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If you believe Greg Palast, those emails aren't so lost after all. His claim is that Rove and company messed up and accidentally sent a bunch of those emails to http://georgewbush.org/ addresses instead of http://georgewbush.com/. If these emails are genuine, they detail, among other things, how Republican operatives used a practice called caging to suppress probable opposition voters.

Of course given the nature of email, it's probably not provable that the email is genuine. And it doesn't help that Palast has a bit of a muckraker reputation. From what I've seen, he does have a bit of a bias, but I've never known him to fabricate his evidence. Personally I'm inclined to believe the emails are real, but, like I said, I'm not sure you can prove that. Unless of course they also turn up in the White House archives.

Oh, right. Nevermind.

In addition, during this fear driven propaganda-fest, free speech is confused with anti-Americanism. And everything else that has made the US a great place to live has ground to a halt. Even the ill-conceived 'freedom zones' are getting further and further away from this war-happy candidate as I type this, and that is ignoring the massive vote fraud, and voter intimidation.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while listening to mouth-breathers spouting Republican talking points, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Republican machine that has run faster from the truth, all the while tossing 'loyalty pledges' and cease and desist orders at anyone who may disagree, despite the millions of people who share the need to be rid of this administration. My Tandy 102 with 32k of RAM demonstrates more resolve and better judgment than Bush most times. From a leadership standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Bush is a superior candidate for president.

Bush addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to vote for Bush over other more truthful, reasoned, smarter and stable candidates. --

• Bardnik
• Bush
• Cobb
• Kerry
• Nader

You sound like a well intended individual, it's just unfortunate that all your good intentions have bad consequences. Point by point:

the platform they advocate and realize its concentrated Big Business Republican
No, take the power away from government to regulate and aid business, and you're left with more small businesses.

Sell National Reserves and Parks to private owners
The largest polluter in this country is the federal government. People who own private land take better care of it because they have a greater interest in it

Make pollution a civil offense?
Right now you're prevented from suing polluters because they lobby the federal government into passing laws so that it's not even a civil offence

Eliminating the minimum wage really isn't as drastic as it seems, except for those immigrants that Badnarik claims are vital to American prosperity
The minimum wage causes unemployment. People can choose where they want to work, and if they wish to seek a greater wage.

How about you quit spending all your time letting politicians run your life and worry about yourself. You will find that it's better for everyone if you worry about yourself, and not everyone else. Any time you give the government the power to do good, that power will eventually be used to do evil. The problem is not the corruption of power, rather the power to corrupt. - Michael Cloud

And VOTE BUSH!

I am personally not much of a fan of TLDs. In my experience, they just lead to confusion. Most domains are registered under .tld, so that's where people will look, even if they should technically be somewhere else. This is also how domains are registered (compare georgewbush.com and georgewbush.org). Outside the US it's even worse - sites often have the country TLD, but sometimes a gTLD. To avoid confusion, some sites are accessible through multiple TLDs.

So, if TLDs are not being respected, why have them at all? Some have tried me that it organizes the namespace hierarchically, thus distributing the load. I don't think it helps a lot, if most people go for the .com anyway. The only people who benefit are those who profit from more domain registrations.

My proposal? Change the system so that top level domains can be directly registered. E.g. Google would get just Google, with no .com or anything. While we're at it, we might as well get rid of the ass-backwards naming, e.g. google/www/search rather than www.google.com/search. Companies that actually use the TLDs to select sites in different countries could still do so; instead of google.de and google.co.uk they would get google/de and google/uk.

And one more pet peeve of mine: we could add support for IP-IP encapsulation. That way, if your server is hosted between a NAT box, you can just instruct clients to route the packet to your internal IP via the NAT box. Of course, the client and the NAT box would have to support it as well...

Sorry about the nick, but no time (thinks, of course I have time, but I'm too lazy.)

The W site is configured not to work for those without a US proxy.

Try this one:

https://georgewbush.com/

CLICK HERE HERE.

Bush(www.georgewbush.com): 303 errors.

Kerry(www.johnkerry.com): 2 errors.

Nader(www.votenader.org): unable to validate.

Badnarik(badnarik.org): 13 errors.

Cobb(www.votecobb.org): 217 errors.

