Slashdot Mirror

Nobody told you anything. You read about it on ESPN last week.

You are a dumbass.

A few things. The democrats didn't think they could win this presidential election, so none of the strong candidates (like Hillary Clinton) ran. So, John Kerry ends up winning the primary, but it might as well have been any of several others (Clark, Dean, etc). Kerry has a problem, in that he has a record which indicates he likes to raise taxes, he isn't very religious, and he won't take strong positions for fear of losing the so-called swing voters. The problem is, he can't energize the far left (unlike Dean), and the swing voters are at best mildly interested in Kerry.

President Bush, on the other hand, has no problem holding his own base. He's religous, so the Christian right will vote for him consistently, he says he's against big government (even though his record indicates otherwise), and he's definitely been pro-business. Furthermore, he has a very strong, reassuring anti-terrorsit message. He went into the Iraq War with an extraordinarily high approval rating, and is still enjoying the benefits, even though his approval rating has since dropped.

Furthermore, Kerry is basing large portions of his campaign on asinine arguments. Saying the President didn't try hard enough to build a broad coalition is a recipe for disaster. Bush spent 11 months trying to convince the UN to go to war, and the "Coalition of the Willing" has 46 public members. Now, what he should be criticizing the President for is telling the UN we would go to war with Iraq with or without their help. That was practically asking that they stay out of it. Furthermore, a lot of Americans think we should have toppled Saddam in 1992, and didn't understand why we didn't at the time.

Kerry's criticism of the Patriot Act is also disingenuous, since he wrote part of it, and because he has a historically worse record on civil liberties than John Ashcroft. One of the big criticisms of the Patriot Act is that it's being used against drug dealers more than it is against terrorists, but that's exactly what Kerry has been working towards for years. So he's not getting much love from the undecideds on that account.

Finally, we have a nasty history (which is in more people's minds in the US than you would think... you can thank Hollywood for that) of half-assing things in the Middle East and making them even worse than they were before we went in. Witness our support for Afghanistan against the Soviets. After the Soviets were defeated, we pulled support and the country fell to the Taliban (who we also funded, and then pulled the funding for [funny how this keeps showing up]). A lot of Americans are painfully familiar with that now. Similarly, the CIA has supported numerous rebellions in Iraq, then pulled that support just in time for the rebels to be slaughtered. I could go on in this vein about Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, etc. Pulling out of the Middle East has never worked for us, and has always made things worse. So, a lot of Americans realize that while invading Iraq probably wasn't a good move, pulling out would be a disaster. Kerry keeps vacilating on whether or not he wants to pull out, and that isn't helping his chances of getting elected.

I could go on, if you'd like, but I think the above should give you some idea of what's going on here.

Ok, ok, you may be right. Lets see if any of the main sites seem to be blocking access to someone that is on 48 state balots:

CNN = 0
FoxNews = 5
msnbc = 4
abc = 5

For someone that has made it on 48 states don't you think there should be at least some media coverage? Replace Badnarik with Nader and you will get over 500, replace with one of the two heads and you will get about 4 times what nader gets.

I think I have been in the news more than Micheal Badnarik. Why is that?

There's no reason to attack Bush about his service in the National Guard
A poor man's son would have been sent to Vietnam immediately upon being AWOL from the Alabama Air National Guard.
If his absence had been as long as Bush's, he would have been called a deserter in time of war and would have done a stretch in Leavenworth.

If it turns out that [Kerry] wasn't as courageous as he wants you to think
Witnesses have to recommend you for medals with written testimony specifying the details of your valor.
On October 14, ABC Nightline did a report on the incident.
They went to the location of the action and asked the locals what happened.
The locals said 20 Viet Cong put up a hell of a fight.
**My own view** Whether or not Kerry was the one to kill the guy with the grenade launcher, gathering it up kept it from being used against his guys by a live commie.

gewg_

And Michael Eisner wouldn't say "Pooh Pooh" either; instead he'd say "money money".

Currently the page says:
> Estimated cost of clean up to prevent further toxic leakage is millions of euros.

Millions of euros is small change.

