reason.

"Yes, I'm saying that conservative social positions correlate with provincialism and ignorance."

That is your opinion, and is based on the kind of elitism I detest.

No, it's not just my opinion.

It's long been clear that urban areas are more social liberal than rural ones. It's harder to maintain prejudices in a more densely populated area where your neighbors are diverse.

The more educated the population of a state, the less likely that state was to vote for Bush in 2000; college graduates are much less socially conservative than people with less education.

If being in favor of education and diversity means "elitism", then I will proudly call myself elitist.

How about this, I leave you alone, you leave me alone, I won't take your money for things you don't like, and you won't take my money for things I don't like. Deal?

The leave each other alone thing is fine. The "not take my money" has the complication of figuring out just what is my money, since money - like many forms of property - a creation of the state.

Libertarian capitalists like to talk about getting the government out of "meddling" in economic matters, but when I suggest revoking government issued corporate charters, land and resource deeds, patents and copyrights, all the government interventions that make capitalism possible, they blanch.

The New York Times (not exactly known to have a major conservative slant) doesn't bash Bush so instead the /. article has to insert in a completely unsupported accusation?

I hope you're kidding. You're assuming that the rate of loss is constant, which it is certainly not. Aside from warming factors in general, this warmth melted ice on the surface, forming pools. This water then trickled down through the ice, widening crevasses as it went, thus fracturing the shelf or alowing it to move, and shatter. Take a look at Larsen Shelf in the Antarctica. This is a shelf larger than Rhode Island. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-06.ht m http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImage s/images.php3?img_id=4562 http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/ ice_melt_010117.html

No link? Here are a few to check out.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://stat ic.tailrank.com/cache/b151a4f64c1058c585a2cf8524b4 a0e5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://tailrank.com/posts/56294 9953714293/Al-Qaeda_Training_Manual_Found_In_Iraq& h=117&w=200&sz=6&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=dx2cz9Re_e3BY M:&tbnh=61&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dterrorist%2 Btraining%2Bsite%2Biraq%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26l r%3D

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://coun terterrorismblog.org/badawi1-thumb.jpe&imgrefurl=h ttp://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/07/yemen_recap tures_jamal_albadaw.php&h=200&w=150&sz=18&hl=en&st art=2&tbnid=E6ftbs6lVrVl2M:&tbnh=104&tbnw=78&prev= /images%3Fq%3DQaeda%2Btraining%2Bsite%2Biraq%26svn um%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0324-09.ht m

http://regimeofterror.com/

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/cold/photos_prove _connection_between_iraq_and_al_qaeda_terrorists.g uest.html

You are welcome.

1. Crime requires poor people. This is because rich people make the laws (or buy the politicians who do) and they're not stupid, so crime is what poor people do.
2. But crime reporting requires rich people. This is because their taxes fund the police.
3. So to get a lot of reported crime, you need both poor people (to do it) and rich people (so it's reported). Hence this apparant effect.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/071900-105.htm

As is typical in our current economy, the abundance of natural resources typically translates into the abuse and impoverishment of the people who live near the resources.

Back on topic, if you had read the original article it goes into great detail on how the Gates Foundation annually gives away 5% of its value towards certain causes, only to directly counter those causes with the investments it makes with the remaining 95%. This isn't Gates hating, this is the Gates Foundation being hypocritical.

I'd have to strongly disagree. First of all, in my experience, the intellectual quality of bloggers really puts syndicated columnists to shame. (I'm talking about the upper end of them -- no doubt you can find lots of bad quality.) They can write much more and link to the basis for their claims. If anything is in error, they'll typically have comment and trackback capability so others can instantly expose them. Rarely will columnists deign to defend their assertions. After reading blogs for a few years, I checked back to some of the syndicated columns I had read (this is what I had in mind) and just marveled at how intellectually shallow they were. In contrast, check out this list of some of the blogs I read:

http://econlog.econlib.org/
http://www.overcomingbias.com/
http://www.economist.com/debate/freeexchange/
http://www.janegalt.net/
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/
http://patrick.net/wp/

Several of those are professors. Now, tell me they're not more refined than the columns you'd read in the paper.

