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Sounds reasonable to me. As this nytimes piece goes in considerable detail in,
most of Bush's politics/decisions are about faith and not fact. Anybody who votes for him has
to share his worldview.

I don't understand why people think GW is doing a good job on terror. While we can agree he is doing *a* job on terrorism, I find it at best noisy and attention getting (don't forget, he was a college cheer leader), at worst brutal, uninformed and ineffective. If you've read the accounts of Richard Clarke, Woodward, Ron Susskind, etc and still think GW is doing fine, then I'm totally confused.

Kerry at least appears reasonable, hardworking and open minded, in a word normal, unlike the Bush who lacks experience (10 years ago he was an unsuccessful busisness man with no administrative experience), doesn't read and seems unwilling to learn or take advice outside his small insular circle. Even if Kerry's policy stands aren't exactly to your taste, his views are moderate and he seems much more willing to listen and compromise.

I you want to read a good account of Bush's presidency, try this article Without a Doubt by Ron Suskind in the New York Times.

No it wasn't. The Bush team have denied that he was wearing a Bullet Proof vest. And if he was, why would they have lied about that?

The NYTimes (free reg, blah blah blah) also has an article on the recent problems in FL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/politics/campaig n/18CND-VOTE.html

The Times also ran has an article about how closely scrutinized voting will be by both sides, particularly in the swing states: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/politics/campaig n/18monitor.html

Interesting to see how nearly everyone seems to be showing their partisan colors. It almost seems that people don't want a fair election so much as they want a *legal* election that their side wins.

Here's to hoping good things can emerge when a bunch of greedy agents interact...

The NYTimes (free reg, blah blah blah) also has an article on the recent problems in FL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/politics/campaig n/18CND-VOTE.html

The Times also ran has an article about how closely scrutinized voting will be by both sides, particularly in the swing states: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/politics/campaig n/18monitor.html

Interesting to see how nearly everyone seems to be showing their partisan colors. It almost seems that people don't want a fair election so much as they want a *legal* election that their side wins.

Here's to hoping good things can emerge when a bunch of greedy agents interact...

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to? OSDN == Offshore Software Development NOW!!! Read how OSDN is helping to offshore American High-Tech to the Third World!

the stunning thing is that Nader persists in campaigning in the light of this obvious fact. he's being helped by Republicans, and another four years of Dubya will pretty much undo Nader's entire life's work.

sadly, Nader is likely to go down in history as a fool, especially if he turns out to be instrumental again. a visionary fool, yes, but a fool nonetheless.

The state of journalism today is an absolute embarassment. It's all about being servants to the powerful, not comforting the powerless and watching the powerful.

Stewart is concerned about TV news - he parodies it. If the media looked at the funhouse mirror, they might think about what they're doing. He came on to talk seriously about them.

I don't think that "tough questions" was the focus of what Stewart was saying - just that shouting head journalism was hurting America. There is a line between infotainment and disinfotainment, but I'll definitely agree that neither one is truly informative.

IMHO, the primary problem with modern US journalism - and this ties into shouting heads - is that no one is willing to say that X is true. The media would much rather say "Well, the Republicans say X, the Democrats say Y", and then punt their responsibilities.

Some people watch the daily show for news because they like to be infotained; other people realize the layers of BS caking the mainstream media. Me, I don't rely on the US media to tell me what color the sky is. (Although I do have to recommend this article on the faith-based presidentcy.

It's by that bastion of the truth that brought us Judith Miller, Whitewater, and Wen Ho Lee. What was that about the Daily Show being pathetic?

Thing is, the Democratic party and their mouthpieces have demonized Nader to the point where a lot of Democratic Party loyalists actually have more animosity towards Nader than towards Bush. Many liberals who may have even supported Nader in 2000 are now foaming at the mouth when his name comes up.
It's perfectly legitimate for these people to decide to vote for Kerry, but I'm disgusted by the smear campaign waged by the DNC.

BTW I apologize for linking to a site that requires registration. The headline linked to is "Nader Emerging as the Threat Democrats Feared".

