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Since when is the NY Post an RNC taling point? But point taken I see who you are voting for "Anonymous Coward", Bin Laden all the way. Also you are so scared to even show your user name because just like all Liberals you hate to be called liberals and labeled as such.

If Bush serves Osama's purposes wonderfully, why in the Article does Osama want to attack "Red" (Republican) states?

I am getting many replies saying that what I said has no basis in fact. But take a look at what I am using when I stated Bin Laden wouldn't attack Kerry states. NY Post Article

I really think it is a little of both. However I think we are going to have a vast improvement in the turn out this year. But I also worry about the people that are voting for America as the way it will be tomorrow, not years for tomorrow. You hire an executive to make the hard desisions that nobody wants to make and make them for the future of your organization. Why do you think CEO's fire thousands of people at a time, it's not because it's politically popular at the time, it's because it's what needs to be done for the organization to survive.

The real question you have to ask youself tomorrow is who is going to do a better job at looking at tomorrow, and the day after and predicting what American needs even if it is not popular.

John Kerry seems to do everything by polls and polls are based in the present time, you can't take a poll of future events. Or do you want the guy, George Bush, who makes a desision that he thinks is right and runs with it, even if it wasn't popular.

I vote for the latter, and that is how I am voting tomorrow.

For the people who still can't decide take a look at the NY Post Article about how Bin Laden will only attack states that go for Bush. What that says is that Bin Laden fears Bush, and is trying to bargin with the American people to get somebody in office that will not devistate his organization as much as it has been devistated in the last 3 years.

Check out this article NY Post, where Bin Laden says he will go afters states that go for Bush, and you tell me who is doing the more effective job.

Take a look at this Article from the NY Post. It says how Bin Laden won't attack any states that go for John Kerry and will attack any states that go for George Bush. I guess that means the NY can pack up all the police officers and not screen bags at the air port any more.

Come on this is a load of horse crap. Bin Laden want's Kerry because he is perceived as ineffective, and Bush is perceived as Effectively dismantleing Bin Ladens organization fromt he bottom up. Bin Laden is running scared, so much that he is spilling the montra of Michel Moore.

Here is the link he is talking about NY Post Article

Those numbers make sense. Think of it this way. The U.S. is currently the worlds only remaining 'superpower' (although China getting pretty close to being one, if they aren't considered one already). From a psychological standpoint, most people, whether consciously or not, hold some animosity towards anything doing better than they are. I would take this as a message that other countrys see Kerry as the weaker of the two candidates, and of course, that is who our competitors would like to see in office. Even our allies, because even allies at some level compete with us. Think of it this way, would a large corporation let their competitors choose their new CEO? Didn't think so. Same type of mentality here. Even Bin Laden says he would like to see Kerry reelected http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/33124.htm

There was a lot of talk recently about 'osama makes sense'. Well here's some recent sense made of osama.

The New York Post reports on 2nd pass translations of the recently discussed on /. Osama Bin Laden 'terror tape'. It seems that when Osama spoke of states, he was not refering to nation states, but rather those of the USA that would cast electoral votes for Bush. I'm waiting to hear from Kerry on this. It seems he has run a poll.

How do people who were planning to vote for Kerry feel about these threats? I mean if your state doesn't carry, it's not your fault. Yet, you're still a member of the threatened group, namely voters in that state.

Summaries here:
'Angry Howard Stern On Line 3'
Shock Jock Stern Crosses Swords with FCC's Powell

A well educated, responsible voter is going to take their time and pay attention to what they are doing when voting thus get it right. However, the voter that was grabbed off the street by someone that was paid in crack cocaine (no joke) is going to be a sloppy voter. We are going to see a lot of complaints of "voter disenfranchisement" on Nov. 2 when most of it is really irresponsible voters and people who shouldn't be voting in the first place. The mass voter registration drives are harming this country not helping it. Voting is a right that should be taken seriously and should not be exercised citizens that can't even register without some paid political operative pounding on their door.

I can't watch the movie on this machine but, as numerous other people are pointing out, even The New York Post (you know, the paper that's owned by the same guy who owns the Fox News Channel) have stated that it was a pen.

