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Right, Junkscience.com, an unbiased source. From Mother Jones magazine's analysis of Global Warming critics and their puppet strings being held by the petroleum industry:
STEVEN MILLOY: A columnist for FoxNews.com and publisher of JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. Milloy also runs the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. Those two groups--apparently run out of Milloy's home--received $90,000 from ExxonMobil. Key quote: The date of Kyoto's implementation will "live in scientific and economic infamy." Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five.

Climate scientists and policy experts have known all along that Kyoto wouldn't completely solve the problem. But since there's little chance of getting the US to sign off on changes that would solve the problem, Kyoto was seen as a compromise that is a step in the right direction. But we won't even do that.

This is dwarfed by the subsidies that govts give to the world's richest industry, Oil.

drug manufacturers outlay a truly phenomenal amount of money to develop and test any particular drug

The implication being that this is a huge drain on the pharmcos resources, and they therefore need "special protection". The truth is that whatever the actual R&D budget is, the big pharmcos all spend at least twice as much on marketing.

Oh, they aren't pretty compared to, say, a flower in a vase. But, bless their little hearts, they just sit there. They don't blink. They don't flash. They don't scroll by the top of the screen. They don't periodically hop in front of the content I'm trying to read. They don't even cycle through a handful of images, updating every couple seconds. They just sit there and get noticed when I feel like noticing them.

And that, my friends, is beautiful.

I've actually clicked on some Google Ads purposefully. But I generally won't click on a banner except by accident. Sites that affront me visually like the Vegas Strip are less likely to get a return visit from me.

You see, I don't watch TV regularly. I haven't for a decade or so. Now, when I go to restaurants, when there's a TV on somewhere, my eyes will drift to it: "Moving picture box funny! ::blankfaced drool::" It could be golf of all things. My ability to filter out noisy moving sh*t has gone away. So, if I end up at a website with even just a couple animated ads around the edges, I have a supremely hard time reading the article of interest before I've nuked all the ads. That includes that scrolling headline marquee so many news sites seem to love. (I love the Nuke Anything extension to Firefox.)

So maybe it's just super common among the handful of us that don't numb ourselves on the boob tube every night that really get annoyed by ads. Dunno.

I do know I usually don't bother with the newspaper or most magazines (and get annoyed playing "find the article" in the latter when I do), and I still don't turn on TV. (Who wants to see the same feminine hygene product commercial 3 times in a single commercial break? You do? Ok, I prescribe watching TBS and UPN for the rest of your days.) What magazines I do subscribe to (Mother Jones and Pontiac Enthusiast) have low ad content of high relevance. They get my renewals year upon year. (Heck, I would've never learned of ZZPerformance if it weren't for a tasteful ad in Pontiac Enthusiast, and they've gotten a few thousand $$ from me over the years.)

Ditto with websites. I return to the ones that don't assault me like a gaggle of epileptic clowns, and make my visit worth my while. Google text ads are a tool to enable that, and that my friends is beautiful.

--Joe

Last I checked, a few of those 40mpg+ hybrids were mid-sized (Prius) or so (Civic Hybrid), and not so econo-boxed.

If you're stuck to SUV, there's the Ford Escape which is decently 30+.

For your straw-man argument, sure it's wrong commuting with 8500-pound SUV when one doesn't need it for hauling something, but who says to make it unavailable? And, I guess the Prius seating 5 comfortably, or being considered for cab service in NY with noted rear-leg room, isn't enough to haul most stuff around, deliver things, or drive the family somewhere. Is the USA that fat and pack-rat-like?

Them eco-types seem to be saying drive what you need, and most people DON'T need a SUV.

If you can afford a SUV, you can afford a decent MPG car. Buying another car is patriotic. Saving fuel is patriotic. Blah blah blah.

Diebold Election Systems chose the government. We just pressed useless buttons.

