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Let me help further that point.

Spreading the Word (w/photos)

Col. Gary Brandl: Satan lives in Fallujah

In preparation for the attack, Christian Heavy Metal.

As for other interesting Iraq news for today:

US forces demolish a hospital and target another for releasing casualty figures; 70 journalists are embedded for the invasion; mot of the troops doing the invasion have no major combat experience; and a Georgia man commits suicide at Ground Zero to protest Bush and the war in Iraq.

Toasted my links somehow:

250 Scientists

300 Scientists

550 of todays scientists disagree with you. And so do I.

Take a look.

In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results.

The New York Times is reporting that part of the World Trade Center debris was built into the Mars Rovers.

Bush was largely silent on this issue during the campaign. And the New York Times is reporting that Bangalore is happy to see him re-elected.

Blizzard has also used it to distribute World of Warcraft videos. And Bram was working with Valve on Steam (NYT article), another legitimate use in the gaming world.

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. "You think he's an idiot, don't you?" I said, no, I didn't. "No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!" In this instance, the final "you," of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

My favorite quote is "Look at the Canadian Dollar, it's worth almost 80 cents. 4 years ago it was worth 65 cents. Since Canada is our largest trading partner, and we're big importers of Canadian raw materials, this is killing us. You'd think Bush is a Canadian." (It's now worth about 82 cents, thanks to his election win, just look at the huge increase when it became clear he'd won.)

"Where I've personally worked elections, the 2 or 3 lead people generally had 20-30 years experience doing elections."

So? Really, so? Do they have 20-30 years experience dealing with eVoting machines? Or were the first 15-25 years entirely with other mechanisms?

"Having gaming commission people audit elections equipment is like having firewall coders review database software. It might be interesting, but it's not a real-world test."

Yet it is perfectly reasonable to expect people who have always used paper and mechanical voting to review electronic voting.

The gaming commission deals with computer devices where changing the settings can cost them money. Electronic voting machines deal with computer devices where changing the settings can cause votes to be miscast. While a specific exploit is unlikely to be transferable from one to the other, things that look like vulnerabilities to the gaming commission are likely to have similar exploits in the voting machines.

"Can you guarantee that a pollworker won't wait until 7:30 and vote for 10 people that were in the pollbook but didn't show up to vote?"

No, of course not. However, that is a detectable problem. The ten signatures in the polling book could be recognized, because there *is* a paper record. Further, it requires compromising multiple poll workers (not just the one who votes, but the others watching as well). These are exactly the areas where 20-30 years of election experience are useful.

"I am a bit concerned with their track record and attitude, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a massive and unjustified presumption of guilt on the part of elections people and machines."

Bull. We are *exactly* talking about problems with Diebold machines. We are *not* talking about election workers (except one very singular case involving some missing documentation; however, this is a minor issue). You are the one raising a straw man here.

"if you lack confidence in your elections people."

I don't. I lack confidence in machines that do not have reviewable (by me) paper audits. My complaint is quite specific to the possibility that these machines can be compromised *without* compromising the elections people without requiring any failures on the part of the election people.

"Got a cite?"

Sure, According to the study, 5,277 voters made a clean punch for Gore and a clean punch for Reform Party nominee Pat Buchanan, candidates whose political philosophies are poles apart. An additional 1,650 voters made clean punches for Bush and Buchanan. Tens of thousands comes from this article, which is broader in scope. Note: I'm not claiming that anything illegal happened nor that these votes should have been counted for Gore in a recount. I'm simply claiming that there is strong reason to believe that votes were miscast and that the nature of the ballots made it more likely that Gore voters would make mistakes than that Bush voters would. The votes that I would *really* like to count would be invisible, as they would be votes for Gore that showed up as votes for Buchanan.

Incidentally, Dole got screwed by the same effect in 1996 but no one complained, because it didn't matter to the result. If they had complained then, there would have been time to correct the problem before 2000.

I find it very unlikely that BlackBoxVoting can find problems in the Ohio (or other) election that will affect the final result. However, if there are problems, it is essential that we find these things out now rather than later, when it matters. Further, if there are things that look bad but really aren't, it would be better to find that out now rather than in a contentious election later.