Yes, bringing a pen was against the rules, but does it really make that much difference in the grand scheme of things? (And, if you do happen to think that a pen is a big deal, I suggest that you should re-examine your priorities.)

Uh.... it was a pen.

Kerry took a note out of his pocket

Sorry. Already proven wrong. It was a pen.

Knowing how to develop stuff like this is not a skill everyone has. This might explain why Google recently hired some browser-type software developers (as discussed on Slashdot).

Sure, here's the New York Post's article.

Or did you want a legitimate source? Try USA Today.

Morris, who saw far less effective policies lead to disaster in the Clinton administration, credits the act and the cooperation it mandates between federal intelligence and local law enforcement with blocking a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and another to set off a bomb in NYC's Garment District. If both had succeeded, the death toll would have run into the tens of thousands.

Keep in mind that it is not good anti-terrorism policy to let these successes be too widely known, since they clue terrorists into the means being used to fight them. The Clinton administration would have trumpted every success it had, however pitiful, and claimed it was due to Bill's genius. The Bush administration prefers to do its job well and keep quiet about it.

The article answered a question that has bothered me. Given how desperate terrorists must be to hit back at the U.S., why haven't they accomplished anything in the past three years? Morris makes clear that the Patriot Act is one reason.

Yeah, I know this is flame bait to those who think Attorney General Ashcroft goes home each evening, tucks himself in bed, and reads reports detailing the "p0rn' books they just checked out of the library. For such people, facts are of little use.

--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle

"My name is Steve Gardner. I served in 1966 and 1967 on my first tour of duty in Vietnam on Swift boats, and I did my second tour in '68 and '69, involved with John Kerry in the last 2 1/2 months of my tour. The John Kerry that I know is not the John Kerry that everybody else is portraying. I served alongside him and behind him, five feet away from him in a gun tub, and watched as he made indecisive moves with our boat, put our boats in jeopardy, put our crews in jeopardy... if a man like that can't handle that 6-man crew boat, how can you expect him to be our Commander-in-Chief?"

-- Steven Gardner

You can read an interview with him regarding the story John Kerry has told about going into Cambodia, supposedly more than 50 times, including on the floor of the Senate, here on the August 10th transcript. The New York Post adds this:

The swift vets are also behind the anti-Kerry best seller, "Unfit for Command," which has already forced Team Kerry to retract his decades-old claim that he was sent on an illegal covert mission to Cambodia on Christmas 1968.

Kerry's own handpicked historian, Douglas Brinkley, told the Washington Post over the weekend that Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia claim is "obviously wrong," backing up a key claim by the swift vets who say it never happened.

6) Are you aware that the doctor who claims to have treated Kerry's wounds wasn't the one listed on the documentation as having treated Kerry, and that the doctor who did treat him affirmed Kerry's report of the wound?

Not quite. The person who signed that was the Navy Corpsman assisting the doctor who treated Kerry:

Only a treatment record reflecting a scratch and a certificate signed three months later have been produced. There is no "after-action" hostile fire or casualty report. This is because there was no hostile fire, casualty, or action on this "most frightening night" of Kerry's Vietnam experience.

Letson agreed with Hibbard, in a statement the doctor gave us in April, that Kerry's injury was minor and probably self-inflicted:
"The incident that occasioned my meeting with Lieutenant Kerry began while he was patrolling the coast at night just north of Cam Ranh Bay, where I was the only medical officer for a small support base. Kerry returned from that night on patrol with an injury.
"Kerry reported that he had observed suspicious activity on shore and fired a flare to illuminate the area," Letson continued. "According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a firefight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.
"The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a grenade round at close range to the shore. The crewman who related this story thought that the injury was from a fragment of the grenade shell that had ricocheted back from the rocks. That seemed to fit the injury I treated.
"What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about one centimeter in length and was about two or three millimeters in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle," Letson

The swift vets are also behind the anti-Kerry best seller, "Unfit for Command," which has already forced Team Kerry to retract his decades-old claim that he was sent on an illegal covert mission to Cambodia on Christmas 1968.

Kerry's own handpicked historian, Douglas Brinkley, told the Washington Post over the weekend that Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia claim is "obviously wrong," backing up a key claim by the swift vets who say it never happened.

