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Note: I'm not an American. But I do follow both sides of this overblown, politically-motivated "controversy".

all I've seen is attacks on this group of veterans. I've hardly seen ANY attempt at all to discredit even a single claim of theirs.

Then I strongly suggest you take a moment to read Salon, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or The Washington Post. And actually read, rather than filtering input according to your own biases. I'll start you off with a quote, from the LA Times: "These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least there is no good evidence that they are true."

So far almost every attack on the Swift Boat Veterans has been a personal, ad hominem attack on these veterans' character, not on their claims.

False. Here are the facts:

Thurlow and others in the same five-boat Swift flotilla as Kerry on the night in question (when Kerry recued Rassman) also came under fire. Indeed, Thurlow won a Bronze Star for his actions in rescuing a comrade under enemy fire. This is the same Thurlow who has claimed that there was no enemy fire that night. In other words, if what Thurlow says now is correct, he should have refused the Bronze Star citation, or returned it once he started making his claims. He has not done either.

Why won't he (kerry) release all his medical and other service records?

He has. The only records he has not released are his review papers.

Why did Kerry lie about spending Christmas in Cambodia?

There's a difference between "lying" and "being mistaken." For example:

- After 9/11, President Bush claimed repeatedly that he had seen the second plane fly into the WTC live on television. This is obviously incorrect - he was sitting glassy-eyed in a classroom of children leafing through "My Pet Goat" at the time.

- At the RNC convention, Govenor Schwarzenegger claimed that growing up in Austria he had seen Soviet tanks parked in the streets. This is patently flase - the Soviets had retreated from Austria years before he was born.

In other words, people often confuse their own histories. Was Kerry in Cambodia? Almost certainly - Larry Thurlow, one of his chief accusers, was recorded telling Nixon that he (Thurlow) had been in Cambodia. Was it neccessasarily in Christmas? No - and that;s probably where Kerry's recollection is getting mixed up. That doesn't mean that Kerry is lying, any more than Bush or the Govenator are. Memory of emotional situations is simply extremely poor.

Why do so many people that served alongside and above Kerry...

First, you are stretching the term "served with him". You mean "were also in Vietnam during the war". Few of the SBVT's "served" with Kerry (i.e. on the same boat, or the same unit). And they're saying what they're claiming because of Kerry's Congressional testimony, which they felt "slandered" vets. They feel that Kerry lied over that, but can't contradict it (that whole messy My Lai incident, amoung others, kinda gets in the way) - so they feel justified in lying about his record.

...(including almost all of his commanding officers)...

Really? Like the officer who had his name added to the SBVT's claims without being asked? Or the officers who claimed, up to two years ago, that Kerry was a fine and outstanding officer? Or the officers who have since recanted adding thier names to the SBVT's list?

When are we going to get answers from Kerry and not ad hominem attacks?

You've had answers. Every single piece of Naval documentation, every crewmember on Kerry's boat (with the exception of that one gunner - who has changed his story several times) and several naval personell who were never part of Kerry's "Band of Brothers" or the SBVT's but who have now voluntarily come forward, have reinforced and confirmed Kerry's record.

However, it doesn't take much to stumble upon well researched information concerning the Swift Boat Veterans themselves, nor the actual photocopies of the citations for John Kerry. I present the following URLs for you to make up your own mind, and I welcome any other URLs:

FactCheck.org
Disinformation.org
Washington Post
Swift Boats Eriposte"
... there are so many more I can't even count, just Google for yourself.

I must admit, I find it amazing that people continue to attack Kerry's role in Vietnam, while seemingly at the same time perfectly able to ignore the ample facts that George W. Bush didn't make it anywhere near Vietnam, and Vice President Dick Cheney managed to skirt the war entirely. Those are indisuputable facts.

Read this. In the future, you'd be wise to get your news from something other than FOX News and Rush Limbaugh.

According to Slate, "Since 1930, GDP growth was 5.4 percent for Democratic presidents and 1.6 percent for Republicans."

If you take all the data from the same time-frames one year later to allow for delayed policy effects, it makes the Democrats look even better.

Apparently the definition of "censored" for this site are "stories that match our left-leaning biases".

Now, I personally think the media is liberal, and I've done the studies to prove it (a few nights with Lexis-Nexis is enough), but this kind of thing represents a fringe view of the world. Did the authors of this list ever consider that maybe the reasons these "stories" didn't get reported are because they have no basis in fact?

