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The sad part of it all is that most of the population are ignorant dim witted hicks in cowboy hats.

Only in Alaska and Texas. In the rest of the country, they're sipping $5 coffee, watching reality TV, and feeling smug because they're jumping on board with the handsome minority candidate to prove that they're not racist without bothering to rationally evaluate his credentials.

An intelligent black man with vision and common sense...

Unfortunately Colin Powell is not running. But I can offer you an inexperienced black man who, despite spouting his dedication to "Change", has voted party line 96% of the time and seems to have no ideas that he hasn't carbon copied from his former rival. If you've got too much $$ in your pocket and would like to give it away, it's easier to do yourself instead of having it Hoovered out through taxes.

Several years ago I worked in a very large and respectable company that shall remain unnamed (but whose name rhymes with, say, "Nokia"...) and we just shipped our turnkey system with our software AND with the source code. And the company wasn't (and still isn't, AFAIK, but don't work for them since a long time) an open-source company :o) It was a screwup by the consultant guys in India.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often, knowing the level of QC that happens in India and China.

oh, right, I forgot that it does indeed happen. Even nowadays (de javu).

I realize that there is no legal mechanism. That is why we have routing shenanigans now and again. However, ARIN nominally has the power to revoke address allocations, and IP hijacking has been dealt with before. Slashdot talked about it recently, and in the connected article, it mentions a case where a block got revoked (pdf). Googling around about the Slashdot incident shows that NASA did not seem to care that the address block was used by spammers. There are lots of unused IP addresses out there in legacy space, and they can be taken back, especially since some don't even seem to be cared about.

Once the decision to revoke IP addresses happens, then IP address hijackers can be dealt with as they have been, by disconnecting them from the Internet. This has been done in the past when disruptive hijacking occurred, and it can happen with revocations too. Granted, there are many ASs out there, and there is less incentive to do something when nothing truly bad is happening, but with enough people on board, I imagine the organizations with the revoked addresses could be made to feel enough pain for it to happen.

The Bush administration was pushing for *more* regulation of Fannie and Freddie since 2003, long before the housing bubble was on the radar.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102841.html

Just maybe this story has something to do with the complete fallout of the credit market... just maybe

JUST MAYBE?

Of course you have some evidence that Saddam sent his weapons to Syria? And by evidence I don't mean the MSM, or the Bush Whitehouse. If I gave you several bad cheques in a row, would take another one? They lie. They lie all the time.

There have been several reports that WMD was moved to Syria, including from a top Iraqi air force general, from a top Israeli general and a Syrian journalist:

The Iraqi and Israeli generals are quoted here:

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraqs-wmd-secreted-in-syria-sada-says/26514/

The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.

The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.

"There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."

Mr. Sada's comments come just more than a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."

There's more there.

The Syrian journalist's report:

http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php

A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq WMD located in three Syrian sites

06 January, 2004

AFP

Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper âoeDe Telegraaf,â that he knows the three sites where Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept. The storage places are:

-1- Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.

-2- The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian air force camp. Vital parts of Iraq's WMD are stored there.

-3-. The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of Homs city.

Nayouf writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Hussein's Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assad's cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.

And, again, there's more there.

On the other hand, stories like this came out, in Apr. 2005, about how it was unlikely that WMD was shipped to Syria after a report about the issue came out:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/25/AR2005042501554.html

Report Finds No Evidence Syria Hid Iraqi Arms

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 26, 2005; Page A01

U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday.

Given the way things work in the middle east, though, and given how clueless Western intelligence can be about the area, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility too quickly.

I'm no expert on the issue, but it ignores the societal differences between [wherever you are] and Africa. There are even significant differences between African nations that would preclude "it ought to be good enough for AIDS prevention efforts in Africa." Take Uganda as an example http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=32108. The same ABC plan that worked well there did not have the same effect in other African countries. Once you start looking at the indicators for groups that are at highest risk of HIV/AIDS in different African countries and compare them to our K-12 population, you see that it is an entirely different set of circumstances. It is not the same issue, but we can disagree on that. Any HIV/AIDS reduction strategy is going to have to be tailored for the environment it targets.