> still no cure for 17 stab wounds in the back

Not so, if you're carrying some of that new coagulating agent medics are using in Iraq; even better if you're wearing one of their flac jackets.

1. Yet another reason to use encrypted email
2. Yet another reason to impeach him
3. Yet another reason to abolish presidential signing statements
4. Yet another reason to 'not trust the government'

The Mafia ordered the assasination, to mess up a much bigger plan:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1019-21.htm

Better don your tin foil hat...

The cameras have facial recognition now.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0112-06.ht m

It's even worse than that. For any given prediction, there's probably somebody making it. For instance, this guy predicts that global warming will cause an ice age. I'm not saying that's right or wrong; my point is that combined with the traditional predictions about what global warming will do, the end result is that the entire gamut is covered; no matter what, somebody gets to be right.

The problem is that in our wonderfully complex world, being right about an event doesn't particularly imply that you are right about the causation. Certainly, all else being equal I'd say the person who is correct would seem to be more likely to be correct, but it's far, far from a guarantee.

But it's really much worse, because any individual who did what Sony did could be convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and sent to jail for up to a decade. Instead, Sony has to give up what, 10% of their profits over a 3 month period? Less than 3% of their yearly profit (give or take)? How is that justice?

Perhaps the laws against individuals are too strict, rather than the laws against corporations being too light.

Oops, we already know that to be true.

Up to $180 per computer affected is reasonable, makes up for the damage they've done, and makes sure they'll never do it again. That IS justice.

I like the premise, but I think the metaphor is wrong: there is no actual debt, and in now way does being in prison function as repayment. Aside from other philosophical issues around the meaning of justice, individuals that demonstrate that they are a danger to society must be segregated from society at least until (arguably, only until) they are no longer a danger to society. The idea that someone presents such a danger that they need to be tracked suggests they are too dangerous to be "out." The theoretical streaker is unlikely to present any danger to society, whereas an unrepentant serial rapist with multiple prior convictions probably shouldn't be let out again, or at least until there's some plausible developments in psychiatry. But the same holds true for violent criminals, so clearly sex crimes are singled out solely for their prurient interest, by providing an opportunity to gratuitously describe sex in an offensive way that winds up voters but is without any political or legislative merit, which sounds a lot like a sex crime itself to me...

On balance though, we should be grateful for Lawrence & garner v. State of Texas. It would be a great help to pass a constitutional amendment barring laws that dictate the private behavior of consenting adults. Ask your legislators.

As the "Won't somebody please think of the children" subject alludes, the Simpsons have effectively commented on bogeyman politics, in particular with the bear patrol episode. It's just transparent pandering, creating a false fear and exploiting it; and all the better that the subject be indefensible, though simply defenseless will also work when all the good ones are taken. Sex criminals will always be an easy target, but once that bandwagon has left the station (again), it's time to attack immigrants (poor Groundskeeper Willie), or Albania, or homosexuals, or whatever.

The best thing about this sort of moralist pandering and posturing is that politicians are just as morally complex as everyone else and their utter humiliation is a nice reward for the harm they do, so we should all thank Limbaugh, Haggard, Barnes, Bakker, etc for the joy they've given us.

certainly possible. We have what? 140,000,000 square miles of ocean? To raise the sea level by 1 foot suddenly means an event involving 28,000 cubic miles of surface ice falling into the ocean in a short timespan (a year or less, perhaps). Assuming a 100 foot thick ice sheet, we're talking 1,400,000 square miles. Somehow, I don't see that as a reasonable event, GIVEN CURRENT CONDITIONS.