You can pick apart ever part of every sentence I write, a lie is told knowingly, prove he lied and I'll eat my words. You can't know a mans thoughts.
We are all fucking liers.

I could, couldn't I? Your statement of "We are all fucking liers (sic)" doesn't add anything to the credibility of what you're trying to say. It's not wrong, but it's not a trait I admire in a President.

Start here for the lies, or "embraced inaccurate intelligence": http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/mi ddleeast/03tube.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=2e1cd cc5b66e0332&ex=1254456000&partner=rssuserl and He chose to believe this because it worked for him.

You asked who could be president. One of the awesome things about this nation we love is that either of us could be president once we match the limited criteria. So, when you asked who amongst us could be president - I gave you the answer.

The American people voted for a president that presided over an economy that produced a record current account deficit, a record trade deficit, a record budget deficit and a national debt of such proportions that the IMF says they threaten the world economy.

Who ever said all that Americans ever care about is money?

Kerry did the math, that's all.

He was down 136,221 votes. Kerry's single best county in Ohio was Cuyahoga (City of Cleveland), where he scored 67%. The most favorable assumption one could realistically offer would be that the as-yet uncounted provisionals would be as good as Kerry's best county. There are 135,149 known provisional ballots + perhaps 10% more that may yet be reported. So, 135149*(110%) provisionals *67% margin = 99605 votes possibly gained.

That's 136,221 - 99,605 = 36,616 votes too few.

I feel like going door to door and yelling at my neighbors. I feel worse that I didn't do it last week.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/03/election .main/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A195 10-2004Nov2.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/03/politics/campaig n/04electcnd.html?ei=5094&en=ba992171a995deaf&hp=& ex=1099544400&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage?hp&adxnnlx =1099500521-xBRX+5Tp7qQqEOM/W4qi0w
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vot e2004/president.htm

More interesting will be the Votemaster's analysis of which pollsters' methodologies seemed soundest this time around, in hopes of better info for 2008... assuming out new Electronic Voting Machine Overlords bother with elections then. =)

Oh, yeah, Ironport claims their multimillion e-mail per hour senders are only for use by good guys. Right.

The colors are not official party colors at all ( in terms of a party featuring just red or just blue), and generally signs, banners, bumper stickers, etc. for both parties feature some scheme of red, white, and blue.

If you go to the New York Times website, you can look at their rather interesting representation of the map, with dark red and blue for solidly Republican or Democratic states, light shades of those colors for states that are not sure bets for a party, but still noticeably lean one way or another, and yellow, for the five truly undecided "swing states."

Later on I was linked to the NY Times map, which I liked a little bit more for different reasons.

This is the best interactive electorial college map I found on the Internet. Clicking on the button 'Electorial votes' changes the proportions of the states to reflect the electorial college. Lot of stats and fun to play with too.

As of now, I believe after reading this that the states are going to be voting almost exactly as the did in 2000, and it will come down to Florida making the call, yet again!

• http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/Around_the_World/Coun tries/United_States/Government/Politics/Elections/ 2004_U_S__Elections/
• http://www.electoral-vote.com/
• http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/
• http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/campaign/ind ex.html
• http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
• http://www.factcheck.org/

> They should pay Bill Clinton a royalty. His administration made their recent progress possible.

Hardly. Credit or blame goes to 1) Hughes Electronics Corp. and Boeing Satellite Systems for unlawfully transferring rocket and satellite data to China and 2) Richard Nixon for agreeing to expand political and economic ties with China back in 1972.

A crackpot propagandist on ./"

"...He thought Sweden was neutral and had no army. MY GOD. He won't drop his notions even after they are shown to be dead wrong."

The New York Times

"''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army."

''You were right,'' he said, with bonhomie. ''Sweden does have an army.''

> What NYTimes article?

This one.

This ancestral human population lived somewhere in Africa, geneticists believe, and started to split up some time after 144,000 years ago, give or take 10,000 years, the inferred time at which both the mitochondrial and Y chromosome trees make their first branches.