And while I'm not a proponent of strict 'Abstinence-Only' Education, the ABC Plan emphasizing abstinence first, and contraceptives as a last resort, (hey, people are people), resounds strongly with me at least. Reading this article from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081401458_pf.html It seems to indicate that ABC is the "centerpiece of the Bush administration's $15 billion, five-year plan to fight AIDS in 15 target countries, most of them in Africa." The article goes on to reference various attempts to implement a similar plan domestically. While it emphasizes abstinence, it seems far from an 'abstinence-only' approach.

Perhaps the original quote mischaracterized McCain's sentiments? Does McCain support 'Absinence-Only' only, or the Bush Administration's ABC Plan? Anyone know?

The problem seems to be that in this particular case, the mass-killer *didn't* lie. But Bush didn't get his information directly from Saddam, did he ? He can't just make a phonecall or something. Instead, he had to rely on the CIA, who also doesn't ask Saddam directly, but instead (as it seems to be now) is pushed by Cheney's office to produce damning evidence.

Actually, WMD's WERE FOUND IN IRAQ! Just not in large enough numbers for our media to deem newsworthy.

But, hey! Don't let the facts get in the way of preconceived notions and talking points.

I see. Is this the official Chinese description of what happened? I'm willing to admit that I might be less than fully informed, but I'm reluctant to give credibility to what the Chinese government says. Two elderly women could face a year of "reeducation through labor" because they applied for permits to demonstrate during the Olympics, according to one of the would-be protesters.

The Chinese government speaks not just though its state-controlled press, but through its actions as well, and their actions speak louder to me than their words. Members of the press from abroad have been intimidated and had pictures of protests confiscated by the Chinese government.

- How many requests for permission to protest were made? My latest sources say about 77.
- Of those, how many were granted permission to protest during the Games?
- Of those, how many actually protested during the Games?
- Learning Chinese would be great, but is more than I can do right now. What reliable and trustworthy (ie, non-government related) sources of information are there for an English-speaker like myself?

It seems that Beijing has gone out of its way to squash free speech, intimidate critics, and to imprison dissidents. Are all these sources willfully libeling China?

To the original topic: If it were in my power to grant or withhold, I would never entrust China (or any government - even my own) with tools that would help it roll back the shield of anonymity that protects the natural right of people to speak freely.

> The terrorists got in via Canada with fake papers that they easily got through Canadian Counter Parts.
> So please go get the facts straight

"Facts"??

Jesus, are you stupid!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38816-2005Apr8.html

You may need a login to read this Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/18/AR2008081802046.html

Only people in marketing could come up with the term "guru" to mean "someone who can't help, and exists to market to you until you give in".

Really? That sounds to me like exactly what a "guru" does. Isn't that the perfect way to describe this guy?

Dutifully reporting the lies of a dishonest government and campaigning politicians?

Ah, so you're a PUMA then?

No, but since Obama supporters like you are now making him the candidate of "if you point out any error or inconsistency, my supporters will ignorantly accuse you of being an enemy operative", maybe it's not such a bad idea.

No, that's a lie. Obama never committed to public financing.

The hell he didn't. He's the one who brought it up as an issue. He made it a point of contention with Hillary Clinton, and then turned it on the Republicans. He made the proposal in response to the other candidates hedging on the issue--only to hedge himself, and flat out walk away from his own proposal. He allowed the media to talk about his pledge, his plan, and his commitment while it suited him and was working in his favor. Then he lied about his reason for not taking the money.

Since the option he took has even fewer restrictions and no need for loopholes, he can't complain about a "broken" public fund. It's not broken, except that you can bypass the requirements and limitations by opting out. Since that's exactly what he did, though, it's no protest.

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/content/Questionnaire_Midwest_Democracy_Network_Obama_02192008.pdf

"I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election." He made the proposal. HE was the one who made the issue into a campaign issue. He walked away, paying little more than lip service to the idea.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/11/obama-blurs-his-pledge-on-public-financing/

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1014824,public061908.article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/us/politics/02fec.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/06/obama-to-break.html

And now you're saying that a pledge and a commitment isn't a promise. Where is this candidate of change and new politics, exactly? He looks exactly like all the other ones.

Tapper, an Obama supporter, summed it up perfectly: "Declaring independence from a "broken system" by breaking a promise. Obama hopes you'll care more about the former than the latter."