Kerry at times has claimed that he only threw away his military ribbons and not his medals at anti-war protests, but the swift vets use video uncovered by ABC News that shows him saying he did in fact toss his own medals.

Here is another Kerry claim that is withering:

A primary claim against Mr. Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans is that Mr. Kerry's first Purple Heart -- awarded for action on Dec. 2, 1968 -- did not involve the enemy and that Mr. Kerry's wounds that day were unintentionally self-inflicted.

They charge that in the confusion involving unarmed, fleeing Viet Cong, Mr. Kerry fired a grenade, which detonated nearby and splattered his arm with hot metal.
Mr. Kerry has claimed that he faced his "first intense combat" that day, returned fire, and received his "first combat related injury."
A journal entry Mr. Kerry wrote Dec. 11, however, raises questions about what really happened nine days earlier.
"A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky," wrote Mr. Kerry, according the book "Tour of Duty" by friendly biographer Douglas Brinkley.
If enemy fire was not involved in that or any other incident, according to the Military Order of the Purple Heart, no medal should be awarded.

And more:

None of Kerry's three Purple Hearts was for serious injuries. They were minor scratches, resulting in no lost duty time.

Each of these decorations is controversial, with considerable evidence (and in two cases, incontrovertible and conclusive evidence) that the injuries were caused by his own hand and not the result of hostile fire.

You should also be clear that not all of the veterans who have spoken out and revealed information contrary to John Kerry's claims are members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

And then there is John Kerry's testimony before Congress in 1971, which was a masterpiece of political theater in the service of lies.

It is also interesting to note that while you will hear endlessly repeated that the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are funded by rich Republicans which means this:

But public records show that two of its three main backers are longtime GOP contributors: Bob Perry, a Texas home builder who gave $100,000, and Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate executive, who gave $25,000.... The third major backer is John O'Neill, who put up $25,000 and is co-author of the group's book.

.. what you won't hear is that the seed money was followed up by a lot of people making small individual contributions:

But the swift-boat veterans have vowed to continue their ad campaign and have raised more than $2 million in contributions, a

The swift vets are also behind the anti-Kerry best seller, "Unfit for Command," which has already forced Team Kerry to retract his decades-old claim that he was sent on an illegal covert mission to Cambodia on Christmas 1968.

Kerry's own handpicked historian, Douglas Brinkley, told the Washington Post over the weekend that Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia claim is "obviously wrong," backing up a key claim by the swift vets who say it never happened.

Kerry at times has claimed that he only threw away his military ribbons and not his medals at anti-war protests, but the swift vets use video uncovered by ABC News that shows him saying he did in fact toss his own medals.

Here is another Kerry claim that is withering:

A primary claim against Mr. Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans is that Mr. Kerry's first Purple Heart -- awarded for action on Dec. 2, 1968 -- did not involve the enemy and that Mr. Kerry's wounds that day were unintentionally self-inflicted.

They charge that in the confusion involving unarmed, fleeing Viet Cong, Mr. Kerry fired a grenade, which detonated nearby and splattered his arm with hot metal.
Mr. Kerry has claimed that he faced his "first intense combat" that day, returned fire, and received his "first combat related injury."
A journal entry Mr. Kerry wrote Dec. 11, however, raises questions about what really happened nine days earlier.
"A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky," wrote Mr. Kerry, according the book "Tour of Duty" by friendly biographer Douglas Brinkley.
If enemy fire was not involved in that or any other incident, according to the Military Order of the Purple Heart, no medal should be awarded.

And more:

None of Kerry's three Purple Hearts was for serious injuries. They were minor scratches, resulting in no lost duty time.

Each of these decorations is controversial, with considerable evidence (and in two cases, incontrovertible and conclusive evidence) that the injuries were caused by his own hand and not the result of hostile fire.

You should also be clear that not all of the veterans who have spoken out and revealed information contrary to John Kerry's claims are members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

And then there is John Kerry's testimony before Congress in 1971, which was a masterpiece of political theater in the service of lies.

It is also interesting to note that while you will hear endlessly repeated that the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are funded by rich Republicans which means this:

But public records show that two of its three main backers are longtime GOP contributors: Bob Perry, a Texas home builder who gave $100,000, and Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate executive, who gave $25,000.... The third major backer is John O'Neill, who put up $25,000 and is co-author of the group's book.