It mentions the earlier estimates.

Electoral Tie

Psst. President Bush Is Hard at Work Expanding Government Secrecy

The government needs thousand of eyeballs watching what its doing.

> Now, since Noah didn't reproduce asexually, how can
> we determine what his original line was since we only
> have the three lines of his sons?
> Instead of the three lines merging to 1, they should be
> only the three original lines.
> Unless you could dig up Noah to map his genetics.

Well, we're armchair generals here. All the hard work is done by the scientists and this is really their statement. If we accept their statement that there are three lineages, we should also be willing to accept their statements that the 3 lineages converge to one.

I'm simply pointing out similarities between their data and the Biblical record.

> One of Eve's lines hit Asia and branches 6 times.
> And 2 of those branches never split again.
> In Asia, those original 6 branches are still shown.
> They only branch when they change geographic location.
>
> To me, that indicates other tribes not connected to the original Eve and inter-breeding.
It indicates human migration. When tribe A settles in an area, they share common DNA and mutations. But if tribe A.1 "branches off" from tribe A to migrate somewhere else, the only common DNA between A and A.1 is up until the point they branched.

Here's the original article.

People in Tasmania were one group who may have been completely isolated from mainland Australia from 12,000 years ago until 1803, due to the flooding of Bass Strait. This did not affect the results, because "today there are no remaining native Tasmanians without some European or mainland Australian ancestry".

Of these sons of Adam, the first three (designated I, II and III) are found almost exclusively in Africa. Son III's lineage migrated to Asia and begat sons IV-X, who spread through the rest of the world ...

AC: I've read more than once that the number of overvotes for Gore was more than 10x those for Bush? That leads to the question of why so many people in our party are so dumb?

Here's a serious answer for that troll: Did you hear of the "Butterfly" ballot? Take a look. On that ballot, Bush is the first name and Gore is the second name- but although Bush is the first bubble, Gore is the THIRD bubble. Filling in the second bubble actually gives your vote to Pat Buchanan!

So it's not that Republicans were smarter, it's just that their voting input had less opportunity for error (Democrat voters apparently erred about 5% of the time)

Furthermore, Florida Democrats in that county are usually retirees, with degraded eyesight and dexterity.

I wish more of my fellow countrymen felt the same way.

William Safire's "On Language" column in the New York Times not only talked about the different (and confusing) terms that can be used on election night -- maybe something that could influence the election a la 2000? -- but also that the phrase "my fellow countrymen" is redundant.

[end slightly OT grammar-nitpicking section]

Almost everyone's setting up an election "hotline" to report voting problems. NBC (1-866-MY-VOTE-1) reports 60,000 calls, most coming from...you guessed it, Florida. Winning legally and properly means that by the time a winner is determined, we'll be ready for the next election.

1. the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots.

You know, it's interesting that people (even Republicans, i find) totally ignore Democratic cases of voter fraud. Republicans are not the only ones responsible for it -- in fact, they seem to me like they're less likely to do it than Democrats, on the whole.

Some of these are really biassed, but here are some examples:

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article385 5.html

http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/004765.html (LOTS of articles about it here)

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/007968.php

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1250035/p osts (admittedly, Free Republic is a pretty bad place to go for potentially reputation-harming information about Democrats, but there it is anyway <_<)

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/fund20040913 0633.asp

Even The New York Times had a story about Democratic voter fraud.

This isn't to say that the Las Vegas thing and Chuck Hagel's involvement with that voting-machine company and the convenient Diebold incident in Georgia aren't troubling, because they are, very much. But so many people mysteriously forget that the other party isn't the only one that can be 'filthy'.

This might be useful for future Rover missions (or, um Beagle missions). You'll lose accuracy, but at least you wouldn't hit the ground like a falling rock.

Or maybe for falling capsules...(just in case someone plugs something in upside down)

• We would not have invaded Iraq. (His views on war, while much too hawkish for my taste, are at least practical and reality-based.)
• The government would not have asserted the right to keep detain prisoners indefinitely without trial. (Kerry is a big fan of law enforcement, but also of the process of law.)
• Congress would not have increased the tax burden (total amount of money that taxpayers will have to shell out) by passing massive tax cuts while increasing spending.