However, the actual article says: Strand said it will take billions of dollars (euros) to clean up.
Since the source is ABC news, I assume that they use the American billion (10^9).

Now that is a whole different story, considering the fact that the projected revenue for the Russian Y2005 budget is only ~92 billion Euros.

A conservative assumption of single digit "billions" results in something like 10% of the total budget revenue.

Just for comparison, this would be akin to the US spending 200 billion dollars on a similar task.

I just spent a few days in Houston Memorial Herman Hospital where they have a sort of interesting setup.
The old TV's are gone, they have flat screens on a boom that you can pull down to your face and watch TV on, surf the net, etc..
My complaint with it was that it's credit card driven, you get about 10 channels for free but they are all bullcrap channels, women's talk shows, soaps, "The Aquarium Channel" and other useless nonsense.
If you want to watch anything else you have to swipe your credit card in a slot on the side to activate the half way decent channels or get on the net. The proxy is heavily censored/nannied and you can't do much more than go to disney.com and other 4 year old level crap. Any site with naughty words are off limits.

Not having a credit card, I was screwed until they caused me some extreme pain, I filed a complaint and they kissed my ass for the rest of my stay which included turning on all the channels.. (not worth the pain though!)

Anyway, the thing was crashing every few hours, it would boot up with a Windows 2000 start up screen then go through a very lengthy new hardware detection process, rebooting numerous times as it tried to detect and install all the goodies. It is a touch screen and the picture was a little better than poor and just under acceptable. You can go back and forth between the net and TV by touching the screen. Typing on it and filling in forms was a pain. There was a power, coax and an ethernet cable from the wall into the boom. I would be willing to bet that this device is insanely expensive. Considering though that they charged me about $100,000 for everything, I would think they may have put a dent in the bill for this system.

At first glance, it looked neat. After serious scrutiny, it's buggy and low quality. But most people laying in bed, in pain could care less.

Here's a link to a story all about the system.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/technology/020104_tech _hostech.html

"An air traffic management application not only has scheduling requirements, but it simply cannot crash either"

Sometimes.

(and yes, MS-Windows computers were involved)

Also, I believe the plan is for the volunteer attorneys to intervene or document instances where people are excluded from the polls. Democrats believe that more voters at the polls will favor them (that's the conventional wisdom). Assuming Repulicans also believe this, they're not likely to want to make the same effort to get people into the polling place, but it would be embarrassing to make an obvious effort to exclude people on election day.

Contact/feedback pages:

FoxNews: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.html
MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3303518/
Newsweek: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4925877/site/newsweek/ ?contact
NY Times: http://nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/infoservd irectory.html
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/
ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/service/help/abccontact.html
CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_for m.shtml
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3281777.stm

Associated Press: http://www.ap.org/pages/contact/contact.html
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/-helpSection.jhtml;p=contac tUs

I agree that Michael Moore sometimes has an objectionable way of presenting material. But, as you are doing, many people talk about Michael Moore instead of talking about the huge amount of corruption he tries to document.

There is a huge, huge amount of material. Here are reviews of 35 books that say the same thing as Michael Moore. You can have the same message presented in a learned way, or a funny way, or a typically Republican way, or a journalistic way: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government

Here is just a little hint of the corruption: Bush borrows money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 billion. When Saudis attack, invade Iraq?

Here's another hint: George W. Bush's brother was shown in a lawsuit deposition on 20/20 talking about his prostitutes and using government influence to make money. Family values?

Here's another hint: The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since WW2: The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.

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

Reminds me of a recent story about flathead catfish:

Alien Catfish Species Found in N.J. Canal

An alien species of catfish has been caught in the Delaware Raritan Canal, prompting fears among environmental officials that the voracious predator could devastate native catfish, sunfish and some sturgeon populations the way it has in southeastern states.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040825_2416.html

So much for the Oscar gift bag...