Take reinstating the draft for example. Did the authors of that list ever consider the facts that the Army has met and exceeding its recruiting goals, that the Secretary of Defense has said he doesn't want a draft and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have said the same thing repeatedly? Did they ever consider that the bill to reintroduce the draft came from a group of anti-war congressman as a way of scaring people and was swiftly killed in committee and had no chance of ever passing?

Look, this kind of stuff irks the hell out of me. Telling us that a story that doesn't even pass the smell test has somehow been "censored" is an insult to our critical thinking skills. It's the same old crap as they people who say that the government is keeping aliens on ice at Area 51 right next to the engine that runs on water and the Ark of the Covenant.

Given that Slashdot's audience is supposed to be people with critical thinking skills, I would hope that tripe like this would be seen for what it is. "Censored" my ass!

I don't think you're going to find any single source that's never been accused of bias. There's just too many viewpoints out there-- and any source that tries to go straight down the middle of the road, like CNN, tends to be pretty dry.

So, my solution: Read a lot. I mean, a lot, and, by exposure to many viewpoints, you'll be better off when it comes time to form your own opinions.

If you're asking about specifics, I try to take in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Drudge Report, Slate, Salon, Al-Jazeera, the International Herald-Tribune, and the Guardian. Of course, all of the above have their strengths and weaknesses.

If you don't want to spend the time on all of those, though, I recommend Slate. It leans slightly left, but has good analysis from both sides of the aisle.

Read, read, read. Don't assume you're getting the whole story from a single source.

Um, the US military outspends countries 2-5 by vast amounts. If the US wanted to, they could easily pull tricks, like bombing their embassies

Name one right the government has taken away from you in the last 4 years. ... That is not an answer to my question. Name one right.

How about the right to remain silent? As of this summer, states may now pass laws saying the police can demand that you identify yourself at any time and for no reason. If you refuse, you can be jailed and fined.

The fact that you may have done absolutely nothing wrong or even suspicious is no longer good enough to preserve your anonymity on the street. How's that for a right lost to fear, uncertainly, and doubt?

No facts....no facts.

Listen to any Bush stump speech like the one that he just gave to a Veterans group. It was non stop pounding that America is in danger, and he and the Republican's are the only ones that can make you safe. The line was something like "We will never sit down at a peace table" with the implication this war will never end but "we are winning and will win". A few key facts:

- He's bestowed upon himself the power to summarily arrest anyone he chooses, including U.S. citizens, hold them indefinitely without access to their family or a lawyer and is denying them all due process.
- He has shipped people to foreign governments so they can be subjected to extreme torture and has either endorsed, condoned or tolerated forms of torture in the U.S., Gitmo, Iraq, Afghanistan and potentially a number of other secret prisons around the world
- American's trying to exercise basic free speech rights are being arrested, or ordered in to pens where no one can see them
- Add in numerous quotes from Bush that he is being guided by God's will and in particular that he it was God's will he invade Iraq and bring Democracy to them. The man is either insane or a master manipulator of his extremist Christian followers.

You can just look at a brief history of the Republican party to discern a pattern of contempt for the Republic.

The last time they had control of Congress in the early '50's what did we have, McCarthyism, where people, often innocent, had their lives destroyed for nothing more than having different political views from the people in power. People were being coerced to rat on their friends and neighbors in an extraordinary and long running witch hunt in which people, often innocent, had their civil liberties thrown aside.

Read Goldwater's acceptance speech here tto remember how off the deep end he was. He was so extreme America turned on the Republican's and they had to pull in their extremist horns until Reagan unsheathed them again and Bush started goring people again.

Richard Nixon used people out of the CIA to engage in a massive and massively illegal secret campaign to destroy his political opposition.

Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated a secret deal with Iran to prevent the release of the hostages before the election for fear it might save Carter's reelection. You know it was no coincidence they were released as Reagan was being innaugerated making him look like some kind of hero. Another key part of this manipulation, arms were sold to Iran, with Israel's help, and the money was used to fund an illegal war against Nicaragua that was in explicit defiance of a bill passed by our elected representatives in Congress who had forbad such a war. It was a blatant contravention of the Constitution, an impeachable offense, and they got off with a slap on the wrist. By contrast Clinton was pilloried for all eight years he was in office, by the same Republicans, was impeached and it was over lieing about sex between consenting adults.

I'm sorry but there is a long running set of facts and justifications that the Republicans are an eliteist party that have contempt for the Constitution, the will of the people and will if they can turn back the clock to the 50's where America was being run by rich, white, Protestant men, blacks will be disenfranchised as Florida again attempted to do this year(see below), gays will be shoved back in the closet, the American military will be taking down one adversary after another, and everyone will be subjected to the moral code, by law, of fundamentalist Christians.