.. what you won't hear is that the seed money was followed up by a lot of people making small individual contributions:

But the swift-boat veterans have vowed to continue their ad campaign and have raised more than $2 million in contributions, a

I thought it was interesting how the NY Post described the incident with Josh and his bike:

"A 35-year-old man was arrested for using a convoluted spray-paint mechanism to deface city streets.

Riding a bike and carrying a laptop computer that was programmed to propel spray-paint on the street, Joshua Kinsberg inked the words "America is a free-speech zone" around downtown.

He was arrested for criminal mischief. "

No where does it say anything about it being water soluble chalk, which I think bascially dictates/spears the legality of what he is doing. When someone says "spray paint", I believe most people would simply imagine permanent spay paint... not chalk. That slant takes him from grey area activist to black ink vandal.

If you wish to inform them of their error, perhaps a polite message to their news/online editor, Chris Shaw, might persuade them to correct their article. It'd be good to catch this before other media pick up the same error.

If you wish to inform them of their error, perhaps a polite message to their news/online editor, Chris Shaw, might persuade them to correct their article. It'd be good to catch this before other media pick up the same error.

He's one of my favorites, along with

Thomas Sowell and Dick Morris

Mopeds, bicycles, skates, skateboards

Electronic equipment of Non-Rights holding Broadcasting Organisations

Flags of non-participating countries. Flags of participating countries larger than 2x1 meters, banners (larger than 1x1 meters approximately). No banner may be hung in metallic, wooden or plastic poles or frames

Horns, laser devices and other devices that cause disturbance

Flag poles, logos, open umbrellas in seating areas, items (T-shirts, hats, bags, etc.) with distinctive trademarks of companies that are competitive to those of the sponsors

Pirate "Athens 2004" products

Leaflets, pamphlets, non-approved publications, unauthorised signs and labels, printed material for publishing purposes with religious, political, provocative or obscene content

Balls, rackets, Frisbees, and similar items, a large number of coins, lighters

Musical instruments, glass bottles, flasks, iceboxes, ice-bags, thermos, water, beverages, alcoholic drinks and material, in general, of any shape or content, or any other items that ATHOC in cooperation with the Security Authorities in charge, consider to be dangerous or inappropriate

Food (except for proven medical reasons)

Animals (except service animals)

Large items, large bags, suitcases, folding seats, small stools etc. (except in certain events)

Strollers in seating areas

Smoking or gambling

Collection of money for unauthorised purposes

Use or distribution of clothing and/or any type of material with the intent of advertising, promotion, raising money or making profit through unauthorised means

Ambush marketing

Demonstrations of a political or religious nature

Unauthorised ticket sales

Unauthorised sale of food

Unauthorised entry of TV presenters and unauthorised transmission and/or videotaping through transmi

There was an error this morning in which one of the brokerage houses let two trades go through early which resulted in the briefly reported $140 price. The NASDAQ announced that trading had not yet begun and it began trading at the opening price of $85 a little bit later in the morning. Since Yahoo's chart likely just grabs the data as it's seen and plots it, fixing this may be a manual thing. You can read about the error here.

at least it's not a Con Ed manhole cover.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/1 8656.htm

August 14, 2004 -- THE Greek organizers of this summer's Olympics, which began in Athens yesterday, claim that more women athletes are competing than ever before. Women are also playing a high-profile role in making the whole enterprise, the biggest of its kind in Greek history, run as smoothly as possible. Seen from the Muslim world, however, the Athens game will look like a male-dominated spectacle in which women play an incidental part.

According to officials in Athens, the number of Muslim women participating in this year's game is the lowest since 1960. Several Muslim countries have sent no women athletes at all; others, such as Iran, are taking part with only one, in full hijab. And state-owned TV networks in many Muslim countries, including Iran and Egypt, have received instructions to limit coverage of events featuring women athletes at Athens to a minimum.

A circular from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture in Tehran asks TV editors to make sure that women's games are not televised live: "Images of women engaged in contests [sic] must be carefully vetted," says the letter, leaked in Tehran. "Editors must take care to prevent viewers from being confronted [sic] with uncovered parts of the female anatomy in contests."