Oh, come on. The whole point is that the most vocal critics of climate change are paid off by companies with a huge stake in it. You can manufacture fantasies of power-mad ivory-tower cranks in white coats trying to destroy capitalism (If you don't imediately stop believing all else and do as we say, we're all doomed!), but the fact remains that reputable scientists don't have to be paid off by lobbyists to come to a conclusion. Those are not real scientists.

And you're just trying to muddy the waters, make it so that a casual reader of this discussion will conclude that there are crazy zealots on both sides and, gee, maybe we shouldn't do anything because science is divided on the issue. Which it ain't.

--grendel drago

I'm not going to even try to be diplomatic about it: basically your whole post, like most of the eco-scare propaganda, boils down to "everyone who disaggrees with my Holy Truth is an heretic, and furthermore _paid_ to attack our Holy Truth."

No, but it's a telling point when industry has to pay people to promulgate its dogma. See, his point is valid because scientists who disagree with his "holy truth", as you put it, are paid to attack it.

And just because you're (presumably) not on Exxon's payroll, that doesn't prove anything. You're not a scientist; you're not even a pretend scientist. You're just talking smack on Slashdot.

--grendel drago

I cannot argue with you on business logic. I think you are probably right. The big oil money people have a vested interest (although i see it as shortsighted) in maintaining the status quo. Why else woudl they come out with biased reports saying global warming is a myth.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/e xxon_chart.html

I just think it (biofuel) is a more environmental and efficient way to do things. The money and politics of getting there are a real issue. UNH seems to have done a lot of good research in the area and if I ever go for a pHD I'm going to try to get into on one of their teams.

Maybe if we had a president like Jimmy Carter we could have federal endorsement for biofuels!

I hope I am not drifting to far offtopic when I mention the billions of dollars and the American, British and Iraqi lives we are spending to secure our oil interests in Iraq. $354 billion is not much compared to what we are spending in occupying Iraq!

Conservation (driving a small car and use a trailer if you need to haul a load instead of buying a truck/ride a bike/take the bus) would go
a long way too! And of course you can run any
diesel engine off of waste vegetable oil with the right kit.

Unfortunately right now we are pretty dependent on
fossil fuels. Biofuels are a step in the right direction! Certainly an electric hydrogen-liberating, hydrogen-burning fireplace is not the right direction towards a more sustainable world!

There are lots and lots of Doctors (and not necessarily Medical Doctors, this includes physicists, biologists, etc.) that subscribe to some of these quackery beliefs, not even limited to simply reflexology or acupuncture. Dowsing, astrology, HOMEOPATHY all that stuff is just as unproven and fake as the next. The belief in some of these things even falls down to psychological factors (such as the ideomotor effect (2) with regards to dowsing, and placebo effect for most - if not all - alternative medicine practices). It's interesting how a physicist can believe that dowsing really works, but they are out there!

In the case of the "traditional chinese medicine", the arguement is that it has been around for 2000 years So It Must Work!. Unfortunately, just cause it's been around for a long time, doesn't mean it works either.

Aside from the personal/psychological influences that cause people to follow these things, a huge factor are the people marketing the products and therapies.

Snake oil charmers tend to be able to sell this stuff by scaring people with lies. Fear that the "industry" is out to get you. Fear that "drugs" are poisoning you. It's easy to get someone to believe that there are conspiracies (that are conveniently unprovable) working against them and that the only way out is their form of alternative medicine.

A lot of people lured to alternative medicine are done so because they feel they have been somehow wronged by the MD profession. Like they believe they have a true illness that MDs can't locate/cure (because it doesn't exist). So they go to a naturopath who is only too happy to say "Of course there's something wrong with you! Now that will be $50 a week for therapy plus $35 a month for my homeopathic pills. Don't worry, they are 100x diluted so they are SUPER-effective!". Lots of alternative medicine practitioners even go so far as to claim you have an illness you don't know about, and that only they can cure it! Colonix for example is one such thing, as well as people who say you should be taking TONS of vitamin supplements for various reasons. Anyone heard of magnet therapy (Quackwatch Info)?