Oddly, there was a recent case in NYC where the elevator 'fell' - up!
Story

Power in Watts: 130
Hours/Day: 24
Days/Month [365/12]: 30.42
Hours/Month: 730.00
Watt-Hours/Month: 94,900.00
Kilowatt-Hours/Month: 94.90
$/KW-Hour 0.07
Cost/Month: $6.64

Regarding SIDS, there's one piece of advice that SIDS gives out which is potentially damaging to a baby -- and that is putting the baby on it's back to sleep.

Babies need to be in a position to be able to interact with thier environment in order to develop properly -- they are utterly powerless laying on thier back, and it's a very unnatural way for a child to sleep. By placing them on thier back, you make them unable to move and interact with thier environment (such as it is). Not to mention now you have to worry about the child coughing up something in thier sleep if they're on thier back.

In this case, the SIDS organization is basically taking a correlation and treating it as a causative factor, and ignoring the damaging side effects from thier solution.

It doesn't, unless you know it was all pre planned.

Here is a short synopsis of the situation.

Note, the group they are referring to,PNAC, go to their website, or read some on them with various google links, very easy to find, you'll see the bulk of the heavy hitters inside the current regime had this whole deal planned out well in advance of 9-11. Combine that with a lot of the "government prior knowledge" evidence about 9-11 that you can find, and maybe it will make things clearer.

Realistically, it's a pretty bad scene right now, the US is in fairly dire straits. Basically we've been junta-ized. All the evidence is there, just spread out. A lot of people really don't want to accept it, or psychologically can't accept it, because they would have to live with that lie, knowing and accepting and excusing it, or do something about it, and the "doing something" is potentially pretty serious when you realise there's absolutely no chance of "voting" our way back to any sort of rational sanity or true honest governing.

Wal-Mart charges enough to make a nice profit. Every other retail store plays games with prices. Shoppers who don't want to play adversarial games go to Wal-Mart.

Here's an example of two companies playing games: We bought a Netgear FVS318 router/firewall from Fry's. It was advertised with a rebate.

After many lost hours we found: 1) The remote administration requires sending the password in the clear, so there is little remote security. 2) Netgear technical support is in Tamil Nadu, India. Netgear does not appear to have given the Tamil employees much training. 3) The log out menu choice sometimes does not log out. So, arguably no one should buy the FVS318. Maybe that's why the rebate offer.

Fry's and Netgear played another trick. The wrote a very long rebate form, with the name and the address at the top, as usual, and asked for the name and the address again at the bottom. If you didn't see the second request for name and address, or thought it was a mistake, they deny the rebate request.

People don't like playing these kind of games. Wal-Mart acts as the shopper's advocate. If a company wants to play games, Wal-Mart will stop buying from that company.

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George W. Bush's brother was on 20/20 talking about his prostitutes. Family values?

"... there are people in this world that request that the information they receive about important people and issues be based on something other than hearsay."

"Hearsay" is not someone saying "I saw this myself". Hearsay is someone saying, "I heard this, but wasn't there myself." For example, Sharon Bush said she herself saw George W. Bush using cocaine at Camp David. It's plausible; alcoholics use cocaine to lessen the negative effects of drunkenness. George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush both have said publicly that he was a problem drinker, which is a polite phrase for alcoholic.

You cannot develop an accurate opinion by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one candidate over another. Remember, the media exists to make money. Unfortunately, we don't have directly supported media, only ad supported media, and advertisers, understandably, are careful not to alienate anyone.

Read the reviews of 3 movies and 35 books yourself: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government. Then read the books themselves. If you didn't read any of the books, you probably don't suspect the strength of the evidence.

The Bush administration is the most secretive in the history of the United States. There is an entire book written by a Rebublican that talks about the secrecy: Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. There are many situations in which there is information about obvious corruption that will probably never be fully understood because the secrecy is legal, especially after the Bush administration wrote new secrecy laws.

For example, video of George W. Bush's brother was shown on 20/20 last Friday night talking about his prostitutes and situations that obviously involve conflict of interest and misuse of government influence.

"Neil-sie", as their mother Barbara Bush calls him, is fully supported by her. He divorced his wife of 23 years and married a volunteer in Barbara Bush's office.