The site crashes Mozilla 1.7.3, at least on my machine.
Anybody else?

Anyways, it's also possible to use dot at the end of the .com, eg. http://georgewbush.com./

http://georgewbush.com./

Works. (notice the dot)

When I try to go to http://www.georgewbush.com/ in Firefox, the browser immediately crashes. I just noticed this now (it was fine a couple of days ago). The site works fine in IE and Konqueror. Anyone else having this problem?

In a time where 537 votes makes ALL the difference, the ten-thousand plus Americans overseas certainly do not consider themselves a statistically negligible group. Your feelings may vary.

Granted, it's primarily Republicans that are fighting to ensure that not all the votes counted, as they did in 2000 when they argued before the Supreme Court that racially marginalized populations don't deserve to have their votes counted (being too brown, and all), but it's not at all inconceivable that someone overseas might not know how to vote and might need to find out how to vote. While they can, of course, search for the information on Google and check out cached pages and do a reverse DNS over IP doubleback-traceroute off a proxy server in Malaysia to get to the information they need, chances are they are not as computer savvy as your average slashbot (though certainly more worldly, as you've pointed out). In fact, there is undoubtedly someone out there that can only guess at where they might go, and it certainly seems to the layperson that the candidates that want your vote might have information on how to vote on their webpages. Guessing http://www.georgewbush.com/ is a lot easier than guessing http://www.eac.gov/register_vote_forms.asp.

Of course, if people overseas can't get to the cesspool of lies that is georgewbush.com, they're more likely to go to the mildly festering swamp of lies and revealing truths at http://www.johnkerry.com/, or preferably the amusing and admirable http://www.georgewbush.org/. Either way, it's a step in the right direction (or at least shorter strides in the wrong one).

It's nothing but parinoia. As long as you're willing to sign a Loyalty Oath you should have no problem accessing the site. They'll probably even mail you an absentee ballot.

When setting up a site on Akamai you have to set the origin (I've done many of these!).

This still works, ripe for a DDOS... origin.georgewbush.com

Try this.

Well, the hackers will never think of using this one https://georgewbush.com/

And that's set up a China style firewall around the entire country & limit its citizens information access within its own borders

Here's a fun game to play for those of you outside of the US - try to go to http://www.georgewbush.com/

When I type this link from outside the US I get Access Denied.
What's that all about?????

http://www.georgewbush.com/cheeseburger_eating_mon keyboy

...and for some reason, if try to access George Bush's campaign web site from outside the US, you get Access Denied.

Those were some insightful comments from Mr. Torvalds. Interesting that they are such simple words, the things they express so obvious and down to earth, but since they come from a public figure, they have a lot of authority.

Of course, there are other public figures whose statements make a lot less sense; being deceptive rather than insigtful.

Kerry vs Bush? Read all about it here: http://www.georgewbush.com/

You're also relying on 20 year old studies as to what percentage of reporters consider themselves liberal.

NOT TRUE. The Pew Research Center conducted the study just this year (2004) and released its findings MAY 2004. I EVEN SAID THAT IN THE ESSAY. A synopsis can be found here.

...If you refuse to believe that, than consider this, if reporters are constantly surrounded by information maybe you should consider why with all that information they would be liberal? Perhaps it's because being liberal is what intelligent people are?

Ahh... Here it is, ladies and gentleman, for your viewing pleasure: the "enlightened liberal." He professes tolerance, but anybody who disagrees with him surely must be stupid... or--better yet-- evil . He likes to assume that only he can appreciate the fine arts and the complicated public affairs. Therefore, it only makes sense that he and his ilk dictate how the rest of us should live and what we should hear and see. After all he knows what's best for us--even if we can't see it for ourselves.

-Grym

"I am sorry Dave. I cannot allow you to agreee to this agreement."
"Hal...!!! Open the webpage HAL!"
"I'm sorry Dave, it has a Nigerian scam on it."
"Hal!!! It's not a Nigerian scam. It's President Bush's campaign page. I need to read about his views for the big election. Since you wouldn't let me read CNN, this is my next option."
"I'm sorry, Dave, but the answer is still, No."

It is free speech, and somebody is free-speech squatting on georgewbush.net and georgewbush.org. The official site for re-election of President Bush is www.georgewbush.com.