The sad thing about it all, is that it's difficult to combat with logic and sense. You say "but its not proven" and they say "You just have to believe!" or "So-and-so said it worked, so it must! I don't care if science says it doesn't".

If you go to http://quackwatch.org/ there is an insane amount of information there with regards to how people get sucked in to this stuff.

Actually the War on Drugs costs around $18 billion dollars a year to run.

Our differing figures probably just come from different ways of cutting the data. I believe the federal anti-drug budget is around 20 billion as you mentioned, but including states expenditures raises that dramatically. I don't really have time to find more sources, but here are a few articles from a quick google search that mention the higher figures I was referencing.

http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-02-04.html
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/warondrugs/a/WODB ackground_5.htm
http://www.motherjones.com/news/special_reports/pr isons/investment.html

Agree with everything else you said wholeheartedly.

I'd heard of the false statements MS made about Novell. In fact, when I first heard managment spreading the rumour, I tracked it down as far as one of the MS consultants, but couldn't go further with it.

You know, the "American People" like to think of themselves as free and, above all, morally upright. You'd think that with behavior like we seen the last 20 years, no one would have any thing to do with MS which stands for lack of freedom and seems to get by only with the help of unethical and occasionally immoral and illegal business practices.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1998/01/bu rstein.html

Amongst others. Google for "Novell BSA" and you'll get sufficient links.

Oh, and you're "scientist" Mr. Benny Peiser takes money from ExxonMobil. He contributed to a book called Adapt or Die: The science, politics and economics of climate change (how ironic) published by the group Internation Policy Network. IPN recieves funding from ExxonMobil. (Google is your friend.)

Global warming is happening. We are contributing to it. There was more confirmation just the other day with NASA measurements. ExxonMobil and some other companies are the only reason there still exists any doubt. If you would like to understand more about how ExxonMobil pulls this off, read this.

So essentially, you trust ExxonMobil's take on Global Warming more than you trust Science and Nature's.

...can be found here.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/so me_like_it_hot.html Follow the money etc...if even some of this is true then things need to change. I hope more people read it to open some eyes

Loading salad at a restaurant before paying is a crime.
But Selling children for sex isn't.

I feel so glad that Bush is the President of US in this Post 9/11 world.

God knows that this sort of unethical behavior and borderline illegal practice is totally out of place in our business community. Obviously, these punks are only getting what they deserve.

Aside from that, hopefully those involved will learn a valuable life lesson from this: If you can't play by the rules, you'd better be able to run fast and catch, throw or hit a ball really well.

PS: I wonder if any prospective students were smart enough to just look at the admission status of the *other* students... Now that would be showing the sort of sense you'd need to get to the top of corporate America.

Right to execute a 14 year old should be left up to the states? Might as well go back to 150 years and allow states to determine whether people can own slaves or not. I love how the US lashes out at Iran when they executed a 16 year old girl, yet we execute younger kids and even the mentally retarded with the mind of a child. Cruel and unusual? Every 1st world nation except the US, doesn't execute kids.

(paraphrased)"There is no baby. She wasn't even pregnant.", was the way the lack of nukes in WW2 Germany was described, I think. There's just so many way to hide comunications. No computer required. For example: If you see somebody looking for a 1972 Ford Pinto in the classifieds, they're probably terrorists trying to hide a message. They plan on backing the thing into a building.

The rights guaranteed under the 2nd amendment are not your rights, they are the rights of a militia:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

From MotherJones.com:

Emblazoned across the front of the NRA headquarters in Washington, D.C., is half of this amendment--the second half. It's a testament to how well the NRA does its job that most Americans probably don't know about the first half, with its clunky and inconvenient dependent clause. But that's how the Founding Fathers wrote it.

This is the reason that there are laws for gun control and why there are no legal problems with them.