As a liberal, it's the latter that matters, especially when the former is largely a lie. A liberal who tolerates this is no liberal at all, but rather an ideologue trapped by a cult of personality, and unfortunately the Democrats are joining the Republicans in that growing population.

Iraq may have been involved with 9/11, though maybe not.

Well, the bipartisan 9/11 commission said, "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Ladin had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Bin Ladin associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." [emphasis mine] And in case you think that was just politicized or the analysis incompetent, the Washington Post reported, "In testimony before the commission, CIA and FBI officials said they agreed with the staff report's assessment of the abortive relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq. A CIA counterterrorism analyst who testified using the pseudonym Ted Davis said, 'We're in full agreement with the staff statement,' which he said did 'an excellent job' of representing the agency's current understanding of the al Qaeda-Iraq relationship." Finally, even President Bush has said, "We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks." So, essentially, the President, Congress, the CIA, and the FBI don't think there was a connection.

They were tied to the '93 WTC attack

Again, the experts disagree. As one article puts it, "In sum, by the mid-'90s, the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, the F.B.I., the U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York, the C.I.A., the N.S.C., and the State Department had all found no evidence implicating the Iraqi government in the first Trade Center attack."

the '95 OKC attack

Given McVeigh's ideology, this doesn't even make much sense. Also, remember, he fought against the Iraqis in the first Gulf War. Again, the investigation into the attack did not turn up such a link, and the only claims I can find for such a link are right in the run up to the most recent Iraq War (and not particularly credible).

But somehow, Clinton looks like a saint and Bush made it all up.

Saint BJ? Leaving aside irrelevant comparisons to Clinton, the fact is that the Bush administration made many false and misleading statements about Iraq in the run up to war. People who want to deny that try to focus on the question of whether Iraq was a threat, but that is not what they lied about. Many governments believed there was some level of threat from Iraq, but the lies from the Bush administration came in the details and the claimed level of certainty. They presented tenuous or already discredited (within the intelligence community) claims as solid. They had reason to believe some things based upon circumstantial evidence, but in describing them they used phrases like "no doubt," which you can find in the transcripts of interviews with multiple administration officials. Given that few outside the administration had access to classified intelligence, and only the administration had the ability to release (declassify) information, there was very little way for anyone to expose these falsehoods. All the false and misleading statements are way too numerous to list, but thankfully someone has gone to the trouble to catalog them.

When a public servant is in that position of power and trust and something as important as going to war is on the line, we the people must demand honesty and cannot tolerate that sort of deception. You can have a different opinion about th

Have you seen the Bob Woodward stories from his new book about how 'Groundbreaking Covert Techniques' have significantly allowed the US to know every word the Prime Minister says and allows US to "locate target and kill" the bad guys. It certainly seems to be that they are doing this will cell phones. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/04/AR2008090403160.html?hpid=topnews

...indeed many of the most vilified characters (like Ted Stevens) to get elected governor

Well, she ran Ted Steven's 527 group until 2005, and in return he endorsed her for Governor. They are still friendly, because as governor she made a request for $198 million in earmarks for next year's budget. As mayor she managed to wrangle $27 million for her town of 8,000, and about the 'bridge to nowhere', she supported as a candidate, but killed it in state office, keeping the money.

I know that the libertarian wing of the Republican party has been looking for some sign of hope, but I've got news, she's not it. Sure she managed to kill off some competitors using corruption charges, but they only let her in because they thought that she was dirty too, but couldn't/wouldn't prove it when they needed it. I'm sure that they know her better than you. Sarah took the governorship quickly, really out of nowhere, now two years later, she's trying to do the same thing at our VP slot.

So we are now accepting posts from readers confused about the concept of net neutrality? Don't post how Palin is pro-internet if you don't understand the concept.

The parent is dead on, you can have all the government transparency you want on the internet, so long as you weren't hoping to find copies of our emails!

Palin will be nothing different.

Put this in the same bin with the FBI's now discredited Lead Bullet analysis, and the idea that DNA matches are "1 in a Trillion", when you mass scan them.

Nothing to see here... move along.

--Mike--

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051702158.html

Just did Google searchs.

160K on "Walmart welfare expand".
50K references to "FBI arabic speakers", many about their lack of numbers. here, first listing.
42K on "Secretary of Defense 2.3 trillion". here.