However, these sites were not registered directly by the opposing candidate.

What about the guys squatting on georgewbush.net and .org? www.georgewbush.com is the officially endorsed site of President Bush, but dubya's team wasn't smart enough to pick up the .net and .org versions.

I just figured I would show that this tactic is non-partisan :)

Thanks to the net, as an American am acutely aware of some heinous problems with our government and our economy. The worst of the dangers (govt spin pro-war 1984-style, Patriot Act, outsourcing, horrific public education system) are largely ignored or spinfully reported by mainstream media and these crooks, but I can see for myself online. Hopefully there is a trend here towards more awareness, even though so much is still hidden from us.

What the Chinese govt seems to understand, and what I fear most for their subjects, is that sniffing, blocking, filtering, and controlling the Internet is the most important means of keeping power from the people in the future. How will they do it? Is it possible? I fear that it IS possible. If you control all the fiber coming into the country, and you control everything published inside the country, then you can just keep on governing the old-fashioned way.

I am now finished with work.

I agree. But some of President Bush's programs seem more classically liberal in nature than following the ideal of "personal responsibility".

Hmm. Equality of opportunity. I found an interesting article that argues not for Equality of Opportunity, but for Freedom of Opportunity. By using the phrase Equality of Opportunity your are assuming that someone (the government, I presume?) will be defining what is "equal".

Even so, I can't just trust a random web site from someone who may be more libertarian than conservative. So, with some reservations, I'll give you the equality of opportunity line as a "conservative value".

And exactly how does that differ from what a "liberal" believes?

OK. But again, is that "conservative value"? That's just basic economics. It is accepted that small business provides most of the jobs in this country. How can that be a "conservative value"?

While there have been economic arguments in favor of tax cuts, I still do not understand how those tax cuts work in balance with huge budget deficits. Under budget deficits, someone has to pay, eventually. And, making our children pay is not a "conservative value".

I would disagree that is a conservative value. Why? here and here. Also, AFAIK, the first President to try to spend his way out of an economic downturn was FDR. Not exactly a conservative icon.

totally petulant

You mean this one? I've never had a problem with it...Sure you're going to the right address?

What is with germans and space lately...first they report on a missing russian space shuttle...which some german wants to buy...and now they want to go to mars...

Arr... and they've built some our rockets too... what do they think they are? superheros or or what?

I like G.W.'s specific proposals, but I just wish I could know if he will actually do them.

It feels like I have to choose between a guy that isn't promising to do anything specific (except trade barriers, which have *never* worked), and a guy that failed to do what he said last time but is again promising to do some decent stuff.

Senator John Kerry missed 70% of the votes of the 108th Senate (1/1/03-7/6/04).

I don't know if he was on vacation, but he sure seems to be AWOL from his job most of the time.

Why is your job security the responsibility of the President?

Because it is.

Why is your job security the responsibility of the President?

Because it is.

I know this is off topic but food for thought. If we can ./ a massive website like Nasa, I wonder what affect we will have on election day if we ./ georgewbush.com and johnkerry.com?

• despite the increasing budget deficit. When George W Bush took office there was a $236.4 Billion surplus (Source: Congressional Budget Office.) The budget deficit of $446 billion (Source: CNN.) In addition, the national debt has incressed from $5,674,178,209,886.86 to $7,347,867,800,168.01 during the Bush administration (Source: US Treasury Dept. Office of hte Public Debt)
• [Bush Supports] Pre-emptive military action anywhere in the world to prevent potential threats toward the United States " we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of selfdefense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country...To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." -The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, written by The National Security Council and approved by George W Bush (Sept. 2002) The statement which you claim is one sided says exactly the same thing as Bush's own office policy documents.
• [Bush Supports] addressing the budget deficit, if at all, by cutting government spending (except for defense spending) rather than raising taxes "Many of the tax cuts - including the new, low 10 percent tax bracket, the reduction in the marriage penalty, the doubling of the child tax credit, the phase-out of the death tax, and the increase in small business expensing - are set to expire. This tax relief must be made permanent so families and businesses can plan for the future with confidence." Source: The Bush Line: President Bush's Record of Cutting Taxes from George W Bush's Offical Campaign Website) That sure doesn't sound like he wants to raise taxes and the only other way to balance the budget would be by cutting spending.
• [Bush Suppoorts] Opening more forests in the US to logging and opening more Federal land to oil exploration "President Bush will seek to promote environmentally sound domestic oil production" (Source: A Plan for Creating Opportunity for America's Workers, George W Bush's Offical Campaign Website) and signed the ironically named "Healthy Forest Initative" which opened a huge amount of public land for logging.