Read the transcript. What will you do when you hear of literally hundreds of situations like those in which the Bush family is able to hide the full truth, but something inappropriate and probably dishonest obviously happened?

This is an administration that cannot be re-elected, literally cannot be re-elected, unless a large number of people are convinced of the Bush family's Christian and moral and family values. Kerry will win if the voters know the truth. George W. Bush would never have been elected to anything if the voters had known the truth.

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Bush: Borrowing money to try to make his administration look good.

If you carry a gun and can't control who holds it, you haven't trained with it or else lack the courage or wisdom to use it appropriately, popular myths not withstanding. As for U.S. politics, the 2nd Amendment defends the rest of them. But only if the citizens have the courage, will, and wisdom to stand up for ourselves against an ever more invasive government. So while I could say "you're simply wrong" it proves nothing. Do some research, real research not propaganda from HCI or whereever you get your news from, and get back to me with facts not rhetoric. Neither Flame nor Troll, the above is my heartfelt opinion.

We really don't know enough about the natural (historical) cycles of our world; to attribute global warming to Bush and Ford Excursions is, I believe, a gross oversimplification. No doubt we're contributing, but, I'm of the belief it would happen anyway... See, for example, "massive global warming" on ... mars. (Before our rovers got there and started driving around with their big diesel engines... er, wait...)

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/m ars011207.html

With Bush giving Kerry a hard time for his "Global Test" remark, it seems clear that the US is taking a more aggressive stance militarily. The cold war is over and there really isn't anyone who can threaten us except with terrorism or nuclear missles (China, India, Pakistan, and certain EU states).

What we're seeing is an administration who's willing to do whatever it takes to advance its goals. Personally, I find that chilling. As Machiavelli said, it is better to be feared than loved, but it is worse to be hated. I worry that our current policies are moving America towards a position where it is universally hated by the rest of the world.

Quote from the Slashdot story: "quick analyzation"

Should be "quick analysis". Slashdot is the only publication I've seen where editors do not need to know their own language.

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George W. Bush's brother was on 20/20 talking about his prostitutes. Family values?

"It seems you had a childhood like mine. And we didn't get to vote on where our trip was going... We just ended up in Minneapolis, MN every year."

LOL!

If you examine this, I think you will see it was a voting problem. Over 90% of all the trouble in the world is caused by adults. They should not be allowed to vote.

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George W. Bush's brother was on 20/20 last night talking about his prostitutes. Family values?

Mexico's 'Fire Volcano' Erupts, No Evacuations Yet

KABLOOEY!

Specifically, the UCMJ prevents political activity while in uniform.

Maybe someone should have told that to the delegates to the RNC. Three % were active duty personnel.

Bush, Kerry Hope to Win Voters in Debate
ABC News- 1 hour ago
CORAL GABLES, Fla. Sept. 29, 2004 - Two candidates, two very different tasks for the first presidential debate. John Kerry has to convince voters they should throw President Bush out of office for his actions ...

Are they nuts?? That craft wasn't built to support the weight of John Madden!!

• Auto Deaths for 2003
• Cars: 14.9 per 100,000
• SUVs: 16.4 per 100,000
• Pickup trucks: 15.2 per 100,000
• Vans: 11.2 per 100,000

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/news/090503_nw_peep_to m.html

Decided to do a little googling to see if I could substantiate your claims....

Rupert Murdoch inhereted several newspapers, which he then built upon to create a vast multinational print empire, before he ever got involved in television. In the 80's he purchased Metromedia's independent television stations, which came with preexisting broadcast mechanisms. This was soon after his purchase of the fox movie studio, with the idea that the stations would serve as a distribution medium for the studio's programming. Therefore, not only did he not simply start his own network from scratch, as he was already a media mogul, but he used already existing stations to do so. This was in a time before today's modern media conglomerates, where such a large scale purchase of independent stations was possible. Today there are very few small independent stations, most of which are in small markets to begin with, and his approach would no longer be valid [source].