Yes, the conditions will change. But they are unlikely to change in such as a way that a piece of ice 100 feet thick and half the area of CONUS (CONtinental US == USA minus Alaska and Hawaii) might fall from land to sea without a significant warning - decades, most likely. Which gives us the decades needed to do the planning required to deal with it. (Bold emphasis mine)

In 2002, 3250 square km fell off the Larsen B Ice shelf over a 35 day period. That converts to about 1255 square miles while the thickness is hard to determine. Assuming there are 100 feet of ice above sea level, thats a little over half an inch in 35 days from a single ice shelf. Also, that article goes on to explain how the most likely cause of the break is climate change. There are other articles about the Ross Ice Shelf and its possibility of sudden collapse. As I'm sure you know, current conditions aren't the only factors that influence the ice. The 2005 deterioration of the B-15 iceberg off the Ross Ice Shelf is suspected to have been caused by a storm near Alaska that produced waves strong enough to break up the ice. The faster icebergs deteriorate, the faster the their ice is turned to water and added to the ocean's volume. I'm not trying to say that this iceberg could raise the sea level by a foot, I'm just trying to demonstrate how it is surely possible for these things to happen relatively quickly compared to decades or a century, and that 2 billion more industrialized people are not needed to cause it.

Even more so, these icebergs are similar to ice or snow on a roof (think 10 inches). As they melt, the edges fall off first. As the edges melt, due to a variety of reasons including internal temperature, mass, gravity and surface area , the rest of the snow melts and falls off at increasing speeds. The icebergs will not melt at a constant rate.

I'm much more concerned that the changes in salinity caused by massive amounts of land-ice going into the oceans will cause - shutdown of the thermohaline conveyer is not totally impossible.

I agree with you, this is a serious concern. Its also hard to know what the effects would be of combining global warming with a potential ice age due to the conveyer shutting down, or any other effects that might come from that.

Now, do you have a solution?

No, and I don't claim to have one. Again, I was just trying to show why I don't think that an increase in global temperature will produce more habitable and fertile land.

I think its important to again point out how this thread started. I'm not saying that I'm completely right on all of this. My goal to show that he was wrong. If you look at the initial post, I don't think you'll agree with that much of what he said anymore, or at least you won't say that he is right with high certainty.

Much of the world's ice is already floating on the oceans and is therefore displacing the water.

Flat out wrong. I couldn't immediately find a reference to contrast your lack of proof, but it becomes a moot point shortly.

All that floating ice melting would not raise the oceans even a millimeter. All the ice on land melting would not make much of a rise either... The worlds major ice stores are in Antarctica and Greenland. If that all melted the oceans would not rise enough to cause many problems.

All the ice on Greenland alone would cause a 15 to 20 foot rise in sea level (4th paragraph). Although the article states that it is unlikely for all of it to melt in this century, Greenland isn't "all the ice on land".

Just get yourself a globe and look how much ice area on land there is compared to the vastness of the oceans.

Wow; just wow. You do realize that the earth is in 3 dimensions right? Since talk about climate doesn't work and you demonstrated such a colossal knowledge of physics, let's try math. Earth ocean's are a combined total of just under 142,000,000 square miles. An iceberg named B-15 fell of the Ross Shelf and is approximately 4250 square miles with a thickness between 20 and 60 meters, so I'll be conservative and go with 20. 20 * 11,000 / 142,000,000 = .000599 meters or just over half a millimeter. Calculated at 40 meters it turns out to be .001197m and at 60 its .001796m. The West Antarctic ice sheet is "holding an estimated 30 million cubic kilometres" which is 30 billion cubic meters, which would raise the oceans levels 30*10^9 / 142,000,000 = 211 meters. Ice doesn't have to look big on a map to take up a lot of space. That last article I cited explains how they expect the Ross Ice Shelf to drop abruptly due to samples taken from the shelf, and that once one glacier disappears, the rest tend to follow more quickly.