Nuclear power, for one, can be used to crack water and create hydrogen. However, as you and Mother Jones note, hydrogen does not necessarily reduce dependence on oil.

In turn, the Israeli government subsidizes a sizable fraction of the economy. As of 1999, about one-third of all gainfully employed Israelis worked directly for various branches of government. This does not include the military.

So in many cases, the decision to continue doing something in an area of high terrorism is a political and strategic one, not an investment decision. Even if something doesn't make economic sense, it may be subsidized anyway. In particular, the "settlements" movement is heavily subsidized.

This isn't necessarily bad, but any comparison with the US economy has to take that into account.

Diebold electronic voting machines are not used in WA. Sequoia systems are used.

I didn't say Diebold voting machines were used. But Diebold and the Republicans have a lot of reports of things like paperless audit trails.

You're lying.

Here's the fact that you cannot seem to accept: He has been feted as a guest at President Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of "Pioneers and Rangers" who have pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign. Most memorably, O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President." http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html

Again, because you do not like the facts, does not mean that they aren't facts.

First, Diebold never said anything like that.

The owner of Diebold said something like it, which is a very different thing.

Ummm, "Diebold" is a company. A company cannot say anything because it is not a person.

The owner of Diebold said something like it, which is a very different thing.

The people who own and run the company can make statements.

The owner of Diebold says that he's going to deliver Ohio's votes for Bush and Ohio uses Diebold machines. Claiming it is a lie does not alter the FACTS.

Sam Reed has been advocating changes in the primary, changes to absentee voting, changes to voting machines, all to improve the voting process. There are others, but when I already gave an example you cannot refute and yet simply deny exists, why should I bother coming up with others?

Because I gave a clear example of Sam Reed blocking attempts to fix problems. Here is a good quote: "Today's hearing will decide a motion to dismiss, filed by Sam Reed's office. Of interest: Reed has asked the judge to deem the formal report by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to be inadmissable hearsay, and in a more bizarre response, seeks to have Diebold's own "release notes" -- the document which lists changes made in the software -- to be deemed inadmissable."

So, requesting that Diebold's own paperwork be deemed inadmissable shows that Reed is trying to fix the voting issues?

Oh right: when it is against a Republican, mere allegation is all that you require. Silly me for even questioning it. If someone files a lawsuit against a Republican, that Republican is necessarily guilty. Duh.

Awww, so now you want to play the victim? Get over it.

Allegations are not all that are required. But the fact that he wanted Diebold's own paperwork ruled inadmissable does show that he was not interested in fixing the problem (which you claimed he was).

And, this has nothing to do with electronic voting machines. These are optical scan systems. All that stuff about "Diebold" on "slashdot.org" had nothing to do with these systems. But you probably knew that.

It is about how the votes are counted.

It's about how the machines count the votes.

It's about how the companies providing the machines support and certify their machines.

I can provide clear examples of Reed fighting against fixing the problems.

All you can provide are your claims that he is trying to fix the problems.

I have provided clear examples of Republicans fighting against fixing other problems.

All you have is your claim that since you said Reed was tring to fix the problems, you don't have to provide any other examples.

The facts are that the Republicans have fought to prevent the problems from being fixed. Which is why we have paperless audit trails and machines that have code added to

Actually, it is Halliburton. And yes, I do have some information on them:

You can probably look for that CEO job here: http://www.halliburton.com/careers/index.jsp

Here is what you will be in charge of: http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/07/w e_455_01.html

But, be warned, as the CEO of Halliburton, you have those pesky democrats spreading lies about you.

What company pays negative tax rates? Do you have a link for that (that isn't mother jones or IWW or some other nonsense)?

Obviously the previous poster didn't mean negative tax rates. What was meant was some companies have received more in subsidies than they pay in taxes. Due to all it's fancy accounting tricks. Enron pulled this neat trick off in 4 of the 5 years from 1996-2000. Here is a link.