Ted turner also inhereted a media-based business from his father, in this case a billboard business, and again started by purchasing a television station, in this case a UHF station based in Atlanta, in this case in 1970, again well before the dominance of today's media moguls.[source]

So, if by "started from scratch" you mean "inherited a media business and used its profits to purchase previously existing television stations" then yes, both Murdoch and Turner started from scratch.

So, apparantly all we need to "start our own damn networks" is a daddy already involved in a media-based business, television stations available for purchase, and a media business landscape similar to that which existed 30 years ago. Anybody here fit that description? Raise of hands? Beuller?

First Mention is in this 7/15/04 Peter Gammons piece. Most of it is about Baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:

Thing called love

We have been led to cynically believe that many politicians are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man, who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam rally threw someone else's medals into the water, made a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And at the promotion he said Eddie Yost was his favorite player.

This remarkable paragraph contains three assertions about Kerry: "middle initial", "medals", and "Yost." The first two are erroneous, and the third is not testable. "Middle initial" is false -- Kerry's middle name is his mother's maiden name, Forbes, a famous old Boston name. Gammons has an error in his "medals" story, Kerry threw ribbons over a fence; not medals in the water. You can read Thomas Oliphant's eyewitness account here or here. To summarize, Gammons makes three assertions about Kerry, and the first to are erroneous. What about the third? I don't know any way to prove a negative, but the very first mention of the "Yost" story that I can find, in Boston or anywhere else, is that 7/15 Gammons column. It's all over the blogsphere now, but Gammons has first mention. Given Gammons' other errors, I don't find it very credible.

Now just to complicate matters, Gammons brings up the "Yost" story again five days later in another column. Again, it's mostly about baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:

So who puts the bug in candidates' ears about seeming what they are not? John Kerry last week professed to be a big fan of "Manny Ortez," then re-emphasized the phoofery by correcting it to "David Ortez." No, that was Dave (Baby) Cortez and "The Happy Organ." A few years back Kerry went on a Boston station with Eddie Andelman and said "my favorite Red Sox player of all time is The Walking Man, Eddie Yost," who never played for the Red Sox. Kerry is going to sweep New England. He's going to get 70 percent of the vote in Massachusetts. He doesn't have to be a Red Sox fan, all he has to do is not be John Ashcroft.

This time, the "Yost" story is folded in with less controversial claims. If you're an anti-Kerry blogger, this version looks less foolish, but given the first mention amongst two canards, I don't find it credible on Gammons' say-so alone. I say bring me independent confirmation or dump it.

And now a bit on the meta-story. Let me shamelessy copy the Daily Howler and quote David Broder:

In a year when war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism and looming problems with the federal budget and the nation's health care system cry out for serious debate, the news organizations on which people should be able to depend have been diverted into chasing sham events: a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry and a forged document charging President Bush with disobeying an order for an Air National Guard physical.

Almost. Ladies and gentleman, we're watching a brilliant campaign at

First Mention is in this 7/15/04 Peter Gammons piece. Most of it is about Baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:

Thing called love

We have been led to cynically believe that many politicians are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man, who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam rally threw someone else's medals into the water, made a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And at the promotion he said Eddie Yost was his favorite player.

This remarkable paragraph contains three assertions about Kerry: "middle initial", "medals", and "Yost." The first two are erroneous, and the third is not testable. "Middle initial" is false -- Kerry's middle name is his mother's maiden name, Forbes, a famous old Boston name. Gammons has an error in his "medals" story, Kerry threw ribbons over a fence; not medals in the water. You can read Thomas Oliphant's eyewitness account here or here. To summarize, Gammons makes three assertions about Kerry, and the first to are erroneous. What about the third? I don't know any way to prove a negative, but the very first mention of the "Yost" story that I can find, in Boston or anywhere else, is that 7/15 Gammons column. It's all over the blogsphere now, but Gammons has first mention. Given Gammons' other errors, I don't find it very credible.