David Kay is a REPUBLICAN who's been on the ground in Iraq for YEARS before the invasion as part of the UNSCOM weapons inspectors group. Not to mention he was on the ground right before and right after the invasion.

As far as Saddam and Al Qaeda?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/saddam-had-no- links-to-alqaeda/2006/09/09/1157222383981.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1013-04.ht m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3118262.stm

"We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks" - GWB.

I might be wrong on the number of Iraqi deaths but we have no credible source on how many have died. So go figure.

But the trial was a joke! When Saddam was in power, it was legal for him to do what he did. Now he's being hit with post-facto law. That's very scary. If he was being charged for crimes against humanity, he should've been locked up in a cold cell in the Hague and tried there. Don't we engage in these treaties for a reason?

Here is a link - but not a video. http://www.commondreams.org/views/022100-106.htm

The current El Nino cycle has inhibited hurricane production in the Atlantic, a well-known effect. So far, nobody is saying global warming will put an end to El Nino (to the contrary, some say it might make El Nino stronger), and El Nino/La Nina is a cycle after all, so we will have ups and downs in hurricane frequency for a long time to come.

:)

No the plan is called "damage control", know who is on this glorified panel? Here's a clue: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1128-28.htm

Of course, global warming is disputed science. That's why the Pentagon prepared a special report on dealing militarily with the changed climate. It's also why the world's second largest insurer Swiss Re commissioned a special task force to prepare for the impending financial catastrophe in the insurance industry.

This is not about people who understand science. It's about people who don't understand science and/or choose to ignore science for profit.

Do you think some scientist somewhere looks at a chart and says, "Oh, looks like the temperature line goes up?" Global warming is about time-based observation and scientific inference based on proven mathematics and statistical analysis. Because observations took place over years and in many different parts of the planet, we can say "with a high degree of confidence" that global warming is real. And, "high degree of confidence" is an understatement here. The regression tests, error bars, fitments of the vast majority of data on global warming is way within challenge by anyone with any scientific integrity. Read the papers by NASA scientists, climatologists, geophysicists. I would even go as far as to say the data on global warming is more solid than early data on almost any other major scientific advancement of the past 100 years -- nuclear, electronic, etc.

Science experiments don't require many different Earth's to verify this because science isn't about volume. It's about, well, science and knowing how to break down problems, and analyze measurements for precision and accuracy.

The experiments that break down the atmosphere verifying that increased heat capacity correlates to increased CO2 are done in high school science labs. It is *very disappointing* to see anyone posting here about science education without basically understanding what they were supposed to pick up from educators in the first place!

The democrats aren't the ones receiving public endorsements (and major contributions) from the voting machine manufacturers. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.ht m

See here and here.

Wrong-o.

The Alaskan reserve that everyone is having a hissy fit over contains around 2 to 3 years worth of oil at current U.S. consumption.

Phffft! That's a drop in the proverbial bucket!

That is what we've been fighting over?!? That won't make any difference whatsoever in our energy independence or national security, it will only prolong the inevitable. The only reason that is being argued over is because people are misinformed, have a political agenda to push, or stand to make money off of it!

We're going to trade that much pristine wilderness for 2 to 3 years worth of oil that won't make a difference? No thanks.

How about actually do something about alternative fuels, like we mean it...

do you understand why its a bad idea for the people getting elected to buy the tools that they get elected with?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.ht m/

It's theatre. The court he was tried in has no legal standing over crimes that were perpetuated before the court was created. It was in every sense of the word a kangaroo court. He should have been tried in The Hague at the International Court of Justice. The problem with trying him there is that the US would lose control over the proceedings and would not be able to use the trial for their own political gain.

Given Bush & Co.'s rhetoric and laws about their own immunity from war crimes I think that it is almost impossible that Saddam would have ever gone to The Hague. Also, as others have mentioned, a lingering trial may have led to embarrassing moments (such as Saddam or his legal counsel talking about US arms deals, the Iran-Iraq war, etc)... no, they want him dead and quick. What if the court gave him a life sentence and he writes a memoir (leaving in the juice bits, unlike Musharraf)?