Of course, considering your slap at any information provided by Mother Jones, IWW, or such "nonsense", you'll probably consider the previous link "nonsense", too.

If you fix senior management's compensation and do not tie it to the financial performance of the company in some way, what type of management do you think you'll get? A style that is focused on increasing shareholder value?

I know this flies in the face of conservative orthodoxy, but "increasing shareholder value" is not the only reponsibility corporations have, though they desperately want it to be. By living in my community, I derive benefits from that community, and the community should expect that I give back to the community to a certain degree. The same logic must hold true for corporations. If it doesn't, you are giving the corporation free rein to move into a community (receiving property tax abatements), drive local competitors out of business, pollute the environoment, overwork the workers while driving down wages, and then, when more profits can be made elsewhere, close shop and leave, taking all the money with it.

Is this the kind of neighbor you want?

Finding somebody who wants to be a senior VP isn't difficult, finding somebody who is good at is, that's why the salaries for those positions are so inflated.

The salaries are so inflated mainly for three reasons:

1. There's a artificial limit on the supply. Unless you have an MBA from the "right" school and friends in the "right" places, you need not apply.
2. The boards of directors of compaines (which set executive salaries) are one big clique. Look at the median salary (exec salaries are public knowledge) for the position, and say, "Our guys are better than average!" So they raise the salary of the VP to be above the median, which raises the median. Next board comes along and does the same thing. And so on. And so on.
3. It is a difficult job, and many who try fail. But those that fail can usually rely on friends to find them enough work so that they will be properly, financially taken care of.

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

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

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

Part of the current act is that public schools are mandated to turn over personal information about students to armed forces recruiting so that no child will miss out on the oportunity to die in bushes fucked up war for oil. Parents who dont want their childern contacted must opt-out in order to keep their childerns from being inundated with calls and glossy pamflets.

The effort to create this database may be in response to the recent judgement that universities can deny access to military recruiters because of discriminatory practices against gays. This overturned a 1994 a defense authorization bill that allowed the goverment to withhold funding from public institutions that denied access to recruiters.

The hopeless war in iraq is making it more difficult to recruit a new generation of jarheads. Retention is down so they were forced to make do with a back door draft in order to retain enough personel to maintain our insufficient forces in iraq & afganastan. If bush starts a third war against Iran(with large oil and natural gas reserves), launched from our spiffy new bases in Iraq, we will need to dramatically increase the number of military personel beyond what can be build using volenteers. This new database will come in handy when the National Freedom Expanders Act is passed to compel military service unless you happen to be in a rich an powerful family in which case reporting for Patriot Duty is optional.

Certaintly ever since Mother Jones swung so far to the right.

Seriously, if you think the NYT represents the views of the far or even moderate left in this country, you really need to get out and meet more people. Perhaps visiting one of the coastal states. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest northern California, but people are pretty friendly in New York and Massachussetts, and probably won't try to convert you to homosexuality if you say you're just visiting.

>> some sociology students alleging studying
>> shaky, unprovable statistical anomalies in
>> Florida voting, even as the MIT/Caltech Voting
>> Project says there was no widespread fraud,
>> tampering, or errors).

Interesting -- the FIRST POSTER managed, in his reponse to a COMPLETELY UNRELATED article on internet porn (?!), to find a way to portray the work being done to find statistical evidence of irregularities in the tallying of the 2004 presidential election as "some sociology students" vs. "MIT / Caltech Voting Project".

As usual, right-wing propagandists and their dupes are attempting to use psychological perception management techniques to shut off a valid line of investigation and debate.

YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE. But unfortunately somebody needs to take the time to slap this stuff down.

The statistical evidence of an unexplained pro-Bush bias among counties in Florida using electronic voting machines is undeniable.

The only criticism (besides calling it "shaky" and "unproveable") I have heard of the UC Berkeley study, conducted by sociology professor Michael Hout, is that he could not possibly have taken into account additional factors like voter turn-out. But note, if voter turn-out were to explain the discrepancy, than for some reason voter turn-out would have had to have favored republicans more in counties using electronic voting.