Now just to complicate matters, Gammons brings up the "Yost" story again five days later in another column. Again, it's mostly about baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:

So who puts the bug in candidates' ears about seeming what they are not? John Kerry last week professed to be a big fan of "Manny Ortez," then re-emphasized the phoofery by correcting it to "David Ortez." No, that was Dave (Baby) Cortez and "The Happy Organ." A few years back Kerry went on a Boston station with Eddie Andelman and said "my favorite Red Sox player of all time is The Walking Man, Eddie Yost," who never played for the Red Sox. Kerry is going to sweep New England. He's going to get 70 percent of the vote in Massachusetts. He doesn't have to be a Red Sox fan, all he has to do is not be John Ashcroft.

This time, the "Yost" story is folded in with less controversial claims. If you're an anti-Kerry blogger, this version looks less foolish, but given the first mention amongst two canards, I don't find it credible on Gammons' say-so alone. I say bring me independent confirmation or dump it.

And now a bit on the meta-story. Let me shamelessy copy the Daily Howler and quote David Broder:

In a year when war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism and looming problems with the federal budget and the nation's health care system cry out for serious debate, the news organizations on which people should be able to depend have been diverted into chasing sham events: a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry and a forged document charging President Bush with disobeying an order for an Air National Guard physical.

Almost. Ladies and gentleman, we're watching a brilliant campaign at

Are these the robotic rats we heard of earlier?

Yes, given bad information, Congress did vote for the authority to go to way. Every country in the world? Come on. Not the UN Security council.

The bad information came from the other countries, Jordan, one of Iraq's neighbors, was one of them. EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD EXCEPT FRANCE GERMANY AND RUSSIA, and that is because of economic ties to Iraq. The UN Security council is not a country.

So you belive that some people are guilty until proven innocent? Please. All I want is due process and equal protection, the tenants of our freedom.

Where in the patriot act does it say that they aren't given a trial? Are you a terrorist?

Which Iraqis? The prime minister? Please. Let's talk to the Iraqis on the street.

Yes, Lets: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/WorldNewsToni ght/iraq_poll_040405.html. You look at all the numbers and you come to the conclusion that Iraqi's want their own government, and they are tired of the violence. Now take a look at THIS POLL conducted shortly after the invasion and there was far more support then. With insurgents blowing things up and taking over mosques, you see the numbers go down just like they have in the US (which is fucking pathetic) but still, there is widespread support in Iraq for the US cause. The same people saying they want America out are the ones who put Osama Bin Laden at the top of their "greatest world leaders" list.

No. GW is the enemy because he does things that I disagree with. I was a republican until he took office.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA, you funny. Why don't you watch more Fox news? This is a stupid cop out.

I've heard that repeated... and I agree that Saddam was a bad man. How many people did Saddam actually kill in a year? When you quote numbers in the hundreds of thousands, you're obviously including Iranian numbers from the Iran-Iraq war. I question whether the invasion saved Iraqi lives. At any rate, I don't think it's possible to justify killing thousands of people on the grounds that they might have been killed anyway. At any rate, if it's true that Saddam killed so many, why do the Iraqis not welcome the US? If Saddam was that brutal, they would be glad as hell we were there and would be fighting alongside the US. As for all the insurgents being foriegn, I don't belive that for a second. Iraq's borders have been sealed since the show began, and if they haven't, it would be a major millitary blunder. The real issue is this. Do real Iraqis on the streets feel that the US invasion was worth it? If you can prove to me that the majority of Iraqis feel it was, (without going to Fox news), I will withdraw my claims.

If you think the insurgents aren't crossing over the border you're an idiot. READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OF THIS REPORT. Now look at the position you find yourself in. You're trying to tell me "Look, Saddam Hussein didn't kill THAT many people. Estimates are that we have uncovered mass burial sites with around 400,000 Iraqi's buried in them. They were trying to take his power away! That's what they get! What we did was senseless though, killing innocent republican guard. You were a republican? Did you ever think you would be defending Saddam Hussein at the expense of our own republican president? That is just absurd, don't tell me you were once a republican. That is the biggest pile of shit I've ever seen.