What they hell are you talking about?

this year in Power emission pollution. Consider China is less efficient, and has 5 times population than the U.S., it consumes less energy, pollutes less, and makes most of the goods, until today. Guys got the nerve to complain. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/26/AR2008082603096.html

Congrats on the impossible to prove otherwise post!

There is no way to prove that your genes are not influencing you.

However since identical twins separated at birth have many mental similarities, I'm going to go with gene's influence you more than you know.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/twins/twins2.htm

statistics have shown that on average, identical twins tend to be around 80 percent the same in everything from stature to health to IQ to political views. The similarities are partly the product of similar upbringing. But evidence from the comparison of twins raised apart points rather convincingly to genes as the source of a lot of that likeness. In the most widely publicized study of this type, launched in 1979, University of Minnesota psychologist Thomas Bouchard and his colleagues have chronicled the fates of about 60 pairs of identical twins raised separately. Some of the pairs had scarcely met before Bouchard contacted them, and yet the behaviors and personalities and social attitudes they displayed in lengthy batteries of tests were often remarkably alike.

Here in the States, AMTRAK is in horrible shape due to mismanagement and a general public disuse of trains.

Amtrak sets fifth straight year of record ridership

Acela trains may expand to meet demand

More Frustrated Fliers Taking to the Rails

Trains over Planes and Automobiles

Uh-huh. Yup, nobody's riding those trains, yesirreebob.

---PCJ

Here in the States, AMTRAK is in horrible shape due to mismanagement and a general public disuse of trains.

Amtrak sets fifth straight year of record ridership

Acela trains may expand to meet demand

More Frustrated Fliers Taking to the Rails

Trains over Planes and Automobiles

Uh-huh. Yup, nobody's riding those trains, yesirreebob.

---PCJ

The feds built it but the state took over control back when they demanded control of the interstate highway system.

The American Society of Civil Engineers faulted the Corps's levee design, and the Corps has admitted their failure. That has nothing to do with any actions taken by the state.

Nor had the state taken over flood control. The Army Corps of Engineers was still working on flood control projects in the area, though they were massively underfunded.

In 2004, USACE requested $11 million for the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project; Bush's budget requested only $3 million. Congress increased the amount to $5.5 million. In 2005, the Corps requested $22.5 million - Bush, $3.9 million, and Congress approved $5.7 million.

Investigative articles by the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of the Iraq boondoggle as a reason why funding for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project dried up in 2003. $250 million in crucial projects was left incomplete, including work right at the site of the main breach.

To add insult to the injury, 35 percent of the Louisiana National Guard had been deployed to Iraq, thus making them unavailable to, you know, Guard that part of the Nation.

The failure of the levvies, and the lack of resources at the state level to deal with it, were the results of deadly incompetence at the federal level.

But it was federalism that allowed the democrats in power in the 20 years before Katrina...

Democrats in power for 20 years? Where?

On the federal level, we had a Republican in the White House from 1980-1992 and 2000-2008. From 1994 to 2006, there was GOP control of the House. 1994-2001 and 2002-2006, Republican control of the Senate.

At the state level, Louisiana had a Republican governor 1980-1984, 1991-1992, and 1996-2004.

you topple a leader, even an evil one, and there are a lot of ramifications. In this case, our leaders felt it was the lesser evil and had to play politics with him for the greater good.

As if there was no one who believed in democracy and human rights perhaps?

As regards the Kurds, during World War I in return for helping the Allies the fight against the Germans and Ottoman Empire the Kurds were promised their own country, homeland, in the Treaty of Sevres. But once the war was over the West reneged on the pledge. The west allowed Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Father of Turkey to reject the treaty and crush Kurdish uprisings. Kurdistan would have constituted a good chunk of Turkey, and parts of Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia. That same treaty also created Iraq, Syria and Kuwait though. Looking at Iraq today, Iraqi Kurdistan is the most stable part of Iraq. The Ba'athists and Saddam weren't any friendlier to the Marsh Arabs. "Numbering some 250,000 people as recently as 1991, the Marsh Arabs today are believed to number fewer than 40,000 in their ancestral homeland." So much for a stable Iraq under Saddam.