Footnote on Florida from a documentary on the Discover channel. As you probably know Jeb Bush in 2000 misused Florida law to strip voting rights from Blacks in Florida in 2000. For example they tried to deny a black minister access to his right to vote because he name was similar to a convicted felon. Enough blacks were wrongly d

Ah, quoting the American Spectator, which quotes an unnamed "another Kerry advisor".

The Washington Post reports that a longtime Bush lawyer has quit his campaign after his advice to the Swifties was revealed. He doesn't even appear in this otherwise illuminating graph from the NY Times.

The Swifties themselves were first hired by Nixon for dirty tricks against Kerry, when Nixon was threatened by the truth about the dirty war he was running with concientious soldiers like Kerry. They served the country both under command in the field, and back home to end the vicious war. Who do the Swifties serve?

And what are Bush's qualifications for this?

Demonstrated performance.

What are his demonstrated successes?

Afghanistan. That there hasn't been another terrorist attack on American soil.

John Kerry has killed a man with his own hands.

non sequitur.

If I was choosing someone who understood the rigors of warfare, I would choose Kerry, not Bush.

Actions thirty years ago in an individual combat situation do not necessarily translate to good performance as overall manager of a conflict. Jimmy Carter was a war hero, and he was a lousy president, especially militarily (google for "Desert One"). FDR had no military background, but he understood the threat facism posed.

John Kerry volunteered to fight in Vietnam.

Bush also volunteered for overseas service in Asia, which could have been Vietnam, while he was in the National Guard. His request was refused.

He recognized it for the bullshit we all agree on now.

What's this "we?" Do you have a tapeworm? I don't agree that it was "bullshit." The US could have won in Vietnam, but people like John Kerry made it impossible following the mess Johnson made.

He returned to America and criticized the war.

And participated in an organization that discussed assassinating US Senators. There is question as to whether he was acutally at the meeting or not. I think a further release of FBI documents could probably clear it up.

How is that seditious?

See above.

Am I committing sedition by criticizing W now?

No. There's a difference between dissent and sedition. Unless you're plotting acts against the goverment, of which I am unaware.

Do soldiers returning from war lose their right to free speech?

No, of course not. But it's still a breech of trust to make blanket statements against the people with whom you fought. Bob Kerrey was on CNN about a week ago, and said that Kerry had gone too far during his testimony before Congress.

Would it be seditious to publish photos of the flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover Air Force base?

No, but it doesn't serve any purpose to do so, other than to inflame emotion. There are many people who desperately want to re-live Vietnam. But the action would have to go on until approximately 2082 at the current casualty rate.

We certainly have found ourselves in a Brave New World.

There you go again....

Speak for yourself, please.

Nixon vs. Kennedy

Getting Illegal Immigrants to vote

more

Double-voting Snowbirds

more of same from 2000

Another article on Longhorn from today's Washington Post:

New Windows Planned for 2006

featuring the amusing subhead "Microsoft Dumping Features to Meet Deadline"

I'd personally love it if they told Wal-Mart to go &%#@ themselves if they don't like the situation.

Sierra's in a situation where they should be able to tell Wal-Mart to take it or leave it. Wal-Mart ought respect it, given their "supplier strategies" (Force your suppliers to drop their prices continuously so you can drop yours, irregardless of whether it's healthy for your suppliers' health. Or so I've heard, or read.) Sierra has a unique product (Halflife 2), and one that isn't exactly an impulse buy currently. It's more of a "hardcore gamer - gotta go out and get my Halflife 2 fix right *now*" kind of buy. In other words, if it's not sold at Wal-Mart, I'd bet that most consumers will have no problem going to Best Buy or EB to pick it up... they'll be actively seeking it.

Give it a few months (or a year), let demand for it slide, and then it might be worth dickering with Wal-Mart.

On the other hand, I have zip, zero, and nada for marketing and supplying experience. Just the average consumer experience here. *shrug*

N.B.: By the way, I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart. I worked for them for a summer after highschool, in their Electronics Dep't, just for some extra cash. They treat their employees like crap, get anti-union rhetoric shoved in their face if they bring up their shoddy treatment if they bring it up in conversation, *and* have to deal with the type of customer that Wal-Mart's marketing strategy attracts on a daily basis. Their supplying strategy just irritates me further. So you could consider me biased :o)

'urban sprawl' is only a real problem when...

Imho, the greenies did the world a huge disservice by presenting urban sprawl as an environmental issue. There are major problems with the car-oriented development that have nothing to do with pollution.