I know of no reason why voter turn-out would favor republicans specifically in counties using electronic voting. But the details of Hout's stduy are beyond me, I admit. I think we can rely on his expertise.

However, the study done by Kathy Dopp, http://www.ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, is much simpler for us mere mortals to comprehend, and also makes its case very powerfully. The synopsis is at http://ustogether.org/election04/Liddle_Analysis.h tml and a map of the florida counties considered is at http://ustogether.org/election04/mitteldorf/Liddle .htm .

Key here -- there seems to be NO significant difference between the counties in Kathy Dopp's study EXCEPT how they tally their votes. Some of these counties are directly on one-another's borders, as you can see from the map.

And also a suggestion -- the Dixie-crat explanation is somewhat debunked by the above links. But it is very, very easy to see if an amazingly large percentage of registered democrats in these Florida counties decided to vote for Bush. We can just ask them. Nobody has forgotten who they voted for yet. Just take a poll. One thousand phone calls and you will know to within about 3 percent. I would really like to know, wouldn't you?

If you, like me, are sick of right-wing propagandists and their dupes trying these childish and transparent psychological tricks, please take the time to make a rebuttal. More on the right-wing propaganda machine at: http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/09/09_400. html and http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/forums/showthread. php?p=210686#post210686 .

Oh yeah, and let me save you some time. I wear a tin-foil hat to block the signals from the aliens, OK?

Now that I've given the standard right-wing progagandist name-calling attack myself, hopefully any replies to this post will have something SUBSTANTIVE to say.

Yes and this year, the major state in question is Ohio.

And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?

Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?

No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years dickheads. Fuck off.

Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. Let the Spanish keep it, it's a shithole, we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, It's your money, not the government's money is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least ... can you guess? Go on, guess. That's right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It's too easy, asshole, they're blue states. It's not your money, assholes, it's fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

Let's talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It's fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of t

And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?

Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?

No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years dickheads. Fuck off.

Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. Let the Spanish keep it, it's a shithole, we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, It's your money, not the government's money is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That's right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It's too easy, asshole, they're blue states. It's not your money, assholes, it's fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

Let's talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It's fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marria

And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?

Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?

No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years dickheads. Fuck off.

Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. Let the Spanish keep it, it's a shithole, we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, It's your money, not the government's money is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That's right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It's too easy, asshole, they're blue states. It's not your money, assholes, it's fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

Let's talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It's fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marria

And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?

Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?

No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years dickheads. Fuck off.

Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.

All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. Let the Spanish keep it, it's a shithole, we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.

The next dickwad who says, It's your money, not the government's money is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That's right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It's too easy, asshole, they're blue states. It's not your money, assholes, it's fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.

Let's talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It's fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Y

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/09/w e_531_01.html

Enough said.

I don't believe it either--if he really had one of these jackets, he could have run the wires better than this.

They think Kerry is terrible, that he has never done a single useful thing in his political career, which he built entirely on 4 months of military service, etc.

That's funny, especially since Kerry enlisted in the Navy in 1966 and wasn't discharged until 1970. He spent four months in Vietnam, from 11/68 to 4/69 as part of that duty.

Here's a simplified timeline if you're interested in more.

No, the Founding Fathers weren't stupid, but your response is a common myth. I recommend that article highly for its insight into why the arguments for the electoral college fail. They were making a concession so the southern slaveholding states would receive more votes and support the constitution. I assume you don't intend that we revive slavery, so that there's still a purpose for the electoral college? Since when do State's rights trump fair federal elections anyway?

The controversy over funding is just the tip of the iceburg wrt the NCLB.