There is also the fact that almost the entire European continent is against our illegal war(s) of aggression, and the fact that we blatantly lied to the UNSC about Saddam's WMD. A protracted trial would also bring renewed focus on our own use of chemical and near-WMD type weapons (white phosphorus and depleted uranium, respectively) that are illegal under the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. It might also remind people about how we killed 1.5 million Iraqis with sanctions (500,000 of those under the age of 15). Sanctioned killing plus current post-invasion estimates put our own dealing of death WAY beyond what Saddam did to his own people. Who is going to look like the hypocrite war criminal then?

a convincing explanation of why we even went in

Iraqi Oil Fields

For extensively documented long list of police brutality in the U.S. circa 1999 see:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR5114719 99?open&of=ENG-USA

Police killed almost 10,000 people in a 20 year period between 1976 and 1998:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0428-04.ht m

Police have tasered 167 people to death in just the last 7 years, clearly when a taser is deployed death ought not to result.

http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special43/articl es/1224taserlist24-ON.html

According to Human Rights Watch an internationally respected human rights organization these conditions obtain in American prisons:

"In recent years, U.S. prison inmates have been beaten with fists and batons, stomped on, kicked, shot, stunned with electronic devices, doused with chemical sprays, choked, and slammed face first onto concrete floors by the officers whose job it is to guard them. Inmates have ended up with broken jaws, smashed ribs, perforated eardrums, missing teeth, burn scars--not to mention psychological scars and emotional pain. Some have died.

Both men and women prisoners--but especially women--face staff rape and sexual abuse. Correctional officers will bribe, coerce, or violently force inmates into granting sexual favors, including oral sex or intercourse. Prison staff have laughed at and ignored the pleas of male prisoners seeking protection from rape by other inmates."

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/05/14/usdom8583.h tm

And the use of restraint chairs as torture devices in U.S. jails and prisons:

" restraint chairs have been used for punishment of nonthreatening behavior;

children have been strapped into the chairs for nonviolent behaviors;

nude inmates and detainees have been strapped into restraint chairs;

prisoners have been left in restraint chairs for as long as eight days. In some cases, the jail staff failed to manipulate the prisoners' limbs to protect against blood clots;

prisoners have been required to testify while in restraint chairs;

prisoners have been interrogated while in restraint chairs;

prisoners have been injured while in restraint chairs;

prisoners have been tortured by being hooded, pepper-gassed, beaten, or threatened with electrocution while in the chairs;

at least eleven people have died under questionable circumstances after being strapped into a restraint chair.

Use of the restraint chair is widespread: Jails, state and federal prisons, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, state mental hospitals, juvenile detention centers, and foreign governments are all equipped with the chair.

Amnesty International has called for a federal investigation into use of the restraint chair. The device "is an issue of great concern to us," says Angela Wright, a researcher at Amnesty's headquarters in London. "It appears to be used in some jurisdictions as a front-line or even routine form of control, including as a punishment for disruptive or annoying behavior."

http://www.progressive.org/mag_cusacchair

And swat teams are being militarized and given ex-military hardware:

"It's unlikely that the officer who shot Culosi did so intentionally. But it's also unlikely that the investigation into this shooting will address why police sent a military-style unit to arrest an optometrist under investigation for a nonviolent crime and why the officers had their guns drawn when approaching a man with no history of violence.

Slashdot alone has run numerous stories that make it clear that U.S. elections are regularly stolen. We will never have a real presidental election again. Because of human nature, people are oblivous to this and will deny the problem until it is too late.

Now now, I sympathize, but don't fly off the handle. It is at least possible that while the Republicans have a heavy finger on the scale, they may not be able to always tip the balance completely. You want to watch out for that kind of defeatism: a heavy turnout is the first defense against attempted fraud, so don't go around telling people voting is useless.