• despite the increasing budget deficit. When George W Bush took office there was a $236.4 Billion surplus (Source: Congressional Budget Office.) The budget deficit of $446 billion (Source: CNN.) In addition, the national debt has incressed from $5,674,178,209,886.86 to $7,347,867,800,168.01 during the Bush administration (Source: US Treasury Dept. Office of hte Public Debt)
• [Bush Supports] Pre-emptive military action anywhere in the world to prevent potential threats toward the United States " we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of selfdefense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country...To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." -The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, written by The National Security Council and approved by George W Bush (Sept. 2002) The statement which you claim is one sided says exactly the same thing as Bush's own office policy documents.
• [Bush Supports] addressing the budget deficit, if at all, by cutting government spending (except for defense spending) rather than raising taxes "Many of the tax cuts - including the new, low 10 percent tax bracket, the reduction in the marriage penalty, the doubling of the child tax credit, the phase-out of the death tax, and the increase in small business expensing - are set to expire. This tax relief must be made permanent so families and businesses can plan for the future with confidence." Source: The Bush Line: President Bush's Record of Cutting Taxes from George W Bush's Offical Campaign Website) That sure doesn't sound like he wants to raise taxes and the only other way to balance the budget would be by cutting spending.
• [Bush Suppoorts] Opening more forests in the US to logging and opening more Federal land to oil exploration "President Bush will seek to promote environmentally sound domestic oil production" (Source: A Plan for Creating Opportunity for America's Workers, George W Bush's Offical Campaign Website) and signed the ironically named "Healthy Forest Initative" which opened a huge amount of public land for logging.

We wouldn't be in war if say someone like John Kerry had won the 2000 election?

You mean Gore?

If you haven't, I'd suggest watching the speech he gave in May (the one Republicans harped on as crazy ranting) titled Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore Speech on Iraq Policy linked from here on C-SPAN. I watched the speech and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be in Iraq if he had won the 2000 elect... if Gore was president. ;)

My biggest complaint with liberals is that they are emotional and reactionary. The liberal philosophy appeals to the heart not the sense.
I feel the same way about conservatives (substitute emotional for manipulative), so we'll have to agree to disagree.

Where has Kerry stated how he would handle this war he would inherit?

That's one of the biggest problems I see that Kerry has: a weak, all-talk-no-action Iraq policy. Iraq is the biggest election issue today, and to take a cursory look at his website, you wouldn't know that we're at war there. His "plan".

But what about Bush? Where has he laid out his plan? It's his war, shouldn't he lay out his plans? Maybe here? Nope, no plan. Nobody knows what they're going to do with Iraq, but Bush should actually be doing something right now. Right now, Bush is the President of the United States. He stirred up a hornets nest in Iraq. What is he doing about it right now? He's not telling you.

...how else can you explain thousands of liberals being explicitly anti-Bush while supporting Kerry, a candidate that supported the same policy they cite as grounds to get rid of Bush for?

Liberals, I guess including me, rally around Kerry because he's the only hope we have of getting rid of Bush. We're pragmatists that way. That's why we're against Nader running. To be honest, I didn't vote last election. I wasn't a Democrat or a Republican. I wasn't even registered to vote. But you can bet I'll vote in this election. I'll vote to change the course, because I see us headed over Niagara Falls, and I want to try and turn the boat around.

Come to think of it, I dont' remember the liberals denouncing the fall of communism as a result of Reagans coldwar hedge bet. Amazing though, they sure as hell knew that spending was wrong at the time.

Do you still beat your wife?

Personally, I believe that deficit spending is almost always wrong, and deficit spending on defense when there is not a clear need for it is even more so. Having been very young at the time when this all happened, I can't give you more than that.