No, DeLay has not been indicted for anything.

Three of his aides of been indicted for charges that include raising illegal corporate contributions and funneling them to state candidates during the 2002 elections:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/national/22delay .html?ex=1099195200&en=4e2d77f3ce207197&ei=507 0

DeLay is also under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over accusations of improper fund-raising.

He has been subpoenaed to testify in a lawsuit concerning his role in the effort to find the Democrats, after being admonished over the issue by the House Ethics committee last month:

http://www.broward.com/mld/mercurynews/news/specia l_packages/election2004/9981297.htm?template=conte ntModules/printstory.jsp

It seems that I'm repeatedly correcting your hyperbole:

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=122084&cid =10320477

Why don't you do some research before making unsubstantiated and/or incorrect accusations?

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

You make an interesting point, one that I hope is true, but that isn't supported by the statistic in question..

I'm only saying that it may be that the doctors aren't the problem at all.. 6%/50% may be a perfectly acceptable level of malpractice --suits-- given that various specialties are more exposed to risk and the suing may not be related to actual malpractice but simply undesired results..

The statistic does not reveal that bad doctors not being booted, It could also be explained as 6% of doctors in the riskiest specialties have 50% of the actionable---in the mind of lawyers---undesirable results. This Article: Trial Work or with pictures, Trial Work is indicative of the kind of cases that can be pressed. The lawyer involved may in fact truely believe he is helping to advance good medicine, however that is obviously not the motive behind all malpractice suits or suits in general.

If the claim is true that high-risk specalties are responsible for the majority of malpractice claims, then eliminating the most-sued doctors might only eliminate the doctors willing to take the risk of treating patients with questionable prospects for recovery.. only low risk patients---read: already healthy---will be treated. Risky procedures will always be exposed to risk medically as well as legally but risky procedures advance the state-of-the-art in medicine.

More information is required to qualify the OP's claims.

You make an interesting point, one that I hope is true, but that isn't supported by the statistic in question..

I'm only saying that it may be that the doctors aren't the problem at all.. 6%/50% may be a perfectly acceptable level of malpractice --suits-- given that various specialties are more exposed to risk and the suing may not be related to actual malpractice but simply undesired results..

The statistic does not reveal that bad doctors not being booted, It could also be explained as 6% of doctors in the riskiest specialties have 50% of the actionable---in the mind of lawyers---undesirable results. This Article: Trial Work or with pictures, Trial Work is indicative of the kind of cases that can be pressed. The lawyer involved may in fact truely believe he is helping to advance good medicine, however that is obviously not the motive behind all malpractice suits or suits in general.

If the claim is true that high-risk specalties are responsible for the majority of malpractice claims, then eliminating the most-sued doctors might only eliminate the doctors willing to take the risk of treating patients with questionable prospects for recovery.. only low risk patients---read: already healthy---will be treated. Risky procedures will always be exposed to risk medically as well as legally but risky procedures advance the state-of-the-art in medicine.

More information is required to qualify the OP's claims.

MS has always worked on "Some Evil Plan To Take Over Email" - remember epostage?

If not, here's a reminder :http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/technology/02sp am.html

And some comments from a guy I trust:

http://www.talkbiz.net/ramblings/comments.php?id=1 8_0_1_0_C

MS wants consumer lock-in and profits from that lock-in, it's their business model, right? So any time I see anything from MS on this topic, I look for the profit motive first. A possible submarine patent combined with their continued support for epostage paints a nasty picture, don't you think?

Oh, and did I forget to mention that 110,000 tons ha[d] been destroyed by June 2004? And another 138,000 tons were captured?

And even the NYTimes admits that the explosives were probably moved before combat. A single truck can carry (or is it Kerry? :)) 10 tons, so that would be around 40 trucks of explosives rolling out of Baghdad under heavy fire from US troops. Highly unlikely, therefore it was probably moved well before the US troops were near the place, or even before the invasion.