• It's a huge economic burden. A car itself costs thousands of dollars, and then you have to pay for gasoline, insurance (legally mandatory, and therefore expensive), repairs, etc. In sprawling Houston (where I used to live), the average household spends nearly 22% of its income on its cars. That's more than they spend on housing -- which includes the cost of garages and driveways. Is it any wonder, then, that consumer debt is at an all-time high?
• The large distances, the high-speed (except for the frequent traffic jam) roads, the noise, and the pollution create an environment that is unpleasant or even dangerous to walk or bicycle in. This leads to:
  • fewer opportunities to exercise, which doesn't help our obesity epidemic
  • age discrimination. Anyone under 16, and some of the elderly who are no longer physically able to drive, become totally dependant on others for transportation
  • a vicious cycle. Car-oriented development discourages walking and bicycling, which encourages more driving, which encourages more car-oriented development.
• Premature deaths. Car crashes kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. The sedentary lifestyle encouraged by car-oriented development isn't healthy, either.
• Big Government. Universal car ownership has necessitated taxes (to pay for the roads), state licensing agencies, inspections, mandatory insurance laws, and traffic laws. And the next time you're asked to present a government identification document for the simple act of buying a beer, remember that that law was passed in an attempt to reduce drunk driving.

Washington Post link, free reg. req.

John's having a press conference tomorrow to announce some big new crack-down. Details here, free reg. req. Yada yada.

--

Ten years after Demi Moore went for a million bucks, we've found a way to bring the objectification of women to a new level. The computer is apparently Larry Flynt's new meat grinder.

It's sad to see the rate at which our runaway technological advances outstrip the advancement of society. In one hundred years we've developed flight, space travel, nuclear physics, gene therapy, and global digital communications networks, but we still can't get past treating women like property instead of people.

Articles like this are why I'm so excited about the possibilities of genetic engineering. I feel like the only way to get this bug out of the system is to change the source code. Imagine a world of humans without gender or race - imagine what we could accomplish!

For now we're stuck with a world where we hang female children for mouthing off, create computer programs to be interchangeable currency for female slaves, pretend that gender warfare is actually a natural state, and where female developers can't post on Slashdot without seeing the first ten replies read "show us your tits".

Humynity sure has a long way to go.

Thanks. You make a good point. It is a lot tougher to go to college if you're poor. But of course, that does not mean that if you don't have $100,000 for college, you can't go.

There are many ways financially challenged people (of all races) can approach higher education. Aside from the hundreds of billions of dollars in scholarships that cover the whole range of need and achievement based awards from both public and private sources (for the moment, we'll totally ignore athletic scholarships), most areas have very affordable and flexible community colleges with vocational as well as academic programs. Plus a number of states are introducing initiatives in which students who perform at a certain level are guaranteed a spot in (and money for) the state university system, such as the Bright Futures program in Florida that another poster mentioned. And though recent events might make is seem less attractive, the GI Bill is still available. And as far as I know, they still let you pick your MOS (hint: don't choose infantry). Or you can simply work your way through school. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting, but you get the idea. Poor people may have to work harder for an education, but that has always been true and is the same for people of all races.

Are poor blacks less likely to go to college than poor whites? I looked briefly for some numbers but didn't find much. This article says in part "Much to the surprise of social scientists who traditionally have looked for educational problems among minorities, low-income black and Hispanic men are more likely to go to college right out of high school than white guys...." for whatever that is worth.

Enron and Kenneth Lay each donated $100,000 to incoming President Bush's inaugural committee fund, early in 2001. The incoming president invited Mr Lay to become and advisor to his transition team.

Mr Lay and other Enron directors met Mr Cheney and others three times in the first half of the year, the last meeting a month before he published his conclusions on 17 May 2001.

Sept. 10, 2000: Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay contributes more than $290,000 to George W. Bush's election campaign.

Despite the incredible importance of this research - not to mention basic research in general - it was dismissed as a boondoggle and sandbox for particle physicists.

More reading: Science and Patriotism run amok in Texas

It seems that even the president is trying to cash in on the Olympics in ways that may not be legit. Especially considering that there is an act of Congress that grants exclusive use of the term Olympics to the USOC and states that it "shall be non-political and may not promote the candidacy of any individual seeking public office."

Both men have questionable service records during the Vietnam war.

Say what? Would you care to expand on that statement? How do 3 purple hearts, a silver cross, and stellar performance reviews amount to "questionable"?

but just how relevant is a three decades old cold-war conflict to the modern world with regard to the completely different "war on terror"?

How about not sending other people off to die unless you're damn sure its the right thing to do?

The grim reality we need to face is that Bush and Kerry are actually two sides to the same damn coin.