Nobody is justifying the thousands of people killed on the ground. I will tell you though, almost all of them were fighters, and we didn't make them suffer needlessly. The Iraqi's did welcome the US. They're well aware of what Saddam was like. And they did welcome the US. See the polls I linked earlier. But aside from that, forget what the polls say, forget what the Iraqi's want, we d

ABCNEWS.com : Cameras Let Voyeurs See Through Clothes

As for all those in this thread questioning the simplicity and reliability of our method of marking in the circle for a single candidate: do you really have problems like that in the 'States? You mean the stereotypes* we have are true?

(*US-based link... in case you think I'm pulling your jambe.)

Although Anne Kornblut's Boston Globe framing of the conclusion of the debate about debates is typical LINK ("Despite tussles over the timing and format, the 90-minute debates will take place more or less as initially proposed; only the subjects of the first and third debates have changed."), in fact, James Baker, by accepting all four debates (3 presidential and 1 veep), seems to have gotten some other key, little-Noticed changes in return.

What the Bush campaign got changed:

1. The first widely watched and covered debate will be on foreign policy and national security, rather than domestic policy.

2. No direct engagement between the candidates is allowed -- the Commission's proposed plan had actually encouraged such dynamic-changing contact.

3. As "Miss (Nicolle) Devenish" told the Washington Times : "the agreement reached yesterday also will make 'very clear whenever the candidates attempt to filibuster or grandstand. There is a light that will flash for TV audiences when that happens -- a historic first,' she said. 'Moderators have to sign on and say they agree with the rules, or we'll find new moderators.'"

4. The voters at the town-hall debate won't be undecideds, but, rather "soft" supporters of each side -- and we have yet to figure out what that means or why Team Bush prefered that -- but Baker got it.

5. The candidates can't address each other with "proposed pledges" (although rhetorical questions are allowed!!).

6. The town-hallers can't ask follow ups or participate after they ask their one question -- avoiding any prospect of a "Richmond" moment.

The Commission itself and the moderators have not been heard from, but our guts tell us two things:

A. This deal will stick.

B. If George Walker Bush already owed James Addison Baker big time after Florida, he owes him bigger time now.

Actually, I hear what you're saying on the news. Oddly enough. In between stories about cities falling into fundamentalist hands, but it's not a quagmire.

Did it ever occur to you people who pick your sides and argue predictably and dogmatically, that maybe people who don't play your little left/right game, mean something different when they say things than what you've been conditioned to believe they mean?

Maybe I didn't mean quagmire in terms of military success(though having cities fall under fundamentlist rule doesn't seem very successful). Maybe I meant it in the sense, that we can not leave because the current political regime is not strong enough to keep order and the whole country would fall to fundamentalists if we did. And if we continue to stay, we undermine the legitimacy of the current political regime as representing the people of Iraq. That is the reality we're in right now, and it seems very much like a quagmire.

As for this comment:
Yes, there are Islamofascists killing people there, usually unarmed people as chickenshit dickheads usually do

So are our soliders chickenshit dickheads when they kill unarmed people? Or are you not ready to deal with that particular reality yet?

I caught an interesting thing on ESPN with regards to the Iraqi olympic soccer team:
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer04/gen/columns /story?id=1865386
Midfielder Ahmed Manajid told SI's Grant Wahl that if he weren't playing soccer, he'd be back in his home of Fallujah fighting the coalition. "I want to defend my home. If a stranger invades America and the people resist, does that mean they are terrorists?" he said. "Everyone [in Fallujah] has been labeled a terrorist. These are all lies. Fallujah people are some of the best people in Iraq."
Yeah, but I'm sure this guy and his whole soccer team is a plant by the media to make it sound worse than they are. 90 percent of Iraqi's want us there of course. They sent us invitations in the mail. They are quite thankful we destroyed their water treatment plants, damanged hospitals, and killed(and continue killing) their people. I for one would welcome my new American bomb dropping, country invading, overlords if I were an Iraqi.

One other page to check out is campaigndesk. . It isn't exactly a blog, but it's got excellent media criticism (and even occasional praise). It's put out by the Columbia School of Journalism.

Finally, and this one's in no way a blog, ABC News' TheNote summarizes and links a lot of political reporting every day. TheNote has much more praise than criticism, but during the political season it's part of my essential daily reading.