Falcon

How could he write this drivel without even TALKING to the other side? It doesn't take a genius to see, that the guy is vehemently anti-Russian. Consequently, the only source he quotes is also vehemently anti-Russian.

Is this your idea of "unbiased information"? I could find some intensely anti-US nutcases in Russia for you, and they will tell you that the US is a nation of bloodthirsty retards with short memory span. Just because they say it doesn't make it true.

Read up on Saakashvili in this article on Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/29/AR2008082902336.html

Compared to him, Putin as an etalon of democracy.

people defended the united states after 911

then you went to war against Iraq and killed 100,000s of people

so self righteous, you feel you can judge all

are you ready to examine prejudice at work in your mind?

where your arrogance is the cause

For additional information about this heinous crime, read the report just issued by the "Daily Telegraph" (DT). According to the DT, "Mr Yevloyev is the most prominent anti-Kremlin journalist to be killed since Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the lift of her apartment block in October 2006. ... Russia is considered to be one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists."

The "Wall Street Journal" provides more information about this and other suspicious deaths of well-known journalists. According to the WSJ, "Mr. Yevloyev was the latest in a series of Russian journalists to have died in suspicious circumstances. The death of Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in October 2006 at her Moscow apartment, highlighted the dangers faced by Russia's independent press. Ms. Politkovskaya was a lead reporter at Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based newspaper that specializes in muckraking and probes of government corruption. She was the third journalist at the paper to die under mysterious circumstances. Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was shot on a Moscow street in July 2004."

After I read these news articles, I could think of only 4 words: God damn the Kremlin!

... type of dress, number of people, whether in a church or not etc etc?

As always, Bizarro said it best -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/comics/king.html?name=Bizarro&date=20080701

And sorry about bashing the unfocusedness of your post based on that.

By the way, I found this linked from wikipedia; sounds interesting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/31/AR2006123100672.html

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/clinton_vs_obama_on_iraq.html

I would be very upset if somebody grabbed my telephone list, SMS, or anything else from my locked phone.

Man, are YOU in for a surprise. Verizon has done nothing short of admit that it mines customer data and gives it to others in a secret fashion. See this article. There is no reason to believe that all the other telcos don't do the same.

So if you're afraid of someone getting your phone book or your SMS messages, hell, they might have all the conversations (voice, SMS, Email, or whatever) that you've ever had electronically.

Good luck with that. Hate to break it to you, but Obama isn't going to win.

Well *duh*. The fix is in, I'm sure the dud is going to win, even with his painfully awful VP pick. The last two elections have already proven that the American people have a track record of picking the most painfully awful candidate.

Oh yeah, and another thing, Obama and McCain aren't all that different with respect to energy policy. The big difference is McCain doesn't want to impose a windfall tax on the oil companies in order to give "tax cuts" to the lowest earning third of US workers. I put "tax cuts" in quotes because of course, the lowest earning third of US workers are net recipients of Federal money and don't really have a net tax load.

Okay, I'll bite on that one. WaPo's analysis (available here seems to disagree with your assessment of the share of tax burden/tax cuts under their respective tax plans.

Obama's energy plan, though supporting some limited offshore drilling, does not emphasize it. And McCain's proposed suspension of the Federal gas tax would do more to destroy our existing highway infrastructure than help consumers. And a side by side comparison sure looks like Obama's plan is much more ambitious. Also, I don't think that the point of taxing oil company products is to give "tax cuts" to the poorest 1/3rd, but rather to subsidize heating and energy costs for them.

Sure, she'd have liked a nice, fat, free bridge, but the project would have stuck Alaska with 80 percent of the bill.

Interesting you mention this, because just today she said, "I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves."

Seems like either you're wrong or she's changed her tune now that she's on the MAVERICK ticket. This is also the second post of yours I've corrected today. You've got to get some better arguments.

I have to um, you know,... kinda disagree with you on that one, Bob...
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/29/clinton-congratulates-palin/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/29/ha_say_the_online_hillary_supp.html
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/Palin_courts_Hillary_backers.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oun4WWr3j3I

Okay. Please don't even joke about that. There was a really extreme campaign in Florida where Republicans discouraged blacks, Hispanics, and other traditionally Democratic voters from going to the polls by saying things like, "If you have any outstanding traffic tickets, pay them before voting," and, "bring proof of citizenship," (and this discouraged people who WERE legitimately citizens, because they didn't really understand and they were afraid of losing what they had worked so hard to gain), and, of course, "election day changed to Wedsnesday." Many people think that this was a big part of why the Democrats lost Florida. It's not funny, regardless of which side loses. More examples: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A99749-2001May30?language=printer http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E5D6123FF935A2575BC0A9629C8B63 Not funny, not appropriate.