Um, you sound like the Nader supporters in 2000 who said the same thing about Bush and Gore. The common clay of the New West. You know ... morons.

Is the government going to be less intrusive under either administration?

Huh. And how many democrats have argued that the government has the right to imprison people indefinetly without a hearing?

John Kerry hasn't met a tax increase or bigger governmental progam he didn't like.

You have any evidence for that or are you just going by 30 year old sterotypes based on his party affiliation?

While Bush did manage to get tax cuts handed out, how many of us felt a real impact?

A lot were left out, as millions of people don't make enough money to pay income taxes but do pay payroll taxes. No tax cut for those folks.

Bottom line is with either man, your taxes will go up (if you live here anyway), the government will increase its size, scope, and intrusiveness

Again, you have any evidence for that?

What governmental agency has gotten anything right in the past 30 years?

Plenty (scroll half way down the page).

A vote for Kerry means higher taxes, a PC system designed to inhibit thoughtful intelligent debate on any subject

According to what? Your ass?

Kerry is a man without a conscience, a egotistical political opportunitst. Bush is single-minded, a hard headed egotist.

Yup, definetly your ass. Too bad you can't change your account name, or I'd suggest you change yours to 'Pigeon Hole'.

The US already outsources some military ops to syria when we pick on canadians.

But spammers? They're not particularly organized, as far as I know.

I would guess it's mainly the direct marketing association that lobbies for weaker spam regulation. They are opposing a national do-not-spam list, and they're the main reason why the do-not-call list has no power.

Now, they're not that big, but there's not really anyone lobbying against them. At least, not in the ways it counts, through money and people actually in congress talking with congressmen day in day out.

Sure, try this -- though it seems to reference "default" judgments. Regardless, the people who lose those default judgments wind up paying more than those who settle.

Interesting statistics, but...

The senior Senator from Massachusetts is Edward Moore Kennedy. The letter T does not appear at all anywhere in the name by which he is legally identified.

He wasn't held based on some automatic flag set off by his ID matching "T Kennedy," but based on the fact that they knew exactly who he was (but apparently didn't know that Ted is not short for Theodore, but simply a nickname unrelated to his given name).

According to the Washington Post writeup, "[a] senior administration official, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said Kennedy was stopped because the name "T. Kennedy" has been used as an alias by someone on the list of terrorist suspects." "They" really should have put a bit more work into their story, unless the implication is that since the Senator is known to the entire effin' world by the alias Teddy Kennedy, he is suspect.

When the senator checked in at the counter, airline employees told him they could not issue him a boarding pass because he appeared on the list

Given that the contents of the "no-fly" list are secret, would the airline employees even have told him why they could not issue the boarding pass if he hadn't been a US Senator (and somebody they recognized).

The point of my post was that we've gotten to a point in this country where both sides think the other side is evil. To me, saying that the president would deliberately mislead the american people in order to drum up support for a war that willl boost his popularity ratings is the same as saying that the president is not just evil, but incredibly stupid.

Of course Bush got an immediate rise in public opinion from going to war; but if you think that Bush went to war just for that boost, then you must think bush is a total Idiot. If he wanted to go war in order to gain public opinion, why on earth would he do so in early 2003, when there was still almost two years untill his bid for re-election? If his goal was public opinion support, he could have done one hell of a better job. He could have talked about going to war for two years, repeatedly sending in inspectors, pleading with the french, building a coalition, planning for the aftermath, and waiting untill july 2004 to send in the troops. That way, he could coast into re-election, riding on the surge of public support. No one could criticize him for 'rushing to war' since he spent so much time trying to gather a coalition, and no one could criticize him for not having found WMD, since he could just say 'give us more time.' If he was intentionally misleading everyone to war, he'd have to have been a complete idiot to have done so when he did. The only explanation (which seems like a perfectly reasonable one) is that Bush really, honestly beleived that there were WMD in Iraq.

The whole 'Joe Wilson' escapade proves my point perfectly here. This guy comes out and accuses bush of lying with his '16 words' about Saddam attempting to buy yellowcake. Everyone was calling bush a liar and saying that he was trying to spook everyone based on intelligence that he knew was incorrect and that he was misleading us. In July, Bush apologized for putting the statement in the address, and said it was a mistake. Now it's come out that it was Joe Wilson who was the liar, and that the statement bush made in his State of the Union address was perfectly valid. Why on earth would bush apologize for making such a mistake, if his main goal was to mislead everyone ? Why would he wrongfully concede a point to his critics, rather than correctly accuse Joe Wilson of being a liar, if his goal was to dupe everyone? It just doesn't make any sense.