Its not a question of "right" Bush KNEW that he was wrong and he flat out LIED to the american people, the UN, and the world about Iraq's nuclear weapons programs. Every top nuclear expert and the Department of Energy wrote several reports stating the tubes would not be suitable for centrifuges. The tubes actualy very closly matched the specifications the US uses for its own rockets right down to the same type of aluminum used!

Based on these lies we went to war and over 1000 troops have died.

Flame me if you want, or mod this troll, but when Clinton lied, the only thing on the line was his personal dignity, and the public demanded impeachment!

What protections from our government do you think we have?

You at least, presumably, have some sort of military or treaty to protect you, as long as you don't come over here.

I think that a British doctor put it best in a recent New York Times article about cloning embryos for stem cell research:

"I don't see a slippery slope," she said, "because the technology to do reproductive cloning in mammals is there, and I don't think that anything we do is going to significantly change the development of that technology. What stops it is that the law says we can't do it, and it's banned."

Preventing cloning of embryos for stem cell research does not in any way help prevent human cloning, it only prevents science and medicine from progressing. The technology is there -- we can't change that -- but what we can do is use it to save lives.

The New York Times is running and article on the OQO. It should shed some more light on the specifics of the device, assuming they got one for review.

Here

No I didn't read the article. Yes I wanted to be the first to post it. So there.

might want to check out an insightful, positive review over at the NY Times.

But I can't buy that a majority of Democrats aren't happy with Kerry

Here is a New York Times / CBS poll with some interesting data for you.

NYT Article

Click on the "Multimedia: Interactive Feature -- Complete Results" for a nice PDF of all the questions and answers. Scroll down to page 5 of the PDF, and look at questions 8 and 9.

(IF ANSWERED "GEORGE W. BUSH" to Q.5, ASK:)
8. Would you describe your support of George W. Bush as strongly favoring him, or do you like him but with reservations, or do you support him because you dislike the other candidates?

strongly favor 70%, like with reservations 22%, dislike others 8%, dk/na 1%

(IF ANSWERED "JOHN KERRY" to Q.5, ASK:)
9. Would you describe your support of John Kerry as strongly favoring him, or do you like him but with reservations, or do you support him because you dislike the other candidates?

strongly favor 48%, like with reservations 26%, dislike others 25%, dk/na 1%

So the people who prefer Bush are pretty solid. This might be consistent with your view that lots of Republicans are unhappy with Bush -- they might be unhappy enough that they didn't answer "George W. Bush" to question 5.

But the people who prefer Kerry are not all that strongly behind. 25% of them still say that they prefer Kerry because they dislike the other candidates, compared to 8% for Bush supporters.

Read the actual questions and answers; there are lots of interesting tid-bits. For instance, in Question 81, 40% of the people polled say that the believe that George Bush did not legitimately win the election -- that's a surprisingly large number of people who don't trust the system.

And again in the 2000 election, 29% of respondents said that they voted for Gore, and 35% said that they voted for Bush. Considering that the actual popular vote was much closer than that, it means (a) some people are lying (some people like to lie and claim they voted for the winner) or (b) the sample of this poll is skewed towards Bush, perhaps by the trendy "cell phone effect".

I used to wonder why political candidates paid their own pollsters, but once you start digging into the polls, you can see it's a lot more useful and interesting than just "X% Bush, Y% Kerry".

This is a real problem, but people have been working hard on it for 15 to 20 years. Just last week, a paper was published in Science Express (the advance version of Science) that suggests that the uncertainties in measuring past climates are greater than what are commonly accepted by mainstream scientists. The article is available only by subscription, but the New York Times has a good balanced account of it.

indeed we have a winner, this popped up in the NY Times
Bush's Civil Rights Record Is Criticized (by the US Gov itself)

i guess words like "shame", "honour" and "responsibility" counts for nothing thesedays

Pressed for more detail on the nature of the conversion, Mr. Dyner referred to it electronic and as thermodynamic. After air is drawn into the machine, he said, it ''moves through a dozen metal plates and then comes out again.'' No moving parts are involved, he added.