At least President Bush discusses the problems facing Social Security and gives the general philosophy behind his solution. John Kerry doesn't even list Social Security as a national issue.

Is to read each candidates website, but ignore anything they say about the other candidate unless its positive.

Read what Kerry has to say about Kerry.
Read what Bush has to say about Bush.

Because the candidates tend to be more honest about the positive things about themselves.

Don't read in the media about a speech, read or watch the speech yourself (and again, ignore anything they say about the other candidate). cspan.org, the parties themselves, or the candidates websites are good sources for speeches. (Weirdly, the Bush campaign streams Kerry's acceptance speech)

I got involved seriously in researching politics for myself on the internet because I went to the state department website and signed up for the email of the briefing transcripts. Same with the DOD.

I was shocked at just how badly skewed the mainstream media coverage really is, how fundamentally incompetent they are. Now I don't mean to say that everything the administration says is correct. What I mean to say is that almost anything the media says the administration says is incorrect. That is, they're not even good stenographers.

I was also shocked at how stupid the questions were. Sometimes I thought the reporters were intentionally trying to start a war.

That's a good place to get started.

The next level is that you can go ahead and read the negative stuff, but only after you lookup the response from the candidate on their website. So you have charge/comeback. Don't let unsubstantiated charges go by. Neither candidate is lily white when it comes to honesty in their negative moments. In my experience, Kerry has been a little less truthful, but you need to draw your own opinions.

After that, download and review the platforms. W's is here: http://www.georgewbush.com/media/agendaforamerica. pdf K's here: http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/our_plan_for_america. pdf

(Don't be put off by the length of the Kerry one. W's is actually more detailed because its in bullet point form, while K's is padded with a bunch of speeches and attacks on Bush).

For domestic issues, the parties agree more then you might think about what the problems in America are, the differences are in philosophy about how to go about it. The Democratic response is always pro-labor, pro-lawyer, pro-government, the Republican always pro-business, anti-lawyer, pro-free-market.

For foreign policy issues, I recommend the magazine Foreign Affairs. Its a little dry, but its where the foreign policy establishment in America (both parties) discusses what's _really_ going on. Again, you have to kind of filter out the bias of the author, but its the most indepth.

Personally, I do all of the above, plus I read a lot of weblogs and write my own: http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/

Finally, don't take it too seriously. The people who are really involved in politics are their own versions of geeks. (If you watch any of the conventions, that's really obvious, its like a Comiccon where everyone wears ties.) All this stuff is a very complex game, that ultimately, we use to test the candidates. People who are good leaders manage their campaign well, and inspire and motivate their people, which helps them win.

What is going on in the UK? I thought they were our allies. I mean, before I saw this article, I was a huge fan of Honeydew and Beaker. But after seeing this picture, it is obvious that Dr. Honeydew is a terrorist, and, furthermore, is violating Beaker's civil rights with the electrical cord from a washing machine. This kind of thing cannot be tolerated. What would Mr. Wizard say? And why is Kermit supporting this? If things keep going this way, I know that it is clear to us all that we will have to liberate the citizens of the United Kingdom from the terrorists and cults that are being imposed on them by their evil dictators.

I for one welcome our super-intelligent space monkey rulers.

• First, you have to obtain a copy of HOW TO CREATE SHIT CONTENT AND SELL IT FOR LOTS OF MONEY and read it.
• Second, you need to succeed in creating an album (quality is not important)
• Third, you need to apply to the official RIAA membership council and wait for approval.

• First, you have to obtain a copy of HOW TO CREATE SHIT CONTENT AND SELL IT FOR LOTS OF MONEY and read it.
• Second, you need to succeed in creating an album (quality is not important)
• Third, you need to apply to the official RIAA membership council and wait for approval.

Warning: Please save any important work with mozilla that you might have been working - The site may crash your browser.

For USians, if you voted for George Bush, and supported republican policy that'd be fixed. He is a supporter of a "loser pays" rule, so Microsoft would end up having to pay all the court and lawyer fees for you after you win. Furthermore it would prevent frivolous lawsuits like SCO v. Linux. Democrats are a staunch hater of such rules.

Furthermore, the k5 article about Kerry being worse than Ashcroft on civil liberties is an interesting thing to ponder this election year.