If you think that we should have had better intelligence, fine. That's an argument I'd love to have. If you think that going to iraq weakend our hand in the war in terror by distracting our troops from hunting saddam and by distancing once close allies, I'd love to have that argument as well. There are plenty of perfectly reasonable critcisms of the war on Iraq, but the 'Bush lied and people died' argument isn't one of them. Unfortunately, that seems to be the argument most frequently made Bush's opposition, and that's what I'm lamenting here - It's a stupid argument that only makes sense if you beleive that Bush is both incredibly stupid and a very, very bad man.

I didn't get the joke, so I googled a bit:

here

On the evening of July 19, 1969, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts drove his Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, drowning his passenger, a young campaign worker named Mary Jo Kopechne. The senator left the scene of the accident, did not report it to the police for many hours, and according to some accounts considered concocting an alibi for himself in the interim.

At the time, Kennedy managed to escape severe legal and political consequences for his actions thanks to his family's connections (which helped to contain the inquest and grand jury) and to a nationally televised "Checkers"-like speech broadcast a week after the accident. But virtually no journalist who has closely examined the evidence fully believes Kennedy's story, and almost 30 years later, the tragedy still trails the senator, with aggressive press investigations revived in five-year anniversary intervals.

Probably more than any other single factor, Chappaquiddick - a frenzy without end - has ensured that Ted Kennedy would not follow his brother John to the White House.

Ted's a nickname...

Washington Post states the actual [bad] entry in the system was "T. Kennedy" that trigger this whole event.

Scenario: When you goto the airport, they look at your drivers license and it says "Richard Bruce Cheney" (or Richard B. Cheney). I'm sure you will not be flagged against "D. Cheney" if it shows up in the database, otherwise all we need is a J. Smith to be entered in the database and viola, system overload... Anyway that's where profiling comes in to place I guess to prevent that ;)

Sounds like human error or poor judgement (or good judgement, depending on political party preference) but obviously blamed on a computer/database.

I wonder, did this person even look for evidence supporting the claims before saying they were false? Did you look for evidence and fail to find any before propagating the notion that there was no evidence?

A quick search finds a scanned document stating that Bush was suspended for "failure to accomplish annual medical examination". That certainly doesn't sound good to me, but if that's considered acceptable in the Texas Air National Guard, somebody correct me. If he was expected to show up for examination, but didn't, that also justifies the text "failure to appear".

As for the last remaining claim, Neal Boortz only refutes part of the story. The accusation against Bush is that he signed up for the Texas Air National Guard because he knew they were unlikely to be deployed in the war, and he could avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. The next allegation is that there was a long waiting list and that favoritism got him in, and possibly also helped him up the ranks. In a situation like this, you can spot favoritism much easier than you can find who is responsible for it. One article points to a family friend pulling the strings. But who put him up to it? I don't know.

Somebody needs to tell Neil Boorts that he generally should not call someone a liar if they believe what they are saying, and especially not if there's good reason to believe those things. I recommend to anyone who is going to vote to do some reading at Wikipedia.

The problem with the left is that they're so desperate to defeat Bush that they'll do absolutely anything sort of breaking the law

- http://baratunde.com/
- http://goodcrimethink.com/

Do we even know that this CrimethInc asshole is a leftist? For all we know, this could be a SCO style coup.

"Look how victimised we are! Help, help, we are being oppressed by evil Linux hackers!
sed "s/Linux/Democrat/"

It's not like it would be the first time the Republican party did something like that either. Remember when the Republicans "won" the election and started to move into the Whitehouse, there were reports that the Democrats had vandalized equipment and properties before leaving. People were claiming that keyboards were jammed, they had cut wires and glued pornography on the wall and "worse things, too disgusting to mention" (Leaving it up to the readers imagination and blogging sites to imagine and rumour about things like feces smeared on door handles etc). Guess what, this was all a big fat lie spread to discredit the Democrats. The Republicans showed their class immediately.

Of course, people on sites like FreeRepublic are still quoting this as fact.

re: Jeb bush disqualifying valid black votes
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel? SearchID=73181140138431&Avis=GS&Dato=20040721&Kate gori=LOCAL&Lopenr=207210328&Ref=AR

re: Bush administration pushing for politically-timed terrorist catches
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5594697/site/newsweek/

re: latest on bush administration getting revenge via outting a US agent
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A403 8-2004Aug15.html

On a personal note: I can't understand why someone would vote for this president. I would love it if someone could convince me to vote for him in terms that don't include God or Guns.