He said the device works by creating a cloud of microscopic particles that make the air ''image-friendly.'' The machine, he asserted, uses no harmful gases or liquids, but he would not say whether it uses water. ''The ambient air is bottom-projected and illuminated, generating the free-space image that floats in midair,'' he said. At the demonstration, there was no odor in the air, and the area onto which the images were projected seemed dry to the touch.

With regard to 3dsolar, the article said

IO2 does not yet have a manufacturer for the Heliodisplay, but Mr. Dyner says he hopes production will begin in 2005

Here is another article with more info

Dyner bought a digital projector--the same kind used to display PowerPoint presentations--and took it apart. Inside was a micromirror system, a single chip that relies on a million tiny mirrors that tilt back and forth to create images. Dyner spent "seven days a week, 18 hours a day" trying to figure out "how to make the light stop in free space" using the micromirror system.

The key lay in using a fan to create a sheet of air that would reflect light projected at a given angle by the micromirror system. Dyner won't be too specific since his patents haven't yet been issued. But his first prototype made images from a computer hover in midair, something like a two-dimensional hologram. The nifty part: Sensors built into the box can tell when a user's hand (or an object used as a pointer) "touches" the image, allowing a finger to serve as a mouse.

This is somewhat confusing. If the air was onized, then I would expect the room to smell of ozone. Is ionized air reflective? Can someone explain the physics?

At least one blogger seems to be equating them.

Oops, here's a link for that.

It's often satisfying in its own childish way to trash on Bush for all the personal reasons-- the fake cowboy stuff, manipulation of 9/11, etc.-- but most often, the strongest argument against him is purely economic. His numbers simply do not add up.

See Paul Krugman of the New York Times for the most compelling case. His book, The Great Unraveling, is invaluable.

Contact/feedback pages:

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

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

hey, i'm not going to take a side, except to say that it'd be awesome if we knew what was going on here. a prominent critic of a sitting president has been silenced, setting a bad precedent. furthermore, they did not charge the critic, but subpeona'd the ISP. that's not good.

so, let's force the people with access to start asking questions.
nytimes
newsweek
o'reilly
msnbc


plus you can go to various other websites and fill out their forms--CNN, for example.
again, no sides taken, but let's try and cause a stink--this is a big deal. I'll even make it easy for you--copy'n'paste!

The FBI has effectively shut down Indymedia.org (IMC) by issuing an order to RackSpace US to hand over server hard drives located in London. As a result, over 20 local Indymedia sites have been shut off. At this time, no one knows why the FBI wants the drives or what they are investigating. It is also unclear why Rackspace US complied with a demand for materials held by Rackspace UK. Indymedia is a vocal critic of the Bush Administration, and also of the mass media. There is some history of this administration's dislike of Indymedia: before the RNC, there was a Secret Service order to shut down nyc.indymedia.org, which was organizing protests. More information can be found at the general Indymedia site, http://www.indymedia.org.

Actually, "the Bush movie" is already out. It's a piece of religious right hagiography, if the New York Times is to be believed. I suspect that making this available for downloading by those not in its target audience would be a great service to the Kerry campaign - not that I'm encouraging copyright violation or anything. . .
--

There are lots of brutal dictators in the world. When are we going to start invading half of Africa? How about North Korea? I can't wait! Or do we only care about people oppressed in resource-rich nations?

Lets see is todays argument that we don't have enough troops or that we should be saving the whole world at once? ( What is the sound of one flip-flop flopping :-)

Do you honestly believe that China will allow N. Korea to get nukes? If we follow your argument we have not invaded NK because they are not "resource-rich", I'll agree with you that they have very little in the way of natural resources, So where do you think NK will go to get resources if they were to acquire nukes? Several thousand miles over open ocean or right next door in China and Russia?

Also, I don't recall anything about "brutal dictators" or oppressed people in the case made for war.