While not quite a blog, Howard Kurtz's Media Notes are certainly much more even-handed than most, and the way I start every day:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/column s/kurtzhoward/

Other great kinda blogs are:
http://wonkette.com/
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/Th eNote.html
http://www.rogersimon.com/

From ABCNEWS.com,

Two of the document experts hired by CBS News now say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast of 60 Minutes II about the disputed National Guard records attributed to Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.

Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.

"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.

Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.
...

emphasis mine

And keep reading the link for more who called 'shenanigans' before the piece went to air.

Major media are carrying the story that the UN is blaming much of the spread of drug resistant TB on the prevalence of AIDS/HIV-infection. This is due to the susceptibility of those populations to become infected and spread the disease to others.

A design flaw enables thieves to open Kryptonine U-Locks with the
hollow shaft of a Bic pen. The pens can beat the tubular cylinders
used in some Kryptonite locks, including the Evolution and KryptoLok
series. The company said it was upgrading the locks to a disc-style
cylinder that's pen-proof and already used in its top-of-the-line "New York" lock.

New York City bike shop manager Ismael Torres took the flawed
locks off the shelf the minute he read about the problem though he
is still selling Kryptonite's "New York" lock.

That's the best you can do? I found a picture of the guy for you.

Administrative Contact:
Franco, Julio (ZBIODSWBEI) julio_francoh@hotmail.com

Julio Franco is amazing! Still playing baseball at age 46, and yet he finds the time to get into home entertainment too??

This guy is amazing. Not only can he hit .300 at 46 years old, he some how finds the time to edit a crappy tech website.

Just show me one Fox NEWS show that shows bias. Any moron can point to Hannity having bias but he's NOT a fuckin NEWSMAN. I bet I can find some bias in Colmes' interviews which would go to the left. Hannity never claims to not be biased as he shouldn't. He clearly states that he is a Republican. I'm so tired of morons out there calling Fox news biased and then pointing to something Hannity says as proof of it.

And no I don't ever remember Hannity being caught editing transcripts of interviews. Maybe you should post something to back up your statement, if you have any.

But I do remember CBS news and Rather showing documents that were frauds, even when there own experts raised concerns over the authenticity of the documents. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/b ush_guard_documents_040914.html But who's calling them biased?

#2. If we're willing to trade US troop's lives for oil, then it's time we got off the oil addiction. It may be hard and it may be expensive, but it will completely remove the "threat" of someone denying us oil. And because of #1, there will always be that threat.

Two things:

1) AFAIK, no politician since FDR has really asked the American people as a whole to make any sort of real sacrifice, although JFK made the famous statement, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." In FDR's case, there was a war on, and people expected that they'd make small personal sacrifices and suffer inconvenience while they were asking others to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Today, it would seem that asking for Americans to make any sort of material sacrifice is politically unthinkable. While a small part of the population, say military families, might be asked to sacrifice their spouses, sons, or daughters, it would be political suicide to ask the people as a whole for anything that might inconvenience them or limit their materialist perogatives in any way whatsoever. In fact, since 9/11, we've been given tax incentives to buy bigger gas guzzlers, while tax breaks for hybrids have shrunk and are set to expire in 2006.

2) This gives us some understanding that the phrase "War on Terror" is a lie. It's a propaganda campaign, plain and simple. I'm not suggesting that there isn't a threat from terrorists, obviously there is. However, this "War on", as illustrated by the way it is being waged today, is merely a pretext for domestic and international power grabs.

Furthermore, because the war in Iraq is based on falsehoods, the politicians are further barred from asking Americans to make the sacrifices that could alleviate our oil addiction.

There are, of course, exceptions. Americans seem perfectly content to sacrifice civil liberties in exchange for security. We've also learned to deal with the inconvenience of beefed up airport checkpoints and random screening.

I wonder if America could rise to the challenge, if any politician were to have the balls to ask us to make sacrifices in our oil consumption. I guess it would depend on the politician, if there are any left that are also leaders.

Yea, sounds nice, but you will kill all the birds and ruin the million dollar view