Here's a fantasy for you: while the Republicans will barely maintain control of the house (due to a few surprisingly strong wins in races that had looked close, possibly, oh, Tennessee and Virginia), the House will go overwhelmingly Democratic. Emboldened by this victory, the Democrats may miraculously develop some spine and begin pushing for authentic election reform, like say The Paper Ballot Act of 2006. The Republicans, seeing that the Democrats have some serious momentum, choose not to block this effort -- which after all is a push for fair elections, not for any particular Democrat advantage.

Like I say, a fantasy. You got anything better?

I don't have time to put up all the stories about election fraud now, but I'll give you my favorite: Gore's negative vote tally in one county. What are your favorite voter fraud stories?

I'm no statistician, but if the problems with electronic voting machines were simply crap software, and not intentional election rigging, wouldn't there be more evidence of errors in favor of Democratic candidates? Seeing everything always thrown to the GOP seems to be good signs of a conspiracy, factored with the CEOs of the voting machine companies promising to deliver votes to the GOP or getting elected by their machines.

NPR also helped kill off low power fm. I haven't been able to listen to them since.

How did I find out about this speech? I watched it at the time, live on C-Span.

You don't mean the address of the U.N. General Assembly, back on, September 24, 2006? Looking at the full transcript, I see that it doesn't contain this phrase.

On the other hand, back in March I can find references to stories with quotes like this: "I am convinced that in this century we will bury U.S. imperialism, sooner rather than later," Chavez said.

The US got the hell out of the empire game decades ago.

Well, I wish they'd do it again.

US imperialism does not exist, nor does a US empire.

Let us note for a moment that "imperialism" would be an attempt at attaining an "empire", it does not presuppose the existance of an empire.

Call me whacky, but since that Iraq had no direct connection to the 9/11 attack, I've had the odd thought that maybe the Bush regime figured that the US needed to conquer the entire Middle East. You don't have to squint real hard to call that "imperialism".

Anyway, considering that Chavez was plugging the Noam Chomsky book Hegemony of Survival, I think it's a fair guess that he was talking about Chomsky's notions about US imperial strategy:

Noam Chomsky on Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest For Global Dominance:

... when the bombing began, Arthur Schlesinger, a very respectable senior American historian, highly respected, one of Kennedy's advisers, had an article in which he said that the bombing of Iraq resembles the actions of imperial Japan at Pearl Harbor on a date, which the President at the time said, the date that will live in infamy. And he said President Roosevelt was correct. It's a date that will live in infamy, except that now it's Americans who live in infamy, and the world knows it.

This probably has more to do with the hurricanes and winter storms.

No, it doesn't.

During Katrina, the Feds were criticised for *not* [...properly rendering...] aid.

Yes, they were. But none of these provisions would have helped them. Bush's choice to ignore what was happening in New Orleans was his own doing (or undoing). No law prevented him from making sure FEMA had not been mismanaged or from putting forward the focus and attention at the appropriate time to be sure FEMA was handling the crisis in New Orleans. His desire to nationalize the troops and then use not helping New Orleans as the consequence for any state government that wanted to retain its sovereignty will go down in history as one of the most callous moments of any president's tenure. Bush can go to hell for doing that. Hopefully he will at least go to prison.

It's wrong to take away the voting rights of anybody. Just ask them to step down from any position that puts them in a conflict of interest.

Here in Ohio in 2004, Ken Blackwell was the Secretary of State, who is in charge of running the elections. He was also the head of Bush/Cheney re-election campaign in Ohio. This is was a conflict of interest. He should have stepped down from one position or the other.

Similarly, if an executive of a company that makes voting machines is giving speeches in support of a candidate, or writing in a fund-raising letter stating that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year,", that is a conflict of interest. Either work for the company, or work for a candidate/party. Go ahead and vote. But don't campaign or participate in fund-raising events. To do make voting machines and actively campaign for a candidate or party is a conflict of interest.