Maybe you should have removed your head from your ass and checked out a few different news sources. Lord knows your head might explode if you attempted to listen to anything other than Air America. But perhaps you read The New York Times once before. Allow me to quote for you from Febuary 25th 2003:

Saddam Hussein has dragged his people into at least two wars. He has used chemical weapons on them. He has killed hundreds of thousands of people and tortured and oppressed countless others. So why, in all of these demonstrations, did I not see one single banner or hear one speech calling for the end of human rights abuses in Iraq, the removal of the dictator and freedom for the Iraqis and the Kurdish people? If we are going to demonstrate and exert pressure, shouldn't it be focused on the real villain, with the goal of getting him to surrender his weapons of mass destruction and resign from power? To neglect this reality, in favor of simplistic and irrational anti-Americanism, is obfuscating the true debate on war and peace.

Theres plenty more where that came from.

Yeah that seems to have put a real dent in things. Since terrorist acts of violence have actually increased by ... A LOT ... since Sep 11, 2001.

Please site your source for this! While your at it please site historical evidence that would even begin to make the case that terrorism would decrease if we had allowed the attacks of 9/11 to go unchallenged!

Perhaps if hadn't left the job of pursuing Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban to the Pakistanis so we could invade/occupy Iraq, then they wouldn't be gathering strength in Afghanistan again as we speak.

Theres that damn flip-flop sound again...anyway which is it, we shouldn't be fighting terrorism alone or we should do this ourselves?

Sell out everything in the long-term in exchange for $400 more a year. Who cares if we are ALREADY IN A FUCKING DEFICIT AND EXPENSIVE WAR so that our children will end up paying for your sorry-ass tax cut and they'll get no benefit from it. But who cares! Short-term benefits for ME!

So lets raise taxes to 100% and pay off all government dept? Then we can setup a big government office to redistribute the the money back to those that "need it". I'll tell you what man I can't wait those bread lines look like a real hoot!!!

Could it be that when you cut taxes the amount of money moving in economy increases and therefor the government income actually increases. And before you spout off how theres no evidence to support that please review the IRS Internal Revenue Gross Collections, by Type of Tax, Fiscal Years 1973-2003 which clearly shows that government income doubled in during the 80's and the Reagan Tax cuts.

What is moral...prescription medicine...higher bills than any other indust

You should really read the article. It is long, but provides an interesting tale of how this happened. What can be done to help make sure that it doesn't happen again?

Michael: When you rip off posts from Drudgereport.com, The New Scientist and other well-read sites, make sure you follow the thread through to the point where they explain that the story was nothing more than a political hit piece.

For instance, check out an earlier NY Times piece that actually reinforces the administration's position. Or you could review that this hit piece was to be joined by CBS News in another attempted effort to push fraudulant information and sucker all the sheep out there.

Or should we expect a post from you about "critical national guard documents damage Bush" and experience a deja vu Slashdot experience?

Slashdot readers - you too can read it before Michael (or some alleged anonymous reader, just like the CBS anonymous sources) reads it and makes up a libelous headline damaging Slashdot credibility and objectivity:

Drudge Report
The New Scientist

and other excellent critical reads include:

Power Line
Weekly Standard
Little Green Footballs

Oh... I should warn you - if you're determined to vote for Kerry in spite of everything, do NOT go to the any of the above sites. It'll destroy any opportunity for ignorance you might have.

You'all are forget'n the context of the big picture, YOUR COUNTRY WAS ATTACKED!!

you can see the attacks total and where here.

Interesting that you chose three as the threshold for acceptable removal of liberties. I guess as long at they take them one at a time, that is okay?

Here is one for starters (NY Times Article)

My Summary: The US incarcerates incommunicado one of it's most (allegedly) dangerous citizens, ostensibly to make the US safer, for over two years. Then when told by the Supreme Court they would have to prove why he was dangerous (due process), they choose to release him instead.

Now, if the fact that the government can detain a you for years without ever filing a charge in court or proving any cause for holding you doesn't disturb you, then I guess you have nothing to worry about. (Not to mention how it seems to me the US govt. knows the person was being held without cause...if he was so dangerous how can they release him?)

i prefer the art upgrade: the child paints

letter

A hard look at our patent system
NY Times briefly reviews a new book [NYTimes is not for the electronically homeless: you must be able to make up a username and an email address to get access] by two lawyers on just how F...ed up our patent system is. There are several trends underlined that some /. folk have already been hurt by. An interesting general theme is how various past attempts at reform have backfired in one way or another. For example lowering the bar for obtaining a patent has largely had the effect of moving the real debates about what is novel and who really invented it off to the courts. If GPL is more your idea of how to handle intellectual property, you might want to read the article at Worldchanging.org calling for patent reform and pointing to an alternative to the WIPO stand on international IP laws. You should probably be aware of all these sides of the issue if you think of yourself as a person who gets ideas that have commercial value.