Women athletes in Athens are unlikely to wear the Islamic hijab or full-length manteaux that cover their legs to the ankle and their arms to the wrist. The ministry's order thus could mean a blanket ban on images of female athletics.

Fear of Muslim viewers seeing bare female legs and arms on television is also shared by theologians in several Arab states. Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian theologian based in Qatar, claims that female sport is exploited as a means of undermining "divine morality."

Ayatollah Emami Kashani, one of Iran's ruling mullahs, goes further. In a recent sermon, he claimed that allowing women to compete in the Olympics was a "sign of voyeurism" on the part of the male organizers.

"The question how much of a woman's body could be seen in public is one of the two or three most important issues that have dominated theological debate in Islam for decades," says Mohsen Sahabi, a Muslim historian. "More time and energy is devoted to this issue than to economic development or scientific research. "

Click to learn more...

Islamist theologians are divided on how much of a woman's body can be exposed in public. The most radical, the Sitris, insist that women should be entirely covered from head to toe, including their faces and fingers. The less radical Hanbalis say a woman should be covered all over, but recommend a mask with apertures for the eyes and the mouth. (A version of this, known as the burqa, was imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban).

The Khomeinist version of the hijab, invented in the 1970s and now popular in many countries, including the United States, covers a woman's entire body but allows her face and hands to be exposed. Hijab theoreticians agree on one claim: a woman's hair emanates dangerous rays that could drive men wild with sexual lust and thus undermine social peace.

But the problem of women athletes goes deeper. Some theologians claim that any form of sporting activity by women produces "sinful consequences." In 2000, for example, the Khomeinist authorities in Tehran announced a ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles. The rationale? Riding bicycles or motorcycles would activate a woman's thighs and legs, thus arousing "uncontrollable lustful drives" in her. And men watching women on their bikes in the streets could be "led towards dangerous urges."

The problems don't end there. According to some theologians, a woman should not be allowed to venture out of her home without a "raqib" or male guardian. But that guardian must be either her husband or her father, brother, grandfather, uncle or son.

When watching a movie like Fahrenheit 9/11

You didn't download that movie did you? What was your IP address again? ;)

Not to mention that Fahrenheit 9/11 was crap.

June 19, 2004 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday buttressed President Bush's claim that Iraq posed a direct threat to America by saying Russian intelligence was tipped off that Saddam Hussein was preparing anti-American attacks after 9/11.

Putin said the warning was relayed to Bush, who personally thanked one of Russia's spy chiefs for it.

And then there are Zarqawi and Abu Nidal , two of the most blood-thirsty savages engaging in terrorism, both of whom found a home in Iraq.

No, I'm afraid you have it backwards, Saddam was both a participant and an enabler of terrorism. We did the right thing just based on terrorism.

That is not even considering the many banned activities going on in Iraq in defiance of the UN. Read David Kay's report sometime, or some of the other UN material. For your convenience, here is an excert from his statement:

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:

- A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

- A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

- Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

- New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

- Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

- A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

- Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

- Plans a

In the interest of balance and intellectual honesty, you might wish to also link to the Iraqi Torture Video

hand amputation

finger chopping

beating with metal pipe

arm breaking with metal pipe
... presumably more videos exist but DOD refuses to release them

From the Wall Street Jounal Online Edition:

The American Enterprise Institute held an unusual video screening [several days ago], and hardly anyone showed up. One who did was the New York Post's Deborah Orin: The video only lasts four minutes or so--gruesome scenes of torture from the days when Saddam Hussein's thugs ruled Abu Ghraib prison. I couldn't bear to watch, so I walked out until it was over.

Some who stayed wished they hadn't. They told of savage scenes of decapitation, fingers chopped off one by one, tongues hacked out with a razor blade--all while victims shriek in pain and the thugs chant Saddam's praises.

Saddam's henchmen took the videos as newsreels to document their deeds in honor of their leader.

But these awful images didn't show up on American TV news ["the truth is out there" but being hidden from us???].

In fact, just four or five reporters showed up for the screening at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which says it got the video via the Pentagon. Fewer wrote about it. ["the truth is out there" but being hidden from us???]