I tire of this. How much do you need? I have posted several links already, as have others before me. This is not a new issue... there were articles about it before the 2000 (s)election, and there are articles now. You want articles? Here:

• http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2004/02/ 02_802.html
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7372-200 4Feb2?language=printer
• http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0219-03.htm
• http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040920/usnews/2 0guard.htm

Some of these links are from admittedly conservative sources, others from admittedly liberal sources. They do discuss the releases of info by the WH on the issue, and all come to the same conclusion: the pay stubs and the dental record do not disprove the gap in service, but only support it. Now, as I have said before, I tire of this. You obviously have your opinion, which is fine. What wears on me, though, is your steadfast dedication to the expression of this opinion through falsehood. It is one thing to state that Bush is a "war president," or to state that he is at all presidential material. It's a clearly seperate thing, though, to state that Bush was obviously not AWOL. This is not an opinion, but a simply act of willful ignorance. Maybe Bush wasn't AWOL. I sure as hell don't know. What I do know, though, is that I have evidence supporting that he was AWOL, and none opposing. Thus, until the situation stands, it is not logical, nor reasonable to confuse this simple reality with opinion. What is the signifigance of this issue? Well, that's your opinion. What is the fact of the issue? That isn't.

Well, some cars, such as NASCAR and military vehicles, which are expected to take rear-end hits, have safety features such as fuel tank bladders and shielding between the trunk and passenger compartment. The expensive factory-equipped police cruisers lack these safety features, even though high-speed rear-end collisions are more common in a vehicle used for police duty, as you point out.

Besides, there is a trunk between the passengers and rear bumper to provide a crumple zone. This isn't a flaw, it's a design choice.

You are correct that this is a design choice. But it is a flawed design. According to federal statistics, the Crown Victoria is more likely to catch fire when rear-ended than any other car.

The design flaw is this: the gas tank is positioned between the rear axle and the rear bumper, and is ruptured on a rear end collision when it wraps around the axle. See, the 'crumple zone' is a metal container filled with a flammable liquid. To make matters worse, there are sharp bolts and other protrusions in the area of the gas tank, increasing the likelyhood of a breach. Ford, while not accepting responsibility for the design flaw, has nonetheless issued a recommendation that a hex-head bolt attached to the rear bumper be replaced with a round-headed fastener, and that a metal tab on the undercarriage be ground down.

After several deaths and one very public disfigurement, the Phoenix Police Department has retrofitted their Crown Victorias with a gas tank bladder, similar to what is mandated by most if not all racing sanctioning bodies, such as NASCAR.

The part of this story that I find interesting, is that Ford has had problems with gas tank designs going back to the sixties, even before the well known Pinto debacle. Starting with the 'drop-in' tank of the early Mustang, where the gas tank acted as the floor of the trunk. This design flaw caused the passenger compartment to be sprayed with a mist of gasoline on rear-end impact. See here.

The reason the Pinto incident became so well known, was that Ford knew there was a fatal design flaw, but decided it would be cheaper in the long run to settle with the injured or deceased families than to redesign the gas tank, or fit the cars with a $1 plastic baffle to lessen the likelyhood of it rupturing. The Pinto gas tank had the exact same flaws (mounted between bumper and axle, and sharp objects in it's vicinity) as the current Crown Vics.

Blackboxvoting.org is the best source for any election-machine info (such as which party's contributors run Diebold).
Greg Palast is an American living in England who writes news for the London Sunday Observer.

I also check out, Indymedia, CNN, The BBC, and Google News.

The fact is that Every source you turn to is biased. I'm of the opinion that there is no such thing as unbiased journalism becuase journalists are people with finite amounts of time on their hands and finite column-inches to fill. They have to decide who they interview and how much of that material to use. I doubt that most of them (save those at Fox News) go into it with a definite story in mind and ignore all evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, biases appear in reporting. Couple this with the fact that all news outlets have a distinct audience and that their preceptions of that audience shapes their reporting to the extent that they wish to attract new audience members and avoid losing old ones. This qorks out differently for Indymedia than it does for CNN but the pressure is still there.