Gad. If only 350 tons escaped out of 600,000 tons, I'd say we did a pretty "bang-up" job, if you pardon the expression.

"Now I want to go back to something the vice president said just a minute ago. Because these distortions are continuing. He said, made mention of this global test. What John Kerry said is just as clear as day to anybody was listening. He said we will find terrorists where they are and kill them before they ever do harm to the American people, first. We will keep this country safe. He defended this country as a young man. He will defend this country as president of the United States.

He also said, very clearly, that he will never give any country veto power over the security of the United States of America. Now I know the vice president would like to pretend that wasn't said and the president would too. But the reality is it was said.

Got that, Indian bigot?

If you take it that slashdot is a place that performs editorial checks on submissions then yes, but I don't think it's designed to be that. It's a link dump with a place for us to comment.

But you could also argue that since slashdot has become such a major player in internet news, that it should think about playing to higher journalistic standards. Kind of like how the news media is pressing Jon Stewart to ask more "hard-hitting" questions in his interviews after his cnn/crossfire comments.

You might find this article interesting

(Visit bugmenot to circumvent registration)

Imagine all of Medicare got their act together and would negotiate ONE price with the supplier?

That's be great, wouldn't it? Bush just outlawed it, though. Tough luck.

1. From a NYT article: "The [Bush] aide said that guys like me [the writer] were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''"

2. Now if you believe that the above quote is just heresay and didn't come from the horse or asses' mouth, I would direct you to browse the pages of The Project For a New American Century: I would in particular direct you to this page, which is their statement of principles, and which lists among the signees such members of the Bush administration as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld. In fact, 10 of the 18 signatories of the PNAC doctrine have positions in the Bush administration.

Now whether you believe an American global empire is a good thing or not is up to your particular political compass, but it is hard to refute the evidence that the neo-cons and superhawks in the Bush administration are carrying out their plans to expand America's reach for political and economic gain, and for what they believe is the safety and prosperity of America as a whole. They want an empire.

What's your agenda, anyway? What kind of terrorist, communist, puppy-kicking agenda are you promoting? Why do you hate freedom so much? Maybe because you're part of that subversive "Reality Based Community" the New York Times article was talking about http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH. html

100 Facts and 1 Opinion

by JUDD LEGUM

[from the November 8, 2004 issue]

Click here to download, circulate and distribute a PDF version of this article.

IRAQ

1. The Bush Administration has spent more than $140 billion on a war of choice in Iraq.

Source: American Progress

2. The Bush Administration sent troops into battle without adequate body armor or armored Humvees.

Sources: Fox News, The Boston Globe

3. The Bush Administration ignored estimates from Gen. Eric Shinseki that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq.

Source: PBS

4. Vice President Cheney said Americans "will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" in Iraq.

Source: The Washington Post

5. During the Bush Administration's war in Iraq, more than 1,000 US troops have lost their lives and more than 7,000 have been injured.

Source: globalsecurity.org

6. In May 2003, President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit, stood under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," and triumphantly announced that major combat operations were over in Iraq. Asked if he had any regrets about the stunt, Bush said he would do it all over again.

Source: Yahoo News

7. Vice President Cheney said that Iraq was "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that Iraq had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and no collaborative operational relationship with Al Qaeda.

Source: MSNBC , 9-11 Commission

8. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that high-strength aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," warning "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." The government's top nuclear scientists had told the Administration the tubes were "too narrow, too heavy, too long" to be of use in developing nuclear weapons and could be used for other purposes.

Source: New York Times

9. The Bush Administration has spent just $1.1 billion of the $18.4 billion Congress approved for Iraqi reconstruction.

Source: USA Today

10. According to the Administration's handpicked weapon's inspector, Charles Duelfer, there is "no evidence that Hussein had passed illicit weapons material to al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, or had any intent to do so." After the release of the report, Bush continued to insist, "There was a risk--a real risk--that Sa

One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

Prove that the Bush administration was a terrorist plot to destroy the US economy.

Easy to do, there's evidence everywhere.