[snip][snip][snip]

As Orin notes, this "raises a very complex problem in the War on Terror. It's worse than creating moral equivalence between Saddam's tortures and prisoner abuse by U.S. troops. It's that we do far more to highlight our own [western liberal democracy] wrongdoings precisely because they are less appalling."

Part of the problem may be that the press hasn't quite figured out how to deal with such "asymmetric propaganda," [the internet changes everything ;-];-];-] as Orin calls it. Yet it doesn't seem that it would be that hard to provide context--to make sure that every story about American abuses at Abu Ghraib also included graphic descriptions of what went on there before Iraq's liberation.

[snip][snip][snip]

hand amputation

finger chopping

beating with metal pipe

arm breaking with metal pipe
... presumably more videos exist but DOD refuses to release them

From the Wall Street Jounal Online Edition

The American Enterprise Institute held an unusual video screening [several days ago], and hardly anyone showed up. One who did was the New York Post's Deborah Orin:

The video only lasts four minutes or so--gruesome scenes of torture from the days when Saddam Hussein's thugs ruled Abu Ghraib prison. I couldn't bear to watch, so I walked out until it was over.

Some who stayed wished they hadn't. They told of savage scenes of decapitation, fingers chopped off one by one, tongues hacked out with a razor blade--all while victims shriek in pain and the thugs chant Saddam's praises.

Saddam's henchmen took the videos as newsreels to document their deeds in honor of their leader.

But these awful images didn't show up on American TV news.

In fact, just four or five reporters showed up for the screening at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which says it got the video via the Pentagon. Fewer wrote about it.

We saw part of this video a few weeks back, and indeed it is every bit as horrific as Orin's fellow reporters describe. Our computer crashed about a third of the way through and we didn't have the stomach to start watching again after rebooting. So we can certainly understand why television news outlets would see it as unfit to air.

As Orin notes, this "raises a very complex problem in the War on Terror. It's worse than creating moral equivalence between Saddam's tortures and prisoner abuse by U.S. troops. It's that we do far more to highlight our own wrongdoings precisely because they are less appalling."

Part of the problem may be that the press hasn't quite figured out how to deal with such "asymmetric propaganda," [the internet changes everything ;-];-];-] as Orin calls it. Yet it doesn't seem that it would be that hard to provide context--to make sure that every story about American abuses at Abu Ghraib also included graphic descriptions of what went on there before Iraq's liberation.

[snip][snip][snip]

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

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

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

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

...I have never seen such distrust of a public official [as Donald Rumsfeld] in the senior ranks. Not even of Bill Clinton. Rumsfeld & Co. have trashed our ground forces every way they could.... Rumsfeld has wounded our military and sent our troops to die for harebrained schemes. In place of sound plans, he substituted political prejudices. Election year or not, he has to go.

Actually, it turns out that the abuse is much more widespread and was encouraged from high up the chain of command. These kids were congratulated for 'getting results.'

Actually, it is starting to look more and more like this was not a case of systematic abuse instigated high up in the chain of command. Instead it is looking more and more like the acts of a relatively small number of junior soliders who were turning the prison into the site for their out of control sex party with elements of bondage and discipline. There may have been some involvement from the military intelligence side, but it seems likely that if it really existed it was in the form of low level, informal contacts, not a systematic policy.

He doesn't want to tolerate dissent, but he can't overplay his hand. Our system has checks and balances to presidential power, and he's removing them, one by one.

Nonsense. Our system of government has as many checks and balances as it ever did.

For example, Karl Rove committed treason by blowing the cover of a CIA operative. Why hasn't he been tried?

Maybe because there isn't any evidence that actually is what happened? Unlike your fantasies the real world requires actual evidence.

Numerous people in government have complained that Bush is trying to eliminate his critics.

And maybe when there is a shred of evidence of real, substantial wrong doing we will start to worry. Until then those claims are just hot air.

It doesn't seem like they need any help with that.