Actually, I heard something like what the original poster said on NPR the other day. And a quick Google News search reveals more sources:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A164 35-2004Jul26.html
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectio nid=1258&storyid=1787674

So, yes, invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam, even if done for the wrong reasons, did actually have some good consequences.

"Kicking illegally off the wall"? I think all swimmers kick off the wall ;)

If you mean his kicking style, I don't think it was illegal. The Americans sound like sore losers to me.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A648 6-2004Aug16.html

Well done Phil this is spot on.

Back in the 60's the American car industry peddled out a similiar line of "product before safety" . The book, Unsafe at any speed [Ralph Nader, 1965] ...

• ... broke the car industries ability to pass off inferior products unsafe for use by the general public. ...

In the case of the Chev Corvairs even when parked. (you can read such stories from the reader testimonials at amazon. Better still read the book at your local library). As a result of the book and the following movement, the mantra of "Engineering, Enforcement, Education". The legacy that is still applied to Engineering practice today.

It's a sad day for journalists (let alone Journo's from the Washington Post [think Woodward and Burnstein]) that fail to understand Naders legacy and see it's relevence to todays computer software industry.

The lefty ratbag John Pilger's creed should be repeated here to see where this journalist has failed the Posts readers ....

• ... it's not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas and myths that surround it. ... John Pilger.

Surprise surprise, all the highly rated posts say "those environmental wackos are at it again" and explain away the correlation with a variety of explanations that we are to accept as givens.

Realize this: There will never be a study "proving" the ill effects of non-ionizing radiation. Why? Find me a control group. You can't, not on this planet. A hundred years ago, when a five watt radio signal broadcast from New York could be heard in Miami, you might have been able to perform this study then. But now we're inundated with non-ionizing radiation, and unless you build a Faraday cage into about ten thousand homes and collect data over twenty years, you will never get "pure" numbers.

Why are you all so reluctant to even entertain the notion that non-ionizing radiation might create a health risk? Are you that in love with broadcast TV and Radio? Based on the attitudes I see here about the MPAA/RIAA, I find that hard to believe. So what is your explanation? A general love of all things electronic? The chance to pass down the mockery you got from the jocks onto the tree-hugging hippies?

I simplly don't understand the attitude most of you put forward regarding this issue. It's reckless and driven by emotion.

But don't worry, even if a study or three come out demonstrating a link between non-ionizing radiation and cancer risk, the EPA will sweep it under the rug when Infinity Broadcasting supresses the evidence under the Bush Administration's Data Quality Act.

"What I don't know can't hurt me" is not a particularly effective survival mechanism. Who knows, maybe we should be buying stock in Reynolds this very minute.

That sounds wrong.

Consider the famous case where John Fogerty was sued by his former producer for sounding too much like John Fogerty

John Fogerty Rolls in his Grave, WA: The sad thing about "Fortunate Son," is that John Fogerty doesn't own it; his former record producer, Saul Zaenz[sic], does. And that's one of the most bitter blood feuds in the history of r&r. Remember, Zaenz sued Fogerty for plagiarizing himself (!;), saying "Old Man Down the Road" was a copy of "Suzy Q. "

Do you mean to say you'd make sure the work is "cleared for sale on the network by the copyright holder" instead of "the artist"?

Did the author of that page (or you) ever consider the president BEFORE the one who posted all those gains?

doing all the same calculations for the years 1982 through 2002, and giving each president's policies a year to take effect, changes only one result: The Democrats pull ahead of the Republicans on per capita personal income.

Sure you can complain about selective statistcs, but when the three measurements of job growth, stock market performance, and GDP growth taken during times that the two parties control the House, Senate, and White House all point to the same result, then what is there left to complain about?

I think Vinzant has the most salient explanation:

Democrats are more likely to spread the wealth around through public spending on education or transportation, which may stimulate the economy more broadly. The foundation of recent GOP economic policy--tax cuts--may offer narrower benefits than Republicans claim. High defense spending, another GOP hallmark, may only boost one sector while hurting the whole economy in the form of bigger federal deficits and higher interest rates.

Of course, this is the same CIA that claimed that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons program, so take the above with a grain of salt.

http://www.ishipress.com/circuit4.htm

http://www.independentjudiciary.com/courts/courtlo ng.cfm?CourtID=8

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43571-20 04Apr1?language=printer

1) True, Clinton is not running today. But those that said his lack of service did not matter are saying GWB's lack of service does. I have more against the people who support Kerry than Kerry himself.

It's not lack of service, it's aborted service. It's the AWOL, stupid. Clinton opposed the Vietnam war and got out of it, which is consistent. Bush supported the war and weaseled out of fulfilling his obligations.