I wish people would just learn that Wikipedia simply isn't accurate. I mean with the fraud of secrete editing groups, hidden agendas, political leaning in stories, tenured professers living in mom basement in a state far far away from the school that they lay claim to but has never heard of them, and so on.

Here is a link you should look at. It reports on the actual study itself instead of write a few paragraphs that aren't cited and making you a believer of nonsense. And before you claim bias, the Clinton News Network is traditionally a left leaning organization/site. Now, before you get into a hissy and point to the Washinton post that claims Gore could have won if a state wide recount happened, keep in mind that it would only be true if over votes were counted. Now, over votes is where someone clearly made an attempt to emphasize who they voted for and it was counted twice. The story explains it.

BTW, The St. Petersburg Times was a cosponsor of the recount and have access to the original report. I attempted to keep all my links to sites that were in fact sponsors to the recount.

You have to aslo ask yourself, do we really want a president elected because we have to hand count and interpret some moron's intent when they can't even handle a task as simple as casting a vote clearly? I mean I can understand when a machine messes up and doesn't remove the chads, but failing to ask for another ballot when instruction right on the thing said if you make a mistake, erase it or get a new one.

You know, yours started out as a seemingly somewhat insightful comment. Then you come in with lines like, "The Associated (with terrorists) Press" and you unmask yourself as totally off your rocker. It also doesn't help that almost all of your links point to what is clearly essentially a political propaganda site.

OK. I realize I probably won't change your mind, but I do want you to know I didn't throw that term out without reason. Here's why I said what I said:

AP Admits relationship with terrorists
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/009026.php

another angle to that same story: AP photographer Rahmatullah Naikzad was a witness to a Taliban murder.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/07/associated-with.html

AP and Reuters photographer Bilal Hussein colludes with insurgents
http://sirhumphreys.blogspot.com/2005/10/ap-and-reuters-photographer-bilal.html

Gunmen take up position behind a garbage bin **as they engage British troops** in central Basra, Iraq: http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/1005-Embedded-with-the-Enemy.html

http://caosblog.com/5367

"A group of smugglers recently gave an Associated Press photographer rare permission to accompany them as they dug one tunnel..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/14/AR2007081400721.html
More on Kevin Frayer's hang time with the tunnel-digging, weapons-smuggling thugs of Gaza:
http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/1068-Embedded-with-the-Enemy.html
which resulted in some beautiful propaganda shots. Who needs a media relations department when you can get it for free courtesy of AP?
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0h2FcWH0gtbCn
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0eRMfTXdBvcpc/Palestinian_tunnel_diggers

I love the way it's written. It's so non-judgemental.

Gazans are finding an antidote to their growing isolation: digging tunnels under their border with Egypt to smuggle everything from weapons to cigarettes to people.
Gee, when I feel isolated, I go hang with friends. I don't dig tunnels and smuggle weapons like guns, bombs and rockets to be fired indiscriminately into civilian areas. But remember, there's no bias at AP.

one final case:
http://rising.blackstar.com/embedded-with-the-enemy.html

If ANYTHING TAX FUNDED LIKE PUBLIC SCHOOL is so great, why is it that the only way you can get funding is to threaten to throw my ass in jail if I don't feel like paying for it?!?!

See how that works?

Yes, I do. And it's a good question.

If public schools are so great, why can't they compete against private schools in a voucher system? If the government run schools are so much better, they'd beat out the privately run schools and we'd end up right back where we are now, right?

Microsoft has a "monopoly" when there are half a dozen alternatives and the people here are outraged. The government has a forced monopoly on something 100x more important, and people act like it's the best thing since sliced bread. How's that work?

The government can't even run a restaurant without offering poor quality and losing millions of dollars. Why in god's name would you want to trust them with anything important?