Which is available here. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/technology/27pat ent.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1096380519-zZN7CP1GRXmfD CVCTn3bYw

In terms of voter intimidation tactics, the Repubs are already preparing for this year... (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/opinion/20herbe rt.html, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A337 98-2004Aug25.html) I respect differing opinions, but I think that turning a blind eye to the controversy of the 2000 election is just willful ignorance. At least admit there was controversy about the vote in 2000! The fact is that there WAS. I am so worried about the vote this year that I could tear my hair out. Wouldn't it be *amazing* and interesting and an incredible show of integrity if Bush were to say "screw these crazy touch screen machines, I want everyone to have a RECEIPT or some kind of printed verification of their vote. I don't want any question about my winning this time!" But you'll never see that happen, he'd rather take it to the Supreme Court and hash it out there.

Since no one seems to have posted this yet:

Going Way Off-Road

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

I believe most of the money that you are talking about ("all resources don't remotely add up to our tax dollars") goes to administration. You know, the people that don't belong there.

Really, the problem with public schools and our tax money is that the school don't have to be competitive in the marketplace. No matter what the results, voters choose who runs the school board. Failed leaders get re-elected based on their name recognition and advertising spending, successful leaders are ofter pushed out no matter what. On the otherhand if someone raises through the ranks and changes schools, and they aren't liked by the schoolboard then they also hit the streets.

A good example is El Paso's Yselta school district. It's one of the countries poorest schools and one man Anthony Trujullo raised test scores to some of the highest in the country. Parents were happy with the change but he was fired by the board 4 to 3. One of his supporters said it was politics, and they fired him based on no more than "a personal dislike by four members".

There is no 'market check', if you want to call it that and no competition for funds. Not that I'm for starving bad schools to death, but it makes you wonder. There is no incentive to actually make the schools better.

"No Child Left Behind" was supposed to fix this, but it has by and large failed. That isn't just my opinion. (See this NYT Article, reg required... basically there isn't room in "better" schools for those wishing to switch from "bad" schools, a provision of NCLB.)

Many times, the failures of the public school system in America is deeper than it looks. Take school violence for example. I had to do a report for school with 4 others. When I suggested that violence had nothing to do with video games or TV people looked at me with awe. For more into that subject, read Preventing Violence in Schools Through the Production of Docile Bodies by Pedro Noguera (PhD). Good read, I promise. It basically says the failure of the public schools in general is based in the founding years and how they were formed after mental asylums and prison...

We all have to be educated in these areas in order to exact change. Better public schools are our way to make this country better for all, it's the first line of defense (IMHO).

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

According to an article from the New York Times Magazine, "Jobs" by Roger Lowenstein (paid-only, sorry), there isn't a whole lot a president can do about creating or losing jobs in the market economy. He only has figurehead duties to change the national mood, or he can hire or fire many people within government (think of Reagan and air traffic controllers). Aside from that, it's up to the economy itself, and, may I stress, the tax code matters little.

Your "prediction" about Japan ignores Japan's high investment rates in automation.

Are you referring to the robots that Japan is building to care for the elderly in it's nursing homes since there won't be enough young people around to work and take care of the eldery?

The Nursing Home Of The Future?
Japan's Push Button Nursing."
Japan Seeks Robotic Help in Caring for the Aged


I say to you sir, that warehousing the elderly of a society in storage facilities that are manned by robots is immoral. A society should have more respect for elders and care for them better.

I can not follow your argument between "slave holders vs. automation.", perhaps you could elaborate. I am not arguing we need more people to pick cotton or do slave labor. I am arguing that society must maintain certain proportions (percentage of young to old) in order to maintain stability over the longterm with social programs intact.