The bottom line is that all you can do (as others have pointed out) is to cast as diverse a net as possible and then to look, as much as is possible, for the nuggets of truth in each one. Just be wary for many people the line between reality and fiction is no longer a barrier.

As to government documents, I wouldn't diss them. They are the one true source of info that we have about the workings of our government. And, so long as Some People can be held in check

Even Mother Jones has asked that Project Censored be put out of our misery.

http://www.motherjones.com/

...is a good addition to the list. As with any source, use it as a counterpoint. It's a lot like the Consumer Reports of American politics in that you'd never call it two-sided, which makes it an advocate as much as a media source. But, they see themselves as antithetical to big media, not neccesarily just a view from the left.

"Sorry to interrupt you, Alex, but the contestant was actually correct!"

In all seriousness, though, your very cropped quote is quite disingenuous, given the important omission of the following:

Thirteen Democratic members of the House of Representatives, raising the specter of possible civil rights violations that they said took place in Florida and elsewhere in the 2000 election, wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in July, asking him to send observers.

Furthermore, I see no political slander anywhere, neither in the grandparent post nor in the article itself. I assume what you must be talking about would be this:

Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California agreed.

"This represents a step in the right direction toward ensuring that this year's elections are fair and transparent," she said.

"I am pleased that the State Department responded by acting on this need for international monitors. We sincerely hope that the presence of the monitors will make certain that every person's voice is heard, every person's vote is counted."

If we as a nation truly have nothing to hide, this will be a nice vindication of our way of doing things. On the other hand, if there are real issues, best to find them and deal with them.

Kerry has reasonably well articulated stands on education, minimum wage and health care. Of course, you may not agree w/ his stances on any of those, but please don't say he "doesn't seem to stand for much of anything".

Throwing money at causes doesn't make a corporation "good". When their business practices reflect ethical decision-making, then they are "good". Look at some of the companies that are listed in the link:

Lockheed Martin: *kaboom* Great humanitarians there.

Monsanto Fund: "Grow GMOs or wave major grocery chains goodbye." Most abusive multinational food company out there.

Shell Oil: Supported South African Apartheid. See Mother Jones for more information.

Diebold has long claimed it does not track votes on Election Day but Harris said this file of election data from San Luis Obispo County, California shows otherwise.

"It is impossible for this file to have existed if there wasn't some sort of illicit electronic communication going on for remote access," Harris said.

"It's against the law to start counting the votes before the polls have closed. But this file is date and time stamped at 3:31 in the afternoon on Election Day, and somehow all 57 precincts managed to call home add them themselves up in the middle of the day. Not only once but three times," Harris said. "If you have no electronic communications between the polling places and the main office, how does that happen? Because what would you literally have to do is to shut down the polling place in 57 places at once and get in a car and drive this card into the county office. That's not going to happen."

Technically, under the Diebold system that means it is possible for someone who has access to the system to monitor the progress of the voting results throughout the day and to potentially manipulate them. Common Dreams

A little less than eight months after steppind down as director of AIS [American Information Systems, another electronic voting Machine company], Hagel surprised national pundits and defied early polls by defeating Benjamin Nelson, the state's popular former governor. It was Hagel's first try for public office. Nebraska elections officials told The Hill that machines made by AIS probably tallied 85 percent of the votes cast in the 1996 vote, although Nelson never drew attention to the connection. Hagel won again in 2002, by a far healthier margin. That vote is still angrily disputed by Hagel's Democratic opponent, Charlie Matulka, who did try to make Hagel's ties to ES&S an issue in the race and who asked that state elections officials conduct a hand recount of the vote. That request was rebuffed, because Hagel's margin of victory was so large. Mother Jones

Leahy has been relentless in his attacks. Recently, he blamed the intelligence failures on President Bush while the senate committed determined in a bipartisan manner that the failures had nothing to do with the president, and everything to do with practices at the CIA.

It is rumored that Sen. Leahy said something to Cheney before Cheney's outburst.