The problem is that when a private company is making voting machines, there is no built-in parity of the system. With the old paper ballot system, representatives from *both* parties were physically present during the voting and the counting, to provide oversight. In the case of black-box machines controlled by a private corporation, they do not have to have representatives from both parties witness the development and implementation of the machines. This will lead to fraud and corruption.

. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates /pfindex.html

10. Diebol

. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.ht m
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel 27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates /pfindex.html

10. Diebol

Actually, you wrote that there was a federal program that provided health care to all Americans. You then specified that the program you were on was AHCCCS. The conclusion that you were implying that AHCCCS was available to all American students comes directly from your sloppy writing. And despite your insistence that Medicaid provides health care to everyone, there's still 46 million Americans without health insurance. Even in Arizona, apparently, 18.7% of the population doesn't have health insurance. Oh, and here's a demographic breakdown of the people without insurance.

Furthermore, you don't seem to know the difference between "anecdotes" and "evidence". Your friends, money-driven nice-people that they may be, are going to be pretty self-selectingly biased. You would only meet nurses and/or doctors who decided to emigrate. Beyond that, you're just plain wrong. Every study I've ever seen on the issue has agreed with one fact: The U.S. pays a higher percentage (16%) of it's GDP for health care than any other country in the world. FYI the number is 9.7% in Canada. Thus, your UK doctor friend is simply wrong.

As for why they don't mention AHCCCS, I would hazard a guess that they don't mention the existence of those plans for the same reason they don't enumerate the private plans that exist, the annual budget of NASA, or the percentage of people who drive cars. It's not actually relevent.

Ordinarily, I'd agree, but this is a company whose CEO at the time said on the record that he is "commited to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president". He did exactly as promised, looks like. Open partisan bias like this makes me more inclined to believe that malice was involved.

The foundation of Diebold Election Systems' security includes several layers of physical and digital safeguards and multiple audit trails including both digital and voter-verifiable paper audit trails.

Secretary of State Blackwell has denounced any attempt to require a paper trail as an effort to "derail" election reform.

For a (slight) glimpse at the stakes of a game like this, consider the recent Robin Williams film "Man of the Year". The movie was okay, but the truly frightening thing was how likely a scandal like a rigged election, purposefully or otherwise, might take place. However, before I go into some facts I found through surfing about Diebold and electronic voting, I wanted to point out that even if it was demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush was elected through vote fraud of some kind (not that many of us need any further convincing), it doesn't mean Kerry automatically gets to take the White House and Bush is out. What would most likely happen, along with a series of investigations and lawsuits, is the Supreme Court court would invalidate the election results and declare a new election, at a reasonable time period. Dennis Hastert would assume the throne until the new election results were confirmed but nothing Bush has done would be invalidated, at least, not right away. Even if he was fraudulently elected, he was still the de-facto sitting President and so his actions would be legal (in a manner of speaking). Congress could take some action to reverse some of his doings, but that assumes they want to in the first place. Now, on to Diebold. Found via a Google of "Diebold facts": 1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S. http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold 2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886 5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines. http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html 6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee. http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26 http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p 7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candid

How about the case of Nobel Prize winners arrested for protesting Bush's Iraq war policy? http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file =/headlines03/0326-10.htm

Or how about Cindy Sheehan being arrested being arrested for her protests against Bush? http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0926-12.ht m

Then there was Bill Neel, only one of many many examples:

"When Bush went to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us."

The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech.

The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, but folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0104-04.ht m

Then there's three Medford school teachers were threatened with arrest and thrown out of the President Bush rally at the Jackson County Fairgrounds Thursday night, after they showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Protect our civil liberties."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1015-06.ht m

There have been too many documented cases of harrassment of people criticizing Emperor Bush for you to laugh it off, so, take a hike, Young Republican Kool-Aid drinker.