Rats can also be used to search for buried mines. You might want to read this interesting NYT article about it. It was featured on slashdot some months ago, IIRC.

here is a scan of the mailer:
http://www.steveclemons.com/GOPMailer.htm

article from the NY Times...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/campaig n/24bible.html


0-----------0 Republicans Admit Mailing Campaign Literature Saying Liberals Will Ban the Bible By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: September 24, 2004 The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush. The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians. A liberal religious group, the Interfaith Alliance, circulated a copy of the Arkansas mailing to reporters yesterday to publicize it. "What they are doing is despicable,'' said Don Parker, a spokesman for the alliance. "They are playing on people's fears and emotions." In an e-mail message, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, confirmed that the party had sent the mailings. "When the Massachusetts Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage and people in other states realized they could be compelled to recognize those laws, same-sex marriage became an issue,'' Ms. Iverson said. "These same activist judges also want to remove the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance." The mailing is the latest evidence of the emphasis Republicans are putting on motivating conservative Christian voters to vote this fall. But as the appeals become public, they also risk alienating moderate and swing voters. An editorial on Sept. 22 in The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, for example, asked, "Holy Moley! Who concocts this gibberish?" "Most Americans see morality more complexly," the editorial said. "Many think a higher morality is found in Christ's command to help the needy, prevent war and pursue other humanitarian goals. Churchgoers of this sort aren't likely to believe childish allegations that Democrats want to ban the Bible." In statement, Senator John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, said President Bush "should condemn the practice immediately and tell everyone associated with the campaign to never use tactics like this again." Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called the mailings an ugly contrast to Mr. Bush's public statements. Although the president has called for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, he often emphasizes the need for tolerance as well. "The president takes more or less the high road and his henchman and allies on the right have been let loose to conduct these ugly, divisive smear campaigns," Mr. Foreman said. "It is wedge politics at its worst." In any event, the Bush campaign appears confident about its religious appeal. The mailing seeks to appeal to conservative evangelical Protestant pastors and political leaders who say they worry that legal rights for same-sex couples could lead to hate-crimes laws that could be applied against sermons of Bible passages criticizing homosexuality. Conservative Christian political commentators often cite the case of Ake Green, a minister in Sweden who was jailed in June for a month for a sermon denouncing gays as sinful. Mr. Parker, of the Interfaith Alliance, said, "I think it is laughable to think that someone could be arrested for reading out loud from the Bible.'' But Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, argued, "We have the First Amendment in this country which should protect churches, but there is no question that this is where some people want to go, that reading from the Bible could be hate speech." Still, Mr. Land questioned the assertion that Democrats might ban the whole Bible. "I wouldn't say it," he said. "I would think that is probably stretching it a bit far."

I wish you would have numbered your comments.

1. You can't blame bush for 9/11, just like you can't blame kmart for your car getting broken into in their parking lot. You simply can't blame someone for not doing enough to protect you. Some people are determined. However, after the world trade center bombing, Sandy Berger had the chance to nab Osama, and he ended up stealing national archive documents to protect himself. If there is one person to blame, it's him. This should not cause hatred in a sensible human being.

2. Everyone agreed that the 9/11 comission was a partisan battle and it was in the best interest of the country to keep the president out of it. He wasn't protecting himself from anything but partisan accusations. Seems the comission eventually got the answer we wanted, that George Bush was not the person to blame for 9/11. This is so ridulous. I can't believe you would point the finger at George Bush. Lets point the finger at Osama Bin Laden.

3. Here, from your own liberal media, a quote from the author of Kerry's biography: "...John Kerry was not the war hero we thought he was". They must be liars, because we know the truth and they are not saying it!

4. "Despite Hans Blix (the UN-appointed weapons inspector in Iraq) declaring that inspections were working, Bush decided to invade iraq. Despite Colin Powell stating that Iraq was not a threat, George W decided to invade anyway." And so did congress, and John Kerry, and almost every other country in the world. But lets single out George Bush!