Oh, thats rich. Now, if that were true, why are the looney left and the Democrats working overtime to try and do exactly that? They might even be gaining ground if it wasn't for those pesky terrorists chopping off peoples heads on TV, and other vile acts, just often enough to reorient most people to the real situation. As to the Abu Ghraib situation, it is starting to look more and more like one long out of control bondage and domination sex party by a small number of soldiers than anything else. Of course, if you listened only to Ted Kennedy, you might believe that we will filling mass graves at the 30,000+/year rate Saddam was doing.

Let's remember that Sir Francis Drake was a pirate, as well as the proto-feminists Mary Read and Anne Bonny. In Drake's case, the Spanish were plundering their American conquests for gold to use to arm themselves for invasion of England. Drake not only was instrumental in defeating the Armada directly, but in cutting off the funding for the Spanish terror as a licensed privateer, chartered by the Crown to seize Spanish shipping. The Crown eventually revoked the licenses to Drake and his peers, but the pirates were enabled to continue their careers awhile especially by the free trade policies of New Amsterdam, whose Dutch citizens could still remember the evils of the former Spanish dominion over Holland.

The essential outlines of respectable piracy are these: A group seizing wealth to which it has no real moral claim, and using that wealth to further increase the scope of its power towards absolute monopoly, controlled through a close collusion of centralized wealth, power and religion (e.g. Spain /Inquisition with New World gold, or Clear Channel/Bush with the "public" airwaves) is opposed by independent, free-thinking owners of their own rigs, preserving liberty against the dark designs for ultimate consolidation of power.

Pirates can be good, those opposed to them as evil as the conquistadors. Without pirates, Spain could have taken control of most all of Europe and the Americas, the Inquisition would still be ongoing, and the level of economic development and social justice would be that of a typical South American country at best. The public should find ways to directly charter pirates, in doing so aligning them with the public good as Drake was allied with the good of England. Then the FCC will be as unlikely to act decisively against them as it is to take on Opra.

Who says they haven't? You are making the assumption that the government believes that the rules apply equally to everyone. If that were the case, then Oprah Winfrey would have been fined or taken off the air for indecency. Microsoft would have been punished under anti-trust laws and for illegally maintaining a monopoly. There are many many many other examples, these are just some of the more high profile ones.

The rules do not apply equally to everyone.

So long as they avoid libel (which is a matter for the courts), then it's an issue of institutional choice.

If everything that's called news must be true, then you would deny me the pleasure of reading The Onion. It's a news parody site, but at first glance it's not obvious. The top of the page says, "America's Finest News Source (tm)," so it must be news. Yet the Supreme Court ruled to protect parody as a first amendment right. What's wrong with that?

What about the Weekly World News? It's the highest circulated paper in the US. I see nothing wrong with their editorial "fact" fabrication. Nowhere does that paper say, "Entertainment Value Only". People use it for entertainment though. What's wrong with that?

Basically, you can't hold these institutions under different legal standards than the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. They are all publishers. So long as they avoid libel, they are free to print whatever they want. Their accuracy beyond that is an institutional choice.

If you don't feel they are accurate, and you expect them to be, your only recourse is to spend your money elsewhere. If enough people do that then the advertising will suffer.

A good example of this is the New York Post. This is a paper that suffered under claims of inaccuracy for years. Now they report more "gossip" to keep readership up. How many respected newspapers keep gossip on the front page?

I, in a very humble opinion, see nothing wrong with any of this. It's publishing. It's there to sell papers.

Where I do see a problem, is when someone expects the government to keep someone's first amendment rights in check. Libel and Slander laws exist to protect when a first amendment right infringes on someone else's rights. You do not have the right to force someone to give you accurate news. You do have the right to investigate and find out the truth yourself. Our system, as it exists, is pretty good. What's happening is exactly what should happen. Lies and mis-spoken facts are getting out there, and then being found out. This is the way our system has evolved. And sometimes it doesn't work quickly, but it does work.

Bottom line, there is no way to force the truth onto those whom don't care. Those seeking the truth can find it. Until I can no longer find the truth when I seek it out, then I see nothing wrong with it.

It's the same reason why William Hung has a record album. People are attracted to stupid stuff. The Internet makes distribution of stupid stuff possible.

I'm not the original poster, but this is a big deal. The Iraqi oil-for-food program was by far the largest amount of money that the UN had ever handled. It dwarfed the rest of the UN's budget.