The Iraq War has cost $1 trillion SO FAR. It will cost $3 trillion before it ends. Imagine if only we spent that money researching alternative fuels five years ago. We would have been on the path energy independence from foreign sources!!!

Cigarette taxes bring in revenue but if no one bought cigarettes anymore and no tax was being collected, the advocates of the cigarette tax are going to be happy.

that Biden is a shill for the media cartels who also hates encryption and Net Neutrality? To wit: Joe Biden Loves RIAA Biden loves RIAA, FBI tech Biden: Pro-Copyright Friend of RIAA, MPAA

I was intrigued! You gave me the info I wanted to google with - Mass CIA resignations lead me to this

I had no idea how bad it was. Retrospectively, the bashing the CIA got seems stupid considering the impossibility of what they have to accomplish... not just now, but after pissing off most of the world in the last 8 years.

A trillion dollars a year? If you are trying to make points with numbers and there is no question it is costing a lot, you should probably use the right numbers. The Iraq war has cost a little over $500 billion to date, over five years

You may want to check your facts. A quick search returned a "Washington Post" article saying "The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More". That's less than GP's trillion dollars a year but much more than your "little over $500 billion to date". "therawstory" has a breakdown of the costs.

Falcon

While I agree with the rest pretty much, I disagree New Orleans is submerged because of Bush. New Orleans was subsiding before Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans is naturally subsiding, sinking, period. And will continue. A city should not be built in such a place. They didn't know it when it was first built but we know it now. Instead of simply rebuilding New Orleans it should be moved to higher ground away from land that is subsiding. Unfortunately much of the Gulf Coast around the Mississippi Delta is subsiding, especially the bayou.

Falcon

In "completely unsurprising news", the Washington Post just announced that "More data breaches have been reported so far this year than in all of 2007..." Hmm, I wonder if the subject of this page could have had something to do with those breaches... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082502496.html?nav=rss_email/components

very high turnouts? I suppose

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10492-2005Jan14.html

[paraphrasing]
Yes 2004 was 60.7 percent but that still means 78 million eligible voters stayed home. Bush won just 30.8 percent of the total eligible voters.
[/paraphrasing]

The people not bothering to vote could easily make the difference.

Obama will will double capital gains tax, raise Social Security taxes, income taxes, and most likely tons of other taxes (gasoline?) which affect everyone, (especially the poor) not just the rich.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hv559EfDVQDOVDVYhGxB2xcwCveQD92ORLP00

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/11/11/obama-i-deserve-a-tax-increase/

http://www.standardspeaker.com/articles/2008/08/24/editorial/hz_standspeak.20080824.c.pg2.hz21let_skuba_s1.1892436_edi.txt

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082301848.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article4597395.ece

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=16&issue=20080822

Enough news sources for you, or should I go to the second page of google results? Obama simply believes in the old-fashioned "tax the rich" nonsense.

Yes, you can access slashdot from China. In fact, I'm sitting at a computer in one of Shanghai's suburban neighborhoods.

Ok, that answers the question - thanks.

You're jumping to some pretty big conclusions there.

Maybe, but China's history of human rights abuses speaks for itself. I guess for pointing that out I deserve to be modded a troll, thanks for that moderators. Frankly, it makes me angry, because oppression of any people in any country provides lessons to oppress people anywhere.

the Chinese government is so cruel and harsh that all the citizens are living in fear. Um, no.

Hmmm, I remember videos and reports of the Chinese government running over one of their own citizens with a tank. And more recently allegations of organ harvesting from Falon Gong members. So perhaps it's not fear more an imposed state of apathy, where it's extremely uncomfortable to talk about things the government doesn't want people to talk about. Tibet, Taiwan. Threatening two old ladies to 'hard labour re-education' because they *wanted* to protest reinforces the perceptions that the Chinese government is actually all that it's critics say it is. The emperor has no clothes.

We really aren't that affected at all, and I can say (because yes, I have lived in the US and Australia) that life here is no different, except for the annoying fact that I can't access Freewebs.

Great. Does that mean you a Chinese citizen? I'm free to say what I want and, yes, I'll defend your right to disagree with me, but I doubt that the same attitude is even vaguely present in China. I'm not having a go at you personally but I stand by my original "troll".

Because if it wasn't true then why would the Chinese government even need a 'Great Firewall of China'.