5. "Bush has dramatically INCREASED the threat of terrorism." Who's opinion is this? We haven't been struck by terrorists. What if we had been? Would you say "well its a good thing GW didn't invade Iraq. That would have made things worse! Why would you say this when there hasn't been an attack on American soil? How do you know what the threat levels look like? "After the invasion those weapons are never found, 17 thousand people are dead, and our troops torture the survivors. Would that increase or decrease terrorism?" Well, those 17 thousand people saved the lives of a hundred thousand people Saddam would have killed. The 1000 American Troops were killed knowing full well the risks, 1000 American troops is not a high number, history has shown, for removing a dictator. And I don't consider what you consider to be torture. I'd rather be "tortured" as the Americans tortured people than spend a month in jail. Is jail torture? Bush cannot be held responsible for this. These are the acts of individuals, but lets point the finger at George Bush! See this is the kindof senselessness I was talking about when I started this thread.

6. See above argument. Saddam killed more, but Saddam was a great dictator! George bush is the reason those 17000 people died, even though our army was not instructed to go about killing civilians, and we spend billions of dollars more on weapons to avoid collateral damage while the enemy fires random mortars and blows up cars in random locations in civilian areas, blows up individuals joining the army before they are even given a physical. Yeah, it's GW's fault. We should have just holed up in America, but no missile shield either cause that is a waste of money.

7. "Pre-emptively striking other nations is a new, radical doctrine" Yeah, we all know how liberals are opposed to new and radical doctrine. Those countries in the middle east can all kill each other for all we care, but until they come over here and attack us... oh wait, they DID attack us! No, that wasn't the same country. But the rulers of the country met with Al Queda once as far as we know, but it was a few years ago! And he was only pledging to give 20,000 to families of suicide bombers, that is not enough to have a significant imp

This shows the screen capture and its caption without registration. ;)

Blogsafe version (get yer blogsafe NYT links at http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink -- why Slashdot doesn't know about this yet I don't know)

No, he was elected. I'm so sick of people saying that "Bush stole the election" and a bunch of other leftist bullshit. You should read this before you go on FUDing the president:

Recount analysis by NYT (no reg required)

I don't like Bush either, but you don't see me resorting to FUD to try to sway people's opinions.

-Jem

Arguably the government can use the data to do a better job of investigating and preventing terrorism.

And so it should.

But, the current policies are being driven forward with that single-minded objective with no consideration whatsoever given to the preservation of the rights and liberties that have made America a desirable place to be a citizen.

Sure we can defeat terrorism - but who wants to live in a police state?

The government should institute the recommendation of the 9/11 commission to create a truly independent advisory panel to oversee these unprecedented encroachments into citizens rights to insure there are no abuses and that the data is used for legitimate law enforcement purposes only.

My original post was a reaction to the news that such a phone call existed. Seems like CBS and the NYTimes agree that it by itself is inexcusable.

Actually, all but one of the total media recounts showed that Bush, in fact, won.

False. So many people repeat these flat-out lies... just go to the actual data and see for yourself.

The New York Times (working alongside allied papers like the WSJ) used 24 separate counting styles. (24 = 2 * 2 * 6) Bush won 12 of them, and Gore won 12 also. (The paper also selected 4 of those styles to highly more prominently, so some readers might've thought there were only 4 options, not 24. Even so, those 4 were still split in half)

Of course, the newspapers were complicit in suppressing the actual ambiguity of the findings... considering that their recount completed on Sep 9th, and publication would've been Sep 13th, they didn't want to attack the President's legitimacy just then.

The one media recount method that showed Gore winning was very suspicious and required awarding Gore many suspect ballots.

And it happened to be the method employed by the Floridian recounters... until the Supreme Court told them to stop. If the Court had not halted the already-ongoing recount, Gore would've won.

Well, the vets who were actually on Kerry's boat are remarkably consistent in their accounts of Kerry's actions, and their beliefs that he deserved the medals he got.

See this column from this week's NY Times . (As always with Times links, registration required, and it's only free for a week.)

From what I can tell, the differing stories all come from people who were on other boats. The Swift Boat group particularly bothers me, because they've gotten so much traction in the media without any verifiable evidence whatsoever.