(That said, I doubt Putin or Chirac were bribed. Like Bush, they had their own strong interests in the matter of Iraq and its government.)

Here are a few references. You can find plenty more on news.google.com :

'Massive scam' in Iraqi oil program

Get to heart of UN role in Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal

Annan Pushes UN Council Members on Iraq Oil Scandal

3,000 UN Staffers Probed

Bulgaria's President Questioned over Iraq Oil Scandal

The article fails to mention that Jobs can also play an increasingly large role in the proposed Disney/Comcast merger. Comcast's CEO, Brian Roberts, is trying to pursuade Steve Jobs to join ranks with Comcast. Since Pixar has been directly responsible for a very large portion of Disney's recent success, and since Pixar will be severing ties with Disney, if Steve Jobs endorses the merger and decides to renew the contract with Disney (because of the Comcast deal), stockholders will be significantly more inclined to approve the merger.

Oxytocin.

That would be different from Oxycontin, then.

Area code 212 is coveted by New Yorkers because it's the original NPA for NYC, before 646 and 917. It's kind of a status symbol there, and I'm sure that has something to do with the price going so high. The New York Post has more information on the desire for 212.

Of course, there is always the liberal way to protect "free speech", which is of course to body slam anybody who says stuff you don't agree with.

More than 25,000 searchers, who scoured a debris "footprint" that was 645 miles long, found 84,900 individual pieces, about 38 percent of the space shuttle.

Does this not make one wonder how much of the shuttle might still be "out there" waiting to be found, or perhaps sitting on display in someone's house? Granted, much of it would have been literally vaporized, however I think that would amount to far less than the remaining 62% of Columbia.

I heard on CNN that pages of Ilan Ramon's journal were found recently in Texas. A quick google news turned up this article on the Post.

It has also been stated that remains from all seven astronauts were recovered, and that some of the organisms on the shuttle actually survived.

This all points to the possibility that there is still more shuttle out there, and that perhaps we could be finding Columbia piece by precious piece for years to come...

For reference, we should remember that some of these idiots think GTA is worse than child molestation.

OT:
Tasteless T-shirt of the week:
Front-- Michael Jackson did not have sex with those kids.
Back-- He made love to them.

(Sorry... mods please be nice.)

Ac

cbyron@nypost.com

"don't you think your article was a tad .... ridiculous? do you propose we ban real life? it seems that your main problem with the game was how "realistic" it is. how free the player is to do whatever he wishes. what a horrible world that would be, if all of man's urges were suddenly loosed upon the world! hah. guess what, they already are, brother. and people don't go around killing hundreds of people at a time. sure, crime happens, but it's not because of a silly video game. if only Jeffrey Dahmer, Joseph Stalin, Jack the Ripper, Osama Bin Laden, and Adolf Hitler hadn't been influenced by those naughty video games, we'd be living in a clean, christian utopia by now!

it's offensive to you. don't play it. you think it's bad for kids. so keep your kids away from it. don't tell me how to parent. MY kids will know the difference between right and wrong, fantasy and reality. maybe if you'd tought your kids the same, you wouldn't be so worried.

the game is a simple power fantasy indulgence, just like a comic book, a sports car, or newspaper editorial. and frankly, it is an extremely well-done game. they didn't sell millions of copies simply based on gore. sure, that's what grabs the headlines, but the game is truly a tight bit of programming with fun, rewarding, and challenging play mechanics.

"This is 10,000 times worse than the worst thing anybody thinks Michael Jackson ever did to a little boy"

the most amazing thing i have ever read in my life is your suggestion that IMAGINARY VIOLENCE is worse for a child than REAL LIFE CHILD MOLESTATION. you say you would rather let your child be RAPED than play a VIDEO GAME. sir, now I am the one who is deeply offended, and frightened for your children."

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/letters_ editor.htm

The above link may help. If you wish for the Post to take you seriously, put in your real contact information, as newspapers typically call you to verify you actually wrote the editorial.

Some pundents adovcate Buying What You Know:

... thanks to my early-adopter stance on satellite radio: An investment in XM Satellite Radio, a service I'm practically evangelical about, returned almost 778 percent year-to-date

...what effect the Dean campaign will have on the political process:


http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/13258.ht m