2) Yes, Clinton sent soldiers to their deaths to dispose of Slobodon Millosovich in Bosnia (forgive an misspellings). What did Slobo do to make that war justified that Saddam didn't do? We had no UN resolution agains Bosnia, much less the 17 that were violated by Iraq. Over a million children did not die in Bosnia, as they did in Iraq. Yet, Clinton was given a pass while Bush is called Hitler. Why?

This is so easy. Clinton didn't lie about why we were going to war, and did not divert resources from a more important war to launch a war of choice.

Oh yes, we had zero combat deaths and a clear exit strategy in Kosovo. I'd say Clinton used American military power wisely and judiciously.

Most Americans supported the goal of eliminating Saddam but opposed the way it was done and the priorities (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) it displaced.

3) Trust me, if Bush were AWOL, he would have been tossed out on his ass.

There's some evidence that he was, but that strings were pulled to reverse it. See the link in the parent post.

I don't know what dream world you live in, but in this world the son of Nixon's UN Ambassador sure as hell gets special treatment even if he isn't the grandson of a Senator and heir apparent to one of the most powerful families in the nation.

He met his obligation. Even that partisan site you posted says, "substitute training for a missed UTA was performed, it was associated with a specific required UTA period."

Funny how your word for "containing facts that disprove my argument" is "partisan".

The point is that what little make-up service Bush performed did not cover the time period everyone is talking about (May-September 1972)- it covered a *different* period.

I could even put a slanted Micheal Moore type spin on it and say, "While Kerry spent a whole 4 months in Vietnam defending the Vietnamese and 2 years protesting America, GWB was actually defending America and Americans from the threat of Soviet bombers here in the US."

Yes, in Alabama playing volleyball with ambitious secretaries. As an administrative officer once he unilaterally decided to stop flying without permission, Bush's keen filing skills kept us safe from the red menace on the days he felt like showing up.

Going on down the spectrum, there is bush2004.com, which satires Bush. Could Bush trademark his own name so as to shut this site down? At this particular moment of eroding free speech, probably not yet. Criticism of the president holds a special place when it comes to the First Amendment.

Now we step down spectrum another notch to fallwell.com. Jerry Falwell is a prominent religious and political figure -- perhaps not #1 like Bush, but certainly in the top thousand. He is able to squelch criticsm because he trademarked his name.

Falwell has intentionally blurred politics, religion, and business. Trademark was meant to protect consumers from sham products, not restrict discussion of politics and religion.

Here we have trademark law in conflict with the First Amendment regarding politics and religion. Trademark law was already being applied to block criticism of a business. Now it's being extended into politics and religion, the heart of the First Amendment.

Going further on down the spectrum, Robin Ficker, a political candidate of much less stature than Falwell, was unable to shut down robinficker.com. Why? Because he didn't trademark his name.

In the realm of criticizing Falwell, today it's domain names. Will it be blog content tomorrow, like the Ford case?

Washington Post Version
According to Bush
Or... the Google Search

The "stock market" is heavily involved in deliberate government corruption.

The Bush administration has been appointing heads of government agencies who reduce the role of those agencies. After they destroy the effectiveness of the agencies, they go back to running their businesses, and the corruption gives them more profit.

Another way they corrupt government is to starve the agencies of operating funds.

For a discussion of starving the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, regulates the stock exchange), see this article: Keeping the SEC on a Starvation Diet. The corrupters don't want their stock manipulations discovered. They want more of this: Enron fraud, this: WorldCom fraud and this: Tyco fraud.

This is all part of extremely widespread corruption in the U.S. government. Even the 3 movies and 34 books linked in this article are not enough to tell the story: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

They are corrupting the IRS (U.S. Internal Revenue Service, collects taxes), too. The corrupters definitely do NOT want their tax returns to be audited, so they arrange that there is not enough money for audits: Bush Request for IRS Not Enough, Report Says

They are corrupting the patent office the same way. That's why there are so many crazy patents.

From the Washington Post, August 6, 2004:

"Payroll jobs remain 1.5 million short of where last winter the White House said they would be by now. To avoid being the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net job loss, Bush must hope for 372,000 new jobs a month in August, September and October."

As you said, case closed.

Didn't the fire occur because they overcharged their batteries in the room?

Anyway, they did build one, and congratulations to them. So did many others, in this student competition. The Washington Post wrote up a little article (PDF) (HTML), too.

Note that I link to the pdf hosted on msstate.edu because that's where I go to school. Our plane ran Slackware.

If you hire Bill Parcells to name your open source projects, than you should